This is Let's be clear with Shannon Dorny. Hello, let's be clear. Family, It's Samantha Harris here. Some of you might be familiar with me from my eight seasons hosting Dancing with the Stars, or many years as an anchor and correspondent for Entertainment Tonight and Extra, and of course for most of my professional life, I was always interviewing other people. I've been passionate about sharing the stories of so many through my career. I'm a journalist at heart, and that's what I love to do. And this is going to be a little bit different because today with you, I'm going to be sharing a little bit of my story, but even more importantly, I'm going to share things that I have learned that can help you to elevate your wellness, to ignite your healthiest healthy life possible, and especially after a health setback, how to come back even more resilient and energized. So I'll take you back to twenty fourteen. I was at the height of my career. I had had four Emmy nominations. I'd start on Broadway in the Broadway Show Chicago. I had two little girls with my amazing husband. My girls were three and six at the time, and I was really living the little Minnesota girl who wanted a life in Hollywood dream where I didn't think my career could get any better or that my life could get any better. I was literally the picture of health. I mean to the point that you guys, I was on over ten different magazine covers, from four appearances on Muscle and Fitness hers to Shape magazine and Women's Running and beyond. And I prided myself so much on the fact that here I was hustling and bustling with this intense and very demanding career, juggling my family, my household, and was able to stay in shape and look good and be on the cover of all these magazines. And then I was blindsided. I was blindsided in twenty fourteen by a breast cancer diagnosis. You were all very familiar because of the beautiful work that Shannon Dougherty has done here and let's be clear and well beyond, and I'm so sad that I'm sitting here and Shannon is not. I want to just jump for a second to a wonderful opportunity that I had to spend with Shannon when I was the MC for an American Cancer Society event, Shannon was in the midst of her treatment, and yet, like the consummate professional and beauty that she always was from inside and out, she showed up on that red car and to support this event and the work of the American Cancer Society. She had been going through her treatments, and she was wearing a headscarf, and there she was smiling ear to ear with a glisten in her eye. And for me, at that time, it was many years after my breast cancer diagnosis, I was thriving. I was feeling energized. I had taken hold of what had taken away my feeling of control, and I had taken back my power. And here was Shannon dealing with such an advanced stage of breast cancer and going through the thick of it. And yet and yet here she was on the red carpet, helping others and helping to try to find a cure. And I just wanted to make sure that for those of you who have been dedicated listeners of Shannon here on the podcast passed, or of course big fans of hers from her television career, people always thought I was Brenda Walsh because I was the Minnesota girl for real, and I used to love watching her on Nina two one l and to see her journey and her legacy that she now leaves behind with let's speak clear and well beyond. So here I was back again. Now I'm back in time to twenty fourteen, blindsided by this breast cancer diagnosis. And here you got to have to tell you the craziest part. I was about to turn forty. My girls again, were three and six. My dad lost my dad to colon cancer when he was just fifty and fifty when I was sitting here from the viewpoint of forty didn't look that far off, and I thought, oh my gosh, I can't believe how young my dad was. And his mom was a breast cancer survivor lived to ninety five, and yet cancer was in my family. My girls were young, and I thought, you know, I should really set a baseline. I should get that mammogram thing. So I went and I got the boob squished, and they looked at everything and they said it's clear, all good. And then eleven days after this clear mammogram, everything is good. I was changing after a workout and I found a lump. Now I didn't think for a second it was cancer. I mean again, I just had a clear mammogram. I'm as fit and healthy as I have ever been. But you know, I'll still call my obgyn because she's the only doctor who did a clinical breast exam every year, and I'll just have her take a look. And she felt it. She said, ah, Samantha, it's nothing. Don't you worry about it. You're turning forty. We have lumpy breasts. Our breast like to make lumps. I wouldn't worry about it. And she sent me on my way. And then a month later, that pesky lump was still there, and I thought, well, you know, it's not cancer, so I shouldn't really worry, but I'll still go get a second opinion. And I went to my interness quick clinical exam, felt the breast, said it was nothing, sent me on my way. Now four months passed from finding that lump after the workout, and that lump was just rearing its head and it was there and it was sizey. I said to my husband, you can see it, right, He said, yeah, I can see it. So I said, you know, I should probably look to a doctor whose profession and expertise is looking at breasts every day as their specialty. So I found my way too, what else an oncology clinic, because only breast oncologists look at breasts every day. Again, not thinking I had cancer, Nothing gave me worry, nothing pointed me into that direction. But I still wanted more tests, more diagnostics. So that breast oncologist did a needle biopsy, a couple of m an MRI, a couple of ultrasounds. Again said it's not cancer. So when the needo bibes your results came back and said, well, good news, it's not cancer. Bad news is I don't know what it is. So you know what, Samantha, let's just take it out. And I thought, well, fine, my boobs did what they needed to do. They got me, my husband, and they breasted my kids, So take it out.

