Developing a Healthy Perspective to Beat Cancer w/Fitz Koehler

They came over and they said oh, your hair is so cool, I love that. You shaved your head and you know, do you model? And I was like what, are you like a fashion model? And I said no, I have cancer. And they were tired, weary, frustrated. J. Rosemarie: 0:21

What would you be doing if you weren't raising children alone? What's stopping you from living your best life? Now, on Solar Mom's Talk, I discuss with Solar Mothers the challenges you face raising children alone. So if you're a working Solar Mom dealing with independent children, insensitive bosses, weight and health issues or even debt collectors, join us as we discover your path to get and stay healthy, increase your income and live with joy and purpose. This battle of life, it's hard to keep your head above the water. So when this fire, my guest today is fitness expert Fitzkohler sorry. Author of multiple books, including the cancer comeback series. Welcome, fitz. Fitz Koehler: 1:30Thanks, jen. How are you doing? I'm good, it's good to have you back again. Yeah, I appreciate you bringing me back on your show. You're still going so strong. J. Rosemarie: 1:40Yes, yes, so I'm having fun with it. So, yeah, I know a little bit about you, and so those are all the insight things, but tell us what you've been up to. The last time we talked about your journey as cancer survivor and the cancer comeback series, your book. What have you been up to? Tell us about you first of, all Thanks. Fitz Koehler: 2:08So it's been about two years. We talked right after I finished chemo. In my book, my Noisy Cancer Comeback Came Out and that was a huge success and I've been able to help so many cancer patients and survivors, which has meant a lot to me. I have been very busy. I made my very healthy cancer comeback after finishing treatment a little bit of a. A little more than a year after finishing chemo I ran the Boston Marathon, which was a great triumph for me, and my business is booming. I'm back announcing races all around the country about 30, 40 a year, which is spectacular and doing lots of keynotes. And now I have two more books coming out in January 23. The first one is your healthy cancer comeback Sick to Strong, which is a guidebook for cancer patients and survivors to build their body back up, to dig their way out of that hole that cancer puts you in, because cancer treatment and cancer self pretty brutal. So I'm helping my fellow patients and survivors go from sick to strong. And then it comes with a companion journal, the healthy cancer comeback journal. So I've been working very hard on those things and it's so inspiring I always have so many people that are going through it. Reach out to me for noisy, and I've made so many friends and the one thing that's missing out there is support for people who have been beaten up by cancer to get back in the game and get their health back. So that's what I've been up to. J. Rosemarie: 3:40Yes, thank you for sharing and I am impressed by your energy. I was the first time and I didn't mention that, and I lost my cousin this year to cancer, so sorry and I couldn't talk to her because I had spoken to you and several other people. But I'm very encouraged that you are spreading this message that cancer is not a death sentence, because I think sometimes we take it as that right. Fitz Koehler: 4:10Well, yeah, I mean, when I was diagnosed, I instantly thought, oh my gosh, I'm not going to see my kids grow up. I mean, that's the real fear. Right, it's one thing for me to lose my life, but what I was losing was their lives my witnessing my being a part of their lives. So yeah, cancer is terrifying rightfully so. But boy, do we have so much more control than we believe. And so it starts off by being aggressive with your own body. You got to go for all of those annual exams. You're at prostate, you're breast, your skin, you're a gynecological exam. You got to go. When they say come every year or every five years, you got to make it happen. And then you got to take your hands and put on your stuff. You got to squeeze your stuff. You got to look at your body. You know, when our check engine light comes on in the car, we take our car to the mechanic. We don't mess around with our car. That might be expensive. Well, let me tell you, stage four cancer is way more expensive than stage one. So let's nip things in the bud, let's be responsible for ourselves. And then the other thing we can do to invest in ourselves is take care of our health. You know, healthy habits eating, exercise, quality sleep, stress management they can help prevent cancer. But if you get it anyways, those same four things eating, exercise, sleep, stress management can help increase your chances of remission, prevent the spread of cancer and decrease your chances of having the cancer return. So we have so much more power than most people believe. We just got to start executing it. That would be. I truly believe that's how to eradicate cancer is we just start being diligent about our health. J. Rosemarie: 5:47Yes, yes, for sure, that is absolutely correct, all right, so so I wanted to ask you because I read something on your website Okay, yeah, and you said this mission is to tack, 10 years on, to everyone's life. Yeah, she come everyone's life, she comes across, yeah. Fitz Koehler: 6:14Everyone, everyone, everyone. J. Rosemarie: 6:17So that's my question. Fitz Koehler: 6:19

