Lifestyle Changes to Prevent Cancer

Welcome to the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow. The website, this show, and our newsletter all focus on making the science of advanced nutrition and greater overall health accessible to everyone. Buckle up for our latest episode to get ideas, tools, and practical knowledge you can use to improve your health and move towards your perfect version of ultimate wellness. The Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast shares interviews with nutrition experts, health researchers, and everyday people that have changed their lifestyle and nutrition to support greater health. You'll learn how to implement lasting change and create new habits that support greater wellness and a happier, healthier life. Please visit healnourishgrowpodcast.com for full show notes and links to our guests.

Hey everyone, I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal Nourish Grow, and today I'm really excited to be joined by Dr. Christo Frantikopoulos., and he is kindly letting me shorten his name to Dr. Chris, or Chris, but, um, he will introduce himself here in a moment. And why I really wanted to have Dr. Frankopoulos on today is because he is a board-certified anesthesiologist. He's also a lifestyle medicine doctor, and he's a personal trainer. So, you know, those are all things, if you're a listener to this podcast, that I am super excited about and that I love to chat about. Take it from here and just introduce yourself and share with people what you're all about and what you're here to talk about today.

Wonderful. Well, I just wanna say thank you so much for having me. This is an honor and I really hope we can reach at least a few people out there to make a difference with the information I'm going to be sharing with Cheryl. Like as Cheryl said, my name is Christofrangopoulos. It's much easier to just to say Chris. I am an anesthesiologist for about a decade now. I have also got board certified in lifestyle medicine and a certified personal trainer. And a lot of what I do is share information that's evidence-based and science-backed that can optimize people's lifestyle. As a physician, I travel the country. I'm certified in about 10 different states. And the problem of healthcare is it's everywhere. And the state of our nation can really utilize a change in how we attack our health. And I think lifestyle medicine offers so many great tools and it's super helpful, it's not overly complicated, and it can make a huge difference.

It's so nice to have a doctor on that really appreciates that, because I think so often, you know, we have more of a sick care system than a healthcare system, and I'm sure that we'll get into that a little bit more.

Yes.

But the fact that you are trained in lifestyle medicine, that you recognize the significance and the importance of it, I think is a huge step in the right direction for the medical field. So I'm so glad that you're kind of promoting that, and you have all that information on your website, all your good programs and continuing education. So I think that will be a huge benefit to the medical community. But one of the things that you're particularly interested when your team reached out is around cancer. And some people that know me personally or know some of my work and some of my writing will know that I have a lot of cancer in my family. And it's a big reason that I do a lot of the things that I do in my health and my life. So what, what have you, how did you become interested in cancer specifically? And then let's start with like what your number one top lifestyle change people can do to prevent cancer.

Sure. So as an anesthesiologist, you can imagine we see every sort of surgery from something simple to very complicated cancer cases. And over my years, I've seen a lot of cancer surgeries and how they've affected their families, their communities, and it really is a— it's something that every one of us have experience with, whether it's yourself or a family member or a friend or a coworker. We are all affected by cancer, and it is everywhere. But the truth of the matter is, a lot of lifestyle change can actually make a huge difference in our cancer rates across the country. And most people probably don't know this, but only about 5 to 10% of cancers are from inherited gene mutations. Okay? So the other 90% are often attributed to either a lifestyle or environmental exposures. So, you know, a lot of people think they're destined to get cancer because their family member has a cancer or whatnot. That is a small chunk of cancer. It is actually our lifestyle and environmental exposures that can affect getting cancer, how we respond to cancer, and the aftermath of that, either being successful in treatment or not. And there's a lot of things we can do for it.

Yeah, just to drive that point home, I'll share that my— I was— we were talking before we started recording, and Dr. Christo was just kindly asking me if there's any, you know, thing to avoid around cancer. Cuz I had said that it's a lot in my family and it's been a while and it's always gonna be hard. But my dad, when, uh, when I was around, he was one of the first runners in the running boom, always going to the health food stores. It looked— did all these super healthy lifestyle behaviors before this was really popular. And so it was quite shocking, you know, when he ended up having these multiple cancer diagnosis later in life. But as a young man, he, he, we lived in the South, we lived in Louisiana, and this is in the '70s before a lot of OSHA things and whatever. And he worked in chemical plants. And he was a chemist by trade. And, um, you know, so I'm pretty fully convinced that for him it was those environmental factors that you spoke of. So, um, in addition to being in an environment like that, that's kind of an obvious situation. What are maybe some things that aren't as obvious that people might be exposed to that they can limit, um, in order to prevent cancer?