This is Let's be clear with Shannon Dorny. Hello, let's be clear. Family, It's Samantha Harris here. Some of you might be familiar with me from my eight seasons hosting Dancing with the Stars, or many years as an anchor and correspondent for Entertainment Tonight and Extra, and of course for most of my professional life, I was always interviewing other people. I've been passionate about sharing the stories of so many through my career. I'm a journalist at heart, and that's what I love to do. And this is going to be a little bit different because today with you, I'm going to be sharing a little bit of my story, but even more importantly, I'm going to share things that I have learned that can help you to elevate your wellness, to ignite your healthiest healthy life possible, and especially after a health setback, how to come back even more resilient and energized. So I'll take you back to twenty fourteen. I was at the height of my career. I had had four Emmy nominations. I'd start on Broadway in the Broadway Show Chicago. I had two little girls with my amazing husband. My girls were three and six at the time, and I was really living the little Minnesota girl who wanted a life in Hollywood dream where I didn't think my career could get any better or that my life could get any better. I was literally the picture of health. I mean to the point that you guys, I was on over ten different magazine covers, from four appearances on Muscle and Fitness hers to Shape magazine and Women's Running and beyond. And I prided myself so much on the fact that here I was hustling and bustling with this intense and very demanding career, juggling my family, my household, and was able to stay in shape and look good and be on the cover of all these magazines. And then I was blindsided. I was blindsided in twenty fourteen by a breast cancer diagnosis. You were all very familiar because of the beautiful work that Shannon Dougherty has done here and let's be clear and well beyond, and I'm so sad that I'm sitting here and Shannon is not. I want to just jump for a second to a wonderful opportunity that I had to spend with Shannon when I was the MC for an American Cancer Society event, Shannon was in the midst of her treatment, and yet, like the consummate professional and beauty that she always was from inside and out, she showed up on that red car and to support this event and the work of the American Cancer Society. She had been going through her treatments, and she was wearing a headscarf, and there she was smiling ear to ear with a glisten in her eye. And for me, at that time, it was many years after my breast cancer diagnosis, I was thriving. I was feeling energized. I had taken hold of what had taken away my feeling of control, and I had taken back my power. And here was Shannon dealing with such an advanced stage of breast cancer and going through the thick of it. And yet and yet here she was on the red carpet, helping others and helping to try to find a cure. And I just wanted to make sure that for those of you who have been dedicated listeners of Shannon here on the podcast passed, or of course big fans of hers from her television career, people always thought I was Brenda Walsh because I was the Minnesota girl for real, and I used to love watching her on Nina two one l and to see her journey and her legacy that she now leaves behind with let's speak clear and well beyond. So here I was back again. Now I'm back in time to twenty fourteen, blindsided by this breast cancer diagnosis. And here you got to have to tell you the craziest part. I was about to turn forty. My girls again, were three and six. My dad lost my dad to colon cancer when he was just fifty and fifty when I was sitting here from the viewpoint of forty didn't look that far off, and I thought, oh my gosh, I can't believe how young my dad was. And his mom was a breast cancer survivor lived to ninety five, and yet cancer was in my family. My girls were young, and I thought, you know, I should really set a baseline. I should get that mammogram thing. So I went and I got the boob squished, and they looked at everything and they said it's clear, all good. And then eleven days after this clear mammogram, everything is good. I was changing after a workout and I found a lump. Now I didn't think for a second it was cancer. I mean again, I just had a clear mammogram. I'm as fit and healthy as I have ever been. But you know, I'll still call my obgyn because she's the only doctor who did a clinical breast exam every year, and I'll just have her take a look. And she felt it. She said, ah, Samantha, it's nothing. Don't you worry about it. You're turning forty. We have lumpy breasts. Our breast like to make lumps. I wouldn't worry about it. And she sent me on my way. And then a month later, that pesky lump was still there, and I thought, well, you know, it's not cancer, so I shouldn't really worry, but I'll still go get a second opinion. And I went to my interness quick clinical exam, felt the breast, said it was nothing, sent me on my way. Now four months passed from finding that lump after the workout, and that lump was just rearing its head and it was there and it was sizey. I said to my husband, you can see it, right, He said, yeah, I can see it. So I said, you know, I should probably look to a doctor whose profession and expertise is looking at breasts every day as their specialty. So I found my way too, what else an oncology clinic, because only breast oncologists look at breasts every day. Again, not thinking I had cancer, Nothing gave me worry, nothing pointed me into that direction. But I still wanted more tests, more diagnostics. So that breast oncologist did a needle biopsy, a couple of m an MRI, a couple of ultrasounds. Again said it's not cancer. So when the needo bibes your results came back and said, well, good news, it's not cancer. Bad news is I don't know what it is. So you know what, Samantha, let's just take it out. And I thought, well, fine, my boobs did what they needed to do. They got me, my husband, and they breasted my kids, So take it out.

And we did.

And we did.

And a week later I went back to my final results again, expecting to hear the same thing, no cancer. And that's when I found out that I had ductal carcinoma in situ as well as invasive ductal carcinoma, which is invasive breast cancer. And my world came to a sudden stop. We felt like the walls were crashing around me. I crumbled into my husband's arms, who held me, and we cried and then we got up again. This story that I'm sharing isn't one of heartbreak and devastation. This is a story of enlightenment and empowerment and thrivership. And I finally had this wake up call that I didn't realize I needed. So let me fast forward. After many oncologists visits and trying to figure out what my action plan was, I opted for a double mestectomy with two stage reconstruction. I was on an estrogen blocker for seven and a half years. I opted not to do chemo and radiation. That's a story for another time, but here's where the turn came. I am a journalist by training, and when I got my hereditary tests back the genetic testing, I found out that I had no link genetically. And it was this aha moment of learning through my research that only five to ten percent, only five to ten percent of breast cancers are genetics, and that actually the pretty similar statistic for most cancers out there. If you are listening and you have someone in your family within another kind of cancer, so what gives? Why are one and a win in diagnosed with invasive breast cancer over the course of their lifetime, and I dug into that research even more to find out why. And what I learned is that it is what we put in on and around our bodies that affect our overall well being, that turn on or leave off certain genetics switches in our body that lead to cancer or not. So think of our DNA and our genetics as the loaded gun. But it's the epigenetics how our lifestyle, choices an environment are affecting us that actually fire that gun. So what could I do? How could I change what was going on in my life? This life I thought was very healthy. But what could I do a chance to change? I started to assess. I started to assess, Okay, well, let's look at food. I eat a group of Minnesota eating practically every part of the cow from literally tongue to almost tail. So how does meat and animal product affect our genetics? And how does that affect cancer? I read the China study from front to back and many other books after that. I learned that when we eat a lot of animal meat, as I was, seven meals, sorry, twenty one meals out of twenty one, you know, so three times a day's times seven meal days a week, that's twenty one meals. I was eating twenty one out of twenty one meals of animal protein. Well, when we have a high intake of animal protein, it leads to high levels of IGF one that's insulin like growth factor one, which we know promotes cancer. So okay, perhaps I could start to reduce my animal intake. Maybe I'm eating too much junk and sugar and process because guess what I grew up in the nineties, the low fat fat free generation and hey, hello hyghertosed corn syrup as long as it didn't have fat red Die forty. These are known you know, red Di forty and known carcinogen. So snack well sandwich cookies, low fat fat free red vines, high fertoast corncer red Die forty. All these things that I thought I was doing to make good, healthy choices for my body were actually potentially slowly destroying my body. And so I started to re arrange my plate so rather than meat front and center, that became sort of a side dish, and then eventually kind of went away almost altogether. And then it became how can I get more fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and lagoons and beans, more plant based foods into my life. Can I slip that plate and make veggies the center star of the show. And that really was a huge change, because what I found was when I started to change how I was eating less and ideally none of the low fat, fat free junk, processed packaged and more of the nutrient dense good foods that were really helping my body have what it needed to thrive. I started to have even and I know this is gonna be shocking for a lot of you because I've noticed the energizer bunny, but I actually started to have even more energy. I could go from seven in the morning till ten thirty at night, even with driving around the kids and running to my shoots and doing all the other things I needed to do, without feeling like I needed that afternoon nap, or without feeling like when I was putting the kids to sleep, I had to fall asleep too because I was so exhausted. I could stay up after I put the kids to bed with my husband and actually enjoy some time awake with him, watching our shows or having good conversation. So I had this newfound energy that was so amazing that I didn't even know I needed, and yet was just within reach all that time, and I didn't know it either. So then that was the food component. Then it was another big component. Well, what am I putting on my body? All right?

