Barbara Siegel
Hi, Nathan.
Paul Siegel
Hello.
Barbara Siegel
Thank you for having us.
Nathan Crane
Yeah, so you reached out to me recently, Barbara, and letting me know that you guys have an incredible story. Paul, who had stage three colon cancer. I’ll let you guys talk about it, and how he’s now cancer-free. And you said, “Hey, we’d love to talk with you more about it.” I said, “Great, can you send me some reports, some scans, let me take a look at everything. Let me know a little bit about the story.” And we’ve just been talking for the last few minutes behind the scenes as well, and true, I think your story is one that a lot of people will look up to and be inspired by. So, let’s start a little bit at the beginning. Not the very beginning, but let’s start with Paul. When were you diagnosed, and what was the prognosis at the time?
Paul Siegel
I was diagnosed in August 16th of, 16, and they said I needed surgery, if I… They’d sent me home and told me if I started having problems when I went to the bathroom, like blood or black things to come back quickly. Well, that happened this very same day that they sent me home. So I had to go back and they scheduled me for surgery. And then I had to wait for, I would say, how many day?
Barbara Siegel
It was a couple of days. By the time they got him into surgery, the surgeon told me that he was literally going to be joining the dearly departed within two to three days. It was a very dire situation. He had four units of blood, of course, the surgery. I mean, going into this, he looked terrible. He was greenish gray.
Paul Siegel
I was loosing a little weight.
Barbara Siegel
And he was losing a lot of way. You were losing a lot of weight.
Paul Siegel
I thought it was a little.
Barbara Siegel
He lost a total of 80 pounds.
Nathan Crane
Wow.
Barbara Siegel
Yeah.
Nathan Crane
So what was that like for both of you to be diagnosed? Had you known that there were obviously issues going on? You had digestive issues, you had pain. What were some of the symptoms you were dealing with that led you into going and having the cancer discovered in the first place?
Paul Siegel
Well, I was having trouble going to the bathroom. And there was pain on my right side. And it’s just, a guy that never really got sick through his whole life, it was a blow that you’re in denial over that. You’re thinking that there’s something wrong with you. You’re trying to tell yourself there’s nothing wrong with you. But yeah, that’s like one of the biggest things you need to go to the hospital and make sure you’re okay. Whatever means they wanted. I did call and ask to be there and they told me I was totally blocked.
Barbara Siegel
Yeah, they could not pass the scope. The next thing they went through was the CAT scan. And by then it was looking pretty grim.
Nathan Crane
There’s a pretty large tumor in the colon then? Is that what it was?
Barbara Siegel
Oh.
Paul Siegel
It was softball size.
Barbara Siegel
Yeah, really large tumor in the right side of the colon. And usually from what I understand of colon cancer, if it’s on the right side, the prognosis is much more grim. I just remember when having the conversation with the doctor that it was almost like an out of body experience for me. We’ve been together since I was 17 years old and he was 21. So, I mean
Paul Siegel
20.
Barbara Siegel
We’ve spent the vast majority of our lives together. And it was something that I wouldn’t really wish anybody to ever have to go through. It was terrible.
Nathan Crane
It must’ve been really terrifying for you Barbara. And you have a background in nursing, ecological nursing, right?
Barbara Siegel
Yeah.
Nathan Crane
So what were your thoughts at the time?
Barbara Siegel
To be honest with you
Paul Siegel
She knows too much.
Barbara Siegel
Yeah, my husband tells me I know too much. And it was, the doctor was moving his mouth and I just kept thinking, “He’s going to die. He’s going to die. I need to prepare myself, I need to prepare our children, I need to prepare our grandchildren, he’s going to die.” And I even had a conversation with one of the nurses in the unit that he was in. And I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I looked at her and I said, “He’s gonna die.”
Paul Siegel
I was the only one that thought I wasn’t gonna die, so. You got to have the confidence too that you’re, but you can’t be… I don’t know what it was, but you got to have the confidence that you’re gonna make it too.
Nathan Crane
Yeah, I wanna get into that, the mindset and how important that is and what your mindset was like, Paul. Before we do, so you had surgery and then what happened? Surgery was successful, they removed the tumor.