Everyone. So it's interesting to me, as you know some of our country, our world, is so polarized. Yeah, I want everyone to eat healthier. I want everyone to exercise their bodies. I want the radical Democrats to do it, I want the Republicans to do it. I want everyone in the middle, I want the horrible terrorist people out in the Middle East. I want them to exercise and eat right because maybe if they start taking care of themselves they might have a deeper appreciation for life. And they want they don't want to suicide bomb, you know. I think exercise and eating right and mental health, you know, all of it breeds so much goodness. So, yeah, when I show up on a microphone, when I show up on a stage or I put my pen to paper writing something, it is with the direct intention of helping you make the changes in your life to not only live longer those 10 years, but to make those 10 years really good. Because who wants to live to be 95 if you're stuck in bed and you can't have any fun? J. Rosemarie: 7:19Yeah, amen to that. So all right. So tell us about your. Well, briefly, tell us about your first book, the Noisy Cancer Combat, and then tell us about the two latest books. Fitz Koehler: 7:31Yeah, so my Noisy Cancer Combat is a memoir. And you know I I didn't do things like most people would. I didn't stay home, I didn't hide out, I took my bald head on the road and I boarded over 30 planes with breast cancer as a bald, very, very sick person. And yeah, I travel the country making happy noise at massive running events. And so the book covers all the gritty, gory details of what it's like to really have cancer, which there's, all those universal themes, whether you have breast or colon or brain cancer. You know chemo, radiation surgeries, or I call it the treatment triathlon. But there's some, you know we we share commonalities amongst cancers, so I share my gritty, gory details. But then the adventures I had during cancer care and misadventures. It's very, very funny and and that's actually one of the great responses I get from people is to say you know what? I cried, but I lacked. I barely left throughout the book, which makes me happy. It's apparently been very useful to people going through cancer and then not being here. I'm so sorry. My dogs are here. J. Rosemarie: 8:43Oh, that's okay, Thank you, it's a fun guess I'm not gonna. It's okay, go ahead, I get it yeah. Fitz Koehler: 8:50They're going to bend, excuse me, depending on our turf. And then these new books. So these books came because I had hit rock bottom. I was very sick, even though I continuously pursued fitness at whatever level I could. I was beaten up by chemo, especially radiation wasn't as hard for me. Surgery I did okay with because I was diligent about stretching and physical therapy, but chemo itself took. I lost 11% of my body weight. Now most cancer patients actually gain weight with chemo. I became. I was that skeletal person and I was terribly weak and I was experiencing things at home like I couldn't open a water bottle. I just didn't have the strength to open. I couldn't open the car door sometimes. But I went into the gym. It was after my menis chemo. I'm still doing some chemo, but it wasn't the same intensity. And then I was done with surgery and so I went into the gym and I thought, okay, I'm gonna start lifting again. I knew I was gonna take it baby steps, but I was. I was excited to get back on the machines and start pressing and I Sat down on the machine and I tried to lift the thing that I had lifted previously, before cancer. I had to keep lowering the resistance, lowering the resistance, and what I found is, overall, I had lost about 80% of my strength 80%. And so there I was, I was, I was, I was. I was like Holocaust skinny and Bald and weird. And then and then I was so weak and it was at that moment where I thought, oh my gosh, like if I wasn't a fitness expert, I may have been very defeated. I may have just cried and ran home and given up, because To watch your body be ravaged in front of you, to watch it wither away all of your strengths, all of your athleticism, your vibrancy Disappear, it was very disheartening. However, I got to that position and I knew exactly how to strategically design my cancer comeback. I knew how to, how to build my body back up and I did so Brilliantly. And I don't want to pat you like I'm so great, but this is the benefit of the skills and the knowledge that I have that I was able to Just rebuild my body in every way possible. So it was a month after chemo, I ran a 5k Spartan