What REALLY Causes Cancer? | Reduce Risk & Recurrence

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function. And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine. And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25mg of CBD and 25mg CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night. If you know what really causes cancer, you can make better daily choices to prevent it or prevent recurrence. My guest today overcame her own cancer 100% naturally. She's not the only one who's done that. Knowing we each have cancerous cells in our bodies that do or that don't express based on our epigenetics or lifestyle choices can actually empower us. To then choose much more wisely. In the first few minutes of this episode, you will learn something that will blow your mind. Think of it as what you wish you'd always known about lab testing, especially if you're someone who's always been normal, but you've gotten seriously sick or you didn't feel well when you got that report of being normal. If you're still curious about what functional labs actually means and how it makes a difference, we answer that too. This is a not to miss, and it is also an episode to share. We all know somebody with cancer. One of my favorite tools to help naturally detox heavy metals, mold, and just everyday toxins is my Sunlighten sauna. I bought it as a tool to boost recovery and really just for pampering and optimal aging, and the next year it was a godsend when I was exposed to mold for nearly 6 months. I have a solo sauna that is just for me. It's easy to put anywhere. It's moved with me twice. Sunlighten also has built-in models that my family members and many of our clients and community members use and love. You can learn more about that at flipping50.com/sauna. I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50, where I address your top struggles and concerns, and I share what to eat, how to move, and how to change your mindset so you can have the energy and the vitality that you want, need, and deserve in this second and better half My guest today, Katrina Fo, overcame her own cancer 100% naturally, and driven by her core belief that the body can heal itself, Katrina went on to become board certified in holistic nutrition, trained to read functional labs. As a faculty member at Restorative Wellness Solutions, Katrina teaches other practitioners to interpret functional labs and design individualized protocols. Katrina is also a certified metabolic approach to cancer practitioner trained and mentored by Dr. Nasha Winters. Katrina addresses the root cause of cancer, empowering clients to keep it in remission without fear of recurrence. In her international bestseller, Nutritional Pilates, Katrina offers a framework for whole body health that highlights potential obstacles to well-being and provides proven strategies to sidestep chronic disease. All right, don't go anywhere. These next few minutes, I swear, will blow your mind. Can't wait to hear what you think of this episode. Katrina Fo, thank you so much for being here.

Oh, it's my pleasure.

My mind is flashing to the time we sat in the back seat with many suitcases on our That was one to remember. Oh, okay. So that little flash came to me, but I want to have you— before I dive into all these questions that I think will empower our listeners and hopefully decrease some fear for anybody, but empower them— tell a little bit more about your story. I mean, I read it You know, and then it seems like it's an injustice to give you less than one line of a bio that you overcame your own cancer 100% naturally when that's a freaking big deal. Talk a little bit about, first of all, your diagnosis. I mean, where were you? How old were you? What was that like? And then how did you decide, no, you know, I'm not going to go traditional route and I'm going to find my own path?

Yeah, yeah. It was an interesting process. So, I was 37 years old and I was nursing baby number 5. He was about a year old, so, you know, getting older and bigger. And I had a mastitis, like a plugged duct. And, you know, after 5 children, I've had these before. I had my regular routine of what I did and it wasn't too upsetting. But, what I noticed was when the the plug ducts and all cleared up, that there was a golf ball-sized lump that didn't go away. And honestly, I have to tell you, I wasn't super freaked out. I had had lumps and bumps with lots of nursing and just kind of attributed to that. But when I told my mom about it, she kind of freaked out. And it turns out she had never mentioned this before, which is kind of weird, but my grandmother, her mom, had had a double mastectomy. And so I asked my mom, I'm like, did she have cancer? And my mom didn't know. She said, well, I'm guessing she did because she had a double mastectomy and why else would she have that? And, you know, we didn't talk about that in those days. Okay. So, you know, I went ahead and checked into it for her and was really rather shocked when I found out that it came back as cancerous. And for me, and this is just a personal thing, we had been having a lot of health journeys kind of before that. So my daughter had had some tooth decay and we had been led along the path to deal with it naturally to make the tooth decay stop. And I was just shocked and amazed and excited by, you know, food as medicine because we weren't even doing any functional testing with that. It was, it was strictly food to stop the tooth decay. And so for me, it was a natural, like, let's see what food can do for this. Let's, let's look and see. And I had some friends that had had bad experiences with cancer, really traumatic things. So I really was kind of not going that direction anyways. Nothing against those that want to do standard of care. I'm not anti that. I just, for me, it was a natural fit. We had had all our babies at home, you know, so I was already kind of outside the box in terms of medical care and wanting to do things natural at that point. And this was just the next step for me. Yeah. So, the whole process was shocking, overwhelming. And, quite scary because I was very alone in trying to figure it out. You know, this was— there was a lot of information online but it all seemed to conflict with each other. And, there's, you know, a million different things you can do but, you know, which one's the right one because you can spend a fortune and have this be a full-time job and still be playing this mind game of, "Is this enough? Is this going to do it for me?" And, until I found the functional labs and the approach that I now practice with clients, it was just throwing spaghetti on the wall and that scared me. That was the part that I was like, "I need to understand why this happened," because I was already doing all the right stuff. I was eating clean, organic. We had moved so that we could have land up in Idaho to raise our own meat animals to have really pristine meat. That's kind of extreme. So, I mean, Right?