Paul Siegel
And then all I could remember was my wife’s telling me, you better get up and go.
Barbara Siegel
You need to get moving. Don’t lay in that bed. And he was a champion. He got out of that bed and he walked around the unit. He was out of the hospital in three days. We had the appointment at that moment scheduled with the oncologist. So we basically
Paul Siegel
Did our research right there.
Barbara Siegel
Yeah, but first I have to tell him that that appointment was like looming over our heads. And I think we probably talked more in that month than we talked in years. With having kids and dogs and just everything in life, but it was him and me and the tumor, and we talked and talked and talked and he told me, I don’t wanna do this. I don’t wanna do this. People, everybody I
Nathan Crane
Don’t wanna do what?
Barbara Siegel
The chemo.
Paul Siegel
Yeah.
Nathan Crane
So when you went in for that appointment, they told you you needed to do chemo therapy?
Paul Siegel
Yes, they told me
Nathan Crane
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Paul Siegel
Well, it was like they didn’t even really hear me. I told them I was feeling good, getting stronger, and she just told me, “Well, you need nine months of chemo and maybe 12.” And that’s all she had for me. She insisted, told me I was a strong, I look like I’m strong. And I just was hearing all the advancements that you hear about on television to tell me that I need view. After we did research, came out in 1962.
Barbara Siegel
Yeah.
Paul Siegel
And that’s what they were trying to give me in 2016.
Nathan Crane
Right.
Paul Siegel
I mean, that was… And it’s like I really just didn’t want to get my immune system wiped out.
Barbara Siegel
And it really was like a high-
Paul Siegel
Someone’s feeling good.
Barbara Siegel
It was like a high pressured sales pitch. When we were sitting in the oncologist office, she kept changing the statistics. At first it was 60%, you have a 60% chance of making it. And when she could see that we were a little hesitant, we were asking way too many questions, and suddenly it was like, “Oh, you have a 75% chance of making it with this chemo, Paul.” And she was almost pressuring him for the answer.
Paul Siegel
They would have put my
Barbara Siegel
The pot in.
Paul Siegel
The pot in right now.
Barbara Siegel
Yeah, they’ll put the pot in right now. All you have to do is say yes. And he was numb. He didn’t, I mean, this was all coming at us like
Nathan Crane
This was three days after the surgery?
Barbara Siegel
Actually we met with the oncologist. It was almost a month later because the appointment
Nathan Crane
And they said that you needed to do chemotherapy because the cancer was in-
Paul Siegel
In my lymph node.
Nathan Crane
Got that. ‘Cause it was in the lymph nodes, right?
Barbara Siegel
Right, and she was very persistent. She was pressing him for an answer. Yes or no? Are you gonna do chemo? Let’s get this going. We can put the pot in right now, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And just everything moving so quickly. And I looked at her and I looked at him and I said, “Excuse me, you don’t have to make a decision today.” And I looked right at her, just letting her know, back off, this is my husband and it’s not gonna go this way.
Paul Siegel
Well, then she actually said, at the end, “Don’t come back before it’s too late. Or, “Don’t come back when it’s too late.” That’s what she told me at the very end. And it was like, we already… I that I was gonna be determined to heal myself naturally with nutrition. And that’s about all we did. I just
Nathan Crane
What led you to that? What led you to… Well, first I wanna say, I wanna commend you for being strong in that really scary situation. I wanna encourage people tuning into this. Make sure to watch module two as part of this masterclass, because in that masterclass, its entire module all about what you’re talking about right now, is how to take back your power, right? How to take back your power and educate yourself so that you’re not pressured through fear into doing something that may not be the best decision for you. And I’ll never, I won’t tell anybody that, don’t do chemo therapy, don’t do radiation.
Barbara Siegel
Exactly.