And a week later I went back to my final results again, expecting to hear the same thing, no cancer. And that's when I found out that I had ductal carcinoma in situ as well as invasive ductal carcinoma, which is invasive breast cancer. And my world came to a sudden stop. We felt like the walls were crashing around me. I crumbled into my husband's arms, who held me, and we cried and then we got up again. This story that I'm sharing isn't one of heartbreak and devastation. This is a story of enlightenment and empowerment and thrivership. And I finally had this wake up call that I didn't realize I needed. So let me fast forward. After many oncologists visits and trying to figure out what my action plan was, I opted for a double mestectomy with two stage reconstruction. I was on an estrogen blocker for seven and a half years. I opted not to do chemo and radiation. That's a story for another time, but here's where the turn came. I am a journalist by training, and when I got my hereditary tests back the genetic testing, I found out that I had no link genetically. And it was this aha moment of learning through my research that only five to ten percent, only five to ten percent of breast cancers are genetics, and that actually the pretty similar statistic for most cancers out there. If you are listening and you have someone in your family within another kind of cancer, so what gives? Why are one and a win in diagnosed with invasive breast cancer over the course of their lifetime, and I dug into that research even more to find out why. And what I learned is that it is what we put in on and around our bodies that affect our overall well being, that turn on or leave off certain genetics switches in our body that lead to cancer or not. So think of our DNA and our genetics as the loaded gun. But it's the epigenetics how our lifestyle, choices an environment are affecting us that actually fire that gun. So what could I do? How could I change what was going on in my life? This life I thought was very healthy. But what could I do a chance to change? I started to assess. I started to assess, Okay, well, let's look at food. I eat a group of Minnesota eating practically every part of the cow from literally tongue to almost tail. So how does meat and animal product affect our genetics? And how does that affect cancer? I read the China study from front to back and many other books after that. I learned that when we eat a lot of animal meat, as I was, seven meals, sorry, twenty one meals out of twenty one, you know, so three times a day's times seven meal days a week, that's twenty one meals. I was eating twenty one out of twenty one meals of animal protein. Well, when we have a high intake of animal protein, it leads to high levels of IGF one that's insulin like growth factor one, which we know promotes cancer. So okay, perhaps I could start to reduce my animal intake. Maybe I'm eating too much junk and sugar and process because guess what I grew up in the nineties, the low fat fat free generation and hey, hello hyghertosed corn syrup as long as it didn't have fat red Die forty. These are known you know, red Di forty and known carcinogen. So snack well sandwich cookies, low fat fat free red vines, high fertoast corncer red Die forty. All these things that I thought I was doing to make good, healthy choices for my body were actually potentially slowly destroying my body. And so I started to re arrange my plate so rather than meat front and center, that became sort of a side dish, and then eventually kind of went away almost altogether. And then it became how can I get more fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and lagoons and beans, more plant based foods into my life. Can I slip that plate and make veggies the center star of the show. And that really was a huge change, because what I found was when I started to change how I was eating less and ideally none of the low fat, fat free junk, processed packaged and more of the nutrient dense good foods that were really helping my body have what it needed to thrive. I started to have even and I know this is gonna be shocking for a lot of you because I've noticed the energizer bunny, but I actually started to have even more energy. I could go from seven in the morning till ten thirty at night, even with driving around the kids and running to my shoots and doing all the other things I needed to do, without feeling like I needed that afternoon nap, or without feeling like when I was putting the kids to sleep, I had to fall asleep too because I was so exhausted. I could stay up after I put the kids to bed with my husband and actually enjoy some time awake with him, watching our shows or having good conversation. So I had this newfound energy that was so amazing that I didn't even know I needed, and yet was just within reach all that time, and I didn't know it either. So then that was the food component. Then it was another big component. Well, what am I putting on my body? All right?

You guys?

You guys?

