Healthy Lifestyle

Although we do our best to control what our kids eat, the reality is that as soon as they’re about 4 years old, we start to lose that control. My daughter in Pre-K has lunch at school once a week, and my kindergartener weekly. My girls eat what is offered since bringing a lunch from home is not an option at their school. The school tries to offer healthy alternatives and is continually working to make improvements, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are some things that are offered that I would only rarely let my kids eat, if at all. For example, if given the choice, I’d eliminate processed meats from my children’s school because I know they’re not good for you.

What I didn’t know until recently is, how bad for you processed meats really are. The World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research’s “Second Expert Report” concludes that “processed meat is a convincing cause of colorectal cancer.”

The National School Lunch program, a federally funded program that often provides the best meal a child may get in a day, currently distributes and subsidizes processed meats like hot dogs to 30+ million children. Given the link between cancer and processed meats, it’s time to eliminate these meats from the National School Lunch program.

As a concerned parent who wants to make a difference, I’ve signed the petition to the Secretary of Agriculture requesting that the government halt the distribution and subsidization of processed meats like hot dogs through the National School Lunch program. Whether you have children or not, if you’re reading this blog you’re concerned about nutrition and health, please take a moment and click on the following link to sign the petition too. Thank you.
http://support.cancerproject.org/site/PageServer?pagename=usda_national_school_lunch_program_petition

No one would argue that this is a difficult economy in which to grow a business. It gets to all of us, but the real challenge in many ways isn’t how to grow your business in this economy, but rather, how to keep your motivation level high despite the discouraging economy.

I discussed my personal values with my Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO) Forum last night (a small group of 9 Boston entrepreneurs who meet monthly to share experiences and learn from each other – part of a worldwide organization of 9,000 members). From this I realized that if I make sure that my actions are consistent with my values, I’m happy.

Sounds simple, but this is how it works (for me). One of my values is to “make a difference”. When asked last night what this means, I replied that it’s simple. As long as I feel like I’m making a difference in someone’s life, I’m happy. It could be as simple as opening the door for someone who has too much to carry, letting someone who is obviously in a rush cut ahead of me when driving, etc.

Given the economy, I decided to apply my values to my work at Zoe Foods. This lead me to rereading emails that Zoe Foods and I have received from its customers (i.e. you!). When I read emails from people who tell me that they love Zoe’s new crunchy granolas because they taste good and have great nutrition, I can’t help but think “Score!”. There’s another person I helped make a difference for today. So… if it makes you happy to make someone else happy, please keep the emails coming and commenting on the blog.  I promise that I will pay it forward!

Parents at my children’s school want to see the nutrition of snacks and lunches improved: hormone-free milk, no nitrates in the lunch meats, no deep fried food, no white bread or empty calories. No one would disagree with these goals as my husband and I work hard to teach our children to eat a variety of foods and make healthy choices. But teaching children to eat healthfully and providing them with healthy choices is only a small piece of a much larger puzzle that is important not to lose sight of.

We not only need to provide our children with healthy choices, but we need to teach them how and why we combine these healthy choices. Yet, the puzzle is still larger.

I believe we also need to teach our children to appreciate the wonderful choices that they have and the importance of not wasting food since it is a precious gift. When I was a child, my mom used to tell us that children were starving in Ethiopia and that we needed to finish the food that we had taken. As a child I don’t think I fully understood the implications of what she was saying, but it clearly made an impact on me since I recall her words 30 years later.

I am torn on this issue because I have been asked to participate in a group of concerned parents who want to improve the nutrition at my kids’ school. I would love to see my children have healthier choices with no fast or fried food. And yet spending my limited free time to help my children’s school is like tutoring a child who scored 90% on a test so that they can get 100% the next time. There are so many children who need much more help since they’ve only scored a 30%.

The National School Lunch Program provides $2.57 per lunch for over 30.5 million children, and for many of those children, that’s the best meal that they get. If I am to help my children’s school improve its nutrition, then at least I can make sure that my children learn that there are others less fortunate than themselves and that we all need to make an effort to help others less fortunate than ourselves in any way we can.

Although I didn’t want to make my blog political, I can’t help but say that I’m excited that our country has looked past color and race and elected someone who has vision, smarts, and the people skills necessary to move our country forward.

In order to make a positive change in our world, I think that the singer and songwriter Jack Johnson says it best:

With My Own Two Hands by Jack Johnson, featuring Ben Harper ?(repetitive refrains are edited out for brevity’s sake)

I can change the world
With my own two hands
Make it a better place
With my own two hands
Make it a kinder place
With my own two hands
I can make peace on earth
With my own two hands
I can clean up the earth
With my own two hands
I can reach out to you
With my own two hands
I’m going to make it a brighter place
With my own two hands
I’m going to make it a safer place
With my own two hands
I’m going to help the human race
With my own two hands
I can hold you
With my own two hands
I can comfort you
With my own two hands
But you’ve got to use
Use your own two hands
With our own two hands
With my own two hands

Is there such a thing as a sick day if you’re a mom? Oh, and why don’t you add to that, entrepreneur. I know there is such a thing as a “sick daze” – I’ve been in once since Saturday. Guess trick or treating was too much for me this year.

As a mom, your kids cannot just give you the day off. Even if your husband or helper has agreed to let you rest so that you can take care of yourself to get better – did you tell your kids that this was the plan? When they’re little, they just don’t get it. If you’re in the middle of a nap and you hear the stampede of feet followed by “mommmmyyyyyy” – so much for the nap.

Not to mention, in my house I’m the grand coordinator of everyone’s schedules and plans. Because I wasn’t feeling great, my husband took the kids when they woke up Sunday morning to have brunch with friends and then to the playground. By the time they got back it was well past noon. Since my head was feeling fuzzy, I didn’t even realize until dinner-time that one of my daughters missed a birthday party.

As for work, as a business owner, there really are no sick days either, just somewhat less productive ones. There’s only so much you can get done when your head feels like it’s filled with custard. And, if you decide to work from home because you don’t want to infect the rest of your team, your kids are thrilled. You then have the challenge of telling them that they need to let you work even though you should be in bed resting to get better. Now if that doesn’t send a confusing message! So… it’s now 4:45pm and I have not seen my kids since 1:30pm. Guess they got it after all.

Not really sure how that makes me feel, but it does let me get my work done. Now all I need to do is feel better so that I can get back to work and to my family!

Well, there is some truth here.  One of my goals is to make a difference in nutrition education across the country – see my blog (http://www.zoefoods.com/blog/mommy-will-you-talk-to-the-chef-at-school/) Okay – I stated it publicly – the next day another mom in the class approached me about getting together a small group of parents’ whose goal is just that!

So, if it’s just that easy, here’s another goal… I’d like Zoe Foods to make a difference in people’s lives with great tasting natural products that are packed with nutrition. Zoe’s Granolas and Bars are distributed across the country and is a major player in the food industry!

The Secret is out - we’re working toward this goal and appreciate your helping to spread the word about Zoe’s so that we can make it happen.

Married seven years as of yesterday and together for almost 10! Just another milestone to make me realize how quickly time passes. I had never heard of the seven year itch until a friend of mine told me about it. Why seven? Do we suddenly tire of our partners after seven years? Do people tend to enter their mid-life crisis at about the same time as seven years of marriage, so that they start to pine for their younger days?

Perhaps it’s akin to the seventh awning stretch in a baseball game. Maybe it’s not really an itch at all, but rather a time to stretch and reflect upon all the wonderful things that have happened, and a time to come up with a game plan for all of the exciting things we have to look forward to.

Did you know that many of the mainstream kid’s cereals – ones that have been around from when we were little – can be likened to white bread with sugar and vitamins? This point was driven home by an article from Consumer Reports called “Some Cereals – More Than Half Sugar.”

“A serving of 11 popular cereals, including Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, carries as much sugar as a glazed doughnut, the consumer group found. Post Golden Crisp made by Kraft Foods Inc and Kellogg’s Honey Smacks are more than 50 percent sugar by weight, the group said, while nine brands are at least 40 percent sugar.” Hmmm, makes you think.

The article stated that Kellogg’s is in the process of “making its foods more nutritious.”

Unfortunately, it cannot happen too soon because Consumer Reports found that “91 children aged 6 to 16 poured their cereal and found they served themselves about 50 to 65 percent more on average than the suggested serving size for three of the four tested cereals.”

So what does all this really mean? It means that you must read the suggested serving size, nutrition facts, and ingredient label. Many of the cereals targeting children are what I’d call empty calories – calories that provide little to no nutrition because they consist primarily of sugar, white flower, food coloring, and some vitamins which are typically sprayed on right before the cereal goes into the colorful box.

Don’t lose hope because there is a lot of research that states that cereal can be really good for you (and delicious). Next time you’re at the market, consider these tips when reading the serving size, nutrition facts and ingredient list:

1. Total calories per serving only gives you a clue as to whether a product is good or not. Beware of small serving sizes! If you would typically eat twice as much as the recommended serving, remember that all the nutrition facts need to be doubled.

2. Look at the fat and make sure that there are zero trans fats. These are the really bad fats that most manufacturers have tried to eliminate from their foods. There is fat in food, and that’s not necessarily bad because we need certain types of fats in our diet. For example, your body needs Omega-3s which is an essential fatty acids that your body cannot produce but needs to be healthy. More on this topic next time.

3. Sodium – try to select a product that has relatively low sodium versus your alternatives. However, if there is something you love where the sodium is higher, try to pick other foods that are low in sodium and then don’t add salt to your food. It’s all about balance and moderation over the course of a day, week, and lifetime.

4. With the Atkins diet, people thought all carbohydrates were bad. However, our bodies need carbohydrates because they give us energy. However, look for complex carbohydrates because they contain fiber. Fiber helps promote healthy digestion and can help reduce the risk of heart disease. From less technical perspective, fiber keeps our digestive system moving which helps with weight management as part of an active lifestyle. Drink lots of water to keep from getting constipated, especially as you increase the fiber in your diet and your body adjusts.

