When I Started Loving My Body and Stopped Putting Junk Into It

In my past blogs, I’ve talked a lot about how I changed my eating habits after I got sick in 2022. Growing up, I ate and drank whatever I wanted. Calories didn’t matter because we were always naturally thin. But after watching my mom fight cancer for years—and taking more chemotherapy than doctors said 90% of people could even tolerate—I started to question everything we put into our bodies, but never fully made a change until it was my health that came into question.

Even in her final days, my mom still craved cheeseburgers, chips, and pizza. And who was I to say no? But I couldn’t shake what I had witnessed—how chemo, meant to kill cancer cells, also poisoned the whole body in the process. Then if you add in radiation too, not only are all bad cells killed, but it also kills off all of the good cells in those specific areas. For years, I told friends, If I ever get cancer, there’s no way I’m doing chemo or radiation. I’ve seen what it does. There’s got to be a better way.

But when I was diagnosed, reality hit. The traditional treatment plan was surgery, radiation, and chemo—just like my mom’s. I was torn. Could I really go against what doctors were telling me? So I started digging.

Exploring Holistic Healing

I reached out to friends who had beaten cancer without traditional medicine. One, a close friend of my father’s, had battled cancer three times over 20 years and was still thriving—all without chemo or radiation. I got her on the phone, and we talked for an hour. She opened my eyes to alternative approaches, ones that honestly made me skeptical. But the proof was in her survival.

Determined to learn more, I spent days searching for holistic practitioners. After countless phone calls, I found Dr. Mindi Salvino at Pure Health Collective in Jenks, Oklahoma. She specialized in biofrequency testing, which measures imbalances in the body—nutrient deficiencies, allergens, even emotional stressors.

Since she is one of the few in the area who practices alternative medicine, she is not easy to get into. When I finally got in to see her, everything changed. My thought process changed. I came in weak, stressed, and defeated, but months later, came out a new woman. Better than before.

The tests revealed things I never knew about my body: allergies; such as that I was allergic to mosquitoes, nicotine, and chemical solvents. Foods my body needs to avoid; such as halibut, cinnamon, corn, dairy, and others. It also pinpointed some emotional stressing factors; fearing the worst, stage fright, inability to share feelings, unable to live up to all of the expectations, etc.  It was overwhelming but also empowering. I realized I had more control over my health than I ever thought possible. In just one meeting, I had learned more about my body and myself, than all of my years. 

From there, I consulted with multiple nutritionists. Could I really heal with food? With breathing differently? With finding self-love and what makes the body happy? With all these nontraditional methods people swear by? I didn’t know. But I decided to take the best of both worlds—combining holistic healing with traditional medicine.

My Decision to Undergo Chemo and Radiation

At this point, I had already undergone two surgeries. My first was a cold knife cone biopsy to remove the cervical cancer, which we had hoped originally would be all that was needed. When that didn’t fully work, I had a radical hysterectomy—which removed my cervix, fallopian tubes, and uterus. Fortunately, I was able to keep my ovaries, just in case I wanted to explore surrogate fertility options later. 

After six grueling weeks of recovery, I got the call—the one I wasn’t expecting or even thinking about at this point. I was still adjusting to the fact that having my own children was no longer feasible. But then my pathology report showed cancer cells still remained. Chemo and radiation were now strongly recommended.

I struggled with this decision. Big time. It went against everything I had hoped to avoid. But after deep reflection, I realized that sometimes, we have to use every tool available to us—even the ones we fear.

So I did it. I went through six rounds of chemotherapy and 28 rounds of radiation—and let me tell you, it was brutal. 

One of the daily struggles for me with radiation treatment is that you must drink at least 64 ounces of water beforehand and time it out perfectly for the moment you go in for the 30 minutes of radiation. If your bladder isn’t full, it shifts during treatment, exposing it to harmful radiation. I can’t count how many times the doctor’s office was running behind or I mistimed my bathroom breaks and was holding tight with everything I had on that radiation table… just counting the seconds and the ticking of the machine until I could break free to a restroom. Radiation was conducted 5 days a week, so this was my morning ritual. Wake up, pray, drink water, get treated, head to work appointments, do yoga, and then journal at the end of the day. I now can see the positives of these weird experiences, such as now I drink more water! 

And chemo? It did what I feared—it killed my ovaries.

Even though I had kept them after surgery, chemo took away my ability to ever have children. That loss hit me harder than I expected. My entire reproductive system was gone.

There’s no way to prepare for that kind of grief. But I had to keep going.

