Latest / Two Girls and a Cup of Wellness / Integrative Oncology: The Healing Tools with Corinne Faza | Ep 18
Transcript
- Crissy Florio: Hello and welcome back for another Two Girls in a Couple Wellness conversation. This is Chrissy. And this is Marie. And today we have Corinne, this ultimate ray of sunshine, ⁓ director of the CERI Center, a radical remission coach, a certified health education specialist. We already said all of that in her bio, but she is a beloved mother, a wonderful wife and loves her husband so much. and a dear friend to so many, including myself. So welcome, Corinne. We're so happy you're here. ⁓ Corinne Faza: Thank you so much. It's so wonderful to be with you both. Crissy Florio: Yeah. when we were, when Marie and I stop and we start talking about who do we want to come on the show and, you know, people who've been following our podcast for a while understand our mission of empowered speaking and bringing on people who are number one, living that type of lifestyle, but then also giving back to the community of, you know, educating others and empowering others and you came to mind right off the bat. I want to just share a little quick story about how I met Corinne and then we'll let her kind of fully dive in. a ⁓ couple of years after my diagnosis, it was coming up on October and obviously that's Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And I was really wanting to do a fundraiser ⁓ event. ⁓ My Pranic Energy Healer and friend Farrell and I were wanting to do something together. And I really wanted to find an organization that spoke to me, that really looked at health and healing and especially in the cancer world from an integrative approach. And another friend had mentioned the Ceri Center. And so when I reached out, I spoke with Corinne and she's like, well, come on in and we'll have a little meeting, a little chat and introduce ourselves. And from the moment I met Corinne, Corinne Faza has served as executive director for the Sary Asher Center. for Integrative Cancer Care, a nonprofit in Palm Beach County, Florida since March, 2009. Corinne has her Master of Public Health from Emory University in Behavioral Science and Health Education, and also has a Certified Health Education Specialist since 1996. Corinne is a Certified Trainer for Radical Remission, a bestselling book and experiential course that presents research on 10 lifestyle shifts that can make a real difference in cancer. It was just like, yes, yes, and yes, this is exactly what I want. This is exactly who I want in my life. since then, we've done a lot of events together. And that event was really a lot of fun, the Big Pink Energy. That was really a lot of fun. Yeah. And so now, here we are, fast forward quite a few years, and to watch what you do with your personal life and with the business. Corinne Faza: was a great event. It so fun. Crissy Florio: One of Corinne's favorite aspects of her current work is the opportunity to help patients and caregivers develop a plan of care for supportive therapies and lifestyle medicine to support and enhance healing. Corinne has lived and worked throughout Latin America, is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and through her multicultural experiences has been exposed to health beliefs and healing practices from all over the world. and how you show up in the world is so beautiful. So I'm honored that you're here with our community. And I know you just got to meet Marie today, but I know you guys are gonna love each other. So welcome. Corinne Faza: I'm excited. Thank you so much. It's so wonderful to be here. Yes, meeting Chrissy has been ⁓ an absolute joy having you come into our Sherry world in my life. It's been really wonderful. I'm so grateful for this opportunity. Crissy Florio: You're welcome. Yeah. She is always exploring natural health and wellness studies, therapies, and nutrition to learn more about human wellness and behavioral change. Corinne Faza: talk about wellness. Crissy Florio: So yes, yes. So let's talk about truly what integrative healing is. I think that's a great place to start. Corinne Faza: Yeah, yeah. So, and it's been a really interesting journey for me personally as I've moved forward in my career. I've always been a health educator. I've always wanted to help people, ⁓ empower people really to ⁓ manage their own health and do live a lifestyle that is beneficial to their health and wellness. ⁓ And ⁓ getting to be with the Ceri Center has just been an incredible journey for me. I can't believe I've been there for over 17 years, which I never thought I would be anywhere that long. But it's truly a magical place and space to be in. The longer I do this, the more clear it is to me how critically important integrating care is. ⁓ It's become my big soapbox, right? I love to stand on that box and shout to the world. because I just see more and more in kind of the way our healthcare system is shifting and changing, ⁓ that we're kind of ending up with sort of two parallel worlds, or sort of the traditional medical care, and then there's kind of everything else that, between lifestyle and other integrative therapies, and now you have the functional medicine, and concierge, and all this other kind of parallel system going on, and ⁓ unfortunately I see more like of this sort of. Crissy Florio: ⁓ that's disappointing. That bridge. Corinne Faza: ⁓ separation, extremism where I really want to see it coming together. Yeah, it really is this way. And I literally explained it to a patient the other day. It's like, for right now, they're running parallel. And we as