May 10, 2025 • 21 mins
What happens when the "healthy one" in the friend group gets cancer? For Katrina Foe, it became the catalyst for a revolutionary approach to cancer care focusing not just on tumors, but on why they appear in the first place.
Katrina's story begins with her breast cancer diagnosis at 24 years old, despite already living what most would consider an exceptionally healthy lifestyle. She had moved states to raise her own animals, made everything from scratch, and avoided toxins—yet cancer still found her. This mystery launched her into the world of functional medicine and terrain theory, where she discovered a "perfect storm" of factors had overwhelmed her immune system: insulin resistance, estrogen dominance, thyroid issues, genetic methylation problems, mold exposure, parasites, and emotional stress from a toxic relationship.
Through our conversation, Katrina illuminates how the metabolic approach to cancer differs fundamentally from conventional care. "Their focus is make the tumor go away," she explains, "whereas with functional care we're looking at why the tumor is there." This perspective shift leads to comprehensive testing and personalized protocols addressing multiple root causes simultaneously. Most fascinating is how Katrina has solved the accessibility problem that plagues functional medicine—the high cost and limited practitioner availability. By creating a technology-powered group program, she provides personalized care at scale, where clients enter their lab results and receive customized protocols while benefiting from community support.
The revolution Katrina represents extends beyond cancer care. It reflects a broader cultural shift where patients increasingly question conventional approaches, seek deeper understanding of their conditions, and desire active participation in their healing. If you're curious about alternative approaches to chronic disease or how practitioners can scale personalized care, this episode offers valuable insights from someone who's both lived the journey and created innovative solutions to help others.
🔗 Guest Contact Info
Guest: Katrina Foe, BCHN, MRWP
Title: Board Certified Holistic Nutritionist, Certified Terrain Expert
Business: CancerFreedom.com
Book: NutritionalPilates.com
Social Media:
- Instagram: @katrinafoe
- Facebook: facebook.com/nutritional.pilates
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr Andrew Greenland (00:04):
So hello and welcome back to Voices in
Health and Wellness.
This is the podcast where weuncover the emerging shift
shaping the future of wellnessclinics and the people leading
them.
I'm your host, dr AndrewGreenland, and today I'm joined
by Katrina Foe, a boardcertified holistic nutritionist,
certified terrain expert in themetabolic approach to cancer
and international bestsellingauthor of Nutritional Pilates.
(00:25):
She's the founder ofCancerFreedomcom, where she
empowers individuals navigatingcancer to reclaim their health
through root cause protocols andpersonalized movement.
Katrina's work lives at theintersection of functional
medicine and movement-basedhealing, and her philosophy is
reshaping how both patients andpractitioners approach long-term
wellness.
Katrina, welcome to the show.
(00:46):
Thank you so much for coming onthis afternoon.
Perhaps you could tell us whereyou're calling from, just for
the benefit of our viewers orlisteners.
Katrina Foe (00:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm over in the US in Coeurd'Alene, Idaho, so right up by
the Canadian border.
Dr Andrew Greenland (00:59):
Perfect.
So let's maybe start with yourwork.
Can you tell us a little bitabout your role and how it fits
into the bigger picture atcancer freedom?
And I'm really curious to knowabout this intersection between
nutrition and pilates.
It's a really interesting angle.
I'm a big, big advocate of both, but I'm just really, really
interested to hear how you kindof combine them and do your
thing yeah, well, um, so I, whenI was 24, I opened a Pilates
(01:24):
studio.
Katrina Foe (01:24):
It's down in Scottsdale, arizona, and we do
Pilates teacher training and wereally focus more on like post
rehab.
And then for myself, I ended uphaving a cancer diagnosis
breast cancer in 2015, whichbrought me to a whole nother
level, brought me to a wholenother level.
I'd already started working ondiet and nutrition and we'd had
(01:45):
some other little minor healthissues to deal with and seeing
food as medicine work.
But when I got cancer, it tookit to the next level and
challenged me.
I decided to do everything allnatural, using functional
testing, and the whole processjust fascinated me.
And that's when I went back toschool to become certified in
(02:06):
the integrative oncology andsuch as you were and getting all
the functional medicinetraining.
So everything that I do now islooking through the lens of more
of the whole body, because withPilates as well as with
functional nutrition, there's acommonality of root cause.
Let's look at the body as awhole, it's not individual
pieces.
(02:26):
So there's that thread ofcontinuity there.
Now, with Cancer Freedom, as apractitioner, I am working
exclusively with cancer clientsand so I'm the practitioner
behind Cancer Freedom.
It's an online group program,looking at things a little
(02:47):
different format, to really diveinto why people got cancer.
Most of my clients are middleaged women and they're the
healthy ones and they're likewhere did this come from?
And that's what we're going tounearth and then address.
Naturally, Amazing.
Dr Andrew Greenland (03:04):
So what will be a typical sort of client
journey in terms of the kind ofpeople you're saying?
I mean, you mentionedmiddle-aged women.
What would it look like fromthem in terms of what you do
with them, working them up andwhat you offer?
Katrina Foe (03:17):
Yeah.
So about a third of my clientsare doing things all natural.