My New Approach to Health

When I received the dreaded call about needing chemo and radiation, I vowed to make a change. I had somehow hurt my body enough over the years, that it was not able to fight off these bad cells and they had grown inside me. Our bodies are amazing and are constantly fighting off bad cells. I believe strongly now, that if you don’t give your body what it needs, just like feeding a plant, it cannot properly do its job…like a machine. So that day, I made a vow to myself, to never go back to the unhealthy living I had been living for so many years. Those life-changing steps I took looked like this:

I changed what I put into my body.
I changed my habits.
I changed my mindset.

Cutting Out Toxic Foods

Here’s where I started—and where you can, too:

✅ Cut out fast food. No more Taco Bueno twice a week (my guilty pleasure) or cheeseburgers on the go.
✅ Eliminate sodas with high fructose corn syrup. I switched to Zevia (a natural alternative).
✅ Stop eating processed meats. No more deli meats, sausages, or anything loaded with preservatives.
✅ Go organic. I stopped buying the cheapest options and started investing in quality, pesticide-free, antibiotic-free foods.
✅ Drink 64 oz. of water daily. (This was life-changing—my skin and energy levels improved instantly.)
✅ Limit dairy. Most people are lactose intolerant and don’t even know it. I switched to almond and oat milk and kept cheese to a minimum.

 ✅ Limit beef & pork. I started eating only grass-fed beef with little to no antibiotics. 

✅ Limit vices. I used to enjoy a smoke here and there with buddies. I decided I’d had my fun and quit smoking cold turkey that day. 

But if you love cheese, some options are easier on the body!

Best Cheeses for Low Lactose

If you have trouble digesting dairy but don’t want to give up cheese entirely, these are your best choices:

✅ Goat cheese – Naturally lower in lactose and easier to digest
✅ Parmesan – Aged for long periods, which breaks down most of the lactose
✅ Cheddar – The older, the better (aged cheddar has very little lactose)
✅ Swiss cheese – Low in lactose, plus packed with probiotics

Hungryroot: My Secret Weapon

One of the biggest challenges of eating clean in the Midwest is finding quality, organic, and unprocessed food. It’s not like living on the West Coast where every grocery store has endless healthy options. Here, you have to dig—and often, what you need just isn’t available.

That’s why I started using Hungryroot.

Hungryroot is a grocery delivery service, but it’s not just a meal kit—it curates food based on your dietary preferences. You fill out a quiz about what you like, what you avoid (for me, that meant no processed junk), and how much food you need, and they send organic, high-quality groceries and meal kits right to your door.

What I love about Hungryroot:

✅ The food is fresh and clean. No weird preservatives or artificial ingredients.
✅ It’s convenient. Great meals just show up including all groceries & quick recipes.
✅ It’s flexible. You can skip weeks, adjust your plan, and change your preferences anytime.

I don’t know if I’d be able to maintain this lifestyle as easily without it.

Journaling and Yoga: Healing My Mind and Body

Nutrition was a game-changer, but healing my mind and emotions was just as important.

Every day, I started journaling—writing out my feelings, my fears, and everything I was experiencing. It helped me process the loss of my fertility, my changing body, and the exhaustion from treatment.

I also started doing yoga daily. My body had been through so much—surgery, chemo, radiation. I needed to restore my strength, flexibility, and most of all, inner peace. Motion is lotion. And I needed to keep my body moving to ensure I got back to my old self.

Yoga became my therapy. Some days, I could barely move. But even simple breathing exercises and light stretching helped me reconnect with my body after everything it had endured.

Prioritizing the People You Love

Health isn’t just about food—it’s about mental well-being, too. And lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we prioritize work over people.

A friend of mine and I constantly talked about getting her sailboat out on the lake after they fixed it up. But work kept us busy. Plans never got made. She sometimes stayed home, and I knew she was feeling down—but I never imagined the depth of it.

Now, she’s gone.

This isn’t the first time I’ve lost a friend to suicide. It’s not even the second. Four of my friends have taken their lives, and I can name at least two this year who I kept meaning to make plans with—but never did. And now, I can’t.

We must make time for what matters.

Final Thoughts

The Best Part? How I Feel Now

I don’t feel bloated.
My skin looks better than it did 10 years ago.
I have more energy than I ever imagined possible.

I wake up feeling lighter, stronger, and healthier. It’s crazy how much of a difference food makes.

If you’ve been thinking about making changes to your diet, start small. Swap out the processed junk. Drink more water. Try cleaner alternatives.

It’s not about perfection—it’s about fueling your body with what it needs.

Changing my diet changed my life. But changing my priorities made me realize what’s truly important—health, happiness, and the people we love.

If you’re thinking about making changes, just start somewhere. Small steps matter. You can take back control of your health.

And please—don’t wait until it’s too late to spend time with the people who matter most. Or to love yourself and your body. We only have one life and one body.

With love,
Tiffany