Yeah, yeah, I'd say so. Okay, so answer this because I read about it, read it out loud to everyone. Functional labs, you just mentioned it here, and I, I don't want to step over this so that everybody understands. When you say functional labs, what does a listener know? I mean, how is that different from labs she would order with her Western-trained doctor?

That's a fabulous question and one that we do step over a lot and don't even mention and assume people know, so I'm really glad you asked that. So with functional labs, there are some labs that, um, regular MDs are not trained in and do not use, and insurance doesn't cover. So a lot of times the different stool panels, hormone panels such as like a Dutch, meaning not using the the blood, different toxin panels, different what's called low penetrance genetics. So, this is different than genetics that an oncologist is using. And, these low penetrance genetics are looking at the genes that can be most influenced by diet and lifestyle, which is what we have influence over. And then, there's a lot of great things in the blood work that a doctor might look at, But usually, they don't run a lot of the really good markers, honestly. And when they do, they look at lab ranges. And I was shocked. And you probably know this, Deb, but the lab ranges are based on the people in that area that are going to that lab, the average, and then 2 standard deviations on either side. So, it has nothing to do with where people actually feel good and are functioning well. It has to do with that population. So, those in Washington labs are going to have different reference ranges than the labs in Alabama, which is chaos in my opinion.

Ridiculous.

Yeah. Right. So, usually, the functional lab ranges are much tighter and they have to do with where people are actually optimally functioning. It doesn't have anything to do with averages or that demographic area or anything.

That was probably worth the admission right there, everybody. So you know that that will be a quote we will be using. So very important. And I, I've never heard it stated exactly as you put it. I— a good friend of— mutual friend of ours, probably Dr. Ellen Hopkins, likes to say, you know, norms, you know, are basically the average of a a lot of people who don't feel very good, you know.

Exactly.

But has not gotten as specific to say local to you, right? So yeah, careful where you live as well.

Yeah, well, and honestly, like, I think we all understand that what's normal and average is not at all what we want, right? You know, if people are spending the time to listen to a health podcast, they want something better. They want to uplevel and find vibrance and optimize things. And, that's not what you're going to find in the lab ranges. And, this is where especially the thing that jumps out at me is thyroid function that is so, so often overlooked on traditional labs whether the lab ranges are looked at versus the functional ranges. Usually, I want that TSH to be between 1 and 2. And, I want to see all the thyroid markers so I know where the problem is happening, not just whether the TSH is high, which again is not just the ranges but also how many markers people are looking at to get the full picture. A mentor of mine kind of explained it like if you are locked out of your house or you're looking at a house that's locked up and you want to get an idea of what's going on, you want to look in all the windows. You don't want to look in just one window. And each window you look in gives you different information about what the house is like and what's inside of it. And that's kind of how we— I want to look at the labs, you know, in terms of seeing what's inside and going on in that body.

Oh, such a good analogy. I love that. Okay, super helpful. Okay, so now that's very helpful, I think, for everybody here, whether you're dealing with cancer, you've had it in your past, you're worried about it because you've got some genetic link to it. I think we also want to talk about what portion of risk is genetic and what is not, but what do people need to know really in order to prevent cancer?