I spent my career in a makeup chair, slacked with these chemical bombs of little to my knowledge at the time, possible carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. Those messed with your hormones. And I had a hormone positive breast cancer as eighty percent of breast cancers are endo constructors, carcinogens, neurotoxins right, leading to dementia and Alzheimer's potentially leading to some autoimmune disorders. So what can I do to change what I was putting on my body? Okay? So I started kind of an overhaul, and back in twenty fourteen, we didn't have a lot of really good brands that carried products that not just looked like they you know, the ingredients looked good, but products that actually did the job right. I wanted something that could stay under you know, hot lights on a set for a twelve hour day, or if I wasn't shooting or for moms out there or career women who are working. You know, from the morning to the night. You want to be able to slap on your makeup and have that last all day long and look awesome. But you don't want to suffer with the possible other side of it, which means that these chemicals are leading into your body as you're beautifying yourself up. So how could I change up my beauty routine? So I started to slowly swap for cleaner products. And now than goodness, there are so many more clean products out there. And the fact actually I was shooting a game show. I did sixty five episodes, six episodes a day, and we were working for about twelve hour days under long you know these long days, hot lights. And so this is you know, after cancer, many years after. This is just recently, and I said to my team, Okay, girls, they've been with me forever. They're really good friends of mine, my makeup and hair girls. And I said, you guys, can we kind of can I task you with it something? I want you to only bring hair and makeup products and skincare into this makeup room that reach my really high standard of having no toxic ingredients, and so they reached out to different brands who are generous enough to kind of gift us some options to try. We had a budget for the show, so we purchased lots of items and we tried. So I have this vetted list of clean beauty and actually, anyone listening who wants it, just send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook at Samantha Harris TV. Like television at Samantha Harras TV. Send me a DM that just is clean beauty, and I will send you the free guide. I think it's really important for us all to know that there are really great alternatives from a variety of brands, and then of course you need to try them for yourself to see what works best for your skin type and for your level of absorption. I tend to like suck makeup in very quickly on my skin, and the same thing with my skincare. I want great anti aging skincare, but I don't want the toxins. So this has been a long process over all of these years of finding and trying, and so that was really cleaning up the toxins in my beauty routine. And then what about what's around us, So I also had to go, Okay, sure, cleaning supplies, I need to do a little bit of an overhaul on that, and I actually have those also some suggestions on my Clean Beauty Guide. But then also other toxins around us, like toxic people. Who are those people in your life, whether they're daily interactions or occasional interactions or family members who are stressing you out, who are creating that high level of cortisol in your body, which is the stress hormone that we need to thrive as humans, but we don't need it to be constant chronic. So how can we reduce that level of stress in our lives from people who are toxic to us? And also how can we add more stress bussing techniques into our life. So when I was diagnosed and I was so overwhelmed and so scared, and I didn't know how I was going to get up to even go dress my kids and feed them, let alone take care of myself. I had the happy, go lucky person that I was just sort of shot out of me, just crushed with that diagnosis in twenty fourteen, and I had to realize from within that that wasn't how I could continue to feel, and I needed a solution to get around that. And this is something that can help you all. If you're going through a stressed you know there's a health diagnosis, it's something going on with your career, just the daily stress that we are living and breathing. How can you mitigate that? So I all of a sudden have this wake up call to myself. Within this wake up call of cancer, I can't feel like this. The adrenaline an anxiety that I feel coursing through my blood is horrible. And I don't want to live like this while I'm living and trying to figure out how to thrive with cancer and hopefully after cancer. So I slowly started to integrate some breathing techniques. I started to learn to do positive self talk, which is a huge tool that I use. So that looks like in this example, Samantha, you have cancer. Okay, well what's good about that? Well, you have great health insurance. Okay, well that's good. That's really good. What else, Well, you know, Sma, you have a really great support squad around you. Okay, that's really great. What else is good? Well, this is positive here? Okay, other positive self talk? Oh you know what you're in really good shape and great health otherwise, So that's going to help you to mitigate any sort of setbacks during surgery or recovery. Okay, I love it. Keep going. And so as you start to have this positive self talk, it ends up feeding on itself in the best of ways to help you reduce that stress and bring down that cortisol. And then the other really helpful positivity tool that I used is to control what you can control, and worry when you have to worry. So there are so many things that we worry about all day long that never come to fruition, thank goodness, but yet we're consumed with worrying about them nonetheless. So it definitely means we have to take a moment of mindfulness. That means, Okay, I I feel myself worrying. I'm worrying a ton. I noticed myself worrying. Are these things that I really do need to worry about right now? Or can I put them on the back burner or can I completely just say, you know what, this isn't even an issue and then worry about it when you have to worry. So flash forward to the midst of twenty twenty and the pandemic and everything going on, and lots of stress for all of us anyway, and I noticed that the lymph nodes in my growing were very large, and I got immediately scared because I thought, of course, cancer's right, just it's on my shoulder and it comes to rear its head the second you feel something is wrong. And I thought, oh my gosh, God forbid, my cancer has metastasized. And I realized I was so worried that those lymph nodes were cancer again. And I found the anxiety and the high levels of cortisol and stress surging my body, and I reminded myself to worry when I have to worry, But now I can control what I can control. What can I control. I can pick up the phone, I can call my oncologists office, explain what's going on and get the proper diagnostics. So I had a CT scan and thank goodness, it was just I have oddly large lymph nodes, and for whatever reason, they happened to just be more obvious to me in that moment when I discovered them. So worry when you have to worry, and control what you can control. The enlightenment that I had after discovering that we can really level lot what we're doing in our health and wellness to take even better control of our lives. I thought I was living my healthy life, and then I realized I needed to live my healthiest healthy life. And so all the research that I found, I decided I needed to compile into one book because no other book seemed to be out there that had this as sort of a foundation and a jumping off point of what you can do to, you know, just reduce the risk of the toxins to take even better control of your health after cancer or any other type of diagnosis. And so I wrote the book, Your Healthiest Healthy, and I was honored because, you know, the Hollywood community, who had been people I'd been interviewing for so long, came out in support of it. You know, Chris Jenner and Christina Appligate both wrote endorsements and have quotes on the book. And it debuted as a number one best seller on Amazon. But why the book meant something to me because, by the way, you don't make any money from books, So I sure as heck was not writing a book to make any money. And even if you go out and buy one right now, I will not see a scent of it, and that is okay, because all that I care is that the information is out for you to empower yourself to take the insights that I have learned that I continue to share in my Instagram and in my wellness community and on my retreats and all the other fun stuff that I get to do to share with you, because there are so many ways that you can empower yourself to take your health back, to be your own best health advocate. Being faced in twenty fourteen with a cancer diagnosis and a double mis deckt tomy and three surgeries, three recoveries was something that I never thought that I would have to go through again. After going through everything that I did go through, and I made all of these sweeping changes, and then just a few days before the passing of our beautiful Shannon, I remember so vividly and it hit me so hard when the news headline said that Shannon Dougherty had succumbed to breast cancer, because