Nathan Crane
Don’t do surgery, right? Sometimes it can save your life. Like the surgery helped you, right? But you felt chemotherapy was not right for you. But unfortunately for people who don’t educate themselves and learn how to take back their power and what I call accelerate your healer within, which is a massive mindset shift that’s needed to help you have that belief and that confidence. And also, like you said, you have time, right? You have time to research, to learn, to explore before. You don’t have to be rushed into anything. So congratulations to you for taking that stand and saying, “Look, we’re gonna research more, we’re gonna explore more. Don’t pressure us into this.” Because that’s all they know, right? I mean, that’s all they were taught. Most medical doctors in medical school, they’re taught drugs, chemotherapy, radiation for cancer. They’re not taught nutrition, they’re not taught holistic medicine, they’re not taught botanical medicine. And they’re actually, many of them are told, don’t look into those things because they don’t work.
Barbara Siegel
Exactly.
Nathan Crane
And that’s, it’s unfortunate because we know there were so many thousands of peer reviewed PubMed scientific studies on the effectiveness of natural medicines for everything from cancer to heart disease, inflammation, autoimmune disease, you name it, right?
Barbara Siegel
Right.
Nathan Crane
So going back to one, taking back your power and deciding to become the researchers, what was it in your research that led you to saying, “Hey, we wanna treat this naturally now, we wanna treat this with nutrition and so forth?”
Barbara Siegel
Well, you know what? I mean, honestly, I agree with you completely. Knowledge is power, knowledge is power. I’ll say it again, knowledge is power. And he was recovering. He had an extensive surgery. And through all of our conversations, it became readily apparent he was not going to do the chemo. And if I could just interject here with people that we had told at that point, “Oh, he’s not gonna do the chemo.” People thought we were crazy. We were just completely crazy. So it actually, when push came to shove and it was just him and I doing everything that we did, it was just him and I.
There was no team Paul. Like I said, he was recovering. I got on every website, everything that I could possibly find, textbooks at the library, just… I mean, I was functioning on pure adrenaline for probably a good month. I read everything in anything. Sometimes I would read through the night when he was sleeping. And I told him, I said, “You know what?” I said, “I found some information and this is what we need to do.” And I said, “But it’s going to involve you completely changing everything about your life.” Prior
Paul Siegel
But you knew about reading.
Barbara Siegel
Yeah, prior to his diagnosis, he was a meat and potatoes man, and –
Nathan Crane
I grew up in Montana, I’m eating potatoes, so I can relate.
Barbara Siegel
Right? Right? So, I mean, he would throw a football around with the kids, but that was the extent of exercise. I mean, who had time to exercise or so we thought? Because he had to go to work. I had to go to work. Everybody had to go to work. And I said, “You know what? We need for you to live. We desperately need for you to live.” So we changed everything about our lifestyle. Within one day, we immediately went plant-based. We started eating 15 to 20 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. We bought a Vitamix so we could make that happen. And that’s a lot of chewing. If you’re gonna eat it the traditional way, that’s a lot of chewing. So we got a Vitamix. We started making a liquid salad because basically that was all he could tolerate in the beginning. And, so I would… Sometimes we did make some pretty terrible stuff. But for the most part, he was a trooper, he choked it down. And-
Paul Siegel
There’s no such thing as too much garlic.
Nathan Crane
I’ve got my dad healing from an infection right now. And that’s what I’m giving him, is lots of garlic, right? It’s nature’s most powerful antibiotic, but he’s like, “God, that stuff is horrible.”
Barbara Siegel
It is like
Nathan Crane
But I’ll tell you what, it is amazing. If you want a good natural antibiotic, right? Without the consequences, garlic is the way to go. But anyway, keep going.
Barbara Siegel
So yeah, so anyway, we would do the liquid salad and then we would have a fruit smoothie. Well, then I came across some very interesting research about the Chinese bitter melon. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. Yeah, it’s amazing. So we were adding Chinese bitter melon to our fruit smoothies which were… Basically, we were using a lot of the lower glycaemic index fruits, if you will.
Nathan Crane
Yeah.
Barbara Siegel
And banana really covers the taste of the Chinese bitter melon because it is punching. And I just wanna tell you
Nathan Crane
That’s important to say right there, right? Is that even though you were adding fruits, you were blending them so you’re still getting the fiber, which is important.
Barbara Siegel
Right.