race. No, I ran it slow, I Failed a lot of the obstacles, but a week later I did a sprint triathlon. I was a last finisher but I still did it. And then, a little over a year later, I ran the Boston Marathon. So I did it well, and you know it was that Moment of oh gosh. I was bummed for myself, trust me, it was just heartening. But at that moment I thought I just felt for all of the other cancer patients and all the other cancer survivors who didn't know how to rebuild their body, who have, who just looked at themselves and said, oh my god, what has happened? And they had no recourse. And so that's where these two next books came from. I was committed at that point where to providing a guidebook, a Manual for anyone going through it to know Okay, if you are newly diagnosed, this is what you should be doing. If you just had surgery, this is what you should be doing. If you're going through chemo, this is what you should be doing. There's there's a center section of the book it's chapter 7 called everything exercise, and it's got hundreds of photos in it and you know there's regular type exercises Anyone might do standing on their own two feet, and then there's a section for exercises to do in a chair, because a lot of times I mean, depending on what kind of cancer have maybe you can't stand. And then, if you can't sit, here's some exercises you can do in bed, and I used to do a lot of exercising in bed just to maintain my mobility and my flexibility and try to maintain some strength. And then here's a whole bunch of photo descriptions on how to stretch in the shower. And then here's things to do in an exam room. You know, jen, when you get diagnosed, you spend a bizarre amount of time in exam rooms. Right, you go from a college is to primary care, to Hands, and they just stick you in there and they leave you. Okay, well, now you're an exam room. It's a private space. They've shut the door. Can you march in place? Can you turn on music in your iPhone and dance around? Can you do push-ups on the counter? Can you do stretches on the exam table? Yes, and so this book really helps people take advantage. You know, taking a bad situation and making the best of it, and so I I'm absolutely pumped. The guidebook, I Believe, will become then that you know, you do. You know the book, what to expect? Your when you're expecting Every pregnant lady gets it. I believe your healthy cancer comeback will be that, that popular amongst cancer patients and survivors, because there's nothing else out there. And then there's a companion journal and the jury, and it's also pretty, it's all full-color and fun and happy. But you can put all the details about your diagnosis and your doctors and your Scandals and results. And then there's a place. There's so many prompts about your feelings. How does this make me feel? Who's my best friend to talk to? Who really annoys me? Who's not helping out? What do I do to distract myself from cancer? And then there's hundred pages of just daily fitness logs for people to start documenting. Okay, this is when I woke up. I went to sleep. This is how much water I drink. This is the type of exercise I did. This is how I feel. Do you know what strawberry moments are? J. Rosemarie: 14:18mm-hmm no okay. Fitz Koehler: 14:20So Strawberry moments are a wider thing, but I learned about them from my children. They go to this wonderful sleep away summer camp every summer and, at the end of the day, all the campers are encouraged to, as they sit in their cabin in a group, is to share their strawberry moments, which are the best, best moments of each day. And you know, maybe you won the rowing competition, but maybe your strawberry moment was that you made a new friend, or somebody complimented your flip-flop, sir, whatever it is. And so, with cancer, you need to seek out, you need to focus on the positive, on the good stuff, and if you look hard enough, there are silver linings, right. Maybe, old friends reach out or strangers are kind or whatever it is. So every day, readers are encouraged to jot down their strawberry moment for the day, and it's about health, it's about fitness, but it's also about joy, and I think if I can get all the cancer patients on track, pursuing health and fitness and joy, then I have a really good shot at getting everybody else in the world on the same track. J. Rosemarie: 15:25Oh wow, Thank you for sharing that with us, and I am listening to you and I'm thinking to myself that she doesn't look like a person who has gone through cancer. And you mentioned that you thought because you were a fitness expert that encouraged you to be better and push harder. But there must have been something else in you, because you were fit and healthy. And then you looked at your body and you were like, wait a minute here. You didn't say oh my god, it's over. You figured something else out, so tell us about that mindset. Fitz Koehler: 16:11