Oh, I love that you mentioned the genetics, Deb, because that's the thing. We were all brought up hearing that cancer is genetic, and when you actually look at the research, less than 10% of cancer is hereditary genetic issues. Um, this is This is not the problem. I mean, for a very small portion, but 10%, that's not it. This is diet and lifestyle. And, the big, big takeaway is it's not one thing. So, I look at 10 different areas. One is genetic. And, by that, I'm talking about those epigenetic SNPs and genetic variants, if you will, that can tell us your predisposition. So, for example, I'm terrible at detoxing. There's 10 different areas. And when you look at those 10 different areas, people tend to want to say, "Which one do I have a problem with? Which one is my thing?" And it's never one thing. It's usually with something big chronic disease like cancer, it's 6 to 8 things. And each bucket, each area, those root cause drivers, there's multiple things. So there's a whole—, you know, root cause driver bucket of microbiome. So, all the digestive things, all the different parasites and things that could go on in there would all be considered one. So, even within those, there's subcategories. And you want to find as many of the things as possible right up front, in my opinion, so that you can prioritize and deal with them strategically in the gentlest way possible, and be thorough. Because a lot of times, some of these more obscure things will block you from getting success in other areas.

How can someone who's had cancer find out why they had cancer? Is that possible?

Yes. I'm so glad you asked that. This is my passion because, you know, a lot of people are not willing and not able to step outside the box and do what I did. And that's totally fine. I get it. There's a lot of fear. It's a scary process. If you, if you do do standard of care, for example, it's not addressing the root cause issue and you never find out why. They just, you know, you get your margins clear and they send you on your merry way and they say food doesn't matter. And you're going back home to live in the same area and the same lifestyle with the same toxins and the same health conditions that you had prior to the cancer diagnosis with probably some additional new complications from the treatment. And, you know, if you don't change the soil that grew the cancer originally, is it really a shock that it comes back? I mean, to me, this is, this is the craziness that's going on and where I really feel like there's a lot of work to be done to help people that have done standard of care to then figure out what exactly happened. You know, what truck did you just get hit by? Yeah. And that's where doing the functional testing that I just kind of listed out you can really see exactly, oh, these are my root cause drivers. This is why my cancer was allowed to proliferate and overwhelm my body because we were designed with an immune system that should take care of this. And, it's only when that gets so taken out and blocked that it can't do its job that the cancer is allowed to grow. Now, the really cool thing that gets me super excited is that when you know these areas, not only can you fine-tune them so that the cancer won't come back, that's super cool, but then you also know how to monitor things. So if it takes 6 to 8 of these areas to be off in order for cancer to proliferate, when one gets off, you can nip it in the bud before something goes sideways and you are back in the oncologist's office. And that's exciting because to me, the idea that I have no control over what's gonna happen and I just, like playing Russian roulette, like who knows, maybe it'll come back, maybe it won't. Like, that's not acceptable. I don't buy that we just— it's just chance because we've seen in the research that these things drive cancer. I mean, we know, you hear all the time, this is a known carcinogen. You know, this mold is a known carcinogen, this pesticide's a known carcinogen, but the oncologists are not asking the question of which of these known carcinogens are in this person's life? Why don't we get them out? That might up their odds. And so these are areas that you have the control valve over to be able to move and change the dial and create your own outcome.

I love that. Okay, so explain this to me. So am I then learning, okay, these 10 terrains maybe, and then I'm kind of regularly going through a checklist on those, or does this involve me repeating functional labs on a regular basis, or a little bit of both, or does it depend? It depends.