patients and caregivers and families are having to do the jumping back and forth, right? Both to ⁓ logistically and financially. And so that does present a challenge. And yet I still will say, do it, right? Find your way to integrate those pieces because Crissy Florio: Hmm. Corinne Faza: I really think that all the data shows, right, that we do better when we're integrating more things and taking care of ourselves in different ways. Crissy Florio: And I've said this before multiple times, 20 minds are better than one. So even in the medical world, all these providers in specific areas don't like to work together. They're so competitive. Like, I'm better. But you can't. When I was in Boston, everybody would collaborate and work together and really listen. And I think that's so important into patient care. So. Corinne Faza: so important and it's so sad. Crissy Florio: Can you guys both explain to me the Siri Center though? Because I don't really understand it. Yeah, yeah. And Chrissy talks all the time about it. So is it a cancer patient or anyone that can go there? How does it work? Corinne Faza: Sure. Absolutely. Sure, sure. So we're a private nonprofit and our mission is to integrate ⁓ complementary therapies, right, with the traditional medical care. So we're focused on how can we provide supportive therapies for patients who are going through cancer ⁓ to make it as best as possible, to have the best outcomes, to have people feel the best they can feel. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Corinne Faza: ⁓ As most people are pretty familiar with, traditional medical cancer treatment is pretty rough on the body. People have a lot of fear around chemotherapy, radiation is no joke. ⁓ So we want to do as much as we can to prepare the body, to help the body as it goes through those more difficult and challenging treatment paradigms. And we really can make a big difference. There are a lot of great tools that really help people get through that. So at Ceri Center, we're open to any care, any diagnosis, anyone with a cancer diagnosis and or their caregivers. ⁓ We know that caregivers can also get sick. The data shows the amount of stress that they carry for long periods of time can really affect their wellness. So we wanna make sure that we're helping caregivers as well. ⁓ And then we offer an array of integrative therapies that have an evidence base in oncology. So things like acupuncture has a very strong evidence base for being supportive. ⁓ Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Corinne Faza: Hypnotherapy, which really helps folks with the head games and all that kind of stuff. Therapeutic massage, which is incredibly important, especially when we start ⁓ compromising the body with the radiation or with surgery and we have scar tissue and lymphatic. And I know Chrissy knows a lot about the lymphatic system and how critically it is to our immune function. so really helping people. there's a lot of, I would say we do a lot of what I call pioneering, where we're working with something with the body that The doctors have said, we don't know what it is. And at Ceres Center, we're gonna work to figure it out, right? We're gonna find somebody, a practitioner somewhere that's gonna help somebody ⁓ understand what's happening in their body and what we can do to help manage whatever that might be. Crissy Florio: Hmm. Yeah. So they have, you know, their specific massage therapists and acupuncture and ⁓ therapists and things like that. And then, like you said, it's kind of expanding their network to other practitioners that if there's something that's coming up that is kind of out of the ordinary or somebody needing something additional, then they can reach out to additional practitioners. And, you know, it's like the additional team, the team just gets bigger and bigger. Corinne Faza: Thank Right, and we maintain a pretty good network of those things because, you know, after 17 years, I've worked really hard to know the community both nationally and internationally in terms of who is doing what around cancer treatment that might be different or something else so that we can help connect people to those resources if that's where they want to go or a direction that they're needing. Crissy Florio: I so wish that I knew about the Sary Center when I was going through my journey, but it was also 2020, which was very, a different time in general, right? But I am so happy that I found them afterwards. And I know I've referred many people over there and just to be able to have the Sary Center and these integrative modalities as an addition to, right? It's not one or the other, it's the- Corinne Faza: Right. It was a different time. was. Crissy Florio: Right. The addition to is what is going to really help people heal through their cancer. And I say this time and time over and over again. We just had that conversation with Chris work about things. I did it in my own journey. There are underlying themes of what is going to help someone heal through their journey and not just like bypass everything, right? Mentally, physically, emotionally, energetically. And so this kind of lends me into you're also a radical remission coach and there's a beautiful book out there. The radical remission. What's the Corinne Faza: The Radical Remission was the first book written in 2014. And then Kelly Turner, Dr. Kelly Turner, who is the author and the one who did the research, initial research, rewrote the book with a co-author, Tracy White, in 2020, came out with Radical Hope. And it's really the same, based on the same research database, it's really just updated data. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. radical hopelessness. Corinne Faza: ⁓ and new patient stories because Kelly's a storyteller and she wants to tell the stories of people who have done well and what are they doing and that's really where the research came from. ⁓ so interestingly too in radical remission, there are nine factors and radical hope there are 10. And that's a really powerful story too, just how that 10th factor got added. But I wanted to say, Kristy, well, hold on. I just wanted to say that one of the things that's really cool about what you did for your process, Crissy Florio: beautiful. So what are some of those? Yeah, yeah. Corinne Faza: is a lot like a lot of radical remission folks that I meet is that you were already doing the integration yourself, right? Like you didn't have the Saree Center, but you knew that you wanted to integrate yoga and meditation and other aspects that really mattered to your healing. And we see that a lot with radical remission that we'll meet a radical mission survivor who didn't have the book, right? They just intuitively chose the things and then they get the book and they tell the story of how Crissy Florio: Yeah. Yeah. Hmm? Corinne Faza: affirming it was, right, to see it as actual research and say, I was doing that anyway, right? I knew. Crissy Florio: Yeah, absolutely. I did the same thing. I read the book and I was like, wow, and I got chills right now. I was like, wow, I did that and I did that. And sometimes I'll look back on my journal when I started chemo and I'm reading what I wrote back then. And wow, I mean, just the mindset, the positivity and not toxic positivity, right? Not just like, ⁓ everything is going to be sunshine and rainbows. I'm fine. No, there were definitely times in my journal where I was like dark and writing things, right? And just getting it out. But how honest I was throughout the journey and how writing it down was like so, so wow, like just great to look back on. But it is affirming that everything that I was doing and everything that when we talked to previous cancer thrivers or... Corinne Faza: Sure. Out. Crissy Florio: Cancer thrivers who we've talked to previously, I should say, all have the same theme, right? Of just, you're gonna have to kind of change your nutrition and diet a little bit, your mindset, ⁓ kind of what you are using for different products, support, right? So what are some of the other ones? Or let's go into, we can even dive into a few that could be helpful for our community. Corinne Faza: Yeah. For sure, you just made me think of a couple of things when you were talking, journaling. Journaling about a stressful experience for 15 minutes will boost your immune function. It's a literal physical way of taking something that's inside of us and putting it outside, writing it down. ⁓ So we're honoring it. We're not pretending it's not there. We're not denying those feelings of fear or frustration or anger or loss. Those are gonna be real, natural, normal human emotions. We just don't wanna... spend too much time hanging out there. But we want to honor that they're there. so journaling is an incredible tool for getting it kind of out of our tissue, out of our body, and ⁓ while still having it. And I love that you went back and look at that and kind of see where, you know, how you've evolved and what made a difference for you at that time. And, ⁓ that made me think of a couple of radical mission factors that I end up talking with people a lot about because I think they fit this perfectly. And that is one is releasing suppressed emotion. And then a second one is promoting positive emotion. ⁓ So that idea of like you were releasing through your journaling, right? There's a lot of ways for us to move emotion through and out of our bodies. ⁓ But I think most importantly too is like recognizing what they are, right? Naming those emotions, honoring that they are normal and okay to have, and then choosing ways to kind of move them through and out, which. Crissy Florio: Hmm. Corinne Faza: can be done with the journaling, can be done with movement, like walking is an excellent way to move emotion through and out of the body. Talking with friends, especially women, talking with other women is a huge tool for releasing ⁓ a lot of those emotions that we have. really looking at what are those emotions that ⁓ are challenging for me or that I'm struggling with and finding ways to release. ⁓ And again, things that people can do for themselves. I've been talking a lot lately, it's been coming up for me, this EFT, you're familiar with, emotional freedom, the tapping solution is a free app. ⁓ there was a recent study that just came out about cancer patients and tapping and how effective it is at releasing some of those negative emotions. I think it's ⁓ really ⁓ cool to look at what are the ways that, because we all do it differently, right? Some of us. Crissy Florio: ⁓ have T emotional freedom technique tapping. Corinne Faza: Some of us will cry and cry hard and long time, right? And other people just don't, right? That's just not the way that they are. So really finding the right tool for each person to help them release those suppressed emotions. And not only the emotions that come up around the cancer diagnosis, but when you look at radical remission survivors, a lot of them will dive into other suppressed emotions like trauma, yeah, childhood trauma or... Crissy Florio: childhood. ⁓ Corinne Faza: You know, any kind of trauma that we know is kind of still resonating inside of us bouncing around and we want