Bernadette Bohan’s The Choice: The Programme: The simple health plan that saved Bernadette’s life – and could help save yours too. Bernadette Bohan

Juicing fruit and vegetables on a daily basis

      

Introducing powerful foods to my diet daily

      

Cleaning the water coming into my home

      

Switching to safe personal care products.

      These changes are simple and easy to implement if you have the motivation to do so. The benefits for me were many and helped me to recover from chemotherapy and radiation cancer treatments. For me the motivation was easy to understand: when diagnosed with cancer for a second time I wanted to find how to treat the cause of the disease and not just the symptoms. I discovered that nutrition plays a big part in combating the effects of degenerative diseases that affect so many of us. Never underestimate the value of good food – it can do more than sustain life! All research, to the highest level of biochemistry, exemplifies the benefits of maintaining health rather than waiting until we have a problem that needs to be fixed.

      Nowadays many of us eat for comfort, and believe me I’m all for a bit of comfort, especially living in a cold damp climate like Ireland! There is nothing nicer than a warm soup or a hot dinner on a cold wet windy day, but our bodies have certain requirements that demand we also eat for nourishment. When we meet these requirements we get the body’s defence mechanisms functioning properly and achieve optimal health.

      We can readily accept that machines need oil, fuel and water to run smoothly and to prevent them from breaking down. Likewise it is imperative that we supply the correct fuel to our bodies.

      I was touched and impressed with an e-mail I recently received from a 13-year-old girl who, having read my first book The Choice, decided that she was going to try to look after her health a little better. This young girl is not much older than my own daughter Julie. She is not suffering from any ill-health and yet has the foresight, common sense and responsibility to want to take care of her health at this young age.

      For me, healthy eating has become a great pleasure and has opened up many new tastes and ideas. These simple practical changes are easy to implement in day-to-day life no matter how busy you are, to help you improve your health. Ask yourself:

      

How often have you stood in the supermarket and wondered what you could buy for yourself and your family that was healthy and did not take hours to prepare?

      

Have you ever visited a healthfoods store and wanted to buy some wholefoods but you were not quite sure how to prepare them?

      Believe me, I know exactly where you’re coming from. I now find that having opened up my diet to a much greater variety of foods, many of the foods I used to like now taste rather bland.

      My experience has shown me that many of us have become collectors of information. Yet very often we are not prepared to put this information into practice. Remember that actions speak louder than words, and if diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, as I was on two occasions, you no longer have the luxury of time and you soon learn to focus on the job in hand. If only we could use our natural instincts and a little common sense to eat the foods that make us feel good, many of our health problems would disappear.

      This is not rocket science – so my method is to keep it simple and JUST DO IT.

      You too can also do it!

       My Story

       I was so determined in my quest to beat cancer that I immediately set about making some changes.

       Whatever the outcome was to be, I was not about to sit around and wait until I got to the point of no return. I had to find a way to help myself.

       A Food-fight for Life

       When diagnosed with cancer I thought ‘Why Me?’…Well, why not me?

      I thought that I had been leading a fairly healthy life. I ate fruit and vegetables every day and I did not overindulge in treats or junk. OK, I’ll admit I had a glass of red wine in the evening, but wasn’t that meant to be good for me? And yet here I was – facing cancer for a second time round. How could this be happening to me?

      My story is in no way unique, nor is it a story of doom and gloom. On the contrary, it is simply the story of an ordinary mother who tried to take responsibility and reshape the life that she so desperately wanted to hold on to. Rather than resigning myself to my fate, I luckily came to realize that where there’s a will there’s a way.

      Eighteen years ago, when I was 33 years of age and married with two small children, I developed cancer of the lymph system. I was pregnant at the time and subsequently lost my baby. I was advised by doctors not to have any more children, as it might well have been the pregnancy hormones that triggered the cancer. At that stage I took the medical advice and treatment and did as I was told. I went home with armfuls of drugs and felt completely helpless.

      After seven years free of cancer I believed that I was cured…I made the choice to have another baby. It dawned on me that in the eyes of the medical profession I may have appeared irresponsible, but for me it was a compulsion stronger than sense. I knew I was rocking the boat and that it could well work out to be a reckless decision, possibly jeopardizing my comfortable existence with my two children and husband Ger. The longing for another baby, however, was so deep and instinctive that I decided to take that chance. After all, life is for living, and where would we be in life if we never took any risks?

      Unlike my other pregnancies there was no rush of congratulations – it was like I had been selfish and reckless in my decision. My oncologist had been telling me for many years to put the thought of another child out of my mind and that I was better off than most other people as I already had a boy and a girl. Thankfully for us this was one piece of advice I didn’t listen to, and the decision turned out to be a blessing. My third child Julie, the joy of all our lives, was born safe and sound. The happy times and everyday dramas of motherhood took over, and concerns about cancer receded into the background of my family life. But, like the predator it is, the cancer was merely biding its time.

      Here was I, 12 years after the first time, and the cancer had now returned in my breast. I can still remember back to that first time when my son Richard was seven and my daughter Sarah was only four years old. How frightening it was then, as a young mother looking at my beautiful children, to face the possibility that I might not live to see them grow up! With the same disbelief I experienced on that occasion, I could not believe that I was back in this situation again. Julie was now five, and it was like history repeating itself – déjà vu! What had I done to deserve this disease a second time? This was too cruel for one person in one lifetime! If only I’d had the foresight in the first place to learn how to prevent it!

      It was then that I decided to get to the bottom of the problem and educate myself. I had to find a way to fight back. By examining the fundamental role of nutrition and diet, I discovered they had a huge role to play in combating the effects of this cruel and frightening disease – a disease which is now affecting one in three women and one in two men in the world today. A number of questions stood at the forefront of my mind: