Just wanted you to know, we're hosting our first couples infertility spa day, Fertile Intentions (TM), in Marina del Rey, California, Saturday, October 25, 2008. I just did an interview about it which you can download at www.theweekendworkout.com.
More information can be found at this link: www.afterthediet.com/fertileintentions.htm.
Space is limited so if this is something you want to participate in, please register early.
Hope to see you there!
Monika
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
New Infertility Program Puts Mother Nature Back Into The Equation
Phoenix, AZ and Marina del Rey, CA (August 19, 2008). Monika M. Woolsey, a registered dietitian, knows the story well. “Can you please help me? I failed fertility treatment, and I’m desperate for a baby, but I’m emotionally and financially exhausted.” She finally decided to do something about it. During ten years of specializing in infertility, she used her training in nutrition and exercise physiology to create a lifestyle program that naturally balances hormones. She’s trained a few dozen colleagues in the concept, and they’re confirming her findings—a few simple tweaks in diet and lifestyle can greatly enhance fertility.
Michele Gorman, MS, RD, LD, of Twin City Nutrition in Minneapolis, trained with Monika. “My client who was trying for over 2 1/2 years, tried in-vitro fertilization, and was working with one of the best reproductive medicine clinics in the city. She was sophisticated and well educated on treatments for fertility, however after 2 1/2 years she found herself depressed, exhausted and believing that she would never conceive. She never had any expectation that she would leave my office with a plan to promote ovulation, but that day we did exactly that and at her 5-week visit, she shared in tears that she was PREGNANT!”
The results from this program have been so profound that Gorman and Woolsey, along with dietitian Susan Dopart of Santa Monica, are now setting up their first research study to officially document their findings.
In the meantime, Woolsey has created a day spa, Fertile Intentions, for couples who would like to learn more about a natural option to try either as a first step or as an adjunct to traditional medical treatment. The first event will be Saturday, October 25, 2008, at Creative Chakra Spa in Marina del Rey. In addition to teaching the science and application of this program, this day spa will focus on emotionally supporting couples whose pursuit of familyhood has started to erode their relationship.
“The entire day is filled with information and experiences completely devoted to the COUPLE. And how that couple can live, relax, and communicate in ways that promote better balance all around. If the goal is to bring children into this world, as much as possible, I want those parents to be happy and excited, not completely exhausted when it finally comes to be,” says Woolsey.
For further information on Fertile Intentions Couples Day Spas, visit www.afterthediet.com/fertileintentions.htm
Contact:
Monika Woolsey, MS, RD
Fertile Intentions Couples Day Spas
www.afterthediet.com/fertileintentions.htm
marika@google.com
623-486-0737
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We're so excited about this! Not just that we have a fundraiser, but that our very first one involves two of our very favorite friends at inCYST, Craig Ramsay and Sandie West.
"Move" with trainer Craig Ramsay, a wonderfully compassionate women's health advocate who we met when he worked with Cyster Stacy Citron on Bravo's reality show Thintervention. He talks mostly about getting you into physical shape, but what we routinely hear from his clients is that his work helps to nurture their self-esteem into good condition as well. He is graciously offering his time to conduct four boot camps on the beach near Sandie's spa, which is where the"Move" part comes in. It's the perfect way to test drive Craig's popular boot camps if you've been thinking about participating but haven't gotten around to it.
Be sure to check out Craig's website and Facebook page to learn more about his"Ultimate Perfect Workout System". And look for him on Twitter at @craigramsay1.
"Soothing" Sandie West has a beautiful facility, Creative Chakra Spa, on the Pacific Coast, just south of the Venice Pier. She's known far and wide for her beautiful space, therapeutic spa treatments, loving spirit, and calming energy. You can't help but put your cares aside and focus on relaxation when you're at Sandie's place! It's perfect for someone who's feeling a little over the top with their diagnosis and in need of little R and R.
To learn more about Sandie's spa and the services and classes she offers, join her Facebook page and follow her on Twitter, @creativechakra.
Check out this video one of Sandie's beach yoga classes. Even the robot that programs our Twitter paper was enthralled…it kept including this video of her beachfront yoga class for several days after she Tweeted it!
These events would not be possible without our wonderful sponsors! Please check out their websites, Facebook fan pages, and follow them on Twitter. They are sponsoring because they are excited to support your journey to PCOS health, and we want to support them in return.
What would our first fundraiser be without one of inCYST's BFF's? The Zing Bars folks don't just support PCOS, they created their products with women with PCOS in mind. Years of combined counseling experience gave them first-hand knowledge about what kind of ingredients, flavors and packaging would be easiest to use and benefit from.
Be sure to"like" them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter at @zingbars.
Growing Naturals is a brand of organic brown rice protein that is vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free, kosher, non-GMO, organic, and raw diet-compatible. It's a great option for anyone with PCOS, and especially so for anyone who is vegan and/or with food intolerances that make it hard to get enough protein.