That's the path they chose.
About a third of them areworking integratively, where
they're doing some part or allof the standard of care in
conjunction at the same timewith the functional work.
And then about a third of themdid standard of care and now
want to get to the root cause tomake sure it doesn't come back.
(03:39):
So we start with a full array,a very wide spans of functional
testing.
That's looking at what theresearch is showing causes
drives is associated with cancer, and then we address those
issues.
So you know, a ketogenic dietis the base and then whatever
(03:59):
shows up on their labs we'regoing to start to support
Wonderful wonderful.
Dr Andrew Greenland (04:04):
So what does a typical day look like for
you at the moment, betweenclient work, writing and running
the business, because I guessyou're doing a bit of all of
those things.
So what does it kind of looklike for you if there is such
thing as a typical day in your?
Katrina Foe (04:14):
that's why I'm kind of laughing, because my days
look very different.
It's not nine to five clientsback to back, and I have just
found for myself.
I thrive on change, on variety.
So to keep me fresh, I've got amixture of live Q&As with my
(04:34):
clients, sales calls to discussdifferent cases and, if this
would be appropriate, withpotential clients, webinars,
podcasts that I record, likethis, and then social media
content to you know, get theword out there about this.
Dr Andrew Greenland (04:51):
Got it.
So, from your vantage point,what are you?
What sort of major shifts areyou seeing in integrative stroke
functional care right now,particularly around how people
are choosing to approach cancer,because that's the thing that
you're specializing in, but alsochronic conditions in general?
Katrina Foe (05:06):
Yeah, this is a loaded question.
This is a good one.
So, with cancer particularly,I'm seeing a lot of people,
especially in the kind of middleage bracket, are more and more
open to I don't want tonecessarily just do or even do
standard of care.
I don't want to necessarilyjust do or even do standard of
care.
There, if I think through thewhole COVID thing, there's a
(05:28):
little bit of questioning andevaluating like how do I really
want to take an approach to mypersonal health?
And that's coming out wherepeople are looking outside of
just what their insurance willcover and being willing to pay
for it out of pocket becauseit's not what they want, which I
(05:48):
think is exciting that we havethat medical freedom and ability
to choose what we want, even ifit's, you know, not covered at
this point.
Dr Andrew Greenland (05:55):
Interesting .
And how about the shift towardspersonalization and also the
terrain therapy?
Perhaps you could talk to alittle bit about terrain theory
and how you apply it to a littlebit about terrain theory and
how you apply it to deliveringcare, because I think it's
probably something people aren'tterribly familiar with, perhaps
outside of your circles.
Katrina Foe (06:12):
Yeah, yeah.
So the terrain, the theory, themetabolic approach to cancer,
you know, we know from theliterature.
I mean, otto Warburg won theNobel Prize in 1931.
So this is this is not newinformation showing that a
cancer cell is defined as ametabolic shift in the actual
mitochondria and you know.
(06:32):
So addressing that and reallyworking on making sure that they
have balanced blood sugar.
So we're not feeding the cancer,you know, with all this extra
abundance of its preferred fuelsource, as well as getting into
a state of ketosis, becausethose ketones are super
therapeutic.
They actually have been shownto shrink tumors, stop their
(06:54):
growth and such.
So you know, diet is the basewith everything.
And then from there there'sthere's 10 areas, terrain,
sometimes they're called rootcause drivers that are what's
going to be, what's showing upin the research as can cause
cancer, so to speak.
Now, the interesting thing hereis that in our standard of care,
(07:17):
it's not that it's bad, it'sjust their view is different and
there's a time and a place forit.
But their focus is make thetumor go away, whereas with
functional care we're looking atwhy is the tumor there?
So when we can discover andlist out why the tumor is there,
based on someone's labs.
(07:38):
Then we've got a plan toaddress those items which can be
done.
Naturally.
We don't need the drugsnecessarily, and then the body
is unburdened so that it can dowhat it was designed to do,
which is cure that cancer itself.
Dr Andrew Greenland (07:54):
Amazing.
Can you give us perhaps arecent case example just to
illustrate this for people whoare not necessarily familiar
with this theory and just kindof see how it will play out for
a real person?
Katrina Foe (08:05):
Yeah, I can give you myself as an example, would
that be?
Dr Andrew Greenland (08:07):
more fun.
Yeah, it would be wonderful ifyou're happy to share, it would
be wonderful.
Katrina Foe (08:11):
Oh yeah, I get personal, no problem.
Like I said, I was the healthyone in my friend group.
We had already done a lot oflike changes in terms of making
everything from scratch, cookingwise, making toiletries,
cleaning products, like we hadeven moved to a different state
so that we could have land toraise our own meat animals so
that they weren't being fed junkand antibiotics and such like
(08:34):
kind of extreme.
And I still got cancer and Ihad no idea why and they was
just like okay, clearlysomething I'm doing isn't right.
Let's evaluate everything.
And I floundered a little bit,including getting kicked out of
a cancer clinic for asking toomany questions.
But I found functional medicineand so we started the
(08:56):
practitioner I found startedrunning all these tests and so
many things showed up that Ifound started running all these
tests and so many things showedup that I had no idea about.