Yeah, mindset was my most powerful weapon and it's interesting, some people are quick to give up, some people are quick to say I can't, or make excuses, and those things aren't part of my personality, which I'm very grateful for. I mean, hey, those of us who are the find a way type people, we're always going to have better success than the people who find a reason not to. The thing that helped me about being a fitness expert, it wasn't that I didn't have to do all the same work everybody else would. I just knew how. It's a knowledge ingrained in me. But, yeah, I looked around and once my doctors convinced me I wasn't going to die, they said, listen, breast cancer is. 94% of all breast cancer cases are curable. Yours is particularly curable. If it's, we're going to cure you, you're just going to have to endure the cure. And so I was so grateful they said I wasn't going to die. That was it. I was like, oh good, I get to. Hopefully I get to live, hopefully this all works out. So then I decided to maintain perspective, and perspective was always who I was before. And then my quote used to be well, it's not cancer. You get stuck in traffic. You could really freak out over traffic or you can realize all right, it's not cancer, You're going to get through this traffic jam and so it's not cancer, was my mantra. And then, all of a sudden, it was cancer. So, ok, what am I going to do with this? But what I lean towards is here in Gainesville, florida, we have a massive pediatric oncology wing of the University of Florida Hospital and there's a lot of kids running around with bald heads and they've had their limbs removed and so for it to bone cancer and so forth. So what I decided is it is cancer, but I'm not a kid with cancer, and it's not my kid with cancer, and I know every mom out there can resonate with that. If you're going to pick someone in your family to have cancer, you say, ok, pick me, I'll do it, I'll do it, just don't touch them. And so I was able to keep that. I'm not a kid, it's not my kid. I'm going to be grateful, I'm going to put on my big girl panties and I'm going to press forward. I made two great commitments at the start. Before I talk, before I knew what treatment was going to do to me, before I knew how sick I would be, I made two commitments that I held to. Number one is that I was not going to miss special moments with my kids. So if they had a sport, a ceremony or a show, I was going to be there. Now, friends and neighbors drove my kids to school and helped out in other ways, but if they had something special, I was going to be there and I was. The other thing I was determined to do was maintain my career. Now, not everybody is in love with their career like I do, but I am in love with not only what I do but the people I serve. And was it daunting to get on 30-something planes out of Gainesville, florida, to fly around the country while bald, while severely sick, while fatigued? It was. But the magic of moving towards something I loved was when I stepped on those stages surrounded by thousands of runners. Instantly, everything that was wrong with me disappeared. I wasn't focused on me and my suffering. All of a sudden I was focused on them and their triumph and their big day. And so I got to be full force Fitzkohler again. And what I do believe is if I didn't get on those planes or if I didn't go to my kids' shows and things, all I would have been is sick, and so there's a couple of trains of thought right now, and our recent virus has encouraged people to hide. Everybody hide. Don't recover, wear a mask, cover your face. You don't go anywhere, don't touch people. For me, even though I was the most severely immune, compromised person on planet Earth, going out to be with these people I think it saved me. I mean, I hugged every sweaty germ in me, stranger I could get my hands on. I smiled with everybody, their energy, their interactions, they fueled me. They made me better, not worse. And so I just want to know if you want to stay home, if you're so panic that you don't want any germs from planet Earth, okay, I get it, that's your choice. But for me, I actually had life during the darkest days of my life, because I love people. I mean, if I could get my hands on you, jen, I would squeeze you up and hug you so hard, and that it's life, you know. I mean, what good is life if you're just gonna be stuck in your room all the time? So those were decisions that really benefited me. And then I also chose to stay positive and you know that's a choice. It's a choice. I did cry almost every day and normally I would cry alone in my bathroom or I would cry alone in my Jeep and I would just get it out because it was a lot of stress. But then I wipe my tears and I get on with it, and you know that really worked for me forcing myself out, forcing myself to put on a smile. You know, it was almost. Sometimes until you make it fake it I would walk out of hotel rooms. Oh my gosh, I remember being I was announcing the Big Sur Marathon in Monterey, california, and we had a VIP party for our sponsors, and so I mean, it's