Nathan Crane
That you don’t juice fruits when you have cancer, that either you eat them or you blend them, right?
Barbara Siegel
Right, and I mean, all that wonderful fiber, I think that’s what keeps us full.
Nathan Crane
Yes.
Barbara Siegel
We joke around now, we’re like, “We could probably skip a couple of days of eating because we’re so full all the time.” But then, we went from… See, we didn’t do everything all at once. We would do the Chinese bitter melon for about a month, and then take about a month off and then say, move on to dandelions. Dandelions are remarkable. People are killing these things right and left putting weed killer on them. I’m like, “No, don’t do that.” They’re absolutely amazing. We use bitter apricot seeds. He still eats bitter apricot seeds at a maintenance dose. We use the medicinal mushrooms. Liposomal vitamin C, that’s some remarkable stuff. Boswellia, SDXC. Essential oils, frankincense lavender, and lemon grass. Lemon grass is amazing for cancer of the colon. Black seed oil, selenium, vitamin D, vitamin B12. Name something.
Paul Siegel
Essential oils in the bath, in a nice hot bath.
Barbara Siegel
Oh, and I just remembered something too. This is really something that people think that we’re crazy when we tell them that we eat things that most people throw away. But yeah, no, seriously, we do. I have the Vitamix and we put the pits of the avocado in our smoothies. We are, a big one, actually, your dad with his infection, he might do really well with this, the seeds of the papaya.
Nathan Crane
Yeah.
Barbara Siegel
Yeah, yeah. Rinds of watermelons, tops of strawberries, you name it. I mean, we eat garbage.
Nathan Crane
Well, and that’s where a lot of the nutrients are.
Barbara Siegel
Exactly.
Nathan Crane
It’s really like the stems of the cow, right? People throw away the stems of the cow and that’s where… Because it’s bitter, but that’s where most of your nutrients are.
Barbara Siegel
Exactly.
Nathan Crane
So, yeah. So you transitioned to a plant-based diet. You were doing a lot of smoothies, green and fruit smoothies, you’re doing a lot. When you said liquid salads, was this juice or was this smoothie also?
Barbara Siegel
Oh, it was . So it’s
Nathan Crane
So everything into Vitamix. You didn’t use at all, it was all Vitamix.
Barbara Siegel
No, all Vitamix.
Paul Siegel
It helps you from… It stops you from chopping everything up, . So just chuck it in there and you chop them a little.
Barbara Siegel
And my fingers were starting to bleed. I mean, I still chop, I chop and chop and chop and chop.
Nathan Crane
And you were getting
Paul Siegel
You’re making sure
Nathan Crane
Go ahead.
Barbara Siegel
Go ahead.
Paul Siegel
Then you have to change your mindset of your whole life of the way you ate and what you went to buy at the store. You buy fruits and vegetables and things that aren’t processed.
Barbara Siegel
No sugar.
Nathan Crane
How was that for you? What were some of the things about your mindset that you had to change that they were difficult?
Paul Siegel
Well, meat. I mean, grilling things on the grill, now it’s
Barbara Siegel
Slathering it with barbecue sauce and the whole bit, and now it’s like we use our grill, we have a beautiful grill, but we put things on it like say, pineapple and peppers. That’s really good.
Nathan Crane
Mushrooms, do you do mushrooms? Grill mushrooms?
Barbara Siegel
Yeah, those are amazing too, yeah.
Nathan Crane
Shish kebabs? You did grill shish kebabs? So like veggies and shish kebabs, yeah?
Barbara Siegel
We were actually out yesterday, we’re big hikers and we were hiking along and we saw a mushroom. Was this big.
Nathan Crane
Wow.
Barbara Siegel
And I’m like, “God, I really wish I knew something about wild mushrooms,” because… I mean, I just wanted to eat it.
Paul Siegel
I go to the store .
Barbara Siegel
But I did, I wanted to eat it.
Paul Siegel
‘Cause you could pick the wrong one, even though it looks like the right one.
Nathan Crane
Yeah, you got to know what you’re doing if you’re picking wild mushrooms. You got to go with an expert for a while until really you know.
