Health Redesigned Blog

During this time of uncertainty, many people are asking, "how can I help?" Or "how can I make a difference?" Those are big questions. The answers aren't always so simple. It's hard to make a big impact when you're advised to stay home. There are a few things you can do that can help others around you.

This post will talk about how to build a killer workplace wellness program. Your employees expect that you’re going to have some type of service offering. Typically wellness programs are in place to help retain employees, and to keep them well so that they can do the job they were hired to do.

I’m going to argue that often times wellness programs are very reactive rather than being proactive. Most employees expect some type of benefit in the form of a benefit provider or a health care spending account. Looking at different programs that are out there, there are a few different tiers.

Your bottom or foundational tier is built around benefit providers. These are the big companies that can offer your employees partial or full coverage on services like dental, vision, or prescription medications. Depending on the provider, there may be coverage for paramedical services such as physiotherapy, massage, chiropractic care, acupuncture. These are base-level services- expected by...

Happy New Year!

Tis' the season to be bombarded with new years resolution marketing. You know, the "new year, new you" kind of garbage. 

The stuff that makes you buy a gym membership that you use twice and keep paying for every month. Or the subscriptions that you get sucked into that you never needed in the first place. 

Every year the top resolutions are based around making positive lifestyle changes. Quit smoking. Loose weight. Start exercising.

I'm all for those kinds of lifestyle changes. I'm not for people taking advantage of you for their monetary gain when their products are going to leave you worse off than when you started.

You can't completely avoid the bombarding media messages but you can choose how you react to them. Here's three key tips to avoid getting sucked into the New Years Resolutions Marketing trap.

1) Do you do/use the thing currently?

Do you currently use a gym membership? Go to fitness classes? Receive a monthly subscription box?...

We have all endured the intense ‘food coma’ after inhaling Christmas dinner. Being surrounded by all of the traditional calorie-rich holiday foods like stuffing, gravy, cookies, pies, Yorkshire pudding, and eggnog. Over-indulging is a very common issue throughout the holidays. Maintaining your weight over the holidays may be difficult, however, it can be done! This post will provide you with tips to ensure you don’t gain weight over the holidays. 

1. Don’t skip meals.

Skipping meals doesn’t help you take in fewer calories, in fact, it more often does the opposite.

Your body goes into starvation mode and you end up gorging on food which turns into overeating. Aim to eat smaller portions and healthy snacks during the day.

2. Use a smaller plate.

Holiday food already contains more fat, sugar and calories, so there is no need to fill up a plate as big as you’re used to.

3. Fill up with salad and vegetables first.

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This post is going to talk about why squats may not be the best exercise to get a nice booty. I know what you’re thinking. “Shawna, you’re crazy because squats are one of the best exercises to get a nice derriere.” I’m not going to disagree on that. There are, however, a few reasons why they may not be right for you.

One of the reasons why might be that you don’t have great technique. You may have poor technique because a) you’ve never done squats before or b) you sit at a desk all day long. If you’re not at work, you’re sitting in your car on the way home, sitting at the dinner table or sitting on the sofa in the evening. Between all of that sitting, your hip flexors tighten, pull your hips forward and change the position of your pelvis. Even though you may know how to do a squat, you may not be able to get into the correct posture or position to do it properly. If you aren’t in the proper position, you may not be...

This post is about debunking the myth that all cleanses are healthy for you. The top reason I’ve seen people do cleanses is because they’ve overindulged. They’ve overdone it, had a big party weekend, have been eating too much junk food or haven’t been following a reasonable diet. So they feel the need to clean out all of the junk that they’ve accumulated.

Insert ad for brand name popular cleanse here…

I’ve got all of my daily vitamin C from the lemons that I’m able to have in my water with each meal. Breakfast, morning snack and lunch are complete with a pill pack with all my daily vitamin and mineral requirements. I’m able to eat a nutritious, reasonably sized dinner salad of tomato, celery and cucumber. To top off the diet, I’m able to drink as much fresh water as I want through the day.

Are you bored yet? Or full? Does that even appeal to you? I don’t know about you, but I like to eat real food. That type of...

This post is all about busting the myth that you need to be coordinated to a tee, and looking model perfect to be able to go to the gym to workout. I’ve spent more than 10 years working in gyms and that myth is absolutely not true.

Myth Buster #1

Going into a gym, you may look around and see picture perfect outfits. It’s curated tops, bottoms and shoes, where everything matches just like on Instagram. This is what you’re thinking that everyone needs to wear. 

Myth? If you look model perfect, it doesn’t actually matter what you do in the gym. It just matters how you look. Your hair needs to be styled. Makeup done just so. And of course, a matching outfit. If you’re going to sweat, you need to have a light glisten all over your body. 

Busted! This picture-perfect curated life is incredibly fake. If you need to be done up to feel comfortable with yourself, fill your boots. Otherwise, roll out of bed, throw your hair up in a messy bun and just...

This post is going to bust the myth that lifting weights is going to make you bulky. Many people think the only way to work out is to use light weights or do lots of cardio. I’m tired of seeing myths like this out there. There are so many women that think that they can only lift light weights or do exercises for their smaller stabilizer muscles. Then they wonder why they aren’t seeing results or losing weight.

That type of workout is filled with 1 pound dumbbell curls, elastic tubing and takes way too long to produce results, much less sweat. That’s not to say that those exercises don’t have a place. They are great for rehabilitation after an injury or to help strengthen stabilizer muscles. They are not as great for helping with weight loss or increasing muscle mass.

Working with a client the other day, I was reminded of how important it is to lift heavy weights to get real results. Especially for women, as we get older, and I mean beyond 20 or 25, we need to...

This month is all about fad busting and myth busting. We’re going to shut down some of those crazy ideas out there in terms of things that we think are good for us. Maybe they aren’t so good.

This blog post is all about green smoothies. Green smoothies are the latest fad or trend and they’ve been kicking around for a while now. We think that smoothies are really good for us, especially green smoothies. To start let’s look at how to make a delicious green smoothie with 13 simple ingredients and then let's talk about it.

**Disclaimer** Please read this post through before attempting to make this smoothie!

Start out with a blender with two cups of water, then add your desired ingredients. --For this smoothie I’m going to start with half an avocado.

-Add broccoli and kale for lots of green, lots of nutrients in both of them. You need to make sure that you have lots. I’ll also added frozen kale from my garden so it’s extra nutritious.

-To keep...

This post talks about four ways that you can “Marie-Kondo” your business. This month we’ve been focused on the theme of simplicity. We covered a few different topics, decision fatigue- all of the decisions that we need to make and how to cut some of those out of your day. We’ve touched on mega-batching- the idea of chunking activities together into focused blocks of time to be more productive. Then we talked about where to start, by doing your highest leverage activities first. That approach will give you the highest return on your bottom line.

This post will pull all of those concepts together and look at how you create space and openness for the ability to be more creative. If you’re on the hamster wheel and constantly moving, you don’t have the ability to have space to be creative. Or to come up with new ideas. Or to be productive. You think that you need to keep moving forward. What you really need is to slow down and to create space.

I found...