Better Than Before Breast Cancer with The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

What if being disease-free isn't the same as being healthy?

Many of us think we're healthy as long as our scans look good or our lab work falls within normal ranges. But health is much bigger than a diagnosis.

In this episode, I share a different way to think about disease, health, and healing, and why the choices you make every day have a powerful influence on how well your body functions and how you experience your life after breast cancer.

Resources Mentioned:

The Feel Good Reset: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/feelgood

Work with Laura: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health

Download for iPhone:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kajabi/id1485646310

Download for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kajabi.kajabiapp&hl=en_US

Let's Connect! If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, please share it with a friend or leave a review. Every share helps spread this message of hope, healing, and whole-person wellness.

💌 Join my email list for weekly wellness tips & podcast updates → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

💌 Join the Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership → Life Coaching

💌 Join the Living Well After Breast Cancer Community → The Living Well After Breast Cancer Community

👩‍💻 Follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration → @thebreastcancerrecoverycoach

👩‍💻 Follow me on Facebook → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎙 Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts → Better Than Before Breast Cancer with The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎥 Watch on YouTube → @BetterThanBeforeBreastCancer

Have you ever told yourself you'd get to it later, when there was more time, more money, more room?

Most of us have. And most of us never stop to ask what the waiting is costing us.

There is a question your brain reaches for first when you think about changing something in your life, and it is almost always the wrong one. In this episode, I offer you a different question, one that shifts everything from what you might lose to what you are willing to build.

We look at why healthy changes so often fail to stick, and it has nothing to do with willpower. I also share research on why women stop investing in their own care, and a moment with a client living with stage four disease that changed how I think about planning a future.

If money is genuinely tight, I name real organizations that exist to help, and one resource almost no one uses.

Where did we learn that taking what we need means taking it from someone else?

Your life is being built right now, between breakfast and lunch today.

Resources Mentioned:

Work with Laura: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health

Download for iPhone:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kajabi/id1485646310

Download for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kajabi.kajabiapp&hl=en_US

Let's Connect! If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, please share it with a friend or leave a review. Every share helps spread this message of hope, healing, and whole-person wellness.

💌 Join my email list for weekly wellness tips & podcast updates → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

💌 Join the Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership → Life Coaching

💌 Join the Living Well After Breast Cancer Community → The Living Well After Breast Cancer Community

👩‍💻 Follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration → @thebreastcancerrecoverycoach

👩‍💻 Follow me on Facebook → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎙 Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts → Better Than Before Breast Cancer with The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎥 Watch on YouTube → @BetterThanBeforeBreastCancer

When was the last time you let yourself want something without immediately talking yourself out of it?

So many of us learned early on to keep ourselves small. Then a diagnosis arrives, and that quiet voice telling you not to ask for too much gets even louder. Have you ever found yourself making silent deals, promising to be content with less as long as you get to stay?

I overheard a conversation at my kitchen table more than forty years ago that shaped what I believed I was allowed to want. What would it feel like to spot that same voice in your own life and realize it was never telling you the truth?

This episode gives you a way to hold your gratitude and your wanting in the same two hands, without guilt and without apology. And let me be clear about what this is not. No one is sick because she did not believe hard enough.

You will leave with one simple exercise you can do in five minutes today. Your life is allowed to be full. Your wanting is allowed to be loud.

Resources Mentioned:

Work with Laura: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health

Download for iPhone:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kajabi/id1485646310

Download for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kajabi.kajabiapp&hl=en_US

Let's Connect! If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, please share it with a friend or leave a review. Every share helps spread this message of hope, healing, and whole-person wellness.

💌 Join my email list for weekly wellness tips & podcast updates → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

💌 Join the Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership → Life Coaching

💌 Join the Living Well After Breast Cancer Community → The Living Well After Breast Cancer Community

👩‍💻 Follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration → @thebreastcancerrecoverycoach

👩‍💻 Follow me on Facebook → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎙 Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts → Better Than Before Breast Cancer with The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎥 Watch on YouTube → @BetterThanBeforeBreastCancer

When was the last time you felt truly inspired?