Yeah, that's, that's a really good question. It kind of looks different for different people. So with my, my group course, you have all the functional testing, you get to see which your drivers are and get a really good idea. You'll have protocols to modify and personalize and everything. But like you said, with the going forward, depending on the area, once you know— so for example, um, when I was cancering, I was insulin resistant. For me, I've also seen my genetics, I kind of suck at blood sugar regulation. It's just not my forte. And even if I eat really well, I have to, you know, really kind of watch things. So, I know first off, diet's going to be a thing for me and, you know, checking my blood sugar every once in a while, just double-checking, checking in with myself, that's something I can do at home in that case, which is why I use that example. When I run labs, I think that the blood work is a really great place to get an overview, to check in with, you know, at least once a year, maybe 6 months. There's certain markers like hemoglobin A1c that I want to see that usually a doctor isn't going to throw on there and that are going to give me an idea. And whichever markers were like really screwed up for you, that's going to be what you're going to want to keep your eye on. And then, alongside that, understanding like what does that feel like? What are the symptoms? If I'm noticing that I'm getting some of the symptoms, and some of these areas don't have symptoms, which is why it's so great to have the lab test, then if I start to notice them, then I check in. So, I have a good example. So, one of the other areas is I was very estrogen dominant when I was cancering. And this last spring, I noticed that I had like some little hormonal symptoms, like my breasts were really tender and that wasn't usually a thing. And I'm 47 now, is that like getting into perimenopause? Is that, you know, am I getting more estrogen dominant? Like, so I just, I ran a Dutch test and everything was perfect on there. So, that clearly was not an issue and it helped me sleep at night and I didn't have to worry about it. But that's just an example of how, yeah, you can use the functional test, you can use at-home things or symptoms depending on which one it is.

Very cool, love that. Okay, so we've talked a lot about diet, and I think obviously I like to talk about exercise. And of course, I was thinking strength training when you were talking about blood sugar levels, but we'll leave that for another day. Um, no, let's dive in there.

I think that's a great thing to talk about. Well, I mean, this is, this is the obvious thing that, you know, using strength training and different techniques with exercise to get the blood sugar in control is fantastic. That's like one of the easiest, best, most effective ways when you're multitasking because you're getting so many other benefits, which I know your listeners know. The tricky thing is that if people are actively cancering, they may not have the ability and the energy to do that. But like me, I'm not actively cancering. That's clearly one of the first options I go for. So again, it just depends on the client and where they're at. And that changes over time for people as they progress and heal and stuff.

So love that. Okay, so now let's come back to nutrition. 'Cause obviously we do that so many more times a day and have to do that repeatedly day in, day out that, you know, how much is what's on the end of our fork? How does that matter? But I think my question is, is there one kind of an ideal diet for people who have cancer, or does that also vary from person to person?

That's a fantastic question because it's so wrought with confusion, and if you Google it, you will get 500 different answers. Um, so what my research and my personal experience and clinical experience all point towards is it— there's not one diet, but there's one kind of genre, if you will. So I use a ketogenic diet, and I am very strict with it while people are actively cancering because we know that at the heart, cancer is a metabolic disease. So what do I mean by that? Back in, I think it's 1931, Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize for his work showing that the defining factor of a cancer cell is that it has switched metabolically so that it is burning glucose. It is not using oxygen anymore. And the glucose it's using is at like insane amounts. It's not like a normal, with oxygen type cell is using. So because of this, the need for sugar like skyrockets. Now the beautiful thing is that these cancer cells do not have the metabolic flexibility that healthy cells have to burn fat. So if you are fueling your body with fat, those cancer cells are not gonna be getting the same amount of glucose in, so you're slowing them down. And then when you get them actually into ketosis, so they're creating ketones in their body, that actually has some very therapeutic effects in terms of addressing the cancer. So I want all my clients to have those benefits, but in terms of like, what does a ketogenic diet look like? There's huge variety. So some of my clients can't do dairy. Some of them, you know, can't do gluten. Some of them, you know, everybody's got their thing. I have a client that has crazy blood sugar reactions when she eats bell peppers. Everybody's a little different, so it does need to be tweaked and individualized, but generally going keto and clean keto, let me stress.

What happens with those people? Because I know they're out there. I'm related to some who just can't stomach much. And, you know, all they want is in this case, mashed potatoes?

