This is a mini-standing ovation to kale (can you hear the cat calls, and applause?).

Kale rocks. It’s a superfood. That’s all you really need to know.

It’s a mid-winter life changer. It will revitalize the life blood in ‘ya.

Promise.

A star in green smoothies, sauteed, steamed and in soups, Kale also can be eaten raw.

Yes, it’s true, with a little love, tough Kale loosens right up. And becomes delectable. Try it and see.

Try this easy recipe:

Take a great big bunch of Kale. It doesn’t matter which kind. Get what ever looks freshest, or try a combo of purple and green kale.

Take the Kale off the stems. I leave the smaller ends of the leaves with the stem. Chop it all up, rip it to shreds. Kids love this part.

Pour some olive oil over it, enough to coat, squeeze in some lemon, and sprinkle with salt.

Now show it some love. Massage it. Get right in there with your hands. Make sure each and every piece feels the love.

Add in any other greens, or veggies and maybe even some nuts. I like thinly sliced red cabbage, chopped bok choy or argula and walnuts. Add an herb or spice of your choice. Mix it all together. Add a bit more lemon or oil and some pepper.

 Eat. Enjoy. Glow.

Share your Kale love in the comments below:

Does your kitchen have a revolving door that’s always in motion? Cabinets, fridge and pantry the main attractions in the house?

Do your kids, and you, snack and munch when ever you feel like it? Do dishes and glasses appear on the counter and in the sink all day long?

This weeks Upgrade is going to rock your home, and your families wellness – for the better.

Close the Kitchen.

In between meals, and after the dinner dishes are done, wipe down the counters and turn out the lights.

An open door policy in the kitchen leads to mindless eating, constant snacking, filling up before meals, over eating, and tons of work cleaning up and answering questions.

Eat meals. Have snack time. And then wait for the next meal.

 When mindless eating pushes on the revolving door – remind it that “It’s closed, sweetie. Don’t worry, dinner will be soon.”

And if you want to feed the hunger, at least pull up a chair and sit down.

Create and serve a crudités – a fancy word for a plate of raw sliced veggies with a dip.

The kids can munch while asking you what’s for dinner – they are getting their veggies and it rarely “spoils” their appetite.

Pre-slice the vegetables ahead of time, purchase organic baby carrots, or take a minute to slice up some favorites. Arrange them on a plate.

Heck, pull out one of those lovely serving dishes you got for your wedding – you know, the cute one with the little bowl in the middle for dip.

I usual use carrots, cucumbers, red peppers, and maybe some celery or broccoli. Toss a few walnuts or almonds around the sides. Store the uneaten slices for snacks, or to add to lunches or a salad on another day.

Any vegetable that makes it into the digestive track is an Upgrade. So is a snack that lets you get dinner done in peace!

I’d love to hear which raw veggies  your kids will eat. Please post any comments below. And if you have any suggestions for a healthy dip please share!

How Old Does a Girl Have to Be to End Poverty, Hunger and Economic Strife?

Would you believe 12?

I  showed a video to my two young girls called Beatrice’s Goat. The video, and book of the same name, chronicles the story of how a young girl, about their age, receives a gift of a goat. Through this gift, and lots of hard work, young Beatrice is able to afford a uniform and go to school – at age 10.

She walks miles to school, after she has hauled water for the goat and her family, milked the goat and walked down the road to wait for someone to come and buy the milk. With great determination, the money from her goat provides for her family, and a uniform for school, effectively ending her role in extreme poverty.*

This post is part of The Girl Effect Blogger Campaign. The Girl Effect is an organization raising money and awareness to educate, care for and pull girls from poverty in developing nations. Research has identified (real, sound research)  that keeping a 12-year-old girl in school can change the world.

Skeptical? Watch this short Video on The Girl Effect. Watch it right now, it’s short.

After learning about Beatrice, and other girls like her, my girls were shocked. “What kind of gift is that?” one said. The other,  “I don’t think that’s a gift if you have to work that hard. Beatrice works to hard for a 10 year old”.

My first thought to their reaction, was something along the lines of  shame or shock. How could I have raised such entitled children? How could my children not see the beauty in the gift of a goat to a child living in extreme poverty.