This episode comes out the day before the 15-year anniversary of my first breast cancer diagnosis, and as I look back over these years, one thing stands out more than almost anything else. Not a diet, not a single protocol, but inspiration.

For a long time, I thought inspiration just showed up on a good day. What I have learned is that I have to go looking for it on purpose, the same way I plan a walk or plan my meals. I have come to believe it belongs in a healthy lifestyle right alongside movement, whole food, and the people closest to us.

In this episode, I share how I use inspiration in seasons that are hard, including rebuilding my strength after nearly four months of pain and medication this spring. When the work feels heavy, I go looking for people who have done hard things and kept showing up, and I let their commitment remind me of what is possible within my own capacity. I also talk about being intentional about what I do not let into my mind, and why protecting my mental space is part of protecting my ability to heal.

Here is my 15-year anniversary challenge to you. Go find one source of inspiration and bring it in on purpose. One thing that helps you believe a little more in yourself and what you can create. And if you do not know where to start, ask yourself, who talks about something I want more of in my life?

Come tell me where you look for inspiration inside the free Living Well After Breast Cancer community.

Resources Mentioned:

Work with Laura: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health

Download for iPhone:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kajabi/id1485646310

Download for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kajabi.kajabiapp&hl=en_US

Let's Connect! If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, please share it with a friend or leave a review. Every share helps spread this message of hope, healing, and whole-person wellness.

💌 Join my email list for weekly wellness tips & podcast updates → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

💌 Join the Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership → Life Coaching

💌 Join the Living Well After Breast Cancer Community → The Living Well After Breast Cancer Community

👩‍💻 Follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration → @thebreastcancerrecoverycoach

👩‍💻 Follow me on Facebook → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎙 Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts → Better Than Before Breast Cancer with The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎥 Watch on YouTube → @BetterThanBeforeBreastCancer

July 2026 marks 15 years since my first breast cancer diagnosis. When I sat down to plan this milestone month, I had all these celebratory ideas, and then life happened. I lost people I cared about, a few clients passed, and right as I went to record, our dog of 14 years died. I want to be honest with you from the start. Life is hard, and life is wonderful, and most of the time both are true at once.

That is the heart of this episode. So many of us believe we shouldn't feel joy while something painful is happening, or shouldn't let anything heavy in while things are good. But everything is good and bad at the same time, every single day.

I share a conversation with a newly diagnosed woman who told me she did not want cancer to become part of her identity, and why I gently offered a different way to hold it. I also look back on 15 years that were never a straight line, including how my work evolved, my second diagnosis, and the quiet heaviness I felt when I sensed people hoped I could cure their cancer. That was never my message. My work has always been about wellness, living, and the future you are choosing to create right now.

Here is what I most want you to hear. We are never done living until we are done living. And the foundation for the life you love is not discipline or willpower. It is love, loving yourself enough to care for your body through the hard things and to be willing to feel everything.

Keep an eye out for July 11, when I have a very special announcement coming on the anniversary of my diagnosis.

Resources Mentioned:

Work with Laura: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health

Download for iPhone:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kajabi/id1485646310

Download for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kajabi.kajabiapp&hl=en_US

Let's Connect! If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, please share it with a friend or leave a review. Every share helps spread this message of hope, healing, and whole-person wellness.

💌 Join my email list for weekly wellness tips & podcast updates → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

💌 Join the Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership → Life Coaching

💌 Join the Living Well After Breast Cancer Community → The Living Well After Breast Cancer Community

👩‍💻 Follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration → @thebreastcancerrecoverycoach

👩‍💻 Follow me on Facebook → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎙 Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts → Better Than Before Breast Cancer with The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎥 Watch on YouTube → @BetterThanBeforeBreastCancer

Your body has been talking to you your whole life. The question is whether anyone ever taught you to listen.

In this episode, I want to widen the lens on how you read your own body. We have lost so much of the generational knowledge our mothers and grandmothers once passed down, and now we tend to wait until something hurts before we pay attention. But your body speaks in subtleties long before that.

I share one of my great loves, Ayurveda, the 5,000-year-old healing system I studied for three years, and its practice of observation called the eightfold examination. What fascinates me most is how closely it aligns with modern functional nutrition's Nutrition Focused Physical Exam. We walk through what your tongue, skin, hair, nails, and eyes may be reflecting about your gut health, your nutrient status, your oxidative stress, and even your blood sugar, backed by research going back nearly 80 years.