Yeah, that's a great question. And a lot of people, you know, this is where we want to look deeper below the surface. There's good reasons if people can't do it, so to speak, meaning they may get electrolyte imbalance. You hear a lot about the keto flu, very common. There's biomechanical reasons for this. A lot of people, especially big in America today, cannot eat fat and digest it. They don't have a gallbladder. They don't— they're just not good at it. They're going towards not having a gallbladder. But, this is an area, if you switch your diet to 80% fat, I mean, that's an obscene amount of fat. And, if you don't digest it well, you are going to get nauseous or something else not feeling well and then people are like, "I can't do it." Well, no, we just need to back up and make sure that you're digesting properly, a big one. And then, what you mentioned with the mashed potatoes, This is super common. A lot of people have issues where they're very carb-driven. You know, they're metabolically broken. This is why one of the main drivers of why they got cancer. And then, there are a lot of times there's compounding factors that we'll see on some of the stool tests and the mycotoxin test in terms of yeast overgrowths, mold overgrowths, and things that the critters inside you, nicely said. Are the ones craving those potatoes and they're driving the boat. And so, addressing those will shift that up so that, again, it's not an issue. But, it's a real experience. I'm not saying that it's not a struggle, it's just you wanna look— and this is where the functional testing shines because you can see, "Hey, you are not crazy. You're craving carbs like no other, aren't you?" And, clients are like, "Yeah, I can't handle this." And, you can see that on the labs.

Very cool. That is very cool. Okay, I want to ask you this question, but I'm going to also be very transparent for our listeners. So a lot of times when I have a guest on the show, I will— because they're an expert in their area of expertise, obviously— we will ask something like, are there specific questions that you'd like me to ask you? Because then that highlights the knowledge and the intelligence. You hear me ask sometimes at the end of a show, what question should I have asked you? So for that reason, I ask my guests sometimes to share. And you gave me this question, Katrina, and I want to break it down. You, you stated this, and of course I would have asked something similar, but I wouldn't have chose this word. You said, what are the most common drivers of cancer? I might have asked, what are the most common contributors to cancer? Is there a reason why you use the word drivers?

I'm just, with the word drivers, it's more emphasizing the fact that this is the cause. It didn't just, you know, contribute. It's the reason. And again, it's not one thing. It's going to be several, which is again, eluding a lot of people. They stop when they find 2 or 3 and they're overwhelmed. But it's like, no, we got to get them all on the table so we can address them. And I think the visual, that driver, that word is like pushing and aggressive. I want that to be emphasized so people understand like this isn't a passive thing. This is a very aggressive thing. These are pushing and shifting your body, you know, against your will kind of.

Okay, so lay 'em on us. You also mentioned earlier 10 terrains. So are these kind of related and/or the same or there are a few from that 10 that actually stand out.