5. Try to select products with a lower sugar content. Sugar, although also a carbohydrate, is one of those empty calories because it provides no nutritional value. If you have more sugar in one meal, make an effort to have less in the next. Remember, sugar turns to fat. So even if a product is low in fat, it may have a higher sugar content, so you’re not necessarily better off.

6. Protein is important for all ages. Although you don’t need to be consuming 20g per serving if you’re not trying to build some serious muscle mass, look for products with 4-8g protein per serving.

In summary, it is better to have your calories come from fiber, protein, and even the good fats, rather than sugar or foods with little nutritional value. If you cannot pronounce something on the label, think again before consuming it. As the founder of a natural foods company, of course I am biased, but these are some solid guidelines that can help you and your family to eat more healthfully.

To see original article: http://health.yahoo.com/news/reuters/us_cereal_sugar.html

Nutrition in your child’s school – is there any? My kindergartener started eating lunch at school this year. She was so excited. At barely 6 years old, she is beginning to enjoy the freedom of making her own decisions. With this responsibility, she has quickly learned that it’s not always so easy to make a good choice.

I realize that my daughter’s awareness about what is healthy and what is not, is not the norm. With a mom in the natural foods business and a dad who knows just as much, our girls cannot help but learn about nutrition. Although they have never been to McDonald’s and don’t really know what it is, they do know that it’s not healthy for them. Awareness and education is a crucial component, yet is only half the battle. The other half consists of the options in your child’s school cafeteria.

With the increasing rate of obesity and Type II diabetes among young children, we not only need to teach our children what is good for them, but we also need to make sure that there are healthy options that taste good in our children’s school cafeterias.

One of my dreams is to make a difference in nutrition education across the country, but now that I have a child eating lunch at school every day, I realize that we also need to influence what options our children have to choose from.

I wish I could say that I’ve figured out how to slow down my life – but I haven’t made much progress since my June entry (http://www.zoefoods.com/blog/slowing-down-the-course-of-time-do-less-not-more/). In fact, since being on vacation, I think I’ve tried to cram in everything that I missed doing while I was gone into the last several weeks.

The result of being crazy, busy means that I am not eating as healthfully as I would like. And, the first places that I’ll steal some time from are breakfast and lunch. The result is less portion control and too many carbohydrates.

Here are some tips that I’m following to lead to healthier breakfasts and lunches:

Night Time Prep
1)    Take some salad from the Tupperware where we keep a washed head of mixed greens for the week, and put some in a single serve container for lunch for the next day. Take some other healthy leftovers like chicken, broccoli, squash, and put them in a container for lunch. Watch my portion sizes! Go heavy on the vegetables.

2)    Get to bed no later than 11pm, and ideally earlier. Goal is to wake up well-rested so that I can wake up at 6:30am and exercise!

Morning – Rise & Shine
3)    Exercise as soon as I get out of bed for 20-30 minutes. Do my Prana Power yoga video with Taylor Wells, or my Jackie Warner video, or get on the elliptical trainer!

4)    Take 10 minutes to eat breakfast with my children. Pour Zoe’s Granola into a bowl to manage the portion size and add skim milk.

5)    Grab the lunch I put together from the night before from the fridge. Remember to add oil and vinegar to my salad.

6)    Take a break for lunch and don’t eat while on the computer – it’s no better than eating in front of the television. Enjoy my meal for 10-15 minutes, it will be more satisfying and fill me up, as well as taste better. I know I think that we can multi-task, but if I focus my senses on eating, it will be far more enjoyable. Pundits claim that if we actually take breaks, we will be more productive!

I am starting today, will you?

About a week ago I wrote about the benefits of pro-biotics – supplements that contain the good bacteria that are normally found in your body. After a round of anti-biotics and two weeks of eating vegetables while traveling in China and Central Asia – it sounded like a battle was waging in my stomach.

I have now been taking pro-biotics for a week and not only do I feel better, but I felt better within two days! What a lovely thought… I’ve introduced a new army of bacteria to my gut, but this time, they’re on my side!

I hear that getting some type of stomach bug is par for the course when traveling in the Far East. I was no exception. No more details, enough said. Antibiotics are an amazing thing, but in addition to killing off the harmful bacteria, they also get rid of the good bacteria. Did you know that your body contains literally billions of bacteria and other microorganisms?

 
Probiotics is not a medical term, but rather a commercial one used to refer to dietary supplements or foods that contain the beneficial or good bacteria that are normally found in your body. According to the Mayo Clinic, you don’t need to take a supplement of probiotics  to be healthy, but consuming these probiotics in addition to what already exists in your body may provide a healthful boost to digestion and help to protect your body against harmful bacteria (that antibiotics kill off). According to the Mayo Clinic, additional research needs to be done, but “probiotics may help:

• Treat diarrhea, especially following treatment with certain antibiotics
• Prevent and treat vaginal yeast infections and urinary tract infections
• Treat irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
• Reduce bladder cancer recurrence
• Shorten the duration of intestinal infections
• Prevent and treat inflammation following colon surgery (pouchitis)
• Prevent eczema in children.”