Yeah, and not to scare anyone right now, but it's kind of what we're doing. We're being sedentary. We're sitting down right now. It is sedentary behavior is ubiquitous in our culture, right? It's how we do work every day. A lot of people sit at their desks in the office, and there's sometimes little movement. Well, we know a lot of things— what are, what are causes of cancer— and actually sedentary behavior, even if you meet all of the activity guidelines, sedentary behavior itself is an independent risk factor for getting cancer. Of course, there's a bunch of numbers with these, but it's something that a lot of people don't even think about, and —an easy solution is trying to get up and get moving every so often. For myself, if I'm stuck at an office or in an operating room case and they're long cases, I make sure I'm getting up every single hour on the hour, something I can remember, just to get moving. And we'll talk more in depth about this, but movement itself is a prevention for not only cancer but a number of other things. But yes, sedentary behavior is a big one that we really don't think about very much, and a lot of us are exposed to that.

Yeah, and I just want to— I kind of want to build on something that you said just to make it super clear for people, because I know this information, but if this is the first time somebody's hearing it, they might not understand it. So I think the recommendation right now is— correct me if I'm wrong, because I know you'll know the right answer to this— it's like 150 minutes per week of physical activity for most adults, right? But you're— I think what you're saying is, okay, say you do that, you go to the gym and you do your 150 minutes. That's not the end. It's actually then that 8 hours that you're sitting at your desk is still putting that on top of that.

Yes. So you are correct. Um, it is 100— so the physical activity guidelines is 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week. It could also be 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity activity or a combination of both, knowing that 1 minute of vigorous intensity activity is equal to 2 minutes of moderate intensity activity. All that being aside, 150 minutes of moderate activity per week is the goal. It's something easy to remember. But yes, this sedentary behavior is independent of that. So If you're going to the gym and you're hitting all your marks, it doesn't give you license so much to go home and be a couch potato the rest of the day. And that's kind of the idea here. When we look at all of these different factors, it really comes down to getting your blood flowing. You know, it's more than that. That's a simplistic explanation. But the simple answer is get your butt up, Get moving, get your blood flowing. And it's something that we have to make it habitual. And again, we have such a sedentary lifestyle. It doesn't mean we're not doing anything. It just means that, you know, we're sitting at the chair at the office, we're at the desk all day, we're typing on the computer. It's just how our lives are built. So we therefore have to change the environment around us to make sure that we aren't so sedentary. And there's a number of things that we can do for that.

So what would be some of your favorite, favorite tips for people? I mean, I think you mentioned saying getting up every hour, on the hour. Everybody has a cell phone nowadays, so setting alarms or using apps. What are some other things besides that that people might do to kind of combat this sedentary behavior? Sure.

So that's a big one for me. It's something very easy to remember: on the hour, every hour, get up and get moving. Now, if you're at the office or if you're you're somewhere where you're not at home, make sure you are taking, getting, going to the restroom that's farthest away from you, getting, using the kitchen or water fountain that's not close to you, walking up and down the stairs just to get moving. It doesn't have to be difficult. It doesn't have to be, you know, I have to meet these marks. The simple answer is just get up, get moving, incorporate it into your day that's seamless. That's something that's easy to remember for you. Maybe it's you have a favorite coffee coffee station at the office, whatever it may be. Just try to make it— make sure that you're able to incorporate as much movement as you can.

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Okay, I think that's really clear. So we want people to go to the gym, we want them to be strength training so they can prevent sarcopenia, maintain their muscle mass. That's all great for metabolic health, but we also just need people to just get out of the chair from their desk or away from the TV and just move around.

Yeah, it's one of the most simple things that we can be doing to prevent cancer. And of course, there is more to the exercise and cancer prevention. We're talking about sedentary behavior, but it also can go from light to moderate activity, vigorous activity, and then meeting the guidelines. They all have their unique benefits, and we could talk about that if you'd like. But the sedentary behavior, I think, is just one of the most— more shocking ones that people just may not know about.