Barbara Siegel
Right?
Nathan Crane
But they are amazing. I mean, if you look at the scientific research on mushrooms, they have so many compounds that are known to be anti-cancer. Everything you’ve talked about are anti-cancer, have anti-cancer properties, antiinflammatory properties. Right, we know colon cancer, for example, I mean that, and any cancer, it’s a chronic inflammatory condition. So when you’re doing things like lots of vegetables, lots of greens, lots of, some fruits for sure, the herbs, the nutrients that you’re adding in, the supplements, all those different kinds of things, they’re really contributing to reducing inflammation, but they’re also producing, they’re bringing hundreds, potentially thousands of phytonutrients into your body, which is helping the body heal so many mechanisms, right? To help heal the cancer, to help your lymphatic system, to help your digestive system, help your microflora, and your gut, right, to balance and then be able to help your body basically heal. So how long was… Okay, so diet, you covered a lot of that. What were some of the other lifestyle changes that you made?
Barbara Siegel
He rebounds.
Paul Siegel
Yeah, I rebound just
Barbara Siegel
A little trampoline.
Paul Siegel
Everyday now.
Nathan Crane
Okay.
Paul Siegel
Exercise, we go for a walk.
Barbara Siegel
Well, we go for a little
Paul Siegel
I mean, you got to keep active this… So I’m getting up there.
Barbara Siegel
We hiked probably about 15 miles a week, in addition to everything else that we’re doing. We have an amazing dog, he’s an Australian shepherd, and he’s laying at our feet right now but
Nathan Crane
Is he? He’s still having nausea. They’re amazing, yeah.
Paul Siegel
He’s ready to go for his walk after he’s done sleeping.
Barbara Siegel
Yeah, he is… We’re gonna walk his legs off. The poor dog’s gonna be saying, “No, no, no, no more.” And I mean, they’re really high energy dogs.
Nathan Crane
So 15 miles a week. Are you hiking five days a week, three miles at a time? Or what does that look like?
Barbara Siegel
Probably, well, yesterday we did seven miles. Usually we hike, we try to do it in two
Nathan Crane
Two longer hikes?
Barbara Siegel
Yeah, we live in Northeastern, Ohio. We have some really amazing hiking areas around here.
Nathan Crane
Nice.
Barbara Siegel
The Cuyahoga Valley National Park is amazing. The Buckeye Trail, the Cleveland Metroparks, they’re all really, really amazing, and
Paul Siegel
And sometimes it’s snowing, or sleeting, or
Barbara Siegel
Yeah, or raining.
Paul Siegel
So you have a rebounder and we have a treadmill.
Barbara Siegel
And a treadmill.
Paul Siegel
So, it’s…
Nathan Crane
How often do you rebound? For how long?
Paul Siegel
Every day, almost.
Nathan Crane
Every day
Paul Siegel
I would say, I miss a day here and there if I hurt an ankle or something, but…
Barbara Siegel
I
Paul Siegel
Just about every day, 10 to 20 minutes.
Nathan Crane
Okay.
Barbara Siegel
I’m trying to get him to do yoga with me, Nathan, but it’s not for him.
Nathan Crane
Not there yet, maybe
Barbara Siegel
Not there yet.
Nathan Crane
Yeah, qigong also. Yeah, I’ve done lots of qigong and yoga over the last 15 years and they’re both extraordinary, yeah.
Barbara Siegel
I love qigong.
Nathan Crane
What about… So hiking 15 miles a week, rebounding just about every day, any other specific exercise, things that you’ve done?
Paul Siegel
Just regular calisthenics.
Nathan Crane
Is that pretty regular?
Barbara Siegel
Weights.
Paul Siegel
Weights. A little bit of weights.
Barbara Siegel
Oh yeah, we have to
Paul Siegel
I’m not working out to make the team or anything, so.
Barbara Siegel
But it becomes a priority, like I said before, our lives were, I have to go to work, we have to run the kids here and there and wherever. And our lives are still absolutely maniacal at times, but it’s a priority. This is, I guess, what I’m saying, with the nutrition and everything that we do, this comes first. And we have found some really creative ways to make sure that we’re staying on track.