And then I realized that they were right. That from their innocent, child perspective a girl having to work that hard is not a gift. A 10-year-old girl deserves to be a girl, to be a child. Why would my girls understand that the gift was actually going to pull Beatrice out of a life of early adulthood, hunger and lack of opportunity.

Feeling guilty for what you have doesn’t make the life of another  better. I want my children to have gratitude, to be kind, to have compassion. And right now, at the age of  9 and 11, I want them to be children. I truly want that for all children. Don’t you?

GirlEffect.org is working to do the same thing, allowing girls to remain girls, until they grow up.  Girls aren’t women in training- they are girls, right now in the present moment. What a gift a child is. When that child is married off or sold to provide food for the family, what gift is lost?

There are many issues that keep young girls, and women, from having a voice in their own future. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a dream. Like the dream of this young girl from Ethiopia.

Poverty, war, hunger, HIV – it’s hard to imagine that the solution is wrapped up in the dreams of a 12 year old girl, walking for hours, carrying water for her family on her back.

Let’s create a world where a girl has the opportunity to become literate, educated and healthy.  A girl that chooses her path in life. A life where she can choose when, and if,  she will marry and have children. A girl that may one day become a mother who will not have to send her 12 year old daughter into the world to fend for herself.

Support The Girl Effect. Donate today. Raise awareness. Like them, tweet them, re-post them. Support The Girl Effect and change the world.

If you want to write your own post or read other posts from The Girl Effect Blogger Campaign, visit http://taramohr.com/girleffectposts/

The total population of girls ages 10 to 24 – already the largest in history – is expected to peak in the next decade.

The girl effect can change history. Donate today.

** Beatrice’s goat came from Heifer International, another excellent aid organization. What happened to Beatrice? Read this story from CBS News.

Spring is nature’s way of saying, “Let’s party!”

~Robin Williams

Spring brings inspiration and motivation without all the pressure of the New Year.  No contrived resolutions to ‘be better’.  Only pure, soul stirring inspiration.  Move over winter,  there’s a new season in town!

Here are 7 ways I’ve been getting my springtime on. How about you? Check out this list and share how you are living it up this springtime in the comments below.

1) Make Juice, Not War: Make a green juice from Crazy, Sexy Diet by the fabulous Kris Carr. Be inspired by her journey to live a juicy, healthy life with a terminal diagnosis at CrazySexyLife.com.

2)  Music to lift the ceiling and let in the sunshine: Adele’s 21, Amos Lee’s Mission Bell, and the Patti Griffin single Heavenly Day.

3) Out with the old and in with the new: Use a dry brush before you shower, jump on a re-bounder (mini-trampoline), and pull from this sweet list of detox resources.

4) Show your strengths: Take the Strength Finder 2.0 leadership assessment and put your best assets first.

5) Party from the inside out: For optimal health and to give a nutritional boost (not to mention party friendly glowing hair and skin) try these supplements: Multi-vitamin with minerals and antioxidants, omega’s, and a probiotic. I recommend these.

6) Did somebody say Dance Party? Shake it, move it, use it. Dance, do yoga, walk, jog or hike. Work your muscles and your lungs. Breath in fresh air.

7) Rejuvenate, refresh and party on: Sleep. Sleep restfully, purposefully and peacefully. You can’t renew with out it.

Are you living it up this spring? Leave a comment below and tell us how you are getting your springtime party on this week.

Are you in short supply of a recipe for dinner?

I’m often asked why I don’t share more recipes. I don’t give out a menu plan either.

Because most creative, go getting, ambitious moms need another recipe like they need a new scheduler, or pen, or cool organizing tool. Which is to say, they don’t.

I love recipes. And planners. And cool organizing tools. And my favorite pen is the uni-ball vision, I use black, but I have it in every color. Ditto for Sharpies.

I’m willing to guess that you have cookbooks, clippings, and magazines saved that are full of recipes. You might even follow several recipe blogs.

So needing a recipe is rarely why cooking dinner feels daunting or overwhelming.  What’s really standing in the way of getting a healthy meal on the table is, like everything else in life these days – planning and time.

And ownership, personal responsibility and domestic diva fears – but let’s save those topics for another blog post.