So, after my time in China and Central Asia, and two different bouts with harmful microorganisms that wreaked havoc on my stomach, I’ve decided to try a supplement of probiotics. I’ll get back to you in a week and let you know if I feel a difference. In the meantime, I’ll continue to eat my yogurt with Zoe’s Granola for breakfast or lunch because it’s a much yummier way to get some of those good probiotics as well as the fiber and protein I need to energize me throughout the day. Have you tried probiotics? What have you found?

This may sound crazy, but one of my goals (see yesterday’s entry) is to take better care of myself which means that I need to drink more water. This may sound silly or easy – but it’s not for me.

Water makes up an average of 60% of your body weight, and every system in your body depends upon it. It carries nutrients throughout your body, flushes out toxins, and provides a moist environment for ear, nose and throat tissues.

The rule of thumb is to drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day. According to the Mayo Clinic, women should drink 2.2 liters of water, and 3 liters for men. Now all of this depends upon your climate, daily activity level, and general health.

Still sounds like an easy thing to do, but I’ve found that I just don’t make multiple trips to our office’s water cooler throughout the day. I get absorbed in my work, and before I know it, it’s lunch time. The end of day arrives soon after and I’m lucky if I have refilled my first glass of water.

I’ve come up with a solution that seems to be working for me… First, I bought a new water bottle because all of ours were those old plastic ones that you fit into the water bottle holder on a bicycle that smell like plastic, and make the water taste the same. Camelbak makes a great water bottle that is BPA free (no chemicals leeching into my water) and I’m convinced that the water actually tastes better. I fill the bottle up at home with ice and cold water and then refill it once during the day. That covers my 2 liters. As for the 0.2 liters, from doing some research on the internet, I’ve learned that I can eat my fluids! Did you know that tomatoes and watermelon are about 90% water by weight? Food actually supplies about 20% of the fluids we need, which means that the last .02 litres is more than covered!

Now the real challenge will be when my husband and I are in China for two weeks. From the accounts that I have read, travel writers describe people filling water bottles from local streams in which waste is also dumped. I’ll keep you posted on my progress and travels. During my two week hiatus, Zoe Foods marketing manager, Kim, will write some posts for my blog, and when and if I have an internet connection, I will post some news as well.

I am very much an optimist and can find the bright side when things look bad, but not so much that I lose perspective. In contrast, there are people out there who always think that the glass is half empty.

It comes down to choice. How would you describe this glass?

Half Full, or Half Empty? You Decide.

The milk takes up 50% of the space. If it’s my choice, I will always describe this glass as half-full.

It is our choice to be happy, to learn, to love, to live, and to make things happen. It is our choice to choose not to be the victim. Luckily, we don’t have to be born with the knowledge that everything is our choice, we can choose to learn it. What do you choose?

In response to my hypothesis about drinking diet soda and gaining weight, a dietician (who just happens to be a high school classmate who I haven’t heard from in 25 years who contacted me via Facebook recently) let me know that consuming colas in particular, is also associated with increased risk of bone fracture and osteoporosis.

The study was done at Tufts University and I have reprinted the findings below.

So in addition to catching up with a prior high school classmate, I’ve just learned that my 2 Cokes per week splurge is not only bad for me because of the high fructose corn syrup, but it also can increase the risk of my getting osteoporosis. Hmm, maybe it really is time to just get more sleep.

Tufts University study’s findings:

“Colas, but not other carbonated beverages, are associated with low bone mineral density in older women: The Framingham Osteoporosis Study1,2,3″

by Katherine L Tucker, Kyoko Morita, Ning Qiao, Marian T Hannan, L Adrienne Cupples and Douglas P Kiel. Received for publication September 23, 2005. Accepted for publication June 12, 2006.

“Osteoporosis and related fractures represent major public health problems. With the aging of the population, the health care burden from fractures is expected to increase dramatically during the next few decades. The lifetime risk of fracture exceeds 40% for women and 13% for men, and hip fractures have been associated with an excess mortality of up to 20% (1, 2). Most survivors require costly long-term nursing home care (2). It is, therefore, of great importance to identify modifiable risk factors for osteoporosis. Increasingly, numerous dietary behaviors and components have been identified as important contributors to the risk of loss of bone mineral density (BMD) with aging (3). Soft drink consumption has increased rapidly in the general population in recent years. This behavior has been found to be associated with low BMD and fractures in adolescent girls (4-6), although some suggest that such associations may be due to displacement of milk consumption more than to any direct effect of soft drink components (7). Few studies have examined these associations in adults.