Like I was not having symptoms,I didn't even know some of
these were like cancer causingthings.
So for me I'll just list thingsoff I was.
I was insulin resistant, whichyou know we talk about blood
sugar issues and people think ofhypoglycemia.
(09:18):
Where is the low blood sugar,the hangry, shaky before meals
and such, but having a lot ofblood sugar oh too much actually
feels really good.
It doesn't feel bad and that'swhere people usually will fight.
I'm like I don't have bloodsugar issues.
I'm like let's test and seewhat's really going on, not just
assume.
So that was a big issue for me.
(09:40):
I also was very estrogendominant, so high estrogen, low
progesterone, both.
I was very sluggish thyroid, mythyroid numbers were super low
and I had a lot of geneticissues.
So I'm not talking about BRCAstuff, I'm talking about like I
don't make fat soluble vitaminswell, I have blood sugar
(10:02):
regulation issues.
I'm terrible at methylating andall those things are known to
contribute to cancer.
I was in a toxic relationshipwhich emotionally, was a big
factor.
I had just moved into a housewith very high levels of toxic
mold, like eight months prior tomy diagnosis.
(10:24):
I had some parasites, all sortsof fun things like that.
So you know, exposing those,you know I wouldn't have known
about the mold, I wouldn't haveknown about the insulin and
issues and such if we hadn'tdone the testing.
Dr Andrew Greenland (10:40):
Sounds like there's a perfect storm with
all of those things going on.
Katrina Foe (10:43):
That's actually the phrase I use all the time with
my clients.
I love that.
Yeah, it takes usually out ofthe 10 terrain areas, it takes
seven or eight to usually forpeople to overwhelm that immune
system and create that perfectstorm where it can't do what
it's supposed to do.
And so the biggest myth that Ihave with clients is that you
(11:04):
know they come, they're like oh,I think this one thing did it
and like it's not just that onething.
You know, and that's where, asa practitioner, I don't want to
miss things.
So I make sure we do all thetesting up front so we know what
we're dealing with got it.
Dr Andrew Greenland (11:19):
So do you see this movement as part of a
broader cultural shift, or is itmore of a response to gaps in
the conventional system?
Katrina Foe (11:27):
I think that this is definitely part of a larger
shift because people are wantingto do things that are not just
drug-based and they really wantto get to know the why.
They want to understand theirbodies more and take ownership
for it.
They're maybe a littlemistrustful because they're
getting shuffled through systemsand not being seen or heard.
(11:49):
Things are being missed andthey are feeling like they want
to have more ownership in theprocess, and that's one thing
functional medicine does is itgives them more ownership.
A lot of it has to do witheducation and understanding and
then the personalizing.
So when you're implementingsome of these protocols, the
(12:10):
client has to be activelyparticipating.
They have to educate themselvesand own you know, changing
their diet and doing you knowthe actual implementation.
It's not just take a pill.
Dr Andrew Greenland (12:23):
Certainly.
I mean, this is all music to myears because I'm a functional
medicine practitioner and thisis all my language, so I'm
loving this.
So what's working well for youand your team right now in the
business side of things, what'sthe trend?
Katrina Foe (12:37):
So I've been doing this work one-on-one for a while
now and you know it's expensive, especially when you're talking
about not being covered byinsurance and there's a lot of
nuances of like I'm saying thesame thing over and over and
over again to everybody.
That just felt like from abusiness perspective it wasn't
(12:57):
the most efficient use of mytime and I'm super capped at how
many clients that I could see.
So I did a lot of tech stackingand leveraging and we developed
a group program We've had itrunning for a year now where
people get to hear the questionsthat other people are having
(13:19):
and get answered before theyeven develop the question in
their head.
A lot of the information that Ineed to impart.
It's not necessarily superpersonalized, it's explanation
on how to do X, y, z or whateveris recorded so they can watch
it on their own time as manytimes as they want and they
don't have to pay for my time todo that, so we can drop the
(13:42):
cost greatly.
So we're really excited aboutthis new program and I've gotten
nothing but good feedback frommy clients of you know it builds
a certain level of communitythat you don't get as well with.
You know one-on-ones whereyou're just one-off.
One-off Because with cancerespecially, you know it can be
(14:02):
very, very alienating, andespecially when you start
talking to people about doing itnatural, it's even more so.
And so even just gettingtogether on our weekly calls and
seeing faces and hearing thatother people are asking the same
questions and thinking thingson the same line, it's really
validating to my clients andthat's probably been the thing
they like the most.
Dr Andrew Greenland (14:24):
Brilliant.
This is really interesting tome because it's one of the
challenges we face in this kindof world is being able to scale,
and functional medicine takestime one-to-one.
I mean, I spend quite a longtime with my clients and so I'm
very much limited by the numberI can see, as you're kind of
(14:44):
saying.
So how do you structure this?
Because cancer is a fairly vasttopic and I guess you have
patients with all differentkinds of cancer.
So are you doing them on abreast cancer group or bowel
cancer group, or are you justputting them generically
together and trying to get somecommon themes that come out in
the group?
