Written by: Cheryl Meyer, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
You all know me as Cheryl M the Health Muse, but most of you don’t know that I ran businesses, sometimes for corporations and sometimes in a partnership or a solopreneurship for over 40 years.
Since most of you are businesspeople, I want to “frame” my comments about health in a business context, so bear with me for a moment.
What are the key components of any business?
Product that makes you stand out from others, you need to offer something that others need
Operational excellence
Customer relations
Financial management
Intertwined, the components of Product that meet a need, operational excellence, customer relations and financial management are crucial to have a successful business. When operations are tight and relationships strong, you should be able to make money. Balance is to create success.
You also need the mindset that all things are possible and you need the confidence to make them a reality.
Creating a successful business is a balancing act. Making sure that the above areas are continually tweaked to be optimal is crucial to long term success.
What causes a business to fail? When any of these factors are out of balance.
As the owner of your business, you have the power to be constantly adapt the 4 important elements above to remain solvent and successful.
The 5th key component to a successful business is you. You are orchestrating the balance, and if you get out of balance, you can’t keep the other 4 factors in balance. In other words, if you don’t feel great, you can’t be great. When I lost my health, it could have bankrupted me, but I had such a solid foundation, it bought me time until I could bring balance back into my health.
What are the key components of health?
You are born with certain genetics a blueprint for health. You take these genetics and add in environmental triggers, like dietary components, infections, and toxic chemicals. This is where epigenetics enters.
When people ask the question, “Is it nature or nurture?”, it isn’t an either/or answer. They work together. It is often said that genetics load the gun and epigenetics pulls the trigger
You are in the position of power of what happens to your body.
In other words, you are born with a certain code, but that you have the power to turn that switch on or leave it off for your body to realize that code.
The ways to disrupt your health is by a poor diet, lack of exercise, exposure to toxins, a poor stress response, isolation we are social beings, lack of love as we are more dependent on that then is acknowledged, and the belief that we are more then we see. These are the things that pull the trigger, take our bodies out of balance and lead first to symptoms and then to disease.
A lack of nutrition has a profound effect on turning on or off certain genetic markers. The standard American diet causes micronutrient-related malnutrition. This puts us out of balance. It creates obesity, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, cancer, heart disease and more. Symptoms show us where the imbalance is.
How did I learn this? I was so busy keeping the 4 pillars of my business in balance, I wasn’t paying attention to myself.
My schedule was brutal, I was eating on the fly, I was working 24/7, I was traveling constantly. I was talking to Asia in the middle of the night and then getting on a plane to visit a customer on the East coast, returning on the next flight. I was working hard to maintain balance in the 4 pillars of my business, but I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was ignoring the symptoms that the imbalance in my body was growing.
One morning I woke up and everything in my body hurt. Every muscle and every joint, my brain was foggy, I was fatigued, I was taking daily over the counter medications, I had acid reflux, I wasn’t sleeping, I was stressed, my moods were all over the place, I was getting headaches. They were no longer just symptoms, the flags that I needed to “tweak:” my health. I was girl interrupted, I was a girl out of balance, and I was so far out of balance it was no longer a quick fix. My body was bankrupted. I had a choice. I could learn how to change and recreate balance, or my future would be in bed and in pain for the rest of my life.
It’s the simple daily habits that hold the key to unlocking your longevity potential and maintaining your health balance. I didn’t have them in place. But I intended to find them and implement them. All things were possible.
Health isn't just about numbers. It is about feeling vibrant and having energy. It's about having the brainpower to be creative. It's about feeling so good that you have certain lifestyle habits in place that keep your body in balance and by doing so you keep your business in balance as well.
Are you doing all you can to stay healthy or reverse a health challenge? You Just don't 'catch' diabetes or other chronic diseases it's a slow slip into a chronic disease state. The important factor to a long healthy life is eliminating as much risk as possible. It’s not only big risks, but it's about little risks adding up into a big problem, just like it is with your business.
It's never too late to adopt healthy habits.
The one thing we have control over is a lifestyle. It is not only the best defense, but one of the most overlooked treatments for all conditions including cancer.
If you ask me how to eat, I don’t care how you eat, you can eat any way that you want.
But if you ask me how to eat to live to 100, to be vibrant and alive, and to be the best in business and in life that you can be, I have learned a lot of things to talk to you about.
One of the worst things anyone can do is eat poor quality highly processed foods 24/7. Most of the snacking aren't around whole foods and plant foods. It is fast convenient highly addictive with lots of sodium, sugar, and other artificial flavors. The exact things that are behind most major health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, cancer. non-alcoholic fatty liver and even thyroid problems. It would seem like cutting this out would be easy knowing the ramifications. yet it isn't happening. These foods are addictive and costly to our health however they are highly profitable to the manufacturers. However, there is no profit incentive for doctors to recommend lifestyle changes, but they do make an incredible difference to the quality of life that we lead.
A whole food plant-based diet can prevent and reverse disease and bring us back into balance. By being in balance we can lead our best possible most successful life.
Phytochemicals are compounds that are produced by plants. They are found in fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, and other plants. Some of these phytochemicals have been shown to protect cells from damage that could lead to our being out of balance. Just as we need quality components in the products that we sell, food quality matters. The only way to take advantage of these disease-fighting compounds is to focus on our food quality. Deeply colorful plant foods, organic and grass-fed meats, and wild fatty fish are abundant in compounds that protect our cells and fight off invaders. Every time you take a bite of food, consider that you are programming your biology for health or disease. Food is not only a source of energy, joy, connection, and pleasure; it can also rejuvenate us and even reverse disease.
Phytochemicals are completely absent from the Standard American diet of processed and fast foods.
Our bodies need strong building blocks to do repair and build new cells.
There is no profit in curing, profit is only in treating so we need to take the power back over our own bodies.
Make time for your wellness now, before you get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Health is not difficult to create but you must make different choices. Otherwise, one or more of the chronic diseases is also in your path. Begin to tweak today so that you have a healthy bottom line. Show up as your best self in all aspects of your life.
Cheryl Meyer, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Cheryl Meyer suffered from autoimmune disease. By eliminating hundreds of toxins, she reversed her pain. Cheryl has a BA from UC-Berkeley and is a health coach from IIN. Cheryl is an award-winning author, international bestseller, health coach, speaker, local tv host, and guest podcaster. Cheryl has written four books on health and toxins available here. Her podcast is on Voice America. Cheryl specifically works with clients with chronic illness giving them hope and helping them find solutions. It is never too late to start healthy habits. Cheryl is available to speak about the toxins in our world that are making us ill. She is a sought-after expert on toxins, in our food, cleaning, water, minds, including toxic stress and toxic lack of sleep. She also talks about the impact of toxins on our children and our pet’s health. Contact Cheryl for one on one coaching or speaking at cherylmhealthmuse@gmail.com. Eliminating toxins is a crucial step to regain wellness.