just a few days before that, in twenty twenty four I found out I had a breast cancer recurrence. I was definitely not ready for that. I never wanted to see cancer in my life. Again for me or for any of my loved ones after having I've gone through it with my dad and then for my own journey, and now I had teenage girls who are thirteen and sixteen, a whole completely different type of conversation, and the hardest moment was telling our girls that their mommy had cancer again. But I this time came at it from a place of empowerment and knowledge because of the work that I have done. I went back to school after my diagnosis, and after my book came out, I went back to school to become a certified health coach. I'd been a certified trainer for decades, and I really wanted to lean even more into the education behind the wellness that I loved so much and wanted to share. So now I had interviewed because of Your Healthiest Healthy podcast, I had interviewed over two hundred experts, and I had a wonderful group of on call religious and functional medicine docs who I can immediately pick up the phone and call to get insight and then share with people what this looked like the second time around, and how to help deal with it if that ever happened. I want to just pause for a moment. If you have had a double mestectomy, the likelihood of a recurrence is very very low. It's uncanny that I got it, but I did. I had that recurrence, but it's only a five percent chance of recurrence. Why did I have a recurrence, Well, the recurrence happened exactly in the same location as the first time around, and just like the first time around in twenty fourteen, in twenty twenty four yet again I found the lump, which is my big PSA moment. Ladies, know your breasts, know your body. Notice changes, whether it's a breast lump, a pain in your stomach, a mole, it looks different. If you don't take the time to understand what your body normal is, then it's going to be near impossible to notice if there is a change. So I found a very very tiny love I mean so tiny that the ultrasound text could barely find it. The first three surgeons I saw, a two surgeon and my medical oncologists who felt it could barely even feel it, and I had to really show them where it was. They didn't even know how I found it. So, you know, really making sure that your body is exercising daily, moving daily, know your body aim to be at an ideal weight, especially for all of the health markers that an ideal body weight helped reduce the risk of from type two diabetes, to heart disease, which is still the number one killer of women, to breast cancer. And then also the closer you are to an ideal body weight, better able you are to feel or see when something is different, when it's not all hidden under the layers. So I think that made a big difference, right, especially the changes that I made in my diet. So when I changed to more whole food, plant based or plant forward diet, my body actually changed in a way that really I was already muscular, but it sort of narrowed out in a way that allowed me to, I think, feel this tiny little lump and it was right again where my initial breast cancer was. So what we have learned in my many doctors now who have I've met with, from the surgery that I had to take that lump out to the second stage of reconstruction surgery that I did yet again a year of more surgeries I never wanted to go through. But what we learned is that it was very likely residual breast cells that were the cancer cells that were left over from the mestectomy. Again, only a five percent chance of that happening. So please, if you're listening and going, I'm so fearful. Now, remember every breast cancer is very unique. Every person is very unique. So even with for instance, our blood sugar, something really important for us to keep an eye on. And if you have an opportunity to grab from a prescription from your doctor for a continual glucose monitor, or you can use one of the many different companies out there that offer a subscription based continual glucose monitor, and you can always reach out to me. I have lists of all the things that I love and have tried, and discount codes and fun stuff like that. But what I love about a continual glue coost monitor is it gives us real time data as to what our blood sugar is doing. And we know that blood sugar when it's dysregulated and it's our insulin sensitivity has actually turned to insulin resistance. I mean it takes a lot more insulin to pump out in order to bring that blood sugar down. After a surge from foods write a lot of carbs, sugars, refined foods that can actually lead also to so many breast cancer diagnoses and even pcos and other conditions and diseases out there. So keeping your blood sugar under control is a really important step. And so when I went more plant based whole foods, I was immediately getting the nutrient density, the nutrition my body was craving, which allowed me to actually have fewer cravings for all the other types of foods out there that were junk. And I'm not saying I don't love my French fries and I'm not saying I don't still have dessert with the kids or cookie or have a little sweet every night, but I try to opt for maybe dark chocolate, seventy percent cacao, something that's a little bit healthier, it has some polythemals and good stuff in it, and then of course balance out with the occasional yummy deliciousness each week.

I spent my career in a makeup chair, slacked with these chemical bombs of little to my knowledge at the time, possible carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. Those messed with your hormones. And I had a hormone positive breast cancer as eighty percent of breast cancers are endo constructors, carcinogens, neurotoxins right, leading to dementia and Alzheimer's potentially leading to some autoimmune disorders. So what can I do to change what I was putting on my body? Okay? So I started kind of an overhaul, and back in twenty fourteen, we didn't have a lot of really good brands that carried products that not just looked like they you know, the ingredients looked good, but products that actually did the job right. I wanted something that could stay under you know, hot lights on a set for a twelve hour day, or if I wasn't shooting or for moms out there or career women who are working. You know, from the morning to the night. You want to be able to slap on your makeup and have that last all day long and look awesome. But you don't want to suffer with the possible other side of it, which means that these chemicals are leading into your body as you're beautifying yourself up. So how could I change up my beauty routine? So I started to slowly swap for cleaner products. And now than goodness, there are so many more clean products out there. And the fact actually I was shooting a game show. I did sixty five episodes, six episodes a day, and we were working for about twelve hour days under long you know these long days, hot lights. And so this is you know, after cancer, many years after. This is just recently, and I said to my team, Okay, girls, they've been with me forever. They're really good friends of mine, my makeup and hair girls. And I said, you guys, can we kind of can I task you with it something? I want you to only bring hair and makeup products and skincare into this makeup room that reach my really high standard of having no toxic ingredients, and so they reached out to different brands who are generous enough to kind of gift us some options to try. We had a budget for the show, so we purchased lots of items and we tried. So I have this vetted list of clean beauty and actually, anyone listening who wants it, just send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook at Samantha Harris TV. Like television at Samantha Harras TV. Send me a DM that just is clean beauty, and I will send you the free guide. I think it's really important for us all to know that there are really great alternatives from a variety of brands, and then of course you need to try them for yourself to see what works best for your skin type and for your level of absorption. I tend to like suck makeup in very quickly on my skin, and the same thing with my skincare. I want great anti aging skincare, but I don't want the toxins. So this has been a long process over all of these years of finding and trying, and so that was really cleaning up the toxins in my beauty routine. And then what about what's around us, So I also had to go, Okay, sure, cleaning supplies, I need to do a little bit of an overhaul on that, and I actually have those also some suggestions on my Clean Beauty Guide. But then also other toxins around us, like toxic people. Who are those people in your life, whether they're daily interactions or occasional interactions or family members who are stressing you out, who are creating that high level of cortisol in your body, which is the stress hormone that we need to thrive as humans, but we don't need it to be constant chronic. So how can we reduce that level of stress in our lives from people who are toxic to us? And also how can we add more stress bussing techniques into our life. So when I was diagnosed and I was so overwhelmed and so scared, and I didn't know how I was going to get up to even go dress my kids and feed them, let alone take care of myself. I had the happy, go lucky person that I was just sort of shot out of me, just crushed with that diagnosis in twenty fourteen, and I had to realize from within that that wasn't how I could continue to feel, and I needed a solution to get around that. And this is something that can help you all. If you're going through a stressed you know there's a health diagnosis, it's something going on with your career, just the daily stress that we are living and breathing. How can you mitigate that? So I all of a sudden have this wake up call to myself. Within this wake up call of cancer, I can't feel like this. The adrenaline an anxiety that I feel coursing through my blood is horrible. And I don't want to live like this while I'm living and trying to figure out how to thrive with cancer and hopefully after cancer. So I slowly started to integrate some breathing techniques. I started to learn to do positive self talk, which is a huge tool that I use. So that looks like in this example, Samantha, you have cancer. Okay, well what's good about that? Well, you have great health insurance. Okay, well that's good. That's really good. What else, Well, you know, Sma, you have a really great support squad around you. Okay, that's really great. What else is good? Well, this is positive here? Okay, other positive self talk? Oh you know what you're in really good shape and great health otherwise, So that's going to help you to mitigate any sort of setbacks during surgery or recovery. Okay, I love it. Keep going. And so as you start to have this positive self talk, it ends up feeding on itself in the best of ways to help you reduce that stress and bring down that cortisol. And then the other really helpful positivity tool that I used is to control what you can control, and worry when you have to worry. So there are so many things that we worry about all day long that never come to fruition, thank goodness, but yet we're consumed with worrying about them nonetheless. So it definitely means we have to take a moment of mindfulness. That means, Okay, I I feel myself worrying. I'm worrying a ton. I noticed myself worrying. Are these things that I really do need to worry about right now? Or can I put them on the back burner or can I completely just say, you know what, this isn't even an issue and then worry about it when you have to worry. So flash forward to the midst of twenty twenty and the pandemic and everything going on, and lots of stress for all of us anyway, and I noticed that the lymph nodes in my growing were very large, and I got immediately scared because I thought, of course, cancer's right, just it's on my shoulder and it comes to rear its head the second you feel something is wrong. And I thought, oh my gosh, God forbid, my cancer has metastasized. And I realized I was so worried that those lymph nodes were cancer again. And I found the anxiety and the high levels of cortisol and stress surging my body, and I reminded myself to worry when I have to worry, But now I can control what I can control. What can I control. I can pick up the phone, I can call my oncologists office, explain what's going on and get the proper diagnostics. So I had a CT scan and thank goodness, it was just I have oddly large lymph nodes, and for whatever reason, they happened to just be more obvious to me in that moment when I discovered them. So worry when you have to worry, and control what you can control. The enlightenment that I had after discovering that we can really level lot what we're doing in our health and wellness to take even better control of our lives. I thought I was living my healthy life, and then I realized I needed to live my healthiest healthy life. And so all the research that I found, I decided I needed to compile into one book because no other book seemed to be out there that had this as sort of a foundation and a jumping off point of what you can do to, you know, just reduce the risk of the toxins to take even better control of your health after cancer or any other type of diagnosis. And so I wrote the book, Your Healthiest Healthy, and I was honored because, you know, the Hollywood community, who had been people I'd been interviewing for so long, came out in support of it. You know, Chris Jenner and Christina Appligate both wrote endorsements and have quotes on the book. And it debuted as a number one best seller on Amazon. But why the book meant something to me because, by the way, you don't make any money from books, So I sure as heck was not writing a book to make any money. And even if you go out and buy one right now, I will not see a scent of it, and that is okay, because all that I care is that the information is out for you to empower yourself to take the insights that I have learned that I continue to share in my Instagram and in my wellness community and on my retreats and all the other fun stuff that I get to do to share with you, because there are so many ways that you can empower yourself to take your health back, to be your own best health advocate. Being faced in twenty fourteen with a cancer diagnosis and a double mis deckt tomy and three surgeries, three recoveries was something that I never thought that I would have to go through again. After going through everything that I did go through, and I made all of these sweeping changes, and then just a few days before the passing of our beautiful Shannon, I remember so vividly and it hit me so hard when the news headline said that Shannon Dougherty had succumbed to breast cancer, because just a few days before that, in twenty twenty four I found out I had a breast cancer recurrence. I was definitely not ready for that. I never wanted to see cancer in my life. Again for me or for any of my loved ones after having I've gone through it with my dad and then for my own journey, and now I had teenage girls who are thirteen and sixteen, a whole completely different type of conversation, and the hardest moment was telling our girls that their mommy had cancer again. But I this time came at it from a place of empowerment and knowledge because of the work that I have done. I went back to school after my diagnosis, and after my book came out, I went back to school to become a certified health coach. I'd been a certified trainer for decades, and I really wanted to lean even more into the education behind the wellness that I loved so much and wanted to share. So now I had interviewed because of Your Healthiest Healthy podcast, I had interviewed over two hundred experts, and I had a wonderful group of on call religious and functional medicine docs who I can immediately pick up the phone and call to get insight and then share with people what this looked like the second time around, and how to help deal with it if that ever happened. I want to just pause for a moment. If you have had a double mestectomy, the likelihood of a recurrence is very very low. It's uncanny that I got it, but I did. I had that recurrence, but it's only a five percent chance of recurrence. Why did I have a recurrence, Well, the recurrence happened exactly in the same location as the first time around, and just like the first time around in twenty fourteen, in twenty twenty four yet again I found the lump, which is my big PSA moment. Ladies, know your breasts, know your body. Notice changes, whether it's a breast lump, a pain in your stomach, a mole, it looks different. If you don't take the time to understand what your body normal is, then it's going to be near impossible to notice if there is a change. So I found a very very tiny love I mean so tiny that the ultrasound text could barely find it. The first three surgeons I saw, a two surgeon and my medical oncologists who felt it could barely even feel it, and I had to really show them where it was. They didn't even know how I found it. So, you know, really making sure that your body is exercising daily, moving daily, know your body aim to be at an ideal weight, especially for all of the health markers that an ideal body weight helped reduce the risk of from type two diabetes, to heart disease, which is still the number one killer of women, to breast cancer. And then also the closer you are to an ideal body weight, better able you are to feel or see when something is different, when it's not all hidden under the layers. So I think that made a big difference, right, especially the changes that I made in my diet. So when I changed to more whole food, plant based or plant forward diet, my body actually changed in a way that really I was already muscular, but it sort of narrowed out in a way that allowed me to, I think, feel this tiny little lump and it was right again where my initial breast cancer was. So what we have learned in my many doctors now who have I've met with, from the surgery that I had to take that lump out to the second stage of reconstruction surgery that I did yet again a year of more surgeries I never wanted to go through. But what we learned is that it was very likely residual breast cells that were the cancer cells that were left over from the mestectomy. Again, only a five percent chance of that happening. So please, if you're listening and going, I'm so fearful. Now, remember every breast cancer is very unique. Every person is very unique. So even with for instance, our blood sugar, something really important for us to keep an eye on. And if you have an opportunity to grab from a prescription from your doctor for a continual glucose monitor, or you can use one of the many different companies out