In addition to the displacement of more nutrient-dense beverages, there are several reasons to hypothesize that carbonated soft drinks, and colas in particular, may be associated with lower BMD. Caffeine is an ingredient in most colas and has been identified as a risk factor for osteoporosis (8-10). Furthermore, colas contain phosphoric acid, which was shown to interfere with calcium absorption and to contribute to imbalances that lead to additional loss of calcium (11). It has also been suggested that the high fructose corn syrup used to sweeten carbonated beverages may negatively affect bone (12).”

About 20 years ago, one of my good friends, who is a doctor, told me that when you drink diet soda with aspartame (often called NutraSweet), it goes into your body and doesn’t come out. Since I couldn’t just Google “aspartame” on the Internet back then, I decided to just stop drinking the 3-5 cans of diet soda I consumed weekly. If I really wanted a soda, I drank the real thing with all the sugar.

Now the funny thing was that I started drinking diet soda because I was concerned about keeping my weight down and wanted to satisfy my craving for something sweet. Guess what happened, I lost about 5 pounds from never drinking diet soda again, and I never put those 5 pounds back on!

After so many years, an article in O Magazine spurred me to finally find out the real deal about aspartame. There are lots of websites that will tell you that your body converts aspartame into aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol, and that your body processes these the same way that it does as if they came from whole foods. Whether or not that ‘s true or not, I don’t know. To get an independent opinion, I took a look at the Mayo Clinic’s site. According to the Mayo Clinic, aspartame is only dangerous for people with the rare hereditary disease phenylketonuria.

However, the Mayo Clinic does state that drinking soda is consuming empty calories. You may enjoy the taste, but you’re not putting anything in your body that will help fuel it. So drink soda as an occasional treat. From my personal experience, if you don’t have diabetes, eliminate the diet soda and for the occasional treat, have a real soda with all of the sugar and corn syrup (none of which is good for you), and I’ll bet you find that you’ll lose a couple of pounds permanently with this small change to your diet.

More than a quarter of all Americans are now obese, and that’s about a 2% increase from 2005 to 2007 according to U.S. government figures[1], in Reuters today[2]. And, despite the fact that the majority of foods targeting children are unhealthy (see my last posting), the childhood obesity rate has hit a plateau at 16% of U.S. children.

So, just maybe, the message about the importance of nutrition, diet, exercise – basically a healthy lifestyle – is starting to sink in. If adults cannot make the changes for themselves, maybe they’re at least helping the next generation.

The research also shows that there is a higher incidence of obesity in very specific areas of this country. Namely, 27% of adults in the South are obese, 25% in the Midwest, 23% in the Northeast, and 22% in the West, with only 18.7% in Colorado. I’m not a market researcher but I do know that people in these different areas of the country tend to live different lifestyles which could correlate to the differences in level of the rates of obesity.

It would be interesting to see if my there is anything to my theory. If you live in these different areas, please comment and share your opinion and thoughts!

If you’re interested in knowing what your Body Mass Index (BMI) is, you can look it up on the following government table: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/obesity/bmi_tbl.htm

A new Canadian study suggests that foods targeting children that may appear healthful, but are not, appeared in the Time Magazine article “The Trouble with Healthy Kid Foods” last week.[1] The study excluded obvious junk foods and found that 62% of foods with a positive health claim are actually of “poor nutritional quality”.

The study used the guidelines for children’s diets set forth by the Washington-based nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and adapted from guidelines by the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity.

The article promotes the guidelines set forth by the CSPI, but the writer doesn’t question whether these guidelines are truly sufficient to make educated food choices. The CSPI has over-simplified the process of reading nutrition fact labels. It recommends that children do not consume foods that contain more than 35% of its calories from fat, nor 35% of its total weight in sugar.

Most people look for low fat food and don’t bother to notice how much sugar is in a single serving. I just realized the other day that my favorite Stonyfield low fat vanilla yogurt has 29g of sugar per serving! Although that is only 13% of the total weight of a single serving, it still seems high when a 57g Snickers Bar also has 29g of sugar. Bottom line – our bodies turn sugar into fat.

So should we eat yogurt with a fairly high content of sugar or a whole grain product that has less sugar but higher fat? What the Time Magazine article and the CSPI don’t examine is the quality of the fat. There are good fats (essentially fatty acids), bad fats (saturated fats), and really bad fats (trans fats).

For example, omega-3 fatty acids by definition, are an essential fatty acid. This means that our body cannot survive without them and cannot produce them. The only way for us to get omega-3s is to consume them from food (either fish or plants such as flaxseed, soy, and some nuts and seeds).

I know this makes reading a nutrition facts panel a bit more complicated, but just as important as noting the sugar level, it is also important to consider what types of fat you are consuming, not just how much.

Alarm blares at 6:45am (earlier if I plan to exercise first), get ready for work, spend time with my girls and help them get ready for their day or just be present, breakfast, the dog, out the door and off to work… Phone calls, writing, emails, meetings, almost 2pm yikes, grab lunch and continue working, just noticed it’s 5:30pm, less than an hour to cram in more stuff before I need to run out the door… Yikes, it’s 6:28pm, scoot home to have dinner with my family. Eat, clean-up, kids’ bedtime routine, 8:30pm+ pay bills, stuff around the house until almost midnight, get ready for bed, zzzzz… Six to seven hours later, start again.