Quick and easy steps to getting a healthy dinner on the table with grace (mostly)

Step 1: Look at your calendar and schedule

• What time does your family sit down for dinner? If you don’t have one, create a time that is fairly consistent across the week.

• Note each day the time everyone is back from after school and work activities.

• Do you or your partner/spouse have any meetings at night?

• Are there any looming deadlines, projects or evening work times that you can anticipate?

Note all of this on a weekly calendar dedicated for dinner. Adjust dinnertime

if needed. Decide if certain family members can’t make dinner on any

particular night.

Step 2: Get Real.

How much actual time will you have each night for 1) Preparing the meal, 2)

Eating it and 3) Cleaning it up? Schedule these. Don’t skip this step. This is where

you can bring your expectations in line with reality. You don’t have to follow it

to the minute. It’s only a guideline.

Step 3: Create your menu plan.

Use the information that you have gathered for each night of the week. Plan a meal that is nutritious and can peacefully fit into the time available. And yes, if you want, you may use a recipe.

Here are some tips to help your menu plan stick.

• Pick only 1 or 2 nights during the week to prepare a more elaborate family meal. Pick a day that allows you the time to follow a new recipe, make an elaborate meal and enjoy the whole process – from beginning (prep) to end (dishes). Enlist helpers.

• Prepare food for the week ahead of time. Make a soup and use the leftovers or create a salad bar in your fridge. Schedule time to do this.

• The rest of the week, stick to simple, quick, nutritious real foods.

• And always have a back up plan for “one of those” days. Freeze soup or chili from another day to reuse. Have a quality-boxed mac and cheese in the pantry. Let your kids eat pasta with butter; add frozen peas, or some cucumber, apple or carrot slices.

If you start to create a system that works, the days you will need to rely on a packaged or frozen food, or an unplanned pizza or take-out night will become fewer and further between.

And when it’s one of those nights – oh well. It happens. And that’s ok.

You love your kids – strive to love yourself, your passions and your life.  And to accomplish all that, it may sometimes mean scrambled eggs for dinner.

Please share your meal-time strategies or a response to this post in the comments sections.

For more ideas to get healthy meals on the table sign-up to receive the Wellness Starter Kit in the box above (top right) or at MompreneurWellness.com.

Cydney Smith supports creative, entrepreneur women to live more authentic and vibrant lives through upgrading the quality of their food, the strategies they use to feed their families and sorting out the beliefs that influence how they eat. For more on her coaching, writing and courses visit MompreneurWellness.com

I saw a video last week, that has motivated my marketing, inspired the message I hope to pass along to my girls, and revamped my own passion to increase the health and happiness.

Perhaps you saw the video of poetry slammer Katie Makkai defining the word “Pretty”? If you haven’t, you must. It’s that powerful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0

All week her words have pushed my thoughts about my business. I’ve come to see that “Pretty” (as she defines it) = “Skinny.” As a health counselor, I’ve been bothered for sometime that skinny and healthy are seen as synonyms. That if you pursue skinny, you will become healthy. I completely disagree. Choosing to be healthy may lead to weight loss, but pursuing skinny rarely leads to being healthy.

Why? Because most women see “Skinny” as a way to fix something they perceive as broken. To hide something about themselves that they see as unworthy. Something that will disappear as their waistline diminishes. There is nothing healthy about self-loathing.

We have lost the ability to assess our own level of wellness. We use our jeans, magazine ads, or other people as indicators. I’ve worked with beautiful, intelligent, educated, high achieving women of all shapes and sizes who hold the image of “skinny” up as the Holy Grail.

We’ve lost our way. Most conversations around getting healthy are about losing, or not gaining, weight. We deprive ourselves of the sweetness of nourishing food and meals, to load up on empty low calorie products. Women are depleting their joy by spending time behind closed doors believing they are not skinny enough and therefore not pretty enough – not worthy enough.

They are sabotaging a chance to live life to the fullest. Shame, guilt and fear are clouding their pursuit for success, happiness and a vibrant life. Watch the video again.

What moved you, what truth grabbed you? Are you willing to break the shackles of the “marketable facade” called skinny?

You know what’s PRETTY AMAZING? Nourishing your body with respect for its health by eating real, whole foods in appropriate proportions. Staying active. Engaging in meaningful work and maintaining healthy relationships.