Nathan Crane
How do you do that? How do you keep yourselves on track?
Barbara Siegel
Ah, well, you know what? We wake up every day and we know it’s a choice, we’re making a choice that we’re gonna keep him cancer-free, he’s going to live, and we’re gonna move mountains and remove any obstacle that we can in order to see that through. So, yesterday was a really, really crazy day. And sometimes it’s a matter of taking the smoothie on the go. But it’s not like, “Well, we can go here and do this and do that and just ignore whatever.” No, that doesn’t happen. It becomes a priority, it is our priority, health is our priority.
Nathan Crane
And that’s what it takes. I mean, it’s such an important thing that you just mentioned there because when it becomes your priority, ’cause so many people say, I don’t have time for exercise, I don’t have time to learn how to cook, or how to go plant-based, I don’t have time for hiking 15 miles a week or rebounding and working out every day. And the reality is we all have time. It’s just, are we willing to make the time? Right?
Barbara Siegel
Exactly.
Nathan Crane
Are we willing to like make it a priority? And once it is a priority, like you said, you just don’t miss it, right? You don’t miss it. It’s like, “Nope, this is… I’m not watching TV until I get my workout in, or I’m not doing this until I have my smoothie, I’m not…” It’s like, those are the things that are less priority, which often are the things that are just time sucks anyway, like watching TV, or just sitting not doing much, or whatever it might be, sleeping in or something, even though sleep’s really important, right?
Barbara Siegel
Right.
Nathan Crane
But, once you make it a priority, then you just don’t, you don’t miss it. I mean, I’m the same way with exercise, with working out. It’s like, once it became a priority, it doesn’t matter what’s going on. Unfortunately, sometimes I really long , right?
Barbara Siegel
Right.
Nathan Crane
And usually I try to work out by 4:00 or 4:30 in the afternoon, and sometimes I don’t get to it till seven o’clock.
Barbara Siegel
Exactly.
Nathan Crane
I don’t like working out that late, and it’d be easy to say, “Nah, I’m not gonna do it today.” But it’s a priority, so I do it anyway, right?
Barbara Siegel
Right, it’s like, I’m craving kale. You’d never thought in a million years you’d crave kale, and now it’s like, “Get me some kale.” You know what I mean?
Nathan Crane
Well, let’s talk about what that is, right? Why, ’cause your taste buds change, your microflora change, which are the things that either are saying, give me more of that meat, give me more of those French fries, give me more of that hamburger, right? Which you’re craving those things which are causing disease. Or give me more of that kale, give me more of that banana, give me more of those berries, right? Which is, that’s literally, we have trillions and trillions of cells inside of us, living cells that are helping our body determine what it wants and what it needs. They’re communicating to us, right?
Barbara Siegel
Right.
Nathan Crane
Because you cleaned out your body and switched your diet, then you had new microflora that are saying, feed me more of this, I like it. It’s doing good.
Barbara Siegel
Right.
Nathan Crane
Yeah.
Barbara Siegel
And plus to work at it and forever.
Nathan Crane
Yeah.
Barbara Siegel
So back cover.
Nathan Crane
So what about your mental, emotional side of things, spiritual side of things? Were there any kind of changes you made there? Did you guys implement more prayer or meditation? Did you have any deeper spiritual insights or practice? Have you done any other kind of mental, emotional work at all?
Paul Siegel
Just really, mentally trying to… I don’t know how to say it, but just being mentally strong. I mean, it wasn’t much spiritual things. It was determination to get better.
Barbara Siegel
I think for me, maybe it’s a little different because like I said, when we would tell people, “Oh, we’re not doing chemo, we’re healing his cancer naturally.” And then there was like this awkward pause. And then I started realizing that maybe, I don’t know, for lack of better word where people distancing themselves from me because they thought I was crazy. So it started where I had to go within and find my strengths. And like I said, I do a lot of yoga, I do yoga every day. I don’t do qigong every day, but I probably should. But I guess, we’re not… I don’t know
Paul Siegel
I don’t know. My work when I work out, it’s like a meditation to me.