hard to describe how you feel when you look so different. Right, the hair loss and I'm not my hair isn't my identity, right, but it was something I liked. You know, I wasn't just bald, I had rashes on my head and I had bumps because I was skin allergies were crazy, oh, and I just look like a sick person. I remember putting on a dress and looking at myself in the mirror thinking what have you done? Like, what's going on here? But I had to get out there and put on a show, and so I took a deep breath. I looked at myself and I was like, get it up, fitzcaller, this is it. And so I walked out there and I went to this VIP party and I did my best to fake it right. I smiled, I pretended like nothing was wrong, and then the next day I had a gaggle of women come over, like a half a dozen. They were runners. They were at the party the night before. I hadn't seen them. But they came over and they said oh, your hair is so cool, or I love that. You shaved your head and you know, do you model? And I was like, what Are you like a fashion model? And I said no, I have cancer. And they were floored. These women thought that I had purposely shaved my head and that I was just trying to be cool. They were like you came in with such confidence and all I thought was it worked. I think that faking of confidence it worked to them. I wasn't this pathetic, sickly person who looked where they thought, ah damn, look at her, so we can manipulate our situations if we choose. And that was a lesson for me, because I continued to look worse and worse. This treatment went along. But I would resort back to that experience at Big Sur and I'd say, okay, just put on a smile and stand up straight and maybe they'll fall for it, and hopefully more people did than did. Yes, yeah, that's amazing. J. Rosemarie: 23:35You saw yourself and somebody saw you as beautiful, even though you're telling yourself oh man, I don't know about this. Fitz Koehler: 23:47

Ah yeah, I mean totally different perspectives, but if I would have stayed in the hotel I wouldn't have had that experience, right? J. Rosemarie: 23:53Yes, yes, true, very true. Okay, so I mean said all that, yes, what is Fitz grateful for today? Fitz Koehler: 24:06

Well, right now, I'm grateful for you, john. I mean, my enthusiasm at this moment is to get these books into the hands of every cancer patient and survivor who needs it, and so the fact that you've welcomed me onto your show and I've got to tell your audience about them. Hopefully, if they care about some of the cancer, they'll go to fitsnesscom and gather some of these books to help their favorite person along, and really I think this is gonna be a big game changer and I'm grateful for you to allow me to share this, these opportunities. Thank you. J. Rosemarie: 24:42Thank you and you're welcome, donada, as I say in Mexico. Yeah, yeah, all right. So tell us how we could get in touch with you and, after you finish doing that, tell us about your career, your runner, and that surprising, given what you've been through and that you haven't stopped doing running. Fitz Koehler: 25:05Yeah, so how do people get in touch with me? The books will be sold everywhere worldwide. However, my preference is that people come to fitsnesscom. That's F-I-T. Z is in zebra and is in Nancy E-S-S, so it's the word fitness with a Z in the middle. Fitsnesscom is my home base for everything. All three books are sold at fitsnesscom. I've got online courses and all sorts of free information too. But all of the books that come through fitsnesscom like my noisy kids are coming back. I sign every last one of them and they ship out with a free gift. So I wrap them in love and I put them in pretty pink packages and I try to make it special for all of my readers. So fitsnesscom is the hub. I'm at fitsness on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook and if you reach out and follow, yeah, I'd love followers, because then I can get into your head and help you with healthy messages. But really what I'd love for you to do is reach out and say I heard you on the Solar Moms podcast and let's be friends, because I'd much rather have friends than followers. So that is that fitsness, fitsness, fitsness my career. I help people live better and longer. I exclusively do this via mass media and mass audience style presentations. So I haven't worked in a gym. We're done personal training for many, many, many years, and that's because my craving is to reach as many humans as possible. If I'm locked in the gym with one person or 10 people, that means I can't be focusing on the 1,000 people surrounding them or a million people. And so TV, radio, books, magazines, blogs, podcasts and then keynote speeches so I'm sure many of your listeners they are part of a corporation that brings in a speaker to enlighten or energize their workforce. I'm one of those speakers and that's a great way of communicating because I love live audiences. When I do pre-recorded stuff it's fine, but I love looking people in the