to find a way to release it. whether that's working with the counselor, therapist, or again, any of these kind of different tools, we like to share the tools so that people can kind of see, ooh, that tool really appeals for me and I think that'll work well. So helping people see what the choices are around that. ⁓ And then... alternate like the other other piece of the releasing is the promoting of the positive emotions. So things like gratitude journals are a good example that a lot of people resonate with or a gratitude practice of some kind that even on the really hard days, at the end of the day, I'm going to think of at least one thing, ⁓ or three things that I can be grateful for today. And so you know, shifting shifting the emotion to I recognize and honor the hard one. And now I'm to focus on love, joy, gratitude, those Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Corinne Faza: kind of higher resonating emotions that we know will boost immune function. So I think that's one of the cool things about radical remission is ⁓ all of the factors, virtually all the factors have individually been shown to boost immune function. So both releasing suppressed emotion and promoting positive emotion is going to boost immune function. And that's really what we're looking for when we're trying to heal. Crissy Florio: Yeah. definitely raises your energetic vibration as well, you know, and even just affirmations. And I talk a lot about that in the book too, right? Of just like, you know, your mindset can go one way, but how can you catch it in the moment and then redirect it and just notice it, not hold on or attach too much meaning to it, but then start to shift out of it and raise your vibration once again, you know? Yeah. The mind is so powerful. Even Corinne Faza: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Crissy Florio: you know, working in the hospital, the patients that had the better outcome were the more positive patients. Whether it was surgery, they're just, they feel that good energy, right? That radiation towards someone. And the doom and gloomers didn't always have the best outcomes. Corinne Faza: Yeah, it's a lot harder. And part of what we like to do with folks at Sari Center is can we help you shift from the doom and gloom or to the more positive outlook, right? And yeah, and they do, they do. They have to want it. have to be ready. Hypnotherapy is a wonderful tool to help people do that. I'm thinking of ⁓ Rhonda from the Heavy Hour of Hope, Chrissy, who spoke, one of our patients who spoke, and she really started being, she said, I'm a very pessimistic person and I just really was really sort of downtrodden by the whole thing. Crissy Florio: shift, which is probably hard, right? And they have to want it, I would think. ⁓ Yeah. Corinne Faza: started working with the hypnotherapist and some of the other ones on the team. she's, they, her friends started calling her the rock star cause she kind of really just shifted everything. And yeah, she's amazing and went through, you know, bone marrow transplant, which is one of the hardest things you could do medically. But did it with this amazing attitude and she's in remission and doing well and feeling good and living her life, you know, so. Crissy Florio: Yeah, she was so cute. ⁓ Yeah. Sure. Corinne Faza: And it can be hard, right? And so I think the important thing is acknowledging that that is challenging and sometimes we're stuck in a place and we don't know how to shift out. And that's really where I think the multiple different people and different tools and modalities kind of working with you from different angles can really transform people and shift them to a different place. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Yeah, the idea and the concept of change is very difficult for most people. But she is a beautiful example of people can change, you know, just, but people think about changing and it seems overwhelming, right? How can I get from this to there? And they just want to go right there. They don't want to slow down and realize that it's going to take a little time, but Corinne Faza: Thank Crissy Florio: just do one thing at a time. It doesn't have to be this huge change. But we live in a society where everything is instant, instant gratification. Right now, so it's hard. So when something's wrong, you want the pill for the ill, not like this process of changing and stuff. I think that's a hard thing for belittled grads. But I really love, Corinne, how you said, Corinne Faza: Yeah, we want the silver bullet. We want that. in it. Crissy Florio: you know, recognize the suppressed emotions, like feel it, and then appreciate it with, you know, tuning into your positive emotions, right? So that is, again, recognizing it right when it's happening, understanding that it's like, see you, and then, okay, but I'm happy that I just see you, and now I'm going to switch it, right? But being able to understand that there are so many different healing modalities that when we learn them and once we appreciate them and our bodies start to crave them, that's where really the work is. I think that's where, okay, I see you emotion, but you know what? I'm gonna tap it out because I don't wanna feel that, but tapping might feel really good to me or going out for a walk might feel really good to me or maybe just some deep breath work might be feeling really good to me. So it's understanding that there are so many different healing modalities. but you have the capability and the choice to choose, the power to choose which one feels right for you in the