“Just as food is needed for the body, love is needed for the Soul.”  Osho

Valentine’s Day! This holiday is a blessing in the middle of  winter. It floods our stark winter world with hearts, color and chocolate. Yum!

I love any reason to eat rich, dark chocolate, (especially raw chocolate).  And I love fresh flowers in my home while the ones in the yard lie dormant and buried. And the cute paper heart crafts from my girls…love them.  Mainly though, I love being loved. Who doesn’t? And that’s the heart of it all isn’t it. The desire to be loved.

This mid-winter celebration offers much more than a reflection on the romantic loves, or lack of them, in our lives though. The core of all health begins with the love we have for ourselves.

Relationships affect our well-being. They are a primary food that can nourish our health or bring it out of balance. Relationships with partners, co-workers, friends and family can influence how we feel, our stress, happiness, and motivation. They can effect our eating patterns and the choices we make in regards to our personal vision.

The most primary relationship is, of course, the one we have with ourselves. And nothing effects how we eat more than our mindset.  Do you prioritize your day for someone you don’t value, respect or love? Didn’t think so.

Do you prioritize the time to shop, cook, plan and eat? Do you choose foods that support your love for yourself, and not just your love for that food?  Does your relationship with food leave you satisfied and happy?  Or guilty and shameful? Are you energized and vibrant, or do you cycle through feast and famine? How functional is your relationship with food?

Lot’s of people think that eating healthy and consciously is hard and full of deprivation and bleak, yucky foods. Who wants that? I’m all for eating what we love (see chocolate comments above). I’m all for being healthy and fit. And I’ve come to love the clean, flavorful, real food that energizes and connects me to my vibrant self. I want that for you too. The biggest shift I have had in my own health was when I realized that I could eat without guilt, fear or shame. Honestly, the thought had never occurred to me until I saw speaker David Wolfe during my training at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

What are you thinking about after you eat?

This Valentine’s Day make a vow to nourish yourself, care for yourself and share the gift of a healthy and vibrant you with the world. Share the love and reap the happiness in the coming year.

Start today. Buy yourself some flowers. Give a gift to a teacher, friend or lover. Enjoy the chocolate. Celebrate your wonderful self.  Declare your love in the comments below.

Happy Valentine’s Day and winter well.

Cydney Smith, founder of www.MompreneurWellness.com, helps entrepreneur women, who are also moms, to leverage the power of healthy eating to fuel their success in life and business. When not writing about healthy eating and living, or coaching successful women, Cydney is usually off adventuring with her 2 daughters (9 and 10). She lives with her husband, girls and pets in southwestern NH. Follow on twitter: @cydneysmith and join the Mompreneur Wellness Community on facebook.

This is a re-post/re-write from the archives.

This post is part of the Mompreneur Wellness Profile Series.

My intention is to highlight that wellness is part of our life journey and contributes to our success as a mom and entrepreneur. I want to get away from the images and beliefs that wellness is about perfection.

There is no perfect model, no ideal.

Each profile will feature a Q & A with a real, authentic women sharing her successes and struggles with incorporating wellness into a busy life. I believe that wellness is a journey that evolves and adjusts, depending on what our priorities are. The journey can be easy, at other times an exciting adventure, and at times we may be armchair travelers! Read on….

Sara Bingham, WeeHands, a division of Parenting Productions Ltd

http://www.facebook.com/weehandsbabysignlanguage

http://www.twitter.com/weehands

WeeHands was founded in 2001. WeeHands teaches parents to use ASL signs with their babies! WeeHands is the world’s leading children’s sign language and language development program for babies, toddlers and preschool children.

Married? Number and age of children?

I am married and have two fantastic kids, age 8 and 10 years old.

Where do you live?

I live in a little village. Brooklin, just east of Toronto, Ontario Canada.

What role does nutrition and food play in your life?

Nutrition and food…with two kids and an Italian husband, food is constantly on my mind! We’re trying to be as healthy, nutritious and delicious as possible. Oh, and we have to add timing to our thoughts as well.  It’s a balance and often a struggle to plan and get healthy, delicious food on the table on time for other weekly activities like basketball and piano lessons.  How did my mom do it with her four kids!?

Tell me about one strategy/action you have for self care.

My self-care? What’s that?! I found the easiest thing to start with self care is to take a really good vitamin or supplement. I take vitamins both in the morning and evening.  I’ve noticed a huge difference in my nails and skins since I’ve started this and when I do it consistently.

I’m working on eating healthier myself. For a long time, for some reason I was saving all the fresh fruit for my kids and making sure they ate a lot of vegetables daily.  It sounds so weird but I’m now focusing this for myself as well. I don’t just have to save the grapes for the kids! I’m getting better regarding my own nutrition; my next step is exercising regularly now.

Tell me a strategy or tip you have for feeding your family healthy foods.

One strategy I’ve started a few months ago is to mainly grocery shop around the outside of the grocery store, where the fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy are usually kept.  If you shop less in the inside aisles of the grocery store, you’ll be buying less processed food.

Do you have a favorite wellness resource, philosophy or food that inspires you?

The idea behind Healthy Moms and Healthy Babies is easiest for me. It focuses on three things (1) a low GI diet, (2) daily exercise and (3) daily supplements. It’s simple and fairly easy.  I’m constantly learning about low GI diets and connecting with other moms who motivate me. I know it’s a balance and no ones perfect so connecting with others that inspire me is a big plus.

Do you exercise regular? If so, what do you do?

No, but I teach at a local college and I’ve just realized that I get a staff discount on their fitness centre so I’m off to get more information about that today! Thank you for motivating me Cydney!

What have you struggled with, in terms of wellness, as you have been building a business and raising a family?

My struggles have been around my weight and my confidence. For too long my thoughts have centered on thoughts like, “Oh, I can do that or wear that or speak there, when I’ve lost the weight”. I have to ban these thoughts from my head!

Raising a family and building your own business that you are passionate about is very fun but it takes a lot of work, more than you think when you start. It’s very easy to put family and the work that you must do in front of taking care of yourself. But if I don’t take care of myself, what kind of picture am I setting for my daughter and if my self-esteem is low how can I really promote my business?

How do you feel your health and wellness contributes to your business? Your creativity? Your family?

Health and wellness for me means that I need to focus on myself and I truly think that if I focus on myself and make myself happy, I’ll have more to share with my family and everyone involved or connected to my business.

Anything else you’d like to share about wellness, family, health, food, and exercise?

My advice, take time for yourself.  Don’t lose yourself in just your kids or just your business. Both need you to be the best you can be. It’s okay to be selfish to take care of yourself…that way you’ll be able to take care of others! At the same time, know that there will be good days and bad days. Take the pressure off yourself. Try to get rid of the guilt. You won’t be and can’t be perfect all the time.

Any special promos or particulars regarding your business you’d like me to add?

If you have any questions about baby sign language or language development in general, please follow @WeeHands on Twitter or become a fan of WeeHands on Facebook. Our Instructors are amazing and 30% of them are speech-language pathologists!

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.