Katrina Foe (14:57):
Yeah, that's a fantastic question.
So it sounds a littleblasphemous to say, but honestly
I don't really care what kindof cancer it is, because cancer
is cancer and there's going tobe those same root cause drivers
, you know, just to speakgenerically.
So when I run all the sametests on everybody, so we don't
miss anything, and those arewhat they're going to have in
(15:18):
common.
If they have toxic levels ofmold, if they've got
auto-immunes flared up anddifferent things to where those
need to be addressed, andwhether they have colorectal
cancer, breast cancer, lungcancer, they're going to have
those same things that we'retalking about as a group.
Yeah, so it's one group.
(15:39):
Right now my group is just women, cause it's it's got a really
nice dynamic with that and, justto be super direct, I don't get
very many men that want to dothis work.
I'm not.
I'm not sure if you get thesame thing, but it's primarily
middle-aged women, which isdisturbing that they're so young
, usually, primarily middle-agedwomen which is disturbing that
(16:01):
they're so young usually, andyou know they've got kids at
home and such and they reallywant to understand and so
together, you know we're workingon that.
But primarily I think I getmostly breast cancer.
Not only is it a big deal, butyou know that was what I had.
So I think I tend to draw thatin.
Dr Andrew Greenland (16:15):
Sure, and then how do you?
Obviously the group sounds likeit's very successful, but how
do you get the, thepersonalization and the
individual kind of attentioninto that kind of model?
Katrina Foe (16:25):
Yeah, yeah, this is where tech can really help.
So I have developed an extensivesystem on the back end of my
website where they enter theirlabs in and, based on what's
showing up on their labs,they're going to get different
recommendations for theirprotocol, down to dosing and
brands and everything, and thenwe can tease that out.
(16:47):
You know if something'sbackordered or something's not
working for them in the groupcalls.
So it's a very different model,um, that is much less time
heavy and but still gets thepersonalization.
Now the other thing that we dois in our educational portal
they get information everythingfrom you know anatomy and
(17:10):
physiology to what does thismarker mean, on all the
different tests, to how toimplement all the different
lifestyle like sauna or enemasor different things.
All of that's in there for themto watch, because a lot of
times, especially if they'redoing chemo or something or they
have some mold toxicity, thebrain's a little foggy, and so
(17:32):
for them not having to remembereverything that they talked
through in one session, becauseyou're doing one-on-one, you're
cramming the information in andthey're exploding.
They're not going to remembereverything, and this way they
get to absorb it at their ownpace, in their own time, and
they can take notes and such ifthey want brilliant um, so that
(17:52):
sounds like it's very successful.
Dr Andrew Greenland (17:54):
But do you have any um friction points in
your business, whether it's umscaling, education, operations,
anything that you're kind ofactively trying to solve?
Katrina Foe (18:04):
Oh, that's a great question.
Yeah, I think right now ourbiggest friction point is
helping people to shift theiridea of what medicine should be.
So you know, when I'll talk witha potential client they're very
much like I have to have one onones and to have them open
their mind that you don'tactually need to.
(18:24):
I mean, it doesn't hurt you ifSusie's listening in and
learning from it at the sametime and then you get to do the
same for her.
And it just that that paradigmshift because it's super
ingrained in us of I need tohave a one hour session with the
practitioner every three monthsor whatever.
It's really different.
And so at this point you knowthey can, they have the option
(18:49):
to upgrade to my one-on-onepackage, which is, you know,
it's the same program, it's justa matter of you get the
one-on-one time.
I haven't ever had anybodyupgrade to that.
Once they get in there and theyactually feel and experience it
, you know if they can take thatleap, um to open their mind to
it, they, they love it and theyfind that it's really helpful
and in it actually adds more,but that there's a little
(19:10):
disconnect there because of whatwe've been conditioned to
expect got it?
Dr Andrew Greenland (19:16):
um, are there any particular metrics or
outcomes that you are mostfocused with on in the business
in terms of sort of seeing howthings are going, monitoring,
monitoring the business,anything that you tend to choose
, because obviously there's lotsof things we can measure, but I
just wonder if there's any thatyou particularly focus on in
your business I mean, obviouslythere's client metrics of you
(19:38):
know how they're improving andsuch, which I think would be the
same for any practitioner.
Katrina Foe (19:43):
In terms of business, I'm really looking at
my funnels and the conversionrates and how we're connecting
with people.
Specifically, we run social adsto a webinar.
That, looking at the social ads, are they hitting the right
target demographic and peoplethat are actually interested?
That's usually what we'relooking at the social ads are
they hitting the right targetdemographic and and people that
are actually interested?
Dr Andrew Greenland (20:03):
um, that's, that's usually what we're
looking at a lot and in terms ofthe future, or if we just take
the next six to twelve months,um where do you want to be,
either personally or with umcancer freedom?
Katrina Foe (20:16):
yeah, that's um for me.
I were.
I really want to promote thegroup program more and just get
it out there more.
So I've just hired asalesperson to help me with that
, because you only got so manyhours in the week, so that's a
huge step for me to get to havethat taken off my plate.
So that transition is what I'mfocusing on to be able to then
(20:39):
stay exclusively in just thepatient realm, if you will.