Yeah, there's 10 different terrain, um, or root cause drivers. These are, these are interchangeable verbiage that I use, so sorry if that was confusing. No, it's great. My mentor, Dr. Nasha Winters, uses the word terrain more. I use the root cause drivers. It's the same thing. So I'll go through the 10 areas and give you, um, each of them and a little snippet. And in my free ebook, you can dive into that deeper and find out which tests and all that stuff a little more. So the first one is metabolic. We kind of talked about that already. So that's going to have to do with your blood sugar markers and such and making sure that you can metabolize fat for fuel. And then the second is hormones. I did mention that, but a lot of times these cancers are hormone driven and not just, you know, breast and ovarian cancer, but, you know, a lot of the other cancers we don't think about as being hormonally driven are. And so, we want to make sure those sex hormones are balanced. Also, in this area, we want to look at the thyroid hormones, which I already mentioned is notorious for being under-addressed in our conventional medical system. So, if you don't have your thyroid working on all cylinders, it's not going to be powering up the whole body and whatever area is suffering and not getting enough power, it's not gonna be doing its job. So you've got this widespread, things aren't working optimally. The next is the microbiome. That is gonna include not only the actual microbiome, like the gut bacteria that people are so fascinated with right now, but also the digestion. So the entire digestive process needs to be fine-tuned because if we aren't digesting all those expensive foods and nutrients that we're eating,, then are the rest of our body systems don't have the building blocks they need. Uh, angiogenesis is the next one. So this is a big fancy word that refers to what I was mentioning with the metabolic shift that the cells make. So when a tumor is shifted metabolically, it needs so much more glucose that it actually will start to have the body create new blood vessels. To bring more blood sugar to the tumor. And so, the process of creating new blood vessels to that tumor is called angiogenesis. And, there's certain markers like copper that we can look at to see this happening within the body and that we can affect. Wow. I know, right? It's so fascinating all that happens with that. And then, the fifth one is stress. So, yes, external stress. Is your boss yelling at you a lot? Do you have a bad marriage?, but also internal stress. Are there infections and such? And we're also looking in this area about the adrenal hormones specifically and the circadian rhythm. So if people are chronically getting poor sleep, they're sleeping at weird times, like this can have a major effect on the body and all of that's gonna be kind of in the stress bucket. Epigenetics, I mentioned that already. So again, these are the low-penetrance genes that can actually have diet and lifestyle turn the genes on and off so that we can perform better. And a lot of this is really just fascinating to see. Like, you know, you want to kind of know this for the rest of your life. Like, you'll hear people talk about like MTHFR, the COMT gene, the GSTs with the detox capacity. And these are really important to know just to make good choices for your lifestyle. When you understand yourself better, you can make better choices. Um, the immune system is the whole bucket. Now that's the system that should be addressing cancer. So for example, most of the listeners right now have cancer cells running around their body, and that usually kind of shocks people. But this is important to understand that this is not a scary thing because our body, our immune system, if it's doing well, it will actually address those rogue cancer cells and it's never an issue. It's when the immune system gets totally taken down that it doesn't get to do its job. Inflammation is a big one. And these markers, the hs-CRP, sed rate, and LDH, we're gonna watch those every month. But there's a lot of other markers including ferritin and the calcium and stuff that we wanna look at because cancer, I mean, it's like a house on fire, you know, and we want to calm things down, get the, autoimmune in remission, get everything calmed down so that it's not just burning up with all this inflammation. The environmental toxins is number 9, and that is a huge bucket. So we're talking heavy metals, non-metal chemicals, you know, things like BPAs, benzene, glyphosate, as well as mold. And this is really shocking because mold was a big, huge driver of my cancer. Um, and I run this test on all my clients, all my cancer clients, and I'll tell you a little secret. I have only had one client not have high toxic mold levels. Wow. I know, right? People aren't talking about that enough, and people poo-poo it. And some of us are just, um, more susceptible, more sensitive to it. Uh, you know, I mentioned that I was on baby number 5, so clearly my body was you know, a little depleted making people. But the rest of my family was fine with the mold. Does that mean it was good for us? It was okay? It means that I was genetically susceptible, and until I had cancer, I didn't know that. So this is where it gets tricky of knowing who's the canary in the coal mine and who, who needs to watch out for it. And then the last one is the mental-emotional component, and this is the one that everyone skips. And ignores and kind of brushes aside. I'm fine. Um, basically what we've seen is that the year prior to a cancer diagnosis, there's almost always something that has really hurt the cancer client's heart, whether it's a loss of a job, a betrayal, a, you know, a loss of a relationship or something, um, some kind of abuse. There's a million ways this could play out, but making sure that you identify and deal with that is very important towards healing.

Wow. That is a lot. Yeah.

And you can see how there's like, there's a lot of subcategories within each of these buckets, if you will, these, these categories. Yeah. And you want to look at all of them. All of them have tests that you can do for them in the functional world, with the exception of the mental-emotional. I usually use a the ACE or Adverse Childhood Events quiz to kind of get a gauge. But just talking to people, usually they know, they know what the trauma is. And if they don't, then I tell them to, you know, go journal and pray about this and see if anything comes up. But it's, it's very nice that we can see this so clearly in the tests.

Yeah, no kidding. So coming back to like detox and and maybe mold, because we talked about that so recently. But how do you help the body actually detox and reduce inflammation? I think a lot of midlife women do deal with that. You know, part of that, I think, weight gain is, you know, a lot of women think they've suddenly gained weight and that it's all fat, but I actually think a lot of it is also inflammation. So this is something they are probably paying attention to, how do you help yourself detox and reduce that?