Here is what matters most. This is not about self-diagnosis. None of these signs are proof of anything on their own. They are invitations to pay attention, not verdicts to fear. My hope is that noticing your body builds confidence instead of anxiety, the quiet confidence of a woman in a loving conversation with her body rather than at war with it.

If you take one small thing from this episode, try this. Tomorrow morning, look at your tongue and just notice. Do it for a week. That is the practice.

Resources Mentioned:

Work with Laura: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health

Download for iPhone:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kajabi/id1485646310

Download for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kajabi.kajabiapp&hl=en_US

Foundational

Asif T, Mohiuddin A, Hasan B, Pauly RR. Importance of Thorough Physical Examination: A Lost Art. Cureus. 2017;9(5):e1212.

Newton C. The Functional Nutrition-Focused Physical Exam. IFNA Track 3 Module 2.

Tongue

Jeghers H. Nutrition: the appearance of the tongue as an index of nutritional deficiency. New England Journal of Medicine. 1942;227:221-8.

Khayamzadeh M, Najafi S, Sadrolodabaei P, Vakili F, Kharrazi Fard MJ. Determining salivary and serum levels of iron, zinc and vitamin B12 in patients with geographic tongue. J Dent Res Dent Clin Dent Prospects. 2019;13(3):221-226.

Chiang CP, Chang JY, Wang YP, Wu YH, Wu YC, Sun A. Atrophic glossitis: Etiology, serum autoantibodies, anemia, hematinic deficiencies, hyperhomocysteinemia, and management. J Formos Med Assoc. 2020;119(4):774-780.

Skin

Salem I, Ramser A, Isham N, Ghannoum MA. The Gut Microbiome as a Major Regulator of the Gut-Skin Axis. Front Microbiol. 2018;9:1459.

Wang X, Li Y, Wu L, et al. Dysregulation of the gut-brain-skin axis and key overlapping inflammatory and immune mechanisms of psoriasis and depression. Biomed Pharmacother. 2021;137:111065.

Jafferany M, Franca K. Psychodermatology: Basics Concepts. Acta Derm Venereol. 2016;96(217):35-7.

Reunala T, Salmi TT, Hervonen K, Kaukinen K, Collin P. Dermatitis Herpetiformis: A Common Extraintestinal Manifestation of Coeliac Disease. Nutrients. 2018;10(5):602.

Stefanadi EC, Dimitrakakis G, Antoniou CK, et al. Metabolic syndrome and the skin: a more than superficial association. Diabetol Metab Syndr. 2018;10:9.

Hair

O'Connor K, Goldberg LJ. Nutrition and hair. Clin Dermatol. 2021;39(5):809-818.

Arck PC, Overall R, Spatz K, et al. Towards a "free radical theory of graying": melanocyte apoptosis in the aging human hair follicle is an indicator of oxidative stress induced tissue damage. FASEB J. 2006;20(9):1567-9.

Zhang B, Ma S, Rachmin I, et al. Hyperactivation of sympathetic nerves drives depletion of melanocyte stem cells. Nature. 2020;577(7792):676-681.

Poonia K, Bhalla M. Premature Graying of Hair: A Comprehensive Review and Recent Insights. Indian Dermatol Online J. 2024;15(5):721-731.

Nails

Singal A, Arora R. Nail as a window of systemic diseases. Indian Dermatol Online J. 2015;6(2):67-74.

Cashman MW, Sloan SB. Nutrition and nail disease. Clin Dermatol. 2010;28(4):420-5.

Eyes

Knapp A. The Eye as a Guide to Latent Nutritional Deficiency Diseases. Bull N Y Acad Med. 1946.

Wakamatsu TH, Dogru M, Tsubota K. Tearful relations: oxidative stress, inflammation and eye diseases. Arq Bras Oftalmol. 2008;71(6 Suppl):72-9.

Seydou A, Arnould L, Gabrielle PH, et al. Plasma Fatty Acids Pattern and Dry Eye Disease in the Elderly: The Montrachet Population-Based Study. Nutrients. 2022;14(11):2290.