Dr Andrew Greenland (20:43):
Got it, and if there's one big thing you
could solve today that wouldaccelerate everything else, what
might that be?
Katrina Foe (20:51):
Oh, that's a great one.
I mean, if I could magicallyreach exactly my person and help
them see that group is a uniquebut valuable asset, like that
would be where I'd jump into.
I guess that's kind of twothings, huh.
Dr Andrew Greenland (21:09):
No, that's fine, we can have two things.
Katrina, thank you so much forjoining us today for this chat.
Really interesting to hear whatyou're doing around cancer, the
way you apply terrain theoryand functional medicine, and the
fact that you're able to reachmore people by scaling your
group program.
I think it's been a reallyinteresting conversation.
I think it will interest a lotof people because I think a lot
of us are still working in silosand hearing about how you've
(21:30):
managed to make this work for agroup.
I think is really interesting.
So thank you so much for yourtime today.
I really appreciate it.
You're welcome.
So hello and welcome back to Voices in
Health and Wellness.
This is the podcast where weuncover the emerging shift
shaping the future of wellnessclinics and the people leading
them.
I'm your host, dr AndrewGreenland, and today I'm joined
by Katrina Foe, a boardcertified holistic nutritionist,
certified terrain expert in themetabolic approach to cancer
and international bestsellingauthor of Nutritional Pilates.
(00:25):
She's the founder ofCancerFreedomcom, where she
empowers individuals navigatingcancer to reclaim their health
through root cause protocols andpersonalized movement.
Katrina's work lives at theintersection of functional
medicine and movement-basedhealing, and her philosophy is
reshaping how both patients andpractitioners approach long-term
wellness.
Katrina, welcome to the show.
(00:46):
Thank you so much for coming onthis afternoon.
Perhaps you could tell us whereyou're calling from, just for
the benefit of our viewers orlisteners.
Katrina Foe (00:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm over in the US in Coeurd'Alene, Idaho, so right up by
the Canadian border.
Dr Andrew Greenland (00:59):
Perfect.
So let's maybe start with yourwork.
Can you tell us a little bitabout your role and how it fits
into the bigger picture atcancer freedom?
And I'm really curious to knowabout this intersection between
nutrition and pilates.
It's a really interesting angle.
I'm a big, big advocate of both, but I'm just really, really
interested to hear how you kindof combine them and do your
thing yeah, well, um, so I, whenI was 24, I opened a Pilates
(01:24):
studio.
Katrina Foe (01:24):
It's down in Scottsdale, arizona, and we do
Pilates teacher training and wereally focus more on like post
rehab.
And then for myself, I ended uphaving a cancer diagnosis
breast cancer in 2015, whichbrought me to a whole nother
level, brought me to a wholenother level.
I'd already started working ondiet and nutrition and we'd had
(01:45):
some other little minor healthissues to deal with and seeing
food as medicine work.
But when I got cancer, it tookit to the next level and
challenged me.
I decided to do everything allnatural, using functional
testing, and the whole processjust fascinated me.
And that's when I went back toschool to become certified in
(02:06):
the integrative oncology andsuch as you were and getting all
the functional medicinetraining.
So everything that I do now islooking through the lens of more
of the whole body, because withPilates as well as with
functional nutrition, there's acommonality of root cause.
Let's look at the body as awhole, it's not individual
pieces.
(02:26):
So there's that thread ofcontinuity there.
Now, with Cancer Freedom, as apractitioner, I am working
exclusively with cancer clientsand so I'm the practitioner
behind Cancer Freedom.
It's an online group program,looking at things a little
(02:47):
different format, to really diveinto why people got cancer.
Most of my clients are middleaged women and they're the
healthy ones and they're likewhere did this come from?
And that's what we're going tounearth and then address.
Naturally, Amazing.
Dr Andrew Greenland (03:04):
So what will be a typical sort of client
journey in terms of the kind ofpeople you're saying?
I mean, you mentionedmiddle-aged women.
What would it look like fromthem in terms of what you do
with them, working them up andwhat you offer?
Katrina Foe (03:17):
Yeah.
So about a third of my clientsare doing things all natural.
That's the path they chose.
About a third of them areworking integratively, where
they're doing some part or allof the standard of care in
conjunction at the same timewith the functional work.
And then about a third of themdid standard of care and now
want to get to the root cause tomake sure it doesn't come back.
(03:39):
So we start with a full array,a very wide spans of functional
testing.
That's looking at what theresearch is showing causes
drives is associated with cancer, and then we address those
issues.
So you know, a ketogenic dietis the base and then whatever
(03:59):
shows up on their labs we'regoing to start to support
Wonderful wonderful.
Dr Andrew Greenland (04:04):
So what does a typical day look like for
you at the moment, betweenclient work, writing and running
the business, because I guessyou're doing a bit of all of
those things.
So what does it kind of looklike for you if there is such
thing as a typical day in your?
Katrina Foe (04:14):
that's why I'm kind of laughing, because my days
look very different.
It's not nine to five clientsback to back, and I have just
found for myself.
I thrive on change, on variety.