Oh, I'm so glad you asked. So, the weight. This is a symptom that is— there's so much negative thoughts and shame and yuck stuff out there about that. And people, you know, body positivity, like this is a real symptom. It's the same as if you're, you know, you're losing the outside edge of your eyebrow. It's not a judgment thing. It's your body saying, "Hey, something is wrong. Please take care of me." And so, when I see someone that's struggling to lose weight or is gaining weight unexpectedly or things, there's some shift going on in the body. And like you said, the toxins play into this in a huge way. Like I literally notice if I'm in a moldy environment by gaining weight. Like that's my boom every time. And I can tell it that way better than I can any other symptom, which is kind of strange if you ask me. But in terms of if somebody's actively cancering, you know, getting all this information of all the areas, you can look at it in context of which is the first thing we need to address and how can I do that the most graceful, smooth, gentle way possible. If someone is post cancering. So, they've done standard care, they're all clear, you know, you can be a little bit more, let's go fast, let's, you know, dive in a little deeper. And, you know, usually with mold, it's going to be a protocol, make sure that you are addressing the Candida because Candida and mold are BFFs. And alongside with— I have found saunas, infrared saunas to be amazing with this. And then, just gentle supports on all your detox processes because usually there's something that's kind of clogged up, if you will. So, whether that means you're not sweating, that's me, I don't sweat, which is not good, or people that are having trouble eliminating daily, you know, or multiple times a day ideally, or, you know, those kinds of things are really important because if you're gonna try to mop up toxins and release toxins, you wanna make sure that they actually get out. So, I'm sure, you know, I know you know, Deb, and I'm guessing your listeners probably have already heard this from you, but the fat stores will be where the body puts the toxins. It's like the hazardous waste dump site. And so, a lot of times when people want to lose weight, the body is like, "No, that's not a good idea. You will not feel good," and it won't let you, which is actually your body giving you a gift because it's protecting you. But damn it, we want to get skinnier, right? So there's, there's a whole process and you want to kind of address that both psychologically and physiologically to make sure that it's the right thing at the right time in the right way so that it's not too jarring on the body and actually doing more harm than good.

So good. There have been so many nuggets here, just very, very eye-opening. And this is not the first time we've talked about cancer on this show, so that's saying a lot. I want to ask you this. And this is totally organic to our listeners. You mentioned a course that you have. I'm curious about this course based on everything you've said. Do you have people in this course who don't have cancer but are in it to prevent cancer?

That's a great question. Let me clarify a little bit. So, um, I do a one-on-one, um, with people and I've been doing that for years and I am launching my group in probably end of January. So it doesn't have all the final bells and whistles on it yet. In the course, I should say, so in my VIP, that is going to be— yes, I have people that don't have cancer yet. I have, I have actually several clients that have come to me and they're like, my doctor wants me to have a biopsy, I don't want one, and I know I need to address this stuff, so I'm just going to jump right in and we're going to pretend I have cancer and we'll look at all the testing and either way I'll end up healthier. And that's actually kind of a brilliant perspective. I have people that are actively cancering, I have people stage 4, and then my— I have a real passion, and the group program is really designed for the people that are like post-standard of care. Like, I realize that, you know, I'm all clear, but it's not done because I really have no idea if, you know, what was the reason. And so I don't know how to live my life right now without that fear of it coming back. I want to have that confidence. So it depends on where the person's at, which program is right for them.

Got it. That's super helpful. Yeah. And that's what I would have guessed at, like, in this age, people being much more proactive. So I'm, I'm so glad to hear that. So where is the best place for listeners to follow you, to learn more about this course coming up?

Yeah. So my website is cancerfreedom.com and you can apply to work with us. You can get on the waiting list for the, uh, the group program there and, you know, connect in there. Um, for my free ebook, The Roadmap to Prevent Cancer Recurrence, that is at cancerfreedom.com/roadmap-opt. In. So cancerfreedom.com/roadmap-opt.in. And you can get that for free, and it goes into a lot more depth on the stuff that we've been talking about. And then I'd love to connect with y'all. I'm on Instagram, and it's just my name, @katrinapho. Fantastic.

And we'll have the links in the show notes, everybody. So if there was a question that you wish I'd have asked, I think I covered a lot of ground, and she We certainly did. So thank you for your time and for all the gold nuggets, Katrina. Absolutely. This was a fun conversation. Okay, listeners, so if I did miss something, you know where to reach her. We'll have the link to her, to her social media, and you can find the show notes if you want to see this in print. And that'll be at flipping50.com/reallycausescancer. And what are you waiting for? Let's start Flipping 50 today!