Yes, totally agree with that statement from just getting moving, because I think, like I said before, people think they go to the gym and that's good enough. That's not— that's not the end of the story. But you did touch on one thing that I would like to maybe chat about a little bit more, and that was the use of exercise maybe in a different way. So yeah, I was very focused on fasting for a while when, um, Dr. Urashimo— I'm gonna miss— mess up his name, I'll put it in the show notes— but, um, you know, when they first just kind of discovered itashi back in 2016, and I learned about fasting, and I was very focused on that for a while. But now that I've gotten older, my bigger concern is maintaining muscle mass as I get over the age of 50. And so I've kind of stopped that because I also learned that exercise actually promotes autophagy really strongly. And maybe I'll just have you actually talk about autophagy in a more scientific way so that people understand its relation to cancer. So maybe if you could talk about that with exercise, that would be awesome.

Yeah, so I think how I relate this is something called myokines. When we exercise, we get our bodies moving and our muscles are contracting, they release something called myokines into the blood bloodstream. The simple answer is myokines are anti-cancer proteins, and the more we contract our muscles, the more these anti-cancer agents are moving around our bloodstream. And not only are we able to more effectively kill cancer cells, it is something that's going to promote— really just promote overall health in general, not just cancer but everything else as well. There's actually a recent study in 2025 about breast cancer, um, it's out of Oxford, I believe, and they talk about specifically about these myokines. And it was something, uh, don't quote me exactly on the number, but it was just one bout of vigorous intensity activity, it increased their blood circulating myokines by like up to 30%. And they exposed those myokines to breast cancer cells. And actually that number, the rate of growth was reduced by 30%. So it just goes to show how effective muscle contraction and movement is in the anti-cancer, in our body's ability to fight cancer off.

Yeah, I will share. And I mean, again, not to bring it back to the— but I think it's really relevant to what you're saying is I mentioned that my dad was kind of in the running boom and he had always lifted weight. He was like Jack LaLanne, basically, which is why it was such a shock that this But anyway, when he got this more serious diagnosis of cancer, I'm really convinced that the reason he did so well for so long was because every time he did a treatment, he got right back to his 3 days a week strength training, running, playing golf, super active, never let that go for the longest time. And so I think that that actually helped, not only helped his quality of life while he was living with cancer, but also probably got him further down the road. I really think that's true.

100%. 100%. There is so much robust science about this. And a lot of, you know, of course, after, uh, after someone gets a diagnosis of cancer, of course your body's going through changes, and it is even more difficult to get up and get moving, going to the gym and doing those things. So kudos to your father and anyone else who has gone through that to make sure they're getting— giving their body the exercise they need, because It's not only— it's not— exercise is not just a healthy lifestyle modification. It's an actual biological intervention that helps fight cancer. Like, it is proven. It is not just— it's not a replacement for your chemotherapies and your surgeries and whatnot, but it absolutely reduces your risk of getting cancer. It improves your survival if you do get cancer. And there is only benefits from this. So this is just a really hard point to make that exercise is proven to improve your survival in a number of different ways. We're talking about cancer today, but there's a number of other things as well.

Oh yeah, it's pretty much the cure for everything, right? I mean, if you really want to look at it, it is.

And it's free. It's free. We can all do it. You know, I know it's very exciting.

Well, most of us, you know, thankfully. So on that note, there is I think I'd be remiss not to at least mention this and maybe get your thoughts on this because you, as you said, you're in the operating rooms, you've seen all these different kinds of cancer. Have any of your colleagues or you yourself had any thoughts on the significant rise of colon cancer in young people? Are we thinking processed food? Are we thinking other lifestyle factors? Kind of what's your sense of it after being in the trenches with that?