Bu Y, Shih KC, Tong L. The ocular surface and diabetes, the other 21st Century epidemic. Exp Eye Res. 2022;220:109099.

Rahman A, Yahya K, Ahmed T, Sharif-Ul-Hasan K. Diagnostic value of tear films tests in type 2 diabetes. J Pak Med Assoc. 2007;57(12):577-81.

Seifart U, Strempel I. Trockenes Auge und Diabetes mellitus [The dry eye and diabetes mellitus]. Ophthalmologe. 1994;91(2):235-9.

Campagnoli LIM, Varesi A, Barbieri A, Marchesi N, Pascale A. Targeting the Gut-Eye Axis: An Emerging Strategy to Face Ocular Diseases. Int J Mol Sci. 2023;24(17):13338.

Let's Connect! If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, please share it with a friend or leave a review. Every share helps spread this message of hope, healing, and whole-person wellness.

💌 Join my email list for weekly wellness tips & podcast updates → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

💌 Join the Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership → Life Coaching

💌 Join the Living Well After Breast Cancer Community → The Living Well After Breast Cancer Community

👩‍💻 Follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration → @thebreastcancerrecoverycoach

👩‍💻 Follow me on Facebook → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎙 Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts → Better Than Before Breast Cancer with The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎥 Watch on YouTube → @BetterThanBeforeBreastCancer

This Father's Day episode is personal for me. I lost my brother to testicular cancer in 1993, and that loss taught me how dangerous it is when we do not talk about the cancers that catch our loved ones off guard. So I am honored to share this conversation with Jake Messier, a stage four metastatic male breast cancer advocate known on social media as The Guy With Stage Four Breast Cancer.

Jake found a lump while putting on deodorant in early 2023 and, like most men, never imagined it could be breast cancer. That delay may have shaped his stage four diagnosis. In our conversation, he opens up about the isolation of being one man in a pink world, the support groups that turned him away, and the harder truth that almost no research exists on how this disease behaves differently in men, which is part of why it is roughly 30 percent more fatal in men than in women.

We also talk about the work he is building now, including the Male Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the male mouse project, and a male cell line registry, plus the men's health questions so many of us carry for the people we love.

His closing advice is simple. Be aware of your partner's normal, so you can recognize the abnormal. Please share this episode with the men in your life. It could be the reason one of them does not wait.

Resources Mentioned:

Work with Laura: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health

Download for iPhone:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kajabi/id1485646310

Download for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kajabi.kajabiapp&hl=en_US

Connect with Jake Messier, MBA:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theguywithstage4breastcancer/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@stage4breastcancerguy

Website:

https://www.theguywithstage4breastcancer.com/

Let's Connect! If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, please share it with a friend or leave a review. Every share helps spread this message of hope, healing, and whole-person wellness.

💌 Join my email list for weekly wellness tips & podcast updates → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

💌 Join the Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership → Life Coaching

💌 Join the Living Well After Breast Cancer Community → The Living Well After Breast Cancer Community

👩‍💻 Follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration → @thebreastcancerrecoverycoach

👩‍💻 Follow me on Facebook → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎙 Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts → Better Than Before Breast Cancer with The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎥 Watch on YouTube → @BetterThanBeforeBreastCancer

June is Mental Health Month, and in this episode, I want you to hear something clearly. Your mental and emotional health is not a side note to breast cancer or to life after it. It deserves to be a priority, right alongside your physical health.

I share a recent stretch of unrelenting pain that pulled me away from my walks and workouts, and how quickly that started to weigh on me mentally, because I want you to know you are not alone in that heaviness. We look at what the research actually shows about how long anxiety and depression can linger after a diagnosis, why isolation makes it harder, and how support changes everything.

I also talk honestly about both lifestyle and medication. Nourishing your body and moving it genuinely support your brain, but they do not replace medical care, and reaching for medication when you need it is an act of love, not a failure. I close with a simple reframe. When "what is wrong with me" shows up, try asking "what do I need right now?" instead.

You deserve support, friend. Come join us in the Living Well After Breast Cancer Community on the Breast Cancer Recovery Coach app.

