In celebration of the Healthy Woman Blogfest, today I’d like to discuss health and how it affects business.

As a health professional, I have worked with a lot of women who were very successful professionally, but struggled with health issues that held them back from not only FEELING successful, but being able to take their business to the next level.

How can such a limitation be decreased? I won’t say it’s simple, but there are a few steps one can take to START on the road to improved health:

1. Set goals. What would you like to see your health like? It might be to lose weight. It might be to control blood pressure or blood sugars. It might be just to feel and look better! Until you know what you want to accomplish, you can’t work towards accomplishing it!

2. Investigate what has held you back. Why have you not been able to achieve these goals in the past? Be serious in investigating these reasons. This is important in order to help you create a plan that will be different than previous plans. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

3. Craft your plan. Now look at what you will do! This is where it might be helpful to hire a nutrition professional or perhaps a counselor or coach to help you move past perceived limitations. A coach can help you set up goals and hold you accountable to those goals.

4. Take tiny steps. In your plan, the more simple the steps, the more likely you will see success! If you want to lose weight, a simple change may be to switch to snacking on fruit at night instead of chips or ice cream. If you want to lower your blood pressure, it might be using herbs and Mrs. Dash instead of salt.

5. Write it down. When we write down our goals, we are more likely to follow through with them.  Rather than just saying you want to lose weight, how MUCH weight and by when? If you want to increase exercise, what does that actually mean and look like? Put it on paper.

6. Share with others. This also increases the likelihood of success, when we share with others what we are doing. Plus, sharing can help gain support for your efforts, too.

These are just a few simple first steps towards improving health. They may not be anything you don’t already know, but it always helps to read them again. You might be in a different place right now in order to hear them!

If you are close to the top of your game with your business, ask yourself what’s necessary to take to TO the top! If you felt better, would that help? If you felt you looked better, would that give you more confidence? If you had more confidence, what could you accomplish? I bet it would be anything you can imagine! Sometimes women use their health/weight as excuses for NOT pushing to be at the top of their game!

Margie

Join us for the blogfest by checking out the other links of participants, below!

BLOGFEST LINKS:
Angela White at Blisstree’s Breastfeeding 1-2-3 – Helpful Skills of Breastfeeding Counselors
Angie Tillman, RD, LDN, CDE – You Are Beautiful Today
Anthony J. Sepe – Women’s Health and Migraines
Ashley Colpaart – Women’s health through women
Charisse McElwaine – Spending too much time on the “throne?”
Danielle Omar – Yoga, Mindful Eating and Food Confidence
Diane Preves M.S.,R.D – Balance for Health
Joan Sather – A Woman’s Healthy Choices Affect More Than Herself
Laura Wittke – Fibro Study Recruits Participants
Liz Marr, MS, RD – Reflecting on Family Food Ways and Women’s Work
Marsha Hudnall – Breakfast Protein Helps Light Eaters Feel Full
Michelle Loy, MPH, MS, RD – A Nutritionista’s Super Foods for Super Skin
Monika Woolsey, MS, RD – To effectively work with PCOS is to understand a woman’s health issues throughout her life
Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog – How breastfeeding helps you, too
Rebecca Scritchfield, MA, RD, LD – Four Keys to Wellness, Just for Women
Renata Mangrum, MPH, RD – The busy busy woman
Robin Plotkin, RD, LD – Feeding the Appetites of the Culinary, Epicurious and Nutrition Worlds-One Bite at a Time
Sharon Solomon – Calories, longevity and do I care
Terri L Mozingo, RD, CDN & D. Milton Stokes, MPH, RD, CDN of One Source Nutrition, LLC – Crossing the Line: From Health to Hurt
Wendy Jo Peterson, RD – Watch Your Garden Grow

Recently there has been a lot of discussion about the acai berry. It is showing up in a lot of MLM products and has become the next ‘miracle’ product, that will provide cures for whatever you can imagine.

I don’t always have the time to really research such thing when they come up. And most, honestly, eventually die out a natural death (remember the Atkins diet??), but colleague and registered dietitian Lisa Harkins shared the results of her own research in an article she wrote.

It was so good that I asked her if I could post it! So, enjoy reading the REAL scoop on acai berry.

The amazing (?) acai berry…

By Lisa Harkins, RD

Wondering what the fuss is about the itty bitty acai berry? Does your neighbor order Mona Vie by the case load? What IS it about this puny purple fruit?

No question about it, the acai berry (or Euterpe oleraceae Mart for you botanists) DOES have powerful antioxidant properties, that is, the phytochemicals in its pulp scavenge free-radicals, molecules known to damage cells and cause mutations. But what makes it better than a glass of red wine? Or a half a cup of berries in your smoothie? That my friends, is up for debate.

In a 2007 study by Schauss et al, researchers found that the acai berry had “the highest antioxidant activity of any food reported to date”, as well as significant anti-inflammatory and immunity benefits, and concluded it could have serious potential in disease prevention. Jensen et al reported scientifically significant results in a 2008 study regarding antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity in the acai berry blend juice Mona Vie. Note though, Mona Vie supplied the product used, and the study only included a mere 12 (healthy) human subjects.

