In today's episode we are continuing the conversation around building resilience by looking at how building muscle supports healthy aging, metabolic health, and cancer prevention.

I am joined by Kylie Fagnano who shares clear steps for safe strength training, protein targets, and short, effective HIIT sessions you can repeat for life.

Here is some of what we cover:

• muscle as a longevity organ and metabolic ally
• starting from any level with safe, progressive strength
• when bodyweight is enough and when to add load
• practical protein goals to trigger muscle synthesis
• HIIT basics for mitochondrial health and time‑crunched days
• mindset shift from restriction to construction
• action plans to choose your on‑ramp and build consistency

As always, if this conversation resonates with you, please follow the show, share it with someone who would benefit, and leave a review to help more listeners find us. Your support helps bring evidence-based, integrative tools to people navigating cancer and beyond.

More about today's guest & how to connect with her:

Kylie Fagnano is an integrative and functional dietitian. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and together, they own DC Strength & Nutrition. She focuses on gut health and muscle health to support her patients with longevity and understanding how to feed themselves.

👉 Kylie's Website: https://dcstrengthandnutrition.com/ (you can sign-up to access their Free Exercise Library & Nutrition Info)

👉 Grab their 12-Week Strength Training Program HERE

👉 Follow Kylie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kylie.dcnutrition/

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In today's episode we kick off the new year by reframing your 2026 health goals around using hormesis to build resilience and explain how controlled, short stressors can strengthen immunity, mood, cellular repair, & more! We share practical ways to use cold, heat, fasting, and exercise to build a body and mind that bend without breaking.

• defining resilience as stable function under stress
• links between stress resilience, cancer risk, and longevity
• overview of hormesis and adaptive benefits
• list of benefits including immune, mood, sleep, inflammation
• cold exposure methods and safety basics
• heat exposure, sauna timing, and repair pathways
• fasting windows, autophagy, and seasonal fasts
• exercise choices that drive adaptation
• practical micro-challenges to push comfort zones

Join us inside The Healing Accelerator to build your resilience in 2026 with coaching, seasonal fasts, and structured protocols. Schedule a FREE strategy session to learn more!

Please help us spread the word by sharing, subscribing, & leaving a review.

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As we welcome in this last day of 2025, let's talk about setting intentions that will actually stick.

New Year's Resolutions rarely fail because you lack willpower—they fail because they’re built on an overloaded life and a dysregulated nervous system.

We flip the script with a five-step intention-setting framework designed to support healing, prevent burnout, and make healthy changes last. As a holistic cancer dietitian, I walk through how to honor winter’s energy, learn from last year without shame, and build goals from self-love rather than self-critique.

1. We start with reflection as real-world data: what worked, what didn’t, and what you’re ready to release.
2. From there, we choose one primary goal—putting yourself first—and let every other action flow from that stance.
3. Then we lean into guided dreaming. Before you chase tactics, get vivid about the life you’re creating: radiant health, calmer days, more connection, and purposeful work. (You’ll hear how vision clarified an unexpected move for me & my family across the world, reinforcing that direction precedes logistics.)
4. Joy becomes a core health strategy, not an afterthought. We explore why fun, laughter, and creative play regulate the nervous system, lower stress, improve sleep, and make nutrition and movement easier to sustain.
5. Finally, we practice “less is more.” By stripping nonessentials, you create space for rest and the simple habits that compound—sleep, nourishing meals, walks, grounding, and supportive routines.

If you’re navigating a cancer journey or committed to staying cancer free, this approach helps you build a life your biology can thrive in.

Ready to start 2026 with intentions that actually work? Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help more people find practical, hopeful strategies for long-term health.

Wishing you a very happy & healthy New Year!! 🎉

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In today's episode, on Christmas Eve, we pause for a year-end ritual that helps us reflect honestly, release what no longer serves, and welcome a healthy, aligned start to 2026.

Here's some of what we're covering in today's episode:

• why reflection precedes effective goal-setting
• ten guided questions for your year-end review

1. What did I learn? (skills, knowledge, awareness, etc)
2. What did I accomplish?
3. What would I have done differently? Why?
4. What were the most significant events of the past year? (list the top 3)
5. What do I feel especially good about? What was my greatest contribution? What am I most proud of?
6. What were the fun things I did this year? (going back through your photos can be helpful for this one)
7. What was the most surprising thing that happened this year?
8. What were my biggest challenges, roadblocks, or difficulties?
9. How am I different this year than last?
10. What am I particularly grateful for?

• separating reflection from judgment
• the science of gratitude and brain rewiring
• the nightly three gratitudes routine I recommend to all of my clients
• shifting from release to aligned intentions for 2026

Taking time to reflect in the waning days of the year, will make 2026 feel lighter, clearer, and more aligned with who you want to become.

✨ If after moving through today's episode, you know you're ready to step into a new, healthier, more vibrant version of you in 2026, there is no better place to do that than inside of our coaching program, The Healing Accelerator. Learn more here. You'll get a full year with us to help you realize your goals AND you can take advantage of our current pricing before the investment goes up in January. ✨

And if today's show resonates with you, please share the episode with someone who needs a reset, subscribe for next week’s intention-setting guide, and leave a review to help others find the show. 🥰

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A breast cancer diagnosis can compress life into appointments, lab results, and hard choices. We explore that reality and step into the woods with filmmaker Lisa Landers, whose path through stage one breast cancer led to surgery, tamoxifen, and a powerful integrative toolkit: targeted nutrition, community support, and the restorative practice of forest bathing among the redwoods.