Resources Mentioned:

Work with Laura: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health

Download for iPhone:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kajabi/id1485646310

Download for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kajabi.kajabiapp&hl=en_US

Let's Connect! If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, please share it with a friend or leave a review. Every share helps spread this message of hope, healing, and whole-person wellness.

💌 Join my email list for weekly wellness tips & podcast updates → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

💌 Join the Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership → Life Coaching

💌 Join the Living Well After Breast Cancer Community → The Living Well After Breast Cancer Community

👩‍💻 Follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration → @thebreastcancerrecoverycoach

👩‍💻 Follow me on Facebook → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎙 Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts → Better Than Before Breast Cancer with The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎥 Watch on YouTube → @BetterThanBeforeBreastCancer

What do I even eat? If that question has ever stopped you in your tracks, this episode is for you.

So many of us cycle through the same handful of foods week after week, then feel guilty for not eating more variety. And when we try to fix that, it often turns into more recipes, more shopping, and more pressure to find the perfect anti-cancer diet.

In this episode, I want to take that pressure off.

The easiest way to add more plants to your plate is probably already in your kitchen. Your spice rack. Herbs and spices are not just flavor; they are plants and parts of plants, and they bring a whole range of beneficial compounds to your meals in just a couple of teaspoons.

We talk about:

• Why variety matters more than any single super food
• How one pot of chili can deliver 25 different plant foods
• Turning one chicken into five meals by changing the seasoning
• How to know if a spice is still good and how long they really last
• How to buy and store spices so you actually use them
• Bringing in new flavors through teas and spice blends

This is not a new diet or a new set of rules. It is one simple, enjoyable way to nourish your body using what you already have.

Resources Mentioned:

Work with Laura:

https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health

Download for iPhone:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kajabi/id1485646310

Download for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kajabi.kajabiapp&hl=en_US

Grab the free guide:

https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/spices

Let's Connect! If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, please share it with a friend or leave a review. Every share helps spread this message of hope, healing, and whole-person wellness.

💌 Join my email list for weekly wellness tips & podcast updates → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

💌 Join the Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership → Life Coaching

💌 Join the Living Well After Breast Cancer Community → The Living Well After Breast Cancer Community

👩‍💻 Follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration → @thebreastcancerrecoverycoach

👩‍💻 Follow me on Facebook → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎙 Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts → Better Than Before Breast Cancer with The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎥 Watch on YouTube → @BetterThanBeforeBreastCancer

Last week there was no podcast episode.

For the first time in a long time, I simply didn't have the physical or emotional energy to show up behind the microphone.

After navigating one of the most challenging health seasons I've experienced since my stage 4 diagnosis, I realized I couldn't just move on without talking about what this experience taught me.

The lesson was acceptance.

Not giving up. Not settling. Not pretending difficult things aren't difficult.

Acceptance means acknowledging reality instead of exhausting yourself fighting against it.

In this episode, I share what I've been going through, how self-imposed timelines create unnecessary suffering, and why so many of us judge ourselves for not being where we think we should be by now.

We discuss:

• Acceptance versus resistance • Healing after breast cancer • Letting go of unrealistic timelines • Self-compassion during difficult seasons • The psychology of "should" thinking • Living with uncertainty • Finding peace during setbacks • Why healing is rarely linear

If you've been frustrated with where you are in your healing, your health, your relationships, your career, or your life, this conversation is for you.

Resources Mentioned:

Work with Laura: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health

Download for iPhone:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kajabi/id1485646310

Download for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kajabi.kajabiapp&hl=en_US

Let's Connect! If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, please share it with a friend or leave a review. Every share helps spread this message of hope, healing, and whole-person wellness.

💌 Join my email list for weekly wellness tips & podcast updates → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

💌 Join the Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership → Life Coaching

💌 Join the Living Well After Breast Cancer Community → The Living Well After Breast Cancer Community

👩‍💻 Follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration → @thebreastcancerrecoverycoach

👩‍💻 Follow me on Facebook → The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎙 Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts → Better Than Before Breast Cancer with The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach

🎥 Watch on YouTube → @BetterThanBeforeBreastCancer