So to keep me fresh, I've got amixture of live Q&As with my
(04:34):
clients, sales calls to discussdifferent cases and, if this
would be appropriate, withpotential clients, webinars,
podcasts that I record, likethis, and then social media
content to you know, get theword out there about this.
Dr Andrew Greenland (04:51):
Got it.
So, from your vantage point,what are you?
What sort of major shifts areyou seeing in integrative stroke
functional care right now,particularly around how people
are choosing to approach cancer,because that's the thing that
you're specializing in, but alsochronic conditions in general?
Katrina Foe (05:06):
Yeah, this is a loaded question.
This is a good one.
So, with cancer particularly,I'm seeing a lot of people,
especially in the kind of middleage bracket, are more and more
open to I don't want tonecessarily just do or even do
standard of care.
I don't want to necessarilyjust do or even do standard of
care.
There, if I think through thewhole COVID thing, there's a
(05:28):
little bit of questioning andevaluating like how do I really
want to take an approach to mypersonal health?
And that's coming out wherepeople are looking outside of
just what their insurance willcover and being willing to pay
for it out of pocket becauseit's not what they want, which I
(05:48):
think is exciting that we havethat medical freedom and ability
to choose what we want, even ifit's, you know, not covered at
this point.
Dr Andrew Greenland (05:55):
Interesting .
And how about the shift towardspersonalization and also the
terrain therapy?
Perhaps you could talk to alittle bit about terrain theory
and how you apply it to a littlebit about terrain theory and
how you apply it to deliveringcare, because I think it's
probably something people aren'tterribly familiar with, perhaps
outside of your circles.
Katrina Foe (06:12):
Yeah, yeah.
So the terrain, the theory, themetabolic approach to cancer,
you know, we know from theliterature.
I mean, otto Warburg won theNobel Prize in 1931.
So this is this is not newinformation showing that a
cancer cell is defined as ametabolic shift in the actual
mitochondria and you know.
(06:32):
So addressing that and reallyworking on making sure that they
have balanced blood sugar.
So we're not feeding the cancer,you know, with all this extra
abundance of its preferred fuelsource, as well as getting into
a state of ketosis, becausethose ketones are super
therapeutic.
They actually have been shownto shrink tumors, stop their
(06:54):
growth and such.
So you know, diet is the basewith everything.
And then from there there'sthere's 10 areas, terrain,
sometimes they're called rootcause drivers that are what's
going to be, what's showing upin the research as can cause
cancer, so to speak.
Now, the interesting thing hereis that in our standard of care,
(07:17):
it's not that it's bad, it'sjust their view is different and
there's a time and a place forit.
But their focus is make thetumor go away, whereas with
functional care we're looking atwhy is the tumor there?
So when we can discover andlist out why the tumor is there,
based on someone's labs.
(07:38):
Then we've got a plan toaddress those items which can be
done.
Naturally.
We don't need the drugsnecessarily, and then the body
is unburdened so that it can dowhat it was designed to do,
which is cure that cancer itself.
Dr Andrew Greenland (07:54):
Amazing.
Can you give us perhaps arecent case example just to
illustrate this for people whoare not necessarily familiar
with this theory and just kindof see how it will play out for
a real person?
Katrina Foe (08:05):
Yeah, I can give you myself as an example, would
that be?
Dr Andrew Greenland (08:07):
more fun.
Yeah, it would be wonderful ifyou're happy to share, it would
be wonderful.
Katrina Foe (08:11):
Oh yeah, I get personal, no problem.
Like I said, I was the healthyone in my friend group.
We had already done a lot oflike changes in terms of making
everything from scratch, cookingwise, making toiletries,
cleaning products, like we hadeven moved to a different state
so that we could have land toraise our own meat animals so
that they weren't being fed junkand antibiotics and such like
(08:34):
kind of extreme.
And I still got cancer and Ihad no idea why and they was
just like okay, clearlysomething I'm doing isn't right.
Let's evaluate everything.
And I floundered a little bit,including getting kicked out of
a cancer clinic for asking toomany questions.
But I found functional medicineand so we started the
(08:56):
practitioner I found startedrunning all these tests and so
many things showed up that Ifound started running all these
tests and so many things showedup that I had no idea about.
Like I was not having symptoms,I didn't even know some of
these were like cancer causingthings.
So for me I'll just list thingsoff I was.
I was insulin resistant, whichyou know we talk about blood
sugar issues and people think ofhypoglycemia.
(09:18):
Where is the low blood sugar,the hangry, shaky before meals
and such, but having a lot ofblood sugar oh too much actually
feels really good.
It doesn't feel bad and that'swhere people usually will fight.
I'm like I don't have bloodsugar issues.
I'm like let's test and seewhat's really going on, not just
assume.
So that was a big issue for me.
(09:40):
I also was very estrogendominant, so high estrogen, low
progesterone, both.
I was very sluggish thyroid, mythyroid numbers were super low
and I had a lot of geneticissues.
So I'm not talking about BRCAstuff, I'm talking about like I
don't make fat soluble vitaminswell, I have blood sugar
(10:02):
regulation issues.
I'm terrible at methylating andall those things are known to
contribute to cancer.