Barbara Siegel
Exactly.
Paul Siegel
And then when you’re done and let’s say, you sit down, and you feel pretty good, I mean.
Barbara Siegel
Like hiking becomes a moving meditation.
Nathan Crane
Yeah, absolutely calm.
Barbara Siegel
And I mean, people that don’t do it, do it. I mean, you need to do it. You need to get out there and just… That’s where I guess we find our nature.
Paul Siegel
There’s a cure, everything we do. I mean, I don’t just jump around on my trampoline. It’s trying to get your lymph nodes, juice is gone. You know what I mean? There’s always something that motivates me. I mean, you read something, tomatoes or cancer fighting. You read that and it’s like you put it in your head that, “Oh, I’m gonna do this, this and this because they’re all cancer fighting.”
Nathan Crane
Yeah.
Paul Siegel
You want to .
Nathan Crane
Yeah, so you’re talking about understanding the reason why you’re doing things, right? It’s like, I’m very much that way. I think a lot of people can benefit from being that way, is understanding the why. If someone just tells me, “Yeah, go eat kale.” I’m like, “I don’t wanna eat kale. Why would I eat kale?” Well, kale has these anticancer properties, and helps you live longer, it’s got good, etc, etc. So the why, you understand more about the why, “Okay, I can start adding in some kale,” right? And so it sounds like both of you not only got deep into educating yourselves about the why’s and the what’s in the house, but it sounds like you still continue to do that even after. I don’t think we’ve mentioned it. We talked offline, but I don’t think we’ve mentioned it yet. So on all of this diet and lifestyle shifts, and mindset of determination, and plant-based diet and exercise, how long was it from when you… After surgery, and they said, we need you to do chemotherapy, right? ‘Cause it’s spread to your lymphs and your lymph nodes. How long was it on these lifestyle changes that then you got a clean bill of health that you were shown cancer-free?
Paul Siegel
Less than a year.
Nathan Crane
Wow.
Paul Siegel
And the readers in the CAT scan place I went, they looked like they seen a ghost.
Barbara Siegel
He could literally see them sitting at their machines. And when he walked through, he told me that they turn their heads and they were looking at him. Because they knew the diagnosis and they were just expecting to find something horrific. And there was nothing there, there was nothing there.
Nathan Crane
Wow.
Barbara Siegel
But to this day, and it will be five years in August, we maintain the lifestyle that we initiated way back when. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I really wouldn’t have it any other way. And I have to tell you that, like
Nathan Crane
Paul, are you missing any steak? Are you missing steak? So do you want steak again, or you’re…
Paul Siegel
I’m used to have on Sunday. But not really, ’cause it’s like, if you’ll make some bean soup and I, you can’t tell the difference.
Barbara Siegel
Oh, what? You didn’t know you can do amazing things with lentils?
Nathan Crane
Yes.
Paul Siegel
And bean soup and it’s like
Nathan Crane
It’s very satiating. And Paul, at my place diet is really satiating, yeah.
Barbara Siegel
And my daughter and her husbands are both plant-based. My other son is plant-based. I have one that’s a little resistant. But he eats a lot of things and he’s like, “Mom, I don’t wanna know what’s in here.” I be willing to tell you . But he loves it, he loves it. He’s just not ready to cross the bridge yet. He’s just not ready. He’ll get there.
Nathan Crane
Yeah, so you said the thing I love about what you just said was… And this is what module eight in my masterclass is all about, is how to make it last, right? How to create this holistic personalized plan for health and healing. And then how to make it last. It’s one thing which is extraordinary, what you’ve done in less than a year, actually, have a clean scan and show that you’ve been cancer-free. Unfortunately, after a couple of years in a lot of cases, some people go back to the lifestyle and they go, “Oh, okay, I’m cancer-free now. I can go back to what I was doing before.” Not realizing that those were the things that were contributing to the cancer. And then the cancer comes back with a vengeance, right? Because they don’t maintain the new lifestyle. That is what helped them heal. And yet it sounds like you’ve been doing that for the past, what, four years now? Four plus, four to five years.
Barbara Siegel
It’ll be five years.