And it’s PRETTY POWERFUL to embrace who you are, how you live and what you dream of, over your pant size.

And educating yourself about healthy eating, learning to nourish YOUR body and develop a foundation of health in your kids is just PRETTY INTELLIGENT.

Do not let your health be contained in 5 letters. The pursuit of “skinny” is unworthy of everything you are.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the words pretty or skinny. Please comment below or over at http://facebook.com/mompreneurwellness

Cydney Smith helps mom entrepreneurs to fuel their success with healthy eating. You can find her on twitter @cydneysmith, on her blog at www.mompreneurwellness.com or kicking around with her two daughters. She lives in the Northeast US. Get the the Mompreneur Wellness Starter Kit on her website.

Do you have veggies rotting in your fridge?

I know, it happens to me sometimes, too.  Plans change and the best of intentions get pushed to the side.

But if rotting veggies are standard for you; if you’re afraid to open the vegetable drawer; if you leave them there until the next time you clean the fridge -

I recommend you take a deeper look.

Not at the vegetables. At yourself, silly.

First, who wants a drawer full of rotting veggies? It’s wrong in so many ways – waste of money, it’s gross, it leads to extra cleaning and energetically it’s a bummer. Every time you open the fridge you see a drawer full of rotting food. And it’s a reminder of good intentions gone bad – again.

Like a New Years resolution, that drawer got stocked with an intention to do it better this time. Those veggies signify a commitment to your health and well being. You took action.

So why are they rotting in the fridge? Maybe you believed it would take to much time to use them. Or you don’t know how to use them, or the recipe you clipped from a magazine was to much work on a Thursday after an already long day, with bedtimes, baths and homework still on the horizon.

Does this, or something like it, sound familiar? Well, like your resolution, a drawer full of good intentions is bound to fail.

Those veggies are going to rot. And I’ll tell you why.

You’re probably making it complicated. You can’t change everything overnight. You have kids to feed, work to attend to and habits to contend with.

I understand that you want results and that you want to eat healthier.

You are on the right track, buying more veggies is a good thing – if you eat them.

So let’s keep it simple and break it all down. You want to get healthy, you want to eat more vegetables. Great. Start by keeping them from rotting in your fridge. (Check back here for future posts on the ways to eat vegetables).

Here are 6 strategies to help keep those veggies from turning into fuzzy, wilted compost right in your fridge.

Comment below and commit to trying out one or two of the strategies listed this week.

1.    Shop with a grocery list and stick to it. Match your weekly menu with your schedule. Will you have the time for what you are planning? Be realistic and simple. Remember the goal is to eat the veggies, not to think about eating them.

2.    Buy something fresh and in season. Be inspired, but note when you are going to use it and how.

3.    Store the veggies properly. Try using ‘green bags’ for extending the life of the produce while in the fridge. Place a towel in the drawer to absorb moisture and change every few days.

4.    Eat lots of salad. Wash and chop a bunch of veggies, storing them in clear containers, for the week ahead. Carrot sticks for snack, lettuce for salad, Kale de-stemmed. Check out this post on creating a salad bar in your fridge.

5.    Juice or make green smoothies. It’s amazing how much goes into one glass.

6.    Make soup stock – it’s so simple! Toss almost any veggie, fresh or even beginning to wilt, into a soup pot. Add onion, garlic and water. I only peel or chop off what needs removing, the rest I put in whole. Bring to a boil. Turn down and simmer, the longer the better. (You can actually drink this as a warm, healthy broth). Strain and cool. Freeze and use for making soup.

Let me know in the comments below, or over at the Mompreneur Wellness Community, how you are going to keep those veggies from rotting in your fridge this week. And remember, I’m here for you. Stay in touch.

Cydney Smith helps mom entrepreneurs to fuel their success with healthy eating. You can find her on twitter @cydneysmith, on her blog at www.mompreneurwellness.com or kicking around with her two daughters. She lives in the Northeast US.

5 Easy Steps to a Salad You’ll Love to Eat!

Here is a system for eating more salads. Create a salad bar in your fridge. It’s simple, easy and I guarantee you will eat more vegetables. Seriously.