Yeah, very astute question because that's actually The statistic, I believe, is colorectal cancer is the only cancer that is rising in people under the age of 50. And more recently, you know, this is early 2026, James Van Der Beek passed away, which a lot of us know from Dawson's Creek and, you know, other movies. And Chadwick Boseman, another big-time actor, and they both passed away from colorectal cancer and at young ages. And sometimes it's a difficult pill to swallow when these people, you know, we don't know them, but they're part of our formative years. And the good thing about, um, and I don't say good thing, but that maybe the positive silver lining is it's bringing awareness to people that this is something. Now, do we know why colorectal cancer is increasing in this specific age group? No. As you alluded to, it could very well be what's environmental exposures and I'm not saying this specifically to those gentlemen, but it can be a number of things. We don't know the exact answer. We do know there's a lot of different risk factors for colorectal cancer that a lot of people do have. And it's present in our nutrition system and how you— the United States is kind of set up. And it's a lot of processed foods. It's processed meats. It's adiposity. When you have— you're carrying some extra weight and obesity and being overweight, all of those things. Play a role into cancer. Real briefly, this is something that I think a lot of people may not know, but obesity itself is a chronic form of low-grade inflammation. Okay? So your body is under this chronic inflammatory state when you, um, when you have obesity. And the reason that's important is because when we have bodily inflammation, that increases the risk for mutations in our DNA, in our cells, and that's exactly how cancers can arise.

So would that mean also, I think the most common marker that people probably get when they go to their annual checkup is an hs-CRP, which is kind of a marker of general inflammation in the body. So would it be accurate to say that if you have a higher hs-CRP that you are probably slightly more at risk for cancers, and that would be a, a thing to maybe consider trying to actively lower?

Yeah, so CRP is one of the— C-reactive protein is one of the markers for inflammation. There are a number of other ones, cortisol being another big one. I don't want to say, um, I don't want to say for certain that yes, that is, that's true, because our body undergoes inflammation. Rewind a second. When you get a lab test done, That is one point in time, right? It's that day. So it's hard. You're not gonna be testing your CRP every single day to know, are you always under the same state, uh, same state of inflammation? That being said, your body undergoes inflammation for a number of reasons, and sometimes inflammation isn't bad. It's sometimes it's reactive and appropriate for what we're doing. But yes, in the general sense, if you have maybe like dietary inflammation, If your body isn't sleeping properly, um, and your body's in a general state that's heightened for inflammation, then yes, those kinds of things on a long-term basis are more what we're aiming for here. One lab test, it depends. It can be a number of different things. There's also a lot of different medical states and conditions that can increase your CRP. So it's not always like a perfect marker. It may be a clue and your healthcare provider can kind of clue you in to like put the whole picture together. But every individual is very different. And as I said, it's, it's kind of a one marker in time. So lab tests can be helpful, but it's just not the end-all be-all. Yeah, understood.

Just kind of wondered if there was any association there. Like what you hear so far?

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And you mentioned one of my favorite words when you were just answering that question, and that is sleep. I think it's one of the most underappreciated health elixirs, basically, for people. Yes. And that so many people struggle with it. But how would you describe sleep's relation to cancer? I know a lot of the stuff about sleep's relation to possible Alzheimer's prevention. Yeah, but I haven't necessarily heard as much about cancer, so I'd love to hear your views on that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So there's a couple of things to know regarding sleep and cancer, and I'm kind of— I'm gonna draw back a discussion I had with a patient where they're like, I'm exercising all the time, I'm eating well, I'm hitting, you know, I'm getting all the My Minute guidelines, I'm— my stress is well managed. And then you dive a little bit deeper and they're like, oh, I only sleep 4 or 5 hours a night. And I'm like, oh, why are you doing that? Well, you know, they're crazy busy, they're always productive. And we kind of take a step back and get more of a clue of, you know, the whole picture of that patient. And it was telling because as you mentioned, sleep, a lot of people, we almost treat it as an afterthought. You know, it's at the end of the day, we kind of get in our beds and go. However, sleep is so critical for our overall health that it really needs to get more of a bright light on it because it's that important. And the relationship to cancer is actually— is it's very clear, and I'll tell you why. At night, throughout the day, 24 hours, your body is always undergoing maintenance. Your body's always fixing damaged DNA, fixing cells that are damaged for whatever reason, and we're repairing them or we're scheduling them for apoptosis and getting them out of our bodies. Now, that happens all 24 hours, but it's way more active when we're sleeping. It's when the maintenance workers of our body are going to work, and that happens at night. So if you're not getting enough sleep, then we are— or quality sleep— we are not restoring, we're not repairing those DNA in the cells. And those mutations, it's almost like a glitch in the system where these mutations occur and then they, they, they live on and they thrive. And they start— the more and more those mutations grow, that's when you get a tumor. So when we don't get that sleep at night, our maintenance workers aren't working, and those mutations kind of can grow into cancer more easily. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