moment. It's just right. ⁓ Corinne Faza: Absolutely. And that might change for you too. you might be, one thing works for a while and then it doesn't work so well. But you know, we hear, and I'm sure you hear this a lot, Chrissy, that a lot of people just can't meditate, right? I can't meditate, you know, that kind of thing. And ⁓ of course we'd love to help you learn how to meditate better if that's something you want to do. But if that's not for you, there are lots of other tools, right? So really knowing that the toolbox is vast and ⁓ depending on who you are, if you want to make a change, there are tools that are there to help you do that in different ways. Crissy Florio: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, that's great. Now do you have dieticians there, nutritionists? Corinne Faza: You So I actually do what we call a nutrition and lifestyle consultation. So we have had nutritionists in the past. I am currently offering that service from a health educator angle. So I have studied for almost probably like 30 years, right, nutrition, and particularly nutrition as it relates to oncology. And so what I find is most people are, it's not typically a clinical consult. It's usually more around like, how do I eat? What do I eat? Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Excellent. Mm-hmm. Corinne Faza: Where do I focus my nutrition? And I think like Christy was saying, the peeling the onion, right? It's one thing at a time. And I think that is really helpful coming from a health educator angle. I'm looking more for you to tell me kind of how you're eating now and then how we can make simple shifts and changes to what to make that more anti-cancer and what you're bringing in in a way that works for your lifestyle, right? If I have somebody who sits down in front of me and says, I don't cook. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Corinne Faza: Right? That's a different conversation than the person who is making their own food. Right? So ⁓ meeting people where they're at, right? And seeing what they're doing in their life. And then how can we start to build in anti-cancer habits and foods? Chris Work is a great example. I love Chris and we're friends. We met a few times at the Anteapple Seed Conference. this year I got his cookbook and he has a great, a couple of great recipes that I've really grabbed onto. ⁓ there it goes. Crissy Florio: Okay. That's behind us. have it right there. Corinne Faza: Yeah, so I fell in love with the anti-cancer sprinkle, right? It's such a simple thing, right? It's so simple. I love everything in it, but I don't get those spices as much and as often as I want to. But if I make up a double batch of that, like every day I'm getting a tablespoon or two, about 30 different things. So it's just a really cool, you know, tools. It's always about like the little tips and tools that we can easily build in to our lives. I mean, we all know people's lives are crazy and busy and ⁓ how do we make it Crissy Florio: Yeah, that's ⁓ Right. Corinne Faza: doable and in a way that you can really feel good about the layers that you're able to incorporate. And for me, it's never about like doing a diet or being on a, it's about like, how do I shift my lifestyle to incorporate this habit and this sort of thing that will work for me over time. Crissy Florio: Yeah, and I think that's typically where most people are most successful is when they don't look at it necessarily as a diet. Like I have to make these changes, I have to do this rather than I get to and I can just make these little changes here and there. And then we always know that those little changes turn into bigger changes. And then you start craving some of those foods more and more, right? I crave veggies way more than I crave. meats. And it wasn't easy at first when I went vegetarian right after chemo. I tried to go down that route for a little while. And in the beginning, I was like, I have to eat plant based. I to take out all meat, all dairy. And I was eating like just ravenous with zero joy. There was no joy. I was just cooking and I'm like, OK, I got to throw all the things in it. I don't care what it tastes like. And I'm just going to eat it. So I lost my lust for cooking and for eating. And I got to a point when I was like, I cannot do this. This is not how I want to live. And so I changed my mindset from, I cannot be dieting, quote unquote, but I'm going to listen every day to what feels right for me to eat today. And sometimes if that is chicken, as long as I cook it at home, OK, all right, maybe fine. It's like here and there, right? Corinne Faza: you Crissy Florio: but I crave more of that kind of anti-cancer diet minus pizza. I'll never give up pizza. This is really good vegan pizza. can make you one. there is, but I have an Italian husband. That I'll do, right? Yeah. That I'll do. And I'm never giving up pizza and I'll throw the veggies on there and do all the things. But, know, it's like the 80-20 rule, right? That's something that people can start to bring into their rule. Corinne Faza: You can get like 30 vegetables on top of a pizza. I've learned how to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And I love that. Like I've never get like, one of the things I advise people is like, don't say I'm never eating this again. Right. When we do that psychologically, it just makes us want it more. Right. And it's really more about if it's something, you know, say it's the ice cream, right? A lot of people, it's the ice cream, ⁓ never appealed to me. So I don't struggle with that one, but, ⁓ it's just, you know, can you delay it? Can you skip buying it this week? Can you, you know, have it wait until, and then you wait a few weeks and then when you do have it, it's really great. Right. ⁓ Crissy Florio: lives as well. Right. Corinne Faza: And then maybe those few weeks become months and then you have it once a year or twice a year, you know, and it's, it's, but it's really about that kind of unfolding and listening. And I love what you said about the joy piece because it's not about suffering, right? It's about living in a way that's in tune with our body and our being that feels vibrant. And, ⁓ you know, when you look at vegetables, it's an endless combination of beauty, right? Bountiful, beautiful colors and diversity in colors and the diversity of the colors of those fruits and. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Corinne Faza: and vegetables and plants in general, those are phytonutrients that are giving messaging at the cellular level. So that's why we say eat the rainbow. Eat that rainbow of color, because that rainbow of color is giving your body exactly what it needs to function optimally. ⁓ So the more we can bring in those different plants, that's really going to benefit us ⁓ from the cellular level up for all illness, not just cancer, but heart disease and diabetes and all the things. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. And I will say I was plant-based for a good 24 months. And it is a lot of work. It is a full-time job. But I enjoy it. I enjoy cooking. My grandmother was from Sicily, so I love it. So I want to ask you, though, what do you think if you have a new patient with diagnosis that's looking to try to incorporate other things and they already cook, let's say they already cook, what are your favorite go-tos or what do you think are your most powerful anti-cancer fruits or vegetables that you feel? through your 30 years of nutritional research. That's amazing. I love it. Corinne Faza: ⁓ I can't help but read all the articles and suck in all the things. ⁓ Crissy Florio: So you are talking her language. I think we'd get along. My husband went to the used bookstore and brought me home five books the other day and I was like, yes, now we're speaking my love language. Corinne Faza: Yes, I'm a data gangster of a data gangster, right? I'm all about the data. Like, give me data. Yes, all about the data. So ⁓ yes, it's the way to go, right? Because again, it's like, what's the data show us? It's all there, right? It's all there. ⁓ And I would say that's just a little tangent, like one of my little frustrations is like lifestyle medicine and food data, know, nutrition. Crissy Florio: Yep, evidence-based research. Got to look at that. I love that. Data gangster you. You Right. Yeah. It's all there if you look for it. Corinne Faza: It's been there, it's there. It's like go to any medical library and research it. And yet no one's talking about it, right? We don't talk about it. And we're not bringing it into people's lives. And it blows me away because we know food is medicine. can do phenomenal things inside our bodies if we just kind of focus there. So you asked me about sort of like, how do I focus people in? ⁓ I, yeah, so I'm I'm a big fan of Dr. Joel Fuhrman. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but yeah. So Eat to Live. Crissy Florio: No, and it's been there for so long. Mm-hmm. What are your favorite things to tell people? I love him. My dad lost a lot of weight on that diet and he's amazing. Corinne Faza: He's, I mean, he has been helping people heal from chronic illness for his whole career, 30, whatever, plus four years. And he, you he calls himself a Nutritarian. He's an internal medicine doctor, but he heals people with food. And so he coined an acronym that I just find incredibly helpful for folks called G-BOMBS. And I love the handout he has, because it looks like a rainbow. So it visually gives you the eat the rainbow concept. And G-BOMBS is a way of focusing your food. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Corinne Faza: on a daily basis if you get your G-bombs, you're eating an anti-cancer, anti-chronic disease diet. And G-bombs stands for greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, berries, and seeds. And when I talk to most people, beans and seeds are probably the two things they're least familiar with in terms of knowledge. ⁓ All of them are things that people are not necessarily eating enough in their day to day. But beans and seeds tend to be other things like talk. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Corinne Faza: most about and you ask kind of what sometimes like if I had one piece of advice for a lot of folks, I would say flaxseed, adding flaxseed on a daily, just a tablespoon or two of ground flax is an incredibly anti-cancer. Tons with breast cancer, breast cancer, GYN, I I really, I honestly think any human body can benefit from it, but yeah, particularly breast and some of the women's cancers. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. And there's a lot of good research for breast cancer and flax, tons. ⁓ How much is kind of recommended? Corinne Faza: Like one to two ground tables a day. Freshly ground is the most nutritious. So I buy it as the brown seed. Smoothies are great because it'll blend it or use your coffee grinder to grind it. Yeah, for my seeds. And I love doing, because I do the same thing. ⁓ But what I love about too is like, again, diversity, right? Diversity of plants is where it's at. Crissy Florio: Yeah. And if you, yeah. and then grind it. I have a coffee grinder just for my flax seeds. ⁓ good. OK. All right. I'm such a nerd. You Mm-hmm. Corinne Faza: So in that coffee grinder, might put a tablespoon of flax, a tablespoon of chia, ⁓ and then I'll grind that and then I'll throw that in something like an overnight oats or something and add a tablespoon of hemp hearts, right? And now I'm getting three different types of seeds in one. Mm-hmm, yeah. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I do that a lot in my salads, too. Like, when I make salads, I'll just pour all of that on there, especially the hemp hearts and flax seeds, for sure. But I do, I have noticed that I have to tell patients to go slow with the flax seed, especially if they're not fiber, if they don't eat a lot of fiber in their diet, because a table spoon will tear them up, and then they call me, ⁓ my goodness, something's happening. Well... Corinne Faza: Sure. Sure. ⁓ really? That's interesting. I've never heard anyone talk about being torn up by it. And it might be is it just the blacks or they like now they're doing the greens and everything and it's like more than their body was ready for. Yeah. And beans can do that too, right? I'm always like, tread slowly. Like, I mean, like a tablespoon, like one tablespoon if you're not used to it, right? Start slowly. Crissy Florio: In primary and I'm yeah. Probably, but you know, for... Yeah. ⁓ it really, really can. Yeah, just slowly start. Well, when I was in primary care, yeah, most a lot of people come in and they're eating fast food almost every day. And it's like, okay, we got to just slowly start. And so you implement something healthy into their diet and almost tears them up. Just like if you're eating healthy and you eat a bad meal, you might sit on the toilet for a whole day. Corinne Faza: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. The system needs to get used to it. Right. So we want to, we do want to tread slowly and start. And that's why I like the peeling of the onion. Right. Add one small habit till your body gets adjusted to that. And then add another one, you know, and a little bit at a time. Crissy Florio: So it's like that reverse your whole gut microbiome. ⁓ Yeah. I love it. It's such a... It's doable, right? All of this is doable and that's what we're after. Small little baby steps, add in certain things that feel right to you because when they feel good and you're doing them and you're like in tune with it and connected to doing it, you're gonna do it more, right? Rather than going in kicking and screaming like, ⁓ they told me I can't have meat and now I can only have tofu. Well, that's... Corinne Faza: doable. Crissy Florio: really not doable for a lot of people, know, slowly start to add in the tofu and whatever. Corinne Faza: So true, so true. Yeah, yeah, and I think the fiber conversation is really important. Like we have this national conversation about protein, like just obsessed with the amount of protein we eat, right? And no one's talking about fiber and fiber is utterly critical for a healthy gut microbiome, which is utterly critical for an entire body and an immune system, right? So ⁓ if we like, and I think that's why plant, you know, plant based is so critical is that diversity of plants that gives us that fiber that really Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Corinne Faza: feeds the microbiome in the way it needs to be fed. ⁓ So I think more conversation about the fiber. Right, exactly. More conversation about the fiber. And we know that animals don't, that there is no fiber in there, right? And so if that's all we're eating, we're just not, it's just not enough, right? It's just not enough fiber for what this body is looking for. So increase your fiber, folks. Eat more plants. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm, and keeps your colon clean. Yes, I love it. Mm-mm. There you go. There you go. I know we've had a lot of conversations about that lately. Yeah, and it's there. It's in the research. It is. It is. Corinne Faza: Yeah. Well, and interestingly, ⁓ you said plant-based for a year. And so what I wanted to clarify on that with Marie for people who are listening is when you said that you meant 100 % plant-based for the year, right? So we throw around the term whole food plant-based a lot, right? And the data focuses there, right? When you look at the mounds of research, whole food plant-based keeps rising to the top. But what exactly does whole food plant-based mean, right? So that whole food is really like, Crissy Florio: Oh, 100%. Mm hmm. Yes. Corinne Faza: the food, way it grows, right? As close to that, minimally processed as possible, right? If you could pull it off the tree and eat it, right? That's your whole food. Obviously we cut and chop and cook and do some other things that's like minimal processing, but that's the whole food piece. And then there's the plant-based piece. And I think it's worthy of talking about that because we aren't always talking about 100 % plant-based, right? We're talking about plants as your foundation. And so another tool I like to use is Dr. Andrew Wiles. Crissy Florio: Right. Mm-hmm. Corinne Faza: anti-inflammatory food pyramid. I don't know if you are familiar with that, but he's for many years had this anti-inflammatory food pyramid where you can see like the base of the pyramid is going to be your plants, right? And then you get up the top and there's, you know, one to three a week poultry, eggs, cheese, those kinds of things. It's not off of the pyramid. It's just a much smaller ratio. And so I think, you know, plant-based or plant-slant or plant-forward Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Corinne Faza: is really just saying the bulk of what we do. It doesn't mean that you have to be vegan or vegetarian. Some people choose that, sure. And maybe they choose that for a certain amount of time to accomplish something specific, right? But I think the key is really around being plant-based. Generally, it doesn't mean no animals necessarily, ⁓ but it is that the foundation, the bulk of what you consume are plants, ⁓ but doesn't mean exclusively necessary. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. or plant materials. Corinne Faza: necessarily. Crissy Florio: And going off of that too, the difference between like plant-based or vegan, know, people for the longest time, oh, I'm vegan, but they're off having Oreos or Doritos and right, all of these unhealthy frozen. star burgers that are have, again, a thousand ingredients that you can't pronounce. Right. Sometimes you're better off just eating the meat. Sometimes I do too. Like I do. Corinne Faza: Oh, yes. Yes. Processed, processed. Right. Yeah. And I did that. Yeah, I did that. So am I, I was a vegetarian in my 20s and 30s for about 12 years. And I realized like, towards the end of it, all we were eating was fake stuff, fake fish, fake meat. And I'm like, what are we doing? This is a bunch of like isolated soy product. It's, you know, this really is not healthy and Crissy Florio: Pick me. The new ones are really weird that a red turned brown. What's up with that? Like the burgers, yes, or whatever I was like, it's red, it's turning brown. How's that happening? What chemical is that? I don't think we should be eating it. Corinne Faza: ⁓ you mean the ones that like mimic meats like with the heme product in it? Yeah. Yeah. And some people, you know, yeah, yeah. Why is it doing that? Although I do have to say that preliminary data is showing does show benefit to folks for eating the fo some of the fo meat instead of eating animal products. So someone is dead. Yeah, because I but I get that, you know, I get nervous to buy my god's very, you know, processed and etc. Crissy Florio: ⁓ really? Okay. I'm sure. Mm-hmm. Corinne Faza: But it's very interesting to see that even that is still showing benefit because we're low. I mean, when I look at like the average person that I talk to, their animal proteins up here and their plant foods are down here. And so what I kind of always want to say is just we need to do this. And yes, that's going to be a layer at a time, but we need to really bring down that animal product and up those plant-based products more than anything. Crissy Florio: Even that's better than interesting. Okay. Mm-hmm. All right. That was great. Thank you, Corinne. So much valuable information to everybody. together and share some books and articles. Geek out. My data nerd friends. I love it. And then we'll bring all our recipe books and have a recipe. We should have a recipe night. I'll host it. Let's have a cookbook night. Corinne Faza: Thank you guys. ⁓ I would love that. would love that. Yes, data gangsters. I love it. Yes. Yes. And I would say that's the other thing that I've just like my, my realization is like, there's so many little tips and tricks that like open up worlds. ⁓ For example, we're working with an integrative doctor who's really phenomenal and she's a culinary medicine, she's board certified culinary medicine and Crissy Florio: Yeah. Corinne Faza: little things that she introduces just like blow my mind, right? So like the meal prep jars, right? Like the meal prep jars changed our lives in my house, like just changed everything. Like I've looked at them for years, I've thought about it. But even just like the salad jar, in my mind, you could only make a salad in it, right? Like I have my own like box I made of like, it's for a salad and she just throws out, but you can throw it in the saucepan when you get home from work and saute it. Crissy Florio: Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Corinne Faza: It's so simple, right? But I had never even occurred to me, it changed everything, because I don't really make salad in a jar, but I'll make a stir fry with all this stuff, with 30 different vegetables, and then I can help from working in five minutes, it's ready, because I just throw it in the pan. But I hadn't thought of it, right? So it's all those little tips and tricks. Chris's anti-cancer sprinkle, right? All the little things that help us build it in and make it easier for everyone to do. Crissy Florio: Yeah. I love it. Mm-hmm. Little things. Like as Ann Asselton always talks about the sauce. We love the sauce. Like make some good tahini and throw it on those roasted veggies and it's amazing. Yeah. You girls are making me hungry. together. I'm so glad I'm fasting right now. ⁓ This is lovely. Yeah. Yeah. Corinne Faza: the sauce. it's all in the sauce. Yes. ⁓ definitely or avocado crema. ⁓ Yes. That's right. You're doing well afterward when you're done with that. Wonderful. Yes, so nice. Crissy Florio: Yes. ⁓ Well, Corinne, this was fabulous. think that you gave our community a whole lot of amazing tips and tools and broke down some things and helped open their eyes to some things as well as mine. Thank you so much for being a part of our family now. Thanks, Corinne. Definitely. We'll definitely have you back on. I love you. Thank you so much. All right. Corinne Faza: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was wonderful. I look forward to hanging out more. Awesome. And I love you too. Thank you guys so much. Cheers to a couple of wellness. To a couple of wellness. All right.