You pick the salad components that you like, the more choices the better. Through out the week you will have a system in place to quickly and easily make a salad that will suite your taste, mood and hunger level, with little to no mess.

Follow the 5 easy steps to eating more salads below. Create the salad bar to your own taste and organize it your way. What’s great about this system is its flexibility. Challenge yourself to boost the variety of vegetables you add in each week. 

5 Easy Steps to Creating a Salad Bar in Your Fridge:

1. Make a list of your favorite vegetables, proteins and salad bar items. Add a variety of lettuces and dark leafy greens to the list. I like to have romaine, spinach, a farm fresh mesclun salad mix, leaf lettuce, and beet greens on hand as a base. Consider 5 add-ins for your salad to start. Such as carrots, cucumbers, olives, crisp green peas, snap peas, snow peas, red cabbage, raw beets, chick peas, a variety of radishes, sprouts, sliced hard boiled egg, goat feta, lentils, walnuts, salmon, chicken, shrimp…to name just a few potential additions to your salad. You don’t have to add all of them at one time. It’s so you have a variety to choose from.

2. Purchase these items with your weekly grocery or farmer’s market trip. Buy local, fresh vegetables and organic when you can. You will eat more veggies with this system, so plan accordingly. Shop for one to two weeks.

3. Prepare the items for storage and use. This only takes about 15-20 minutes a week to prepare. And you’ll have a variety of fresh salads to suit your hunger level and taste buds all week. Start with all the add-ins. Wash, chop/cut as needed. I put each item into its own glass Pyrex storage container. I prefer the glass containers and they stack nicely in the fridge. Being able to see each item is key to the salad bar system. I wash and spin-dry the greens. A salad spinner makes this easy, and I recommend you get one if you don’t already have it. I place the greens in either a large storage container or plastic bag with a few paper towels to absorb moisture. Change the paper towels when needed.

4. Clear a space in your fridge. I keep one side of a shelf in the fridge for my salad bar. You can stack the smaller containers in a larger container or on a tray, pulling it out of the fridge when you need it. Remember to keep it easily accessible. A random collection of storage containers hidden through out the fridge will not get used!

5. Prepare your salad. When it is time to make your salad, everything is ready to go. You can add in all your toppings or just a few. It takes only a few minutes and the salad is done, with no additional clean up.

This system isn’t just for summer. Use it year round, changing some of the vegetables with the seasons. In the fall you’ll love it for the ease of packing school snacks, a quick lunch, or a convenient dinner addition.

Follow the 5 easy steps and you’ll be on your way to feeling lighter, cooler and full of energy.

Let me know if you give it a try. Share your ideas and results with the Mompreneur Wellness Community on Facebook. I’ve selected a few of my favorite salad bar tools, like the salad spinner and Pyrex containers, at the Mompreneur Wellness Store. Stop by and take a look.

Here’s to staying cool with fresh veggies this summer, cheers!

* Cydney Smith, is the Mompreneur Health Coach and founder of MompreneurWellness.com. She educates and coaches entrepreneur women, who are also moms, on how to use healthy, real food and lifestyle changes to fuel their success. To receive weekly tips to fuel your success with healthy foods sign-up for “The Edge” the Mompreneur Wellness Newsletter. Cydney, her husband and 2 daughters live in the southwestern New Hampshire.

If your success is not on your own terms,

if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart,

it is not success at all. - Anna Quindlen

It’s spring. It’s a time for renewal, rebirth, starting fresh. And if you’ve been to the grocery checkout line and read the woman’s magazine headlines you’ll know it is also time “For a New You,” “To lose 10 lbs Fast,” and time “To Get the Beach Body You Have Always Wanted!”

How do you feel when reading these headlines? Are you excited to grab the latest on losing 10 pounds fast? Sure that if you follow the “5 Easy Steps to a More Fit You,” that your abs will look like the celebrity fitness trainer pictured?

I used to feel rotten after looking at certain magazines. Instead of seeing helpful or inspiring articles and tips, I saw examples of all I wasn’t doing. I’d think, “Here I am again, not where I wanted to be”. Not thin enough, organized enough, successful enough. I was essentially comparing myself to some ideal and it would put me in a funk that affected all aspects of my life.