And what would, what would your advice be to people? I mean, I've, I've written about this a lot, so there's some free resources on my website for better sleep. And I do all the things. I am committed to sleep. You know, I have the cooling bed, the cooling bed, the dark room. I like everything. So there's all those kind of tips. But if somebody wants to do something without devices and without drugs in particular, I think that people turn a lot to drugs. I'd love to hear your perspective on that and kind of what are some more natural ways people can approach doing this that aren't devices that don't cost a lot of extra money.

Yeah, we can talk a lot about this. I think so. It's actually ironically it's Sleep Awareness Week right now. So it's nice. Yeah, it's so it's a big topic right now. So what can you do? So you mentioned a lot of things regarding sleep environment where you're sleeping in a cool, dark place, cool, dark, and quiet place, not silent, but quiet. And a lot of people focus on that, which is really good. But something that people may not know is What we do during the day matters very much how good quality of sleep we get at night. And this is not going to be a shocker, but one of the best activities that you could do during the day to get more quality sleep, a higher level of deep sleep, is exercise. And exercise really is just a panacea for everything. But it's the reason being is when you exercise, your body's obviously working a lot harder and its body temperature goes up. Well, a few hours after, your body temperature starts to cool down, and that's exactly what we would like for sleep. So it's just something that every single day we want to incorporate some sort of exercise for that. And there are a number of other things like the 3-2-1-0 rule, if you've heard of that, or we could talk about that.

Yeah, I'm not familiar with that one, so I'd love it if you'd share that.

Yes, yeah, yeah, the 3-2-1-0 rule. It's something easy to remember because of the numbers, but 3 hours before bed you don't have any more food. Are you able to do a light snack? Sure, but you don't want to have your dinner too close to bedtime. You want to give your body enough time for digestion. If you're eating too close to meals— uh, excuse me, too close to bedtime You can have indigestion. You can have a number of different things that can cause disruption to your sleep. 2 hours before bed, no work or no stimulation. You really want to— yeah, I know. It's a hard one. It is. It is. It's one of those things where I'm like, what's the word? What's the phrase? Do as I say, not as I do. Yes, that's it. Yep. So I'm a bad one on that because I'm a workaholic. But yes, no more work 2 hours before bed. And it's really just trying to unwind and kind of decrease your stimulation. That's the real reason. 1 hour before bed, no screen time. And this is something where I say I mean it. No screen time. Blue— I talked to a sleep medicine doctor last year or so, and she's a great friend of mine, and she just says how many people are— we're all so glued to our phones. And not only that, it's like a 5th appendage where we're sleeping. It's right next to our beds. And one of the best tips that she gave me was to use an actual alarm clock. Get that phone away from your bed. You don't need it when you're in the bedroom. It's, you know, emergencies happen and whatnot, so you can have it somewhere nearby, but it doesn't need to be in arm's length. So anyway, no screen time after 1 hour before bed, and then the zero is a little bit different. It's the number of snoozes we're allowed, uh, or ideally allowed zero. And that, it, that, that really goes, that really focuses on having a consistent wake time. And that's even something that we want to do on our days off from work. And the reason being actually does relate to one of the risk factors for cancer is circadian rhythm disruption. You, if you have a consistent wake time, your body is just much happier. It works more efficiently. The nighttime maintenance things that we talked about are more, just work better. And you really, you keep that wake time. And then if you have to adjust your bedtime, you adjust your bedtime to something earlier. But a consistent wake time is something that is a forever, forever rule of thumb if we're able to.

Well, good. That's— I've gotta, I've gotta work on the 0 and the 2 probably a little bit for myself.

Yeah. And yes, we're not— none of us are gonna be perfect at this. You know, an 80/20 rule. Try to aim for 80% of these, 20% give yourself some grace.

