Today, I'm honored to introduce you to Dr. Crystal Zuniga.

Crystal is a board-certified specialist in oncology nutrition, clinical cancer exercise specialist,

Ph.D. in nutritional sciences, and currently an assistant professor at the University of Texas

at Austin in the Department of Nutritional Sciences. This is my first time meeting Crystal in person,

but I've been following her public work on Instagram and her podcast Cancer Nutrition HQ, and she's bar none, the most informative, articulate, and well-researched individual I've found to learn from on all things cancer. Dr. Crystal Zaniga, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to meet you in person and have a conversation. I'm really excited. Thank you for making the trip out here. Yeah. So just to start off, who are you? I would define myself career-wise as an educator. Find that I educate in higher education. I educate my patients and my practice. I try to educate on social media.

And actually, when I think back on that, when I was a kid, I used to line up my toys and play

teacher. No way. I love that. And it's so funny to see how that actually has come back in my life.

I really loved school as a kid. I know a lot of people don't say that.

Were you good in school? Yes. Okay. Yes, I was. And that was right, something I was good at. But then I really found the reward in helping others with the information. Like, I felt like I could learn pretty quickly things. But what's the point of having all of this knowledge if it's not going to help anyone. Like, it's all up here. What's the point? Yeah. To get out there. So I find

myself to be an educator at the core. What's the point of having all of this knowledge if it's not going to help anyone? Like, it's all up here. What's the point?

Yeah.

It's to get out there.

So I find myself to be an educator at the core when it comes to my career.

And so you are an educator and you also work with patients, right? Yes. So you do both. You educate both ends, like from the people who want to do what you do and also want to be medical professionals and also with the patients that you work with.

Yes.

And I feel like having both is so... you do and also want to be medical professionals and also with the patients that you work with.

Yes. And I feel like having both is so important because the practicing, educating,

in higher education has helped me really still things down. You know, everyone's got a short

attention span. So especially when you have young adults, it's like, how do I really get down to the meat of this? And that helps me be a better clinician to know how to translate. But then also as a clinician, I'm seeing what patients are coming to me with. And they're actually why I decided to show up on social media as I started to see a lot of misinformation. But then I bring that back into my classroom and tell my students, this is important information. People are going to be asking about this. It's not just

because it's in the textbook. That's not why I'm testing on this or having you do something. This has

real world relevance. It's one of the many reasons I've loved following you. And you've given me

so much, so much more trust and admiration for higher education.

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