Now the flip side. In a study published in 2005, researchers lead by Lichtenthaler compared the total oxidant scavenging capabilities of 11 different acai pulp varieties and found that although the berry scored high on certain tests, it failed to perform on others, leading the team to believe that there was something else in the pulp not yet identified that was responsible for the free-radical foiling. Seeram et al published their study in 2008 that bluntly stated the acai berry wasn’t quite the antioxidant wunderkind it was cracked up to be. In fact, plain old Concord grape juice beat the berry when run through four standardized antioxidant potency tests.

So what’s the deal? To drink or not to drink? Acai berries have potent potential as a powerful preventive. But so do a lot of other foods that are widely available and far less costly. Mona Vie can cost consumers up to $40 per week per individual based on suggested consumption (two ounces in the morning, two ounces in the evening). You could put two tablespoons of blueberries on your cereal for seven mornings for about $3.00.

As a registered dietitian, I am all for people increasing their intake of foods that contain antioxidants due to the overwhelming amount of evidence supporting their health benefits. But I believe (along with many other respected health professionals), that eating the whole food itself (versus in juice or supplement form) is the best way to take advantage of these benefits. Although certain compounds have been identified and isolated as antioxidants, the other substances within the whole food itself may also play a part in the prevention of disease. So enjoy your Mona Vie, but drink it with a big salad, some lentil soup, a slice of whole grain bread, and cup of fresh fruit!

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So, what is the bottom line? All things in moderation and make sure you understand where you are spending your money!

Margie

You’re busy. Business is going well. And you’re running all the time! But, we all know you have to eat!

What happens with so many people is they rush from here to there, seldom taking time to focus on their health.

But, with farmers markets springing up everywhere, spring is a great time to take a break, refresh your spirit, refresh your mind… and refresh your dietary habits!

How many fruits and veggies do YOU eat each day?? Did you realize that you should AT LEAST be eating 5 servings per day? Now, I still hear people say, “Oh, I’ll gain weight if I do that!”, but this is totally the opposite. Try it and see!

My challenge for you today is to start increasing your fruit and veggie intake, today! It’s spring; you have no more excuses that there isn’t any produce available. Take a break and hit one of the local farmers markets. And, to introduce you to what it would be like to visit one, along with tips on how to keep that produce fresh once you take it home, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkTS5CrA34U.

Let’s hear what YOU had to eat, now! I’m off to make my salad for lunch…

Margie

As a health professional, myself, I am rather picky about the health-related sites I go to for answers. For instance, if I wanted updated info on cancer, I would either go to the National Cancer Institute (http://www.cancer.gov/), American Institute for Cancer Research (http://www.aicr.org/site/PageServer), or Oncolink (http://oncolink.upenn.edu/), just to name a few. I would also spend time on such sites as MD Anderson Cancer Center (http://www.mdanderson.org/) or the Block Medical Center (http://www.cancure.org/block_medical_center.htm). I actually have a whole folder of bookmarked, credible sites for cancer information.

I then would check what the latest research has to say by going to PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed) to see what’s been published on the particular topic.

Granted, I got a bit carried away just on the topic of cancer, but since 70% of all US adults get their medical information from the internet, perhaps I have just provided you with a site that might help make the difference between life and death!

The reason I’m writing this, however, is to introduce you to a new site to check into. When I write my weekly eblasts, I often will go to WebMD.com to provide readers with background information on a particular health condition I’m addressing. And WebMD.com is a great site! But what I hadn’t realized is that there is a site that has actually surpassed WebMD, which is called Everyday Health (http://www.everydayhealth.com/).

Is Everyday Health better than WebMD? I’ll tell you in a few months, as I spend time on it and compare. Meanwhile, check it out yourself and let me know what you think.

But, as a health professional, how DO I determine which sites are credible and which are questionable? My first criteria is what they offer. Granted, you’ll have websites that will have sponsors, and those sponsors often present ‘commercials’ or ads. But does the site, itself, sell products? You can tell by looking at their page links. If a health-related site sells products, chances are they have an alterior motive than providing me with information. I don’t spend much time on there, then.

Where do YOU get your health information? Play around with Everyday Health to see if it’s comparable with WebMD, and let me know what you think. And, when it comes to cancer, if you need it (which hopefully you don’t), I hope I’ve provided you with some good links to help you get accurate, safe information.

Margie

Are you aware of the sustainable food movement? Did you hear that First Lady Michelle Obama started the first White House garden since World War II? This is great news to those trying to spread the message that we need to get back to locally-grown, organic foods if we want to improve health, which could include food safety, allergies/food intolerances, and even obesity.

Many people still aren’t aware that much of our corn and soybeans in the US are genetically modified. And many people aren’t aware that eating these foods may be what is causing the increase in allergies, not to mention other health conditions. What else people may not be aware of is that what makes beef a less-desirable food, today, is the change in how these animals are fed. Feeding cows grain and corn changes the amino acid profile of their proteins, leading to a more saturated, less-healthy protein for humans, thus leading to increased risk for heart disease and stroke. And this isn’t even addressing the antibiotics and other additives we feed these animals to produce more meat, faster.

You can’t run a healthy and thriving business if you aren’t healthy and thriving, yourself. So, consider how you can help the local food trend.

This is where ‘sustainable food’ comes in; growing and eating locally. Although organic food sales have decreased, farmer’s markets are booming. Have you been to one, lately? If not, why not check one out in the next month! That’s my challenge to you.

Margie