When I first learned of them, I thought to myself…"That pretty much touches all bases…finally, I know what to recommend for even the most restrictive of situations." Turns out, their tag line is"Finally, Food For All People".
Be sure to check out their website and learn more about their original, chocolate, and vanilla rice protein isolate powders.
You can find Growing Naturals on Facebook, and their Twitter handle is @growingnaturals.
If you'd like to participate in person, please RSVP either here in the comments section, or on our Facebook event page with at least a"maybe" so we can send you the registrations later this week.
If you can't make it but you'd like to support this fundraiser, here's a link where you can donate. You'll be supporting research projects directly supportive of hormone disorders including PCOS, infertility, thyroid, and diabetes.
We are working out the details and will have complete registration options available at this link. Space is limited for each of the options so if this is something you're interested in doing, please grab your space as soon as possible.
Please, if you can't participate in our specific event but you're interested in the boot camps and/or the spas, check out Craig's and Sandie's websites for more information about their programs.
We'll have a website up and running soon with event details. Please be sure to join the RSVP list on our Facebook event page so we know where to find you when updates occur.
If you would like to donate but cannot make it to the live event, please click here for more information.
Hello everyone,
With some breathing room and time to think, I've had a chance to start to plan the next round of couples infertility spa days. These are intended to teach the information you want and need, as well as remind you why you are in the fertility process in the first place! Sometimes that gets lost in the medical office.
If you'd like to be notified of these events when they are planned and ready for registration, sign up here to receive our blog via email, and/or join our Fertile Intentions Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/monika.woolsey?ref=profile#!/pages/Phoenix-AZ-and-Marina-del-Rey-CA/Fertile-Intentions-Couples-Day-Spas/23899748158?ref=ts
I'm going to be a little less active for about a week here, but it's for an important reason that will hopefully serve at least a few of you who regularly visit my blog!
For the past few years I've been training colleagues around the country in some of the practical aspects of using nutrition to help with fertility. The colleagues I've been working with, as we've gained an understanding of how it all fits together, have been reporting some wonderful success stories in clients who had been told they might never have a child of their own.
As we've grown as a network, we've gained the attention of sponsors, and one of those sponsors, Nutrabella, approached me about collaborating with them to contribute to a fertility report that will be appearing in East Coast newspapers this coming Friday--the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Boston Globe, to name a few. Another sponsor, SGJ Consulting, contributed to the project as well. It's been a great team to work with from start to finish!
That kind of opportunity has the potential to reach quite a few people (2.1 million is what has been projected)! So I've been busy making sure we're ready to handle the traffic and that everyone who's been going through my training is ready to take referrals.
If you know of anyone who is struggling with infertility, please tell them we have several resources:
(1) this blog, of course!
(2) individual consultations. Many of the professionals listed on this page do contribute to this blog.
(3) Fertile Intentions (TM), our new couples infertility spa day experience, in Marina del Rey, California.
This is such a great audience with whom to share the message that there are many options outside of medication for helping with fertility.
I'll be back in about a week, hopefully with some exciting updates, and definitely with more comments on nutrition and mental health. In the meantime, I'm hoping other contributors have some helpful hints and interesting notes!
Have a wonderful rest of August in the meantime!
I dedicate this post to Susan Dopart and Jeffrey Batchelor. Susan is a contributor to this blog…her post about the power of fish oil and flaxseed oil combination has been pretty widely read around the Internet.
Susan and Jeffrey e-mailed me from a recent trip to Switzerland where they were going ga-ga over the wonderful food. I mentioned that Emmenthaler Swiss cheese has been found to have a higher content of omega-3's than the average cheese, and Susan recently mentioned that she's found a store at home in Santa Monica, where she can special order the stuff she loved so much in Switzerland.
So today I walked over to the grocery store to get my lunch and it turned out it was cheese sampling day. Kara, the local Cheese Goddess, happened to be there and since she is so knowledgeable about cheese I call her the Human Cheese Rolodex, I pulled her aside and picked her brain about what might be some fun options for healthy cheese.
Her recommendations were based on the following criteria I gave her:
--grass fed (corn fed cows turn out like corn fed people, too much inflammatory
fat in their tissue)
--organic (hormones are very chemically similar to estrogen and can disrupt
hormone balance
She gave me a list of some options. She told me that artisan cheeses, made by smaller dairies, tend to grass feed over grain feeding, but that is not always so. You need to ask.
Point Reyes Bleu Cheese
Cypress Grove
Winchester Dairy
Sierra Nevada Organic Dairy
Rouge et Noir
Bravo Farms
Fiscalini Cheese
Rumiano
Gioia
Bellwether Farms
Maytag Dairy
Carr Valley
Black Goat Dairy
Beecher's Cheese
Most of these come from California, hence the Happy California Cow picture.
The most interesting cheese Kara told me about was Beemster cheese from Holland. These cows graze on pesticide-free grass in pastures that lie below sea level. These pastures are located on top