there that offer a subscription based continual glucose monitor, and you can always reach out to me. I have lists of all the things that I love and have tried, and discount codes and fun stuff like that. But what I love about a continual glue coost monitor is it gives us real time data as to what our blood sugar is doing. And we know that blood sugar when it's dysregulated and it's our insulin sensitivity has actually turned to insulin resistance. I mean it takes a lot more insulin to pump out in order to bring that blood sugar down. After a surge from foods write a lot of carbs, sugars, refined foods that can actually lead also to so many breast cancer diagnoses and even pcos and other conditions and diseases out there. So keeping your blood sugar under control is a really important step. And so when I went more plant based whole foods, I was immediately getting the nutrient density, the nutrition my body was craving, which allowed me to actually have fewer cravings for all the other types of foods out there that were junk. And I'm not saying I don't love my French fries and I'm not saying I don't still have dessert with the kids or cookie or have a little sweet every night, but I try to opt for maybe dark chocolate, seventy percent cacao, something that's a little bit healthier, it has some polythemals and good stuff in it, and then of course balance out with the occasional yummy deliciousness each week.

Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know, are you a Charlotte? In nineteen ninety seven, my life was forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte Yorke on a new HBO show called Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in New York City. The show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now I want to connect with you and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes together with special guests. What will begin with sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. Are You a Charlotte is a much more than just rewatching our beloved show. It brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor, and of course some optimism. Listen to Are You a Show Charlotte on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know, are you a Charlotte? In nineteen ninety seven, my life was forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte Yorke on a new HBO show called Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in New York City. The show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now I want to connect with you and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes together with special guests. What will begin with sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. Are You a Charlotte is a much more than just rewatching our beloved show. It brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor, and of course some optimism. Listen to Are You a Show Charlotte on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

There are so many things that you can do to become empowered. But I also want to remind you it doesn't have to be a one to eighty overnight, small manageable steps. It's really part of being your healthiest healthy is making those changes, but incrementally because you want to make a change that's going to stick, right, It's like why flat diets don't stick. When people go on some extreme diet of any sort to try to lose weight, they usually gain the weight back. Well, the same thing goes with even little habits. So for instance, if you're saying, okay, well I'd like to start to change how I'm eating, well, how about before you do away with any particular food, just start to sit down every meal and every snack and say, how can I get more veggies into this meal? How can I get more color and variety of plant based foods into this meal. Then look at the packages, read the ingredients labels, both in what you're putting on your body as well as what you're putting in your body. So a simple example for a small step when it comes to food, turn those packages around. In anything that has high fructose corn syrup, I want to encourage you to ditch because the thing is you're not going to notice that it's gone, because there are a lot of wonderful options out there that won't change the flavor that will still give you. We're not talking about cutting out less sugar or less meat or any of that. We're just saying get rid of hypertois corn syrup and make a swap for a product that doesn't have that. Later on you can level up again. If you love blueberries, maybe start to get organic blueberries, and if you're having organic blueberries, you can level up to wild organic blueberries. Simple small steps when it comes to your makeup or your skincare. One simple ingredient to make sure that you avoid parabins. Another one, fragrant. Fragrance is a catch all. So because it's proprietary, the brands don't even have to put all the different ingredients that are in that fragrance, which by the way, can be up to about two hundred different ingredients just in that fragrance that is now added to whatever product you're using on your body. And fragrance, according to the Environmental Working Group EWG dot org, a wonderful resource. They give a great rating on products and ingredients a one to ten, one being super super clean and green, ten being red stoplight. Don't use well. Fragrance is a nine so unless the company that you are using that product from discloses what's in the fragrance. So a fragrance made up of organic essential oils totally fine. Go for it, and there are lots of great options out there. But just start ditch the things out have paramans. I was shocked by the way when I first started with that, how many of the products in my makeup bad and my skincare drawer had pair bins known carcinogen and a credisruptor. Just stop it now and then level up so many small steps. If you are not moving your body every single day, don't go try to run a marathon. Just commit every day to work to walk. Just commit every day to walk for five minutes or twice a week to get a twenty minute workout in something small. And if you set the bar low. This is something I tell your healthiest healthy community. Quite often we're in this world where we feel like we have to set the bar so high. Go strive, do do the person next to you stay out later, work longer? No, No, no, I'm going to just flip that on its head right now, and I'm telling you to set the bar low. Here's what I need. If you say we'll use the workout example. If you say, as a couch potato who hasn't worked out since fifth grade pe class, I'm going to start to work out every day for thirty minutes. I'm going to tell you right now, it's not gonna happen. Or maybe you do and you're great for a month and then you're done. Okay, So set the bar up. If you have not worked out since fifth grade pe class, say I'm going to work out for ten minutes three times a week. I'm going to work out five days a week for five minutes, whatever it is. Because when you achieve that five minute mark or that ten minute mark, your cells in your body hear and feel I did it, I achieved the goal. But if you set a goal for five days a week for thirty minutes and you do five days a week for twenty minutes, all your body will hear and your cells and literally your insides will only hear failure, failure. You didn't do what you said. So that is my small step encouragement. Set the bar low. So if you want to change up your food in your house, maybe turn around those packages throughout the high fruit post coin syrup. Perhaps throw out anything that is overly packaged, or anything that has seed oils, sunflower oil, safflower oil. Right, we know that these are challenging for our bodies. Our bodies weren't made to process all the junk that we're processing. I love sharing with you. I know I can go on for hours on all of this I do on my podcast, and I do throughout your Healthiest Healthy Community and my Instagram and Facebook, so many other things to be able to share with you, and I love sharing. So if you guys have questions, also, please do not hesitate to send me a DM because I love to share and I do love to answer and get back to as many of you as I possibly can. I would like to say that if you're taking any message from this today, as you've been listening, I want you to be an advocate for your own health. If something has changed, listen to your body and go seek out an expert who is the best expert in that area. If you need a second opinion, I would encourage you to get a second and even a third opinion, especially if it's something serious, and know your body better than anyone, because when you walk into that doctor's office, I'm going to tell you, no doctor is going to know your body as well as you know it. No one's going to notice the changes as well as you who looks in the mirror every single day. I appreciate you for listening I appreciate you for just allowing me the space to come on and share on Let's be clear, and I just I can't tell you how grateful I am to Shannon that she started this platform and her memory will continue to live on here and let's be clear, and in everyone's heart, whoever was a fan of Shannon Doherty, I hope that you will continue to reach out to me, follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Samantha Harris TV, like television Samantha Harris TV, and then you can check out my podcast and book, both titled Your Healthiest Healthy. I'll see you soon.