What I didn’t write about is what I need to consume on a daily basis to give me the energy I need throughout my day. (Note: I didn’t say to “get through my day” because getting through the day is never an issue, it’s crazy, it’s hectic, but it’s fun). Breakfast is key, and not just because my company produces breakfast cereals. It’s key because if I don’t eat, I get tired and grumpy, or my stomach growls embarrassingly loudly. (Aside: I’ll never forget that early morning in economics class in college where the other side of a very large classroom started laughing because of my stomach’s angry cries). I grew up eating three meals a day, and try to stick to that with the occasional snack. I try to consume lots of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and some fish, chicken or meat. The challenge for me is mid-afternoon, especially if I happen to be over-tired (i.e. often). The hitch, I’m not supposed to drink caffeine – nothing, zippo, zilch, no caffeine.

About 10 years ago, I had a scare with a lump in my breast. At the young age of 30 I had my first mammogram. I was blessed and lucky because it turned out to be a cist that went away after I stopped consuming caffeine. And back then, I only had one cup of coffee per day. But with a scare like that, I stopped drinking coffee or Coke cold turkey. However, one cup of coffee is nothing compared to most Americans daily caffeine consumption. In fact in CNN last week there was an article about moms needing caffeine just to get through their day[1]. One of the moms interviewed drinks “about four energy drinks, three cups of coffee and a six-pack of soda every day.” After 12 years of no caffeine and no cists, why did I start drinking coffee and the occasional Coke again (even if not daily)? Let’s see, hmmm, married, two kids, one dog, one house, and one start-up company. Just like the CNN article says, “caffeinated moms drink to keep up”. And that’s what I do, I just try to limit it is as much as possible for health considerations.

With all the demands on us today, do we really have a viable alternative? As my mom always said when I was little, “there just aren’t enough hours in the day.” I never understood what she meant, but I surely get it now. There just has to be a healthier alternative to caffeine. In our technology driven society, simplifying our lifestyles will remain a challenge – but one I will continue to aspire to.

1. Have a special notebook, keep it small in size. I’ve found if it’s a permanent cover with changeable pads of paper, I stick with the process more. My notebook is the backup hard drive for my brain. I take notes in it whether in a meeting or when I hear an idea that I want to remember. I also keep my “to do” lists here. This is where the swirling thoughts in my head find a comfortable resting spot – albeit an unorganized one.
2. Write different topics on different pages (hence a small notebook is preferable since you don’t waste paper). At the end of the day, go through your notes and tear out what you want to keep; file it. If it’s not worth filing, either throw it out (i.e. put it in your recycle bin) or hang onto it for a little. When the notebook is full, if you haven’t filed it, recycle it.
3. Carry a day planner or electronic calendar with you always. I’ve found an electronic calendar (PDA) to be much better.
4. Take the most important things from your notebook that you either have to do or really want to do, and put them on your calendar. Block out the time that you need to truly accomplish the task or project. Be realistic in how much you can get done in a specific amount of time. Schedule it! Schedule all of those things that you never have time for. And, don’t break that appointment with yourself.
5. Surround yourself with people who are organized and think differently from you. They help to provide you with balance, just as you help them to think out of the box.
6. Don’t ever let a pile of papers or magazines get so big that you can’t clean it up within 30 minutes. I’ve found that this rule prevents undaunting messes.
7. Have a specific place for your incoming mail. Write the due dates for bills on the outside of the envelope, pull them aside, and file them on your desk (in view) in chronological order.
8. Ideally, clean off your desk at the end of every week. I admit that I don’t hit this goal every week, but I’m working on it.
9. Exercise. Do something every day, even if it’s just a short walk around the block. I walk my dog daily and try to work out as much as I can. It helps clear my head, and often my best ideas come to me during this time.
10. Realize that ADD is just a different way of thinking that allows you to think out of the box. Pick just a couple of these tips to try and stick with it. If you don’t, it’s okay, just start again tomorrow!

If any of you have read the book, The Secret, you’ll know what I’m talking about. I don’t want to get all “new agey” on you, but, I really think there’s something there. We attract what we believe and what we want. So I believe there’s truth in the old adage, “be careful what you wish for.”

In all honesty, Zoe Foods has been a roller coaster ride for the last eight years. If anyone had ever told me it would be so hard to start a business and turn it into a success, I would never have believed them in all of my naïve optimism. More stories on this topic, but I’ll save them for another day.