I was in a toxic relationshipwhich emotionally, was a big
factor.
I had just moved into a housewith very high levels of toxic
mold, like eight months prior tomy diagnosis.
(10:24):
I had some parasites, all sortsof fun things like that.
So you know, exposing those,you know I wouldn't have known
about the mold, I wouldn't haveknown about the insulin and
issues and such if we hadn'tdone the testing.
Dr Andrew Greenland (10:40):
Sounds like there's a perfect storm with
all of those things going on.
Katrina Foe (10:43):
That's actually the phrase I use all the time with
my clients.
I love that.
Yeah, it takes usually out ofthe 10 terrain areas, it takes
seven or eight to usually forpeople to overwhelm that immune
system and create that perfectstorm where it can't do what
it's supposed to do.
And so the biggest myth that Ihave with clients is that you
(11:04):
know they come, they're like oh,I think this one thing did it
and like it's not just that onething.
You know, and that's where, asa practitioner, I don't want to
miss things.
So I make sure we do all thetesting up front so we know what
we're dealing with got it.
Dr Andrew Greenland (11:19):
So do you see this movement as part of a
broader cultural shift, or is itmore of a response to gaps in
the conventional system?
Katrina Foe (11:27):
I think that this is definitely part of a larger
shift because people are wantingto do things that are not just
drug-based and they really wantto get to know the why.
They want to understand theirbodies more and take ownership
for it.
They're maybe a littlemistrustful because they're
getting shuffled through systemsand not being seen or heard.
(11:49):
Things are being missed andthey are feeling like they want
to have more ownership in theprocess, and that's one thing
functional medicine does is itgives them more ownership.
A lot of it has to do witheducation and understanding and
then the personalizing.
So when you're implementingsome of these protocols, the
(12:10):
client has to be activelyparticipating.
They have to educate themselvesand own you know, changing
their diet and doing you knowthe actual implementation.
It's not just take a pill.
Dr Andrew Greenland (12:23):
Certainly.
I mean, this is all music to myears because I'm a functional
medicine practitioner and thisis all my language, so I'm
loving this.
So what's working well for youand your team right now in the
business side of things, what'sthe trend?
Katrina Foe (12:37):
So I've been doing this work one-on-one for a while
now and you know it's expensive, especially when you're talking
about not being covered byinsurance and there's a lot of
nuances of like I'm saying thesame thing over and over and
over again to everybody.
That just felt like from abusiness perspective it wasn't
(12:57):
the most efficient use of mytime and I'm super capped at how
many clients that I could see.
So I did a lot of tech stackingand leveraging and we developed
a group program We've had itrunning for a year now where
people get to hear the questionsthat other people are having
(13:19):
and get answered before theyeven develop the question in
their head.
A lot of the information that Ineed to impart.
It's not necessarily superpersonalized, it's explanation
on how to do X, y, z or whateveris recorded so they can watch
it on their own time as manytimes as they want and they
don't have to pay for my time todo that, so we can drop the
(13:42):
cost greatly.
So we're really excited aboutthis new program and I've gotten
nothing but good feedback frommy clients of you know it builds
a certain level of communitythat you don't get as well with.
You know one-on-ones whereyou're just one-off.
One-off Because with cancerespecially, you know it can be
(14:02):
very, very alienating, andespecially when you start
talking to people about doing itnatural, it's even more so.
And so even just gettingtogether on our weekly calls and
seeing faces and hearing thatother people are asking the same
questions and thinking thingson the same line, it's really
validating to my clients andthat's probably been the thing
they like the most.
Dr Andrew Greenland (14:24):
Brilliant.
This is really interesting tome because it's one of the
challenges we face in this kindof world is being able to scale,
and functional medicine takestime one-to-one.
I mean, I spend quite a longtime with my clients and so I'm
very much limited by the numberI can see, as you're kind of
(14:44):
saying.
So how do you structure this?
Because cancer is a fairly vasttopic and I guess you have
patients with all differentkinds of cancer.
So are you doing them on abreast cancer group or bowel
cancer group, or are you justputting them generically
together and trying to get somecommon themes that come out in
the group?
Katrina Foe (14:57):
Yeah, that's a fantastic question.
So it sounds a littleblasphemous to say, but honestly
I don't really care what kindof cancer it is, because cancer
is cancer and there's going tobe those same root cause drivers
, you know, just to speakgenerically.
So when I run all the sametests on everybody, so we don't
miss anything, and those arewhat they're going to have in
(15:18):
common.
If they have toxic levels ofmold, if they've got
auto-immunes flared up anddifferent things to where those
need to be addressed, andwhether they have colorectal
cancer, breast cancer, lungcancer, they're going to have
those same things that we'retalking about as a group.
Yeah, so it's one group.
(15:39):
Right now my group is just women, cause it's it's got a really
nice dynamic with that and, justto be super direct, I don't get
very many men that want to dothis work.
I'm not.
I'm not sure if you get thesame thing, but it's primarily
middle-aged women, which isdisturbing that they're so young
, usually, primarily middle-agedwomen which is disturbing that
(16:01):
they're so young usually, andyou know they've got kids at
home and such and they reallywant to understand and so
together, you know we're workingon that.