There are so many things that you can do to become empowered. But I also want to remind you it doesn't have to be a one to eighty overnight, small manageable steps. It's really part of being your healthiest healthy is making those changes, but incrementally because you want to make a change that's going to stick, right, It's like why flat diets don't stick. When people go on some extreme diet of any sort to try to lose weight, they usually gain the weight back. Well, the same thing goes with even little habits. So for instance, if you're saying, okay, well I'd like to start to change how I'm eating, well, how about before you do away with any particular food, just start to sit down every meal and every snack and say, how can I get more veggies into this meal? How can I get more color and variety of plant based foods into this meal. Then look at the packages, read the ingredients labels, both in what you're putting on your body as well as what you're putting in your body. So a simple example for a small step when it comes to food, turn those packages around. In anything that has high fructose corn syrup, I want to encourage you to ditch because the thing is you're not going to notice that it's gone, because there are a lot of wonderful options out there that won't change the flavor that will still give you. We're not talking about cutting out less sugar or less meat or any of that. We're just saying get rid of hypertois corn syrup and make a swap for a product that doesn't have that. Later on you can level up again. If you love blueberries, maybe start to get organic blueberries, and if you're having organic blueberries, you can level up to wild organic blueberries. Simple small steps when it comes to your makeup or your skincare. One simple ingredient to make sure that you avoid parabins. Another one, fragrant. Fragrance is a catch all. So because it's proprietary, the brands don't even have to put all the different ingredients that are in that fragrance, which by the way, can be up to about two hundred different ingredients just in that fragrance that is now added to whatever product you're using on your body. And fragrance, according to the Environmental Working Group EWG dot org, a wonderful resource. They give a great rating on products and ingredients a one to ten, one being super super clean and green, ten being red stoplight. Don't use well. Fragrance is a nine so unless the company that you are using that product from discloses what's in the fragrance. So a fragrance made up of organic essential oils totally fine. Go for it, and there are lots of great options out there. But just start ditch the things out have paramans. I was shocked by the way when I first started with that, how many of the products in my makeup bad and my skincare drawer had pair bins known carcinogen and a credisruptor. Just stop it now and then level up so many small steps. If you are not moving your body every single day, don't go try to run a marathon. Just commit every day to work to walk. Just commit every day to walk for five minutes or twice a week to get a twenty minute workout in something small. And if you set the bar low. This is something I tell your healthiest healthy community. Quite often we're in this world where we feel like we have to set the bar so high. Go strive, do do the person next to you stay out later, work longer? No, No, no, I'm going to just flip that on its head right now, and I'm telling you to set the bar low. Here's what I need. If you say we'll use the workout example. If you say, as a couch potato who hasn't worked out since fifth grade pe class, I'm going to start to work out every day for thirty minutes. I'm going to tell you right now, it's not gonna happen. Or maybe you do and you're great for a month and then you're done. Okay, So set the bar up. If you have not worked out since fifth grade pe class, say I'm going to work out for ten minutes three times a week. I'm going to work out five days a week for five minutes, whatever it is. Because when you achieve that five minute mark or that ten minute mark, your cells in your body hear and feel I did it, I achieved the goal. But if you set a goal for five days a week for thirty minutes and you do five days a week for twenty minutes, all your body will hear and your cells and literally your insides will only hear failure, failure. You didn't do what you said. So that is my small step encouragement. Set the bar low. So if you want to change up your food in your house, maybe turn around those packages throughout the high fruit post coin syrup. Perhaps throw out anything that is overly packaged, or anything that has seed oils, sunflower oil, safflower oil. Right, we know that these are challenging for our bodies. Our bodies weren't made to process all the junk that we're processing. I love sharing with you. I know I can go on for hours on all of this I do on my podcast, and I do throughout your Healthiest Healthy Community and my Instagram and Facebook, so many other things to be able to share with you, and I love sharing. So if you guys have questions, also, please do not hesitate to send me a DM because I love to share and I do love to answer and get back to as many of you as I possibly can. I would like to say that if you're taking any message from this today, as you've been listening, I want you to be an advocate for your own health. If something has changed, listen to your body and go seek out an expert who is the best expert in that area. If you need a second opinion, I would encourage you to get a second and even a third opinion, especially if it's something serious, and know your body better than anyone, because when you walk into that doctor's office, I'm going to tell you, no doctor is going to know your body as well as you know it. No one's going to notice the changes as well as you who looks in the mirror every single day. I appreciate you for listening I appreciate you for just allowing me the space to come on and share on Let's be clear, and I just I can't tell you how grateful I am to Shannon that she started this platform and her memory will continue to live on here and let's be clear, and in everyone's heart, whoever was a fan of Shannon Doherty, I hope that you will continue to reach out to me, follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Samantha Harris TV, like television Samantha Harris TV, and then you can check out my podcast and book, both titled Your Healthiest Healthy. I'll see you soon.