Yes. Progress over perfection. One of my favorite things. Exactly. So one thing that we didn't hit on yet that I think is fairly important for cancer stuff, and, and I think it's it's, it's good because there's a trend. There's a downward trend in alcohol consumption, I think, since the pandemic, basically. And I think everyone has always known that alcohol consumption is related to cancer, but somehow it wasn't being driven home as much as it has maybe the last 5 to 10 years. Yeah. So we'd just love to get your thoughts on that. I mean, nobody wants to hear this if you like, you know, having a glass of wine with your steak or something like that, but But I think minimizing these things, like we're talking about minimizing environmental exposures, maximizing sleep. I mean, can we talk a little bit about it? Because it's going to be unpopular, but it is a thing.

Yeah. So I try to tiptoe just to be gentle with this because people do have strong feelings. Like, I want my red wine at night and you can't convince me otherwise. There's a lot of topics to talk about. There's a lot of discussion points. The plain answer here is No amount of alcohol is helpful for your health. Okay. So there's no benefit to it. Some people who drink red wine say there's, you know, the— oh my God. Nitro— the— resveratrol. Yes. Resveratrol. Yes. Thank you so much. Is helpful for you. Yes, it is. But so are having a handful of grapes and you don't have to have it in a wine form.

Oh, I think I read that to get enough resveratrol, you'd have to drink like 25 barrels of wine or something. Exactly. Yeah. So it's like not even a thing.

It's one of those reasons though, the wine connoisseurs are like, yeah, well, it's fine. I'm one of those people where you have to enjoy life too. And it's, you know, take everything with a grain of salt. But yeah. And then a lot of people actually bring up like the Blue Zones. Have you heard of the Blue Zones before?

Absolutely. Yeah. We talked about it a little bit on the podcast.

Perfect. So Blue Zones, one of the discussion points is having red wine Uh, in moderation during meals when you're socializing. So when you're watching Netflix, having a bottle of red wine, it's not the same as having a glass of wine slowly over a couple hours with dinner, socializing, which is a protective factor for your health. So it's a little bit different. It's kind of the scenario. But yeah, they used to kind of say 2 drinks for men, 1 drink for women per day. That's, that's changed. There's another— the most recent administration came out with new dietary guidelines for Americans just maybe a month ago or so. Lots of talking points there. We won't go too into that, but there is one regarding alcohol and they, they kind of They, I'm trying to word this correctly, they said enjoying some alcohol in moderation isn't advised, but it's like, it's okay to do, which I think where they're coming from with that is trying to have social connections because it's a, because the reality is a lot of people do enjoy alcohol together and it brings people together and there are health benefits to that. The alcohol standpoint, as I said, no organizations recommend any healthy amount of alcohol, but there is something to be said about enjoying your life and having social connections and bringing people together. And I think that is positive. I think they at least nailed that part for sure.

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Yeah, and I would agree with you that I think that, that having traveled extensively in the Mediterranean, that, that is where, you know, there's a lot of issues with those Blue Zone studies, right? We don't need to go into all that today, but I think that the one that probably everybody can agree on is the importance of community and support support systems and the amount of movement that all of those zones get. They're very active. They have this great support and connection, and they have this community that a lot of other places in the world don't have. So whatever you think about their diet or their wine consumption or any of that, I think that we can agree on the rest of it for sure.

Yeah. And you're nailing it on the head because when we talk, we have these discussions. If you see these other very in-depth evidence-based discussions online, we're really zooming in on one little thing. And the reality is it's the totality of our lifestyle that affects our health outcomes. You know, having a glass of wine, I'm not going to say don't do it, but what's the rest of your health look like? What's the rest of your lifestyle look like? You know, we have to be reasonable about it. And, you know, not getting a night's sleep a good night's sleep here and there, no big deal. But if it's a consistent chronic issue, sure, then you address something. But a lot of us have, like, the idea of 80/20 or, you know, progress over perfection. It's just the idea of trying to do our best to improve and giving ourselves some grace. And as we alluded to way back when, in the beginning of this conversation, you know, what we're doing right now For most people in this country, you know, we're not successful with our health. We just simply aren't. And so we have to start addressing these issues more head-on and figuring out, you know, what can we start changing? And that kind of brings up another point. A lot of us know what's healthy. We know what's healthy, but we're not so good at how to make effective change and how to keep those change long, you know, as sustainable habits for ourselves. And I think that's something that we could all kind of work on, especially especially the health and fitness professionals teaching people how to do those things.