But primarily I think I getmostly breast cancer.
Not only is it a big deal, butyou know that was what I had.
So I think I tend to draw thatin.
Dr Andrew Greenland (16:15):
Sure, and then how do you?
Obviously the group sounds likeit's very successful, but how
do you get the, thepersonalization and the
individual kind of attentioninto that kind of model?
Katrina Foe (16:25):
Yeah, yeah, this is where tech can really help.
So I have developed an extensivesystem on the back end of my
website where they enter theirlabs in and, based on what's
showing up on their labs,they're going to get different
recommendations for theirprotocol, down to dosing and
brands and everything, and thenwe can tease that out.
(16:47):
You know if something'sbackordered or something's not
working for them in the groupcalls.
So it's a very different model,um, that is much less time
heavy and but still gets thepersonalization.
Now the other thing that we dois in our educational portal
they get information everythingfrom you know anatomy and
(17:10):
physiology to what does thismarker mean, on all the
different tests, to how toimplement all the different
lifestyle like sauna or enemasor different things.
All of that's in there for themto watch, because a lot of
times, especially if they'redoing chemo or something or they
have some mold toxicity, thebrain's a little foggy, and so
(17:32):
for them not having to remembereverything that they talked
through in one session, becauseyou're doing one-on-one, you're
cramming the information in andthey're exploding.
They're not going to remembereverything, and this way they
get to absorb it at their ownpace, in their own time, and
they can take notes and such ifthey want brilliant um, so that
(17:52):
sounds like it's very successful.
Dr Andrew Greenland (17:54):
But do you have any um friction points in
your business, whether it's umscaling, education, operations,
anything that you're kind ofactively trying to solve?
Katrina Foe (18:04):
Oh, that's a great question.
Yeah, I think right now ourbiggest friction point is
helping people to shift theiridea of what medicine should be.
So you know, when I'll talk witha potential client they're very
much like I have to have one onones and to have them open
their mind that you don'tactually need to.
(18:24):
I mean, it doesn't hurt you ifSusie's listening in and
learning from it at the sametime and then you get to do the
same for her.
And it just that that paradigmshift because it's super
ingrained in us of I need tohave a one hour session with the
practitioner every three monthsor whatever.
It's really different.
And so at this point you knowthey can, they have the option
(18:49):
to upgrade to my one-on-onepackage, which is, you know,
it's the same program, it's justa matter of you get the
one-on-one time.
I haven't ever had anybodyupgrade to that.
Once they get in there and theyactually feel and experience it
, you know if they can take thatleap, um to open their mind to
it, they, they love it and theyfind that it's really helpful
and in it actually adds more,but that there's a little
(19:10):
disconnect there because of whatwe've been conditioned to
expect got it?
Dr Andrew Greenland (19:16):
um, are there any particular metrics or
outcomes that you are mostfocused with on in the business
in terms of sort of seeing howthings are going, monitoring,
monitoring the business,anything that you tend to choose
, because obviously there's lotsof things we can measure, but I
just wonder if there's any thatyou particularly focus on in
your business I mean, obviouslythere's client metrics of you
(19:38):
know how they're improving andsuch, which I think would be the
same for any practitioner.
Katrina Foe (19:43):
In terms of business, I'm really looking at
my funnels and the conversionrates and how we're connecting
with people.
Specifically, we run social adsto a webinar.
That, looking at the social ads, are they hitting the right
target demographic and peoplethat are actually interested?
That's usually what we'relooking at the social ads are
they hitting the right targetdemographic and and people that
are actually interested?
Dr Andrew Greenland (20:03):
um, that's, that's usually what we're
looking at a lot and in terms ofthe future, or if we just take
the next six to twelve months,um where do you want to be,
either personally or with umcancer freedom?
Katrina Foe (20:16):
yeah, that's um for me.
I were.
I really want to promote thegroup program more and just get
it out there more.
So I've just hired asalesperson to help me with that
, because you only got so manyhours in the week, so that's a
huge step for me to get to havethat taken off my plate.
So that transition is what I'mfocusing on to be able to then
(20:39):
stay exclusively in just thepatient realm, if you will.
Dr Andrew Greenland (20:43):
Got it, and if there's one big thing you
could solve today that wouldaccelerate everything else, what
might that be?
Katrina Foe (20:51):
Oh, that's a great one.
I mean, if I could magicallyreach exactly my person and help
them see that group is a uniquebut valuable asset, like that
would be where I'd jump into.
I guess that's kind of twothings, huh.
Dr Andrew Greenland (21:09):
No, that's fine, we can have two things.
Katrina, thank you so much forjoining us today for this chat.
Really interesting to hear whatyou're doing around cancer, the
way you apply terrain theoryand functional medicine, and the
fact that you're able to reachmore people by scaling your
group program.
I think it's been a reallyinteresting conversation.
I think it will interest a lotof people because I think a lot
of us are still working in silosand hearing about how you've
(21:30):
managed to make this work for agroup.
I think is really interesting.
So thank you so much for yourtime today.
I really appreciate it.
You're welcome.
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