In today's episode you will learn more about Lisa's personal healing journey as well as the power of the forest to enhance healing. The research is compelling: lower cortisol and blood pressure, improved sleep, and increased natural killer cell activity are just a few of the benefits tied to time among trees and their aromatic compounds.

Lisa also shares the creative arc behind Giants Rising, her PBS-featured film about redwoods, awe, and our relationship with forests. We close our conversation with simple ways you can step into this healing practice...like five-minute houseplant sessions, a morning sit spot before your phone, or a local guided walk—so the practice becomes yours.

As always, if this conversation resonates with you, please follow the show, share it with someone who needs a gentler path, and leave a review to help more listeners find us. Your support helps bring evidence-based, integrative tools to people navigating cancer and beyond.

Resources mentioned in today's show:

👉 Lisa's Website: https://www.forestremedy.earth/

👉 Article: Why Harvard Docs are Seeking Out Forest Bathing

👉 Study: Effect of Forest Bathing on Immune Function

👉 Study: A systematic review and meta-analysis of greenspace exposure and health outcomes

👉 Find a Forest Bathing Guide

👉 Giants Rising Film

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Winter doesn’t ask us to do more; it asks us to do what matters. In today's episode, we dig into a practical, earth-based approach to seasonal wellness where warm food, steady movement, and deeper rest work together to calm the nervous system, support digestion, and strengthen immunity during the winter months.

Drawing from Ayurveda and circadian science, we translate “winter energy” into clear actions you can take this season to create better balance & optimal health, without complicated rules or rigid routines.

You will learn:

• Why aligning to the season improves mood, sleep, and metabolic balance
• What foods & self-practices will best support winter energy
• How brief outdoor light right after sunrise stabilizes your internal clock even on cloudy days, and how simple lymph movers—dry brushing, bouncing, breath work—prevent that heavy, stuck feeling winter can bring.
• Which evening strategies, like dimmer lights, earlier dinners, hot baths, and device light control, will protect melatonin and deepen sleep.
• A simple winter solstice ritual to welcome in the new season & best prepare for the year ahead.
• And then finally how to improve immune resilience with hydration, sleep consistency, vitamin D, mushrooms, garlic, citrus, green tea, and easy at-the-ready remedies like medicinal honey and bone broth.

Everything is designed to be doable, adaptable to your climate, and anchored in the simple truth that health improves when we move with nature’s tempo.

Listen now, share with a friend who needs a winter reset, and subscribe for upcoming episodes on reflective journaling and intentional goal setting. And if you're enjoying the podcast, please help us spread the word by sharing and leaving a review.

Resources from show:

👉 Winter Wellness Blog Post

👉 My Favorite Winter Remedies

👉 And if you want to dive even deeper, you can join us inside the Healing Accelerator for the Winter Wellness Workshop watch party PLUS lock in current pricing before December 31st!

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What if your birthday isn’t just a date on the calendar, but a powerful reset that renews joy, meaning, and courage for the year ahead?

That’s the lens we bring to a candid, uplifting conversation with birthday coach and author Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming, where we trade party checklists for rituals, mindset shifts, and deeply human stories about what the day can unlock.

We start by reframing birthdays as a personal new year: a 24-hour window where you get full permission to pause, step into the center of your life, and choose delight on purpose. Tamar shares the concept of Birthday Eve—creating a simple altar with photos, candles, flowers, and music—to welcome the “birthday spirit.”

From there, we go practical. Planning is the quiet superpower: take the day off, book the hard-to-get dinner, invite friends early, and be explicit about what you want.

We also unpack birthday blues and sabotage and with gentle prompts, Tamar shows how to rewrite those scripts and practices so you can have better birthdays year after year.

And perhaps most importantly we challenge the culture that equates beauty with youth and offer a vocabulary of radiance and vitality instead. Unlocking aging as a privilege, a chance to expand power, wisdom, and visibility rather than shrink.

Whether you’re celebrating a milestone or rebuilding your relationship to your birthday from scratch, you’ll leave our show with accessible rituals, clear boundaries, and a new respect for the day you were born.

If this conversation resonates, share it with someone who needs some support to have a better birthday, and of course subscribe for more grounded guidance, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Grab Tamar's Book here: How to Have a Happy Birthday

And the Workbook here: How to Have a Happy Birthday Workbook

Plus you can connect with Tamar at her website here: howtohaveahappybirthday.com

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Ever looked at a birthday and felt more dread than delight?

We flip that script by separating the number on the cake from the real story your cells are telling. As a holistic cancer dietitian turning 50, I break down why biological age—not chronological age—drives energy, resilience, and long-term cancer risk, and how simple daily habits can slow the clock from the inside out.

We map the biggest accelerators of aging plus the five high-impact pillars you can leverage today to start slowing your biological clock.

We also discuss the importance of making birthdays meaningful (+ 2 ideas to help you do this) and how to look at the passage of time as the gift it actually is.

Give it a listen and then if this helps you see aging differently, subscribe, share with a friend who needs the reframe, and leave a quick review.

I'd also love to hear from you! What’s one birthday ritual you’ll try this next year?

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Join our Free Community: https://groundandroot.com/tribe

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