I’m not against tips and strategies from a professional or passionate person who has the ability to synthesize and simplify a lot of information and create some actionable steps. That’s awesome. Why reinvent the wheel? But if your mindset doesn’t change, the actions won’t stick. The change won’t stick.

Here’s the deal – you probably already know what to do to improve your health or to be more thin, get more clients, sell more products, interact more patiently with your kids, have a cleaner house, find more time for friends, or to be more available for your relationship. You’ve read the articles, so why don’t you do it?

Based on my own experience as a multi-passionate entrepreneur, and from what I have observed with my clients, here’s my guess of what gets in the way of taking action:

All the seemingly competing interests – like parenting, owning a business, taking care of a house and self-care. Add in confusion about what to eat, sleep deprivation, and a general lack of clarity about our own sense of success and it becomes easier to just stay where we are. Taking “3 Steps To Be Healthy,” loses as a priority when there is a blog to write, emails to reply to, products to ship, calls to make, accounts to reconcile, laundry to do, and kids to carpool. Adding one more thing may seem impossible.

But what if there is a new way? A way to create a lifestyle that was uniquely your own? One in which being healthy and successful were the same thing? Where running a business and raising a family went hand-in-hand?

As a mompreneur that was your intention wasn’t it? To make money, follow your passions, be available for your kids – to have it all.

That was my intention, and when I began to see food and nutrition as tools to achieve the life I want I began to see real results. I began to eat for energy, clarity, and well-being – instead of just calories, fat grams, and fad diets with big promises.

A shift happened and I began thinking in terms of Total Wellness – a wellness that integrates all the aspects of my life, that embraces my imperfections, that allows a fresh vitality to run through me.  I began to let go off  a definition of success created by others and to create my own.

This is where Mompreneur Wellness came from, this desire for Total Wellness.

Below are the 7 components to the Mompreneur Wellness Program. I encourage you to create your own definition of success. Create a food, nutrition and lifestyle plan that is uniquely your own. Actually, make it less of a plan and more of a manifesto for living that evolves and strengthens over time. A way of living that gives you the energy and time to create your vision for a successful and healthy life.

The 7 components below are the backbone to Mompreneur Wellness. With these components, you can explore what Total Wellness means to you and begin to integrate that into all aspects of your life. Use the components as a guide for creating wellness and success in your life.

The 7 Components of Mompreneur Wellness:

• Personalize Everything – As a mompreneur, you dare to live your way. This approach will make a huge difference in your health.
• Real Life Application – Though I enjoy cooking, a 20-minute quick-n-healthy meal made with a few real food ingredients and eaten together as a family is far healthier for me than an intensely prepared gourmet meal that stressed me out (and created a ton of dishes). I keep it simple, elegant and applicable to real life.
• Eat Less Junk – Period. Understanding the transformational power of food, and how to use it, is like having a secret weapon.
• Upgrade Your Mindset – Underneath all of our food choices is a pattern of thinking that is driving you. Upgrade how you think and say goodbye to guilt- laden eating for a breakthrough in your wellness.
• Small Changes Create Big Results – You don’t have to turn your life upside down to become more energized, focused and on purpose. What’s actually much more sustainable is to make small changes that easily integrate into your life.
• Make it Pleasurable – Enjoy what you eat and the choices you make.
• It’s More Than the Food – As an ambitious, conscientious entrepreneur mom, you understand that health, energy, and vitality are assets to your success.  Focusing on wellbeing, and getting support when you need it is not a luxury; it’s a marker of successful living.

I’d love to support you in trying out any of the 7 components of Mompreneur Wellness. I’ll reply to any comments, or at http://twitter.com/cydneysmith or on facebook @ http://tinyurl.com/mompreneurwellness.

Mompreneur Wellness leads clients to create a total wellness plan through learn and implementing new health and nutrition strategies that make getting real food on the table a snap. Get support with creating total wellness with the Mompreneur Wellness e-zine at http://mompreneurwellness.com. There you will find more information about the 8 Weeks to Mompreneur Wellness Program, which begins in May.

Cydney Smith is a certified health coach and owner of Mompreneur Wellness. Her programs and coaching lead participants to discover, learn, and create a lifestyle of wellness and success. She lives in southwestern NH with her 2 daughters and husband.