Nathan Crane
And are you continuously educating yourselves and learning and doing new things as well, or you stayed the same?
Paul Siegel
It has been five years since I threw the sodas out.
Barbara Siegel
But now we are
Paul Siegel
Sugary sodas. Diet doesn’t matter, diet pap doesn’t matter. Get rid of your sugary sodas.
Barbara Siegel
Get rid of it all, drink water. But know, I’ve always been very much into education and reading and I read quite a bit, and I think sometimes he just wants to say stop that. Or just don’t talk about . For just five minutes, turn off the switch.
Paul Siegel
Turn off switch for a little while.
Barbara Siegel
But it doesn’t happen. And I mean, we’re still together 40 years later. So I mean, obviously, he puts up with it, but . But it’s, yeah.
Nathan Crane
Well, it’s a good thing he does. It’s a good thing you listen to your wife, Paul?
Paul Siegel
Well, and…
Barbara Siegel
Yeah.
Paul Siegel
Well, the biggest thing is to change over what you’re eating, if you wanna remain cancer-free. And you got to throw the sugar out too. That was a little hard for me. I got a sweet tooth, so. Well, missing it.
Nathan Crane
What are some things that you enjoy that replaces that sweet tooth? What are some good
Barbara Siegel
Home-made granola, and you know what? Yesterday while we were out on the trail, I ate the last of the granola . And I have no more granola to replace it with just yet, so I have to get busy, but, yeah. Everything that we eat is just has amazing nutrition in it. We do have say little bits of maple syrup, that kind of stuff, but I mean, nothing that’s-
Paul Siegel
Yeah, the
Barbara Siegel
Sugar.
Paul Siegel
I can’t say the name, but the regular syrup.
Barbara Siegel
Oh, it’s terrible.
Paul Siegel
You got to throw that out too, because it’s got corn syrup in it.
Barbara Siegel
Yeah, right.
Nathan Crane
It’s fake syrup. Right, you’re talking about some probably organic, like grade B pure maple syrup, for example.
Barbara Siegel
Pure maple syrup.
Paul Siegel
Pure maple syrup is all we get.
Nathan Crane
And you don’t… The nice thing is when you clean out your digestive system. I have experienced this myself, right? My whole family has experienced it. Once you clean out your digestive system and you stop putting in all of those fake sugars, which we know that excessive sugar contributes to cancer, feeds cancer, right? So once you cut that out, it’s one, you stop craving the sugar as much. I mean, I know, my sugar craving’s basically maybe took me a year, I’m not sure how long, but they basically, for the most part went away. And then two, when they do come, which I still crave sugar once in a while, right? It’s like there are so many healthier options. I’ll eat a banana and I’ll put some pecans. I’ll chop up a banana and an apple put in some coconut yogurt, right? That doesn’t have sugar in it. So sugar-free coconut yogurts and then put a little maple syrup, a little honey in there, right? And just a little bit of sweetness. You don’t need 30 grams of sugar from fake high-fructose corn syrup anymore. You get five grams, or six grams, seven grams, so a little bit of honey or something and it does the trick. Right?
Barbara Siegel
Right. And if you do eat something that has a lot of sugar or whatever in there, oh, it’s like an instant buzz or something. It’s just, it’s terrible. It just goes right to ya, and yeah, you can’t do it.
Nathan Crane
Well, listen guys, Paul, Barbara, thank you so much for agreeing to do this, for sharing your story. I know it’s gonna reach and impact and inspire a lot of people. Thank you for being a beacon of hope and for being willing to share this story with others. I think this is, it’s incredible what you’ve done, and truly a proof that it is possible that when you change diet, lifestyle, mindset, even environment, your chances of becoming cancer-free absolutely go up. But even more importantly, your quality of life goes up, right? I mean, that’s the thing is you get cleaner and healthier. It’s like your quality of life goes up, your energy goes up, your mental clarity goes up, you feel better about what you’re doing. And you’re both a great example of that. So thank you so much for being here and sharing this with all of our audience.
Paul Siegel
All right, thank you.
Barbara Siegel
Thank you.