face and seeing their eyes and having. I love it when they can ask a question and I can solve a problem right away. And then I'm a professional race announcer and I run at the mouth while other people are running from point A to point B. I host events like the Los Angeles Marathon, buffalo Marathon, detroit Free Press, the Donna Marathon to Finish Breast Cancer in Jacksonville, florida. And what a race announcer does is I show up at the start line and I welcome everybody as they arrive. I have pre-music playing. I get the runners and walkers engaged, informed and highly entertained, because I think it should be a lot of fun I mentioned sponsors and give out instructions and then I whip everybody into a frenzy and I yell go, and sometimes I've got 20, 30,000 people whipped into a frenzy and it is the most joyful experience in the world for me to be on that stage and have all these happy people. I call it the whoopie party, but they come through waving and shouting and bursting with excitement over their run or walk they're about to take on, which I love. And then I go to the finish line and I wait and as people start trickling through and flooding through, technology allows me to welcome almost all of them by name, and so I get to say Denver, colorado, welcome and yay. I get to be the first person to congratulate our athletes and it's important for me to make sure every champion has their most incredible welcome that they deserve. But I also my favorite part of the race is when the middle and the back of the packers show up. Those are the people that really stepped out of their box to do something special. That's where the lives are changed, and so I want to make sure the dead last finisher feels every bit as much of a champion as the first finisher, so I'm truly blessed to get to do something so wonderful and meaningful for living. J. Rosemarie: 29:06Yeah, awesome. And, as you were talking about that, I think of the verse that tells us to shine our light. The middle light shine, and that's exactly what I see in you, so I really appreciate you. Before you go, give us one piece of advice for someone grappling with a cancer diagnosis right now. Fitz Koehler: 29:27

Well, I'm gonna. I'll give two. Number one is whoever you are, wherever you are, start preparing your body to do battle. Today. Your health matters. I don't care what you look like in a bikini. What I care about is that you are strong, with energy and flexibility and balance, that you are healthy from the inside out, because whenever injury or illness strikes and nobody gets out unscathed, you will be far less likely to be severely injured or sick if you are healthy going into that crisis and you will be far more likely to recover quickly if you took great care of your body when you got sick or injured. And so start focusing today, today and again. Free resources galore at fitsnesscom. Don't be shy, come and get them. And then for everybody, for those cancer patients is you do have control, you have a lot of control. It's important that you don't feel like cancer is victim. The why me mentality isn't gonna get you anywhere. I mean, it happened. Maybe you smoked your whole life and you have lung cancer, okay. Maybe you never smoked a day and you have lung cancer, okay. Control the things that you can. You choose the medical team that you think is gonna serve you best. When they make their recommendations, you get to choose whether they implement those treatments or not, and then you take care of your body. You fight fire with fire. If you eat wisely, nutrition can help battle cancer cells. Exercise can help battle cancer cells. It's interesting there's a brand new study that just came out out of Tel Aviv University that is mind-blowing exciting for someone like me. This study found that those who do high intensity aerobic exercise so puffing and puffing anything, whether you swim hard or you dance vigorously or you run, it doesn't matter Anything that makes you puff and puff will make you 70, well, yeah, 72% less likely to have cancer metastasized from its original point. So that means if you puff and puff regularly, you are far less likely to have cancer spread. You know, maybe if you do have cancer, it remains stage one, you find it, you cut it out, it's gone, as opposed to cancer that goes unharnessed and it ends up stage two, stage three, stage four, all over the place. Exercise, vigorous exercise, actually helps. Quality sleep actually helps, stress management actually helps. And so cancer patients, you do have control. There's a lot of things you can do for yourself for your health to increase your chances of remission, decrease your chances of recurrence and live a long, healthy life. So please take advantage of those things and, of course, I'd love to help with these books. J. Rosemarie: 32:08Thank you very much, Nicole. I really appreciate you coming and talking to me today. Fitz Koehler: 32:12Thank you, it's been a pleasure, as usual. J. Rosemarie: 32:15Absolutely.