Yeah, that's one of the huge focuses of my work is how my background is psychology. So the whole habit change is something that's been a very long time interest of mine.

Yeah, I saw the 30-day challenge too.

Yeah. So since you brought— thank you. Yeah. Since you brought that up, I want to be respectful of your time, but I think just one final actionable thing that we could have here is in You, like you said, you've been a personal trainer, you're a lifestyle medicine doctor. That probably is the biggest challenge for people. I mean, I think everybody at this point knows what they should be doing. They know they should be moving more. They know they should be eating better. They know they shouldn't be drinking too much, but at the execution of it. So what would be your best tips for people on how to actually make changes in your experience? Like what's been the most successful?

Really good question. So I am a big proponent of utilizing the current routines you have. And adding on to them. It's a lot harder to start something brand new. So if you're able to, so say in the morning, you already, you know, you brush your teeth, you wash your face. Well, you know, start adding in healthy habits to that existing routine and do that. Most habits take, the science says 66 days for every, if you're doing it every single day, it's really about the repetition. And our brains, you know, they're neuroplastic. So we can learn to do these things. We can be successful in them. The idea is just making sure we do them repetitively enough that it sticks. Just like swinging a baseball bat and learning how to, um, playing baseball, or working on the computer and getting better at typing, or whatever, um, whatever analogy you want to use. We can do that with our lifestyle as well. And I think most of us have some sort of routines already, so we want to kind of Zoom out, look at our routines. What can you add into that routine that's going to improve your health? What are you trying to improve? And once you kind of get that awareness, you're able to add something in. Do it every single day. I, I use the rule of twos. I kind of made this up, but for 2 months, do, do a new habit for 2 months without missing 2 consecutive days. And that is something that kind of, again, points to the consistency, repetition. And then once you get that add on to it. Start small and build up, and over time you're going to have this considerable change that's going to really make a big impact on your health.

Yeah, yeah, I love that 2 days rule because part of that— you mentioned the 30-day challenge— part of it was like not making people overly stressed about it, like, hey, if you miss a day, it's fine. But the challenge with that is it's okay to miss a day, but you don't want to miss like 2, 3, 4, then all of a sudden it's not a habit anymore. So I love that, just don't miss 2 days in a row. That's very good.

Yeah, yeah, easy to remember.

Okay, so we've covered some awesome information today, and I'm really excited for people to connect with you. Can you share your website, tell them about some of the programs we talked about before? Where do you have for professionals, for regular folks? What are all the good things that people can learn from you?

Yeah, absolutely. So atlasmd360.com, it has a bunch of resources, a lot of free resources as well. You can do a health audit assessment, you can take some quizzes. There's a 3, uh, there's a free 30-minute course. There are free resources on how to improve your heart lab work and a bunch of other things. And if you are, if you are a professional looking for continuing education, there are approved accredited programs for health and wellness coaches, personal trainers, and AMA Category 1 credits for a bunch of physicians and NPs and PAs. And then if you are not professional and you're looking to improve any part of your lifestyle, there are programs for you as well. But overall, we have a lot of free resources, and I just, I hope when I have these podcasts, I honestly just hope one person learned something good that they can take away from this and make some positive difference.

Well, Dr. Frankopoulos, I have no doubt whatsoever that people learned way more than one thing in this conversation, and I just want to thank you for sharing your time and knowledge today.

So I appreciate it. Thank you, Cheryl, for having me. I appreciate it. I'm loving what you're doing, so keep it up. It's awesome.

Thank you.

This has been the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. Again, I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow. You can find show notes for this episode at healnourishgrowpodcast.com. If you have feedback on today's episode or questions about the content, please email us at podcast@healnourishgrow.com. We'd love to hear from you. Be sure to sign up for our email list at healnourishgrow.com and subscribe to the show with your favorite favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. Join us next time for more information that helps you live your best and healthiest life. Thanks for listening. Content on the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast does not constitute medical advice. Content contained in the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast is not intended as medical diagnosis or treatment. Neither the company nor its owner, Heal, Nourish, Grow LLC, nor any of the company's employees, agents, or guest speakers provide medical advice. The content provided on Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please consult your medical provider with any questions about what health practices are right for you.