If Zoe were a cat, the company would be in its ninth life. The company is small, and is going through a difficult time with consolidation in the grocery industry, Whole Foods Market’s discontinuing brands to make room for their private label products, product challenges, management challenges, etc. All of that said, we have some really exciting opportunities coming our way, and I can see that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an on-coming train, but rather daylight. So hold on for the ride…

I leave for LA tomorrow on a 6:30am flight (I’ll be up at 4am – ugh) for some sales meetings in LA with my VP sales and some of our brokers, and a meeting with Jackie Warner of Bravo’s show Work Out, and the founder of Sky Sport Spa. Now there’s an entrepreneur for you! Despite the obvious differences between our companies, from my research on her, we have a similar philosophy – make a difference in people’s lives via a healthy lifestyle. So the roller coaster ride continues with interesting opportunities at every corner. Stay tuned… And yes, I did work out this morning and felt the burn (while my kids darted in and out of my bedroom and my dog pranced around with his bone in his mouth).

Originally published on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/.

Last week was my girls’ last week of school. On the last day, the school had a sing-along and a picnic. During that time the kids ran around and played. At age 3-5, they do not really comprehend the full import of the day – that many of the 4 year olds, and all of the 5 year olds will be attending different schools in the fall. They are at school five days each week till noon, and then during weekly playdates, and birthday parties every couple of weeks. Then, school is over. Everyone’s lives are about to move on in very different directions. The parents of course were all in awe that their babies had just finished pre-school or pre-K and how quickly the year had whizzed by.

I discussed how quickly the time has gone by with one dad and soon discovered that he held the same opinion as that of my husband: the faster we run, and the more we take on, the faster time goes by. So does that mean that the converse is true? If we do less, time will slow down?

Sounds crazy but at 42 years of age, there’s still so much I want to see, do, and experience in my life and with my family that I cannot imagine how I will squeeze it all in. (Even that sentence was long just to get everything in!) There’s just so much fun to be had and many wonderful people to meet.

My wise yogi friends seem to have figured it out by being in the moment. The thing is, I am in the moment. There are just so many wonderful moments and they all whiz by so quickly. Why is it that when you’re little and your birthday is only a month away it seems like forever, and now that I’m almost 43, my 40th birthday celebration seems like it was yesterday?

Originally published on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/.

I’m sitting at my desk in my Zoe Foods office with my earpiece on for my cell phone, typing on the keyboard for my desktop, and my laptop PC open and on to my right that I’m checking occasionally for interesting emails.

My director of operations, Tim, walks in and just starts to chuckle as he hands me something I recently printed and left on the printer (one of my many projects). I look at him with a quizzical look, and then say, “oh thanks, yeah, I printed that.” He said, “Why don’t you have a phone hooked up to your other ear, since you’ve got a computer going for each eye?”

Tim turns to leave and I say, “Ooh, now I have my next blog idea – thanks.” I take the earpiece off after listening to Verizon’s hold music (trying to get a new phone number for our home which we just moved into a couple of weeks ago) when I realize that after 25 minutes on hold, I had become accustomed to Verizon’s hold music and that it was actually helping me to tune out all of the junk and focus on just one project.

Hmmm, how many things am I working on at the moment? Well, I’ll only admit to several. How many different things are going through my brain, that’s a story for another day, but probably common to many entrepreneurs and multi-tasking moms – and when you combine the two – well, watch out!

How much can any of us really get done at one time, and get done well? Am I really accomplishing more by having so many projects going at once, or is Zoe Foods that grossly understaffed? Questions to ponder for another time… because now I’m going to run home to spend a little quality time with my kids before I go to an EO (Entrepreneur’s Organization) Board meeting.

Originally published on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com.

A little while ago I wrote about my belief that there is no magic bullet. I certainly did not mean to leave anyone hanging as to what might be a healthy option. So I’d like to share with you a healthy meal plan that was created by a registered dietician for Zoe Foods. In working with this dietician, our goal was to create a meal plan that would help you to learn what a balanced diet would be like for one week. The thought is that you can then continue with these eating habits and add your own combinations and variety. We wanted to help get you started. We also learned that every day does not have to, nor can it be perfect. But over the course of a week, you will have eaten healthfully, and hopefully enjoyed your meals, as well as learned that it’s not as hard as it looks. So have some fun with it, and take a look at the following link: (http://www.zoefoods.com/mealplan.htm).

Originally posted on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/.

We all fall into ruts from time to time, whether it is about how we look or feel, or whether we are achieving our goals. I’ve learned that the key is to not fall down too far, and if I do, to acknowledge it to myself, my family, and my colleagues. Recently, I’ve been in a bit of a rut with too much to do, and not enough time for family, work, friends or myself.

Here’s just a small sample of my to do list for the next couple of days: My family has just moved to the next town and we need to unpack, set up phone and internet service (thank goodness for my Blackberry), change our address at the P.O., unpack, buy a birthday present for my daughter’s friend’s birthday tomorrow, unpack, repaint the kitchen, unpack, take better care of myself and get more sleep, unpack … At Zoe Foods I just have a couple of things going on :), reformulate Zoe’s Granolas to make them taste as good as the leading brands, hire a new VP of Sales, get our marketing intern up and running, revise Zoe’s Granola packaging, increase sales… UGH – where to begin!

Well, I guess the good news is that I’ve recognized that I’m completely overwhelmed at work and at home and so I’m in a bit of a rut. Two things that I’ve found to be helpful: (1) Write my to do list for one day only on one of those magnetic boards that kids play with and have it next to my desk. At the end of the day, have completed everything on it and slide the slider to erase all of the cross outs – yeah! The next day I get to start with a clean slate – not so overwhelming. (2) Stop committing to so many things – and tape “You can only do so much” to my computer monitor as a reminder!

As a friend said to me recently, if you’re on an airplane and the oxygen masks drop down and you’re with your small children, what do you do? My answer was to help my children first of course. I am just now beginning to understand that this is the wrong answer. If I can’t breathe, how will I possibly help anyone else?

Originally posted on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/

I hate to be the one to break it to you – but it doesn’t exist. And by the way, there’s no fountain of youth, and I have yet to find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. But hey, I don’t mean to be negative, just realistic. As the founder of a natural foods company, I am often asked the question “will I lose weight if I start eating Zoe’s Granolas and/or Zoe’s Bars?”

Although there is no such thing as a magic bullet, a little discipline and common sense do go an awful long way. Easy advice to give, harder to actually follow – I know because I’ve been there too.

When I first started Zoe Foods – about eight years ago – I received an email from a woman sincerely thanking me for making Zoe’s Granola. She said that she began eating Zoe’s Granola in place of her normal breakfast. Before long, she had begun to lose weight and not be hungry before lunch. Since she had lost some weight and was feeling better, she started walking regularly. Before she knew it, she had unintentionally lost more weight, and felt stronger and more energetic.

I couldn’t believe that Zoe’s Granola had become the catalyst for change for this woman to lead a healthier lifestyle. Although Zoe’s is not a magic bullet, I was pretty excited about its potential to make a difference in people’s lives. This has been my dream for a long time.

Starting Zoe Foods eight years ago is part of my dream to make a difference in people’s lives through a business that would be interesting, challenging, and allow me to work with amazing people. My dream to grow Zoe Foods into a natural foods brand that is available in grocery stores nationwide persists. Because my team and I believe in this dream, we are beginning to see how we can achieve our goals.

Keep believing in yourself, and you too can achieve your goals whether they relate to your weight or anything else you would like to achieve in your lifetime.

Originally posted on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/.

Okay, so I started Zoe Foods because I wanted to produce all natural foods that could make a difference in people’s lives. (the dream) Sounds great - but clearly, I had no idea as to some of the crazy adventures I’d encounter along the way. After many years of travel for work, this was a new one…

All excited, flying to Fayetteville, Arkansas for a minority and women-owned vendor’s fair to pitch Sam’s Clubs! I know that when traveling in the state of Maine people say “you can’t get there from here,” but I didn’t know that was relevant in traveling from beantown to the land of Sam Walton.

Feeling pretty good because my first flight arrived in Charlotte on time and I was 20 minutes from landing in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Suddenly… thunderstorms and insufficient fuel to circle Fayetteville until the storm passes - plane diverted to Little Rock. We’re told we will refuel and try again - delay waiting for gate and fuel. An hour after we should have landed in Fayetteville, we finally pull up to the gate and fuel truck. New plan – all passengers can deplane and take a bus from Little Rock to Fayetteville – only a 30 minute flight, but a 3 hour bus ride! No worries, the bus will pick us up in 45 mins outside of baggage claim. Not the end of the world – should still get into Fayetteville in time for a good night’s sleep before the big meeting – say 9:30pm.
All off, collect luggage, and wait for the bus. 75 mins later - no bus. The passengers have begun to bond. Someone finds the bus waiting in a completely wrong part of the airport. Load luggage, get on bus. Bus driver uses toilet (another 5 mins delay – ugh – he’s had 75 mins – clearly my NY upbringing and impatience start to surface). Now we find that the driver doesn’t know how to get to Fayetteville. Local passenger to the rescue – sits in front and guides driver.

20 mins out, A/C on bus conchs out. I’m thinking - thank goodness, it was way too cold. Then there’s a rumor that the bus is going back to be switched out because it’s not working correctly. No one believes nasty rumor until we notice a sign pointing to Little Rock airport, and then suddenly we’re in the sticks.Turns out - we’re heading to the “bus barn”. All off, unload luggage.General confusion as to which bus to get on next. Then we see one with an engine running, so the crowd of lemmings migrates over. Luggage on, lemmings on.Off we go. Arrive at Fayetteville airport only 6 hours late! The good news, the hotel shuttle seems to be in good working order and 9 weary passengers board. Silence. Arrive at hotel, 9 tired compatriots and no rooms except for 2 available at the Sleep Inn next door. Draw straws. 7 unlucky passengers load back on to the shuttle for another 5 mins drive.

Almost 12 hours of travel from Boston to Arkansas for a 15 minute meeting that will be over in less than 12 hours from now. If the meeting results in new business from Sam’s Club, I’ll make the trip again next week! (Believe)

(p.s. received a verbal commitment to launch Zoe’s Honey Almond Granola in the Northeast – excellent start and worth the trip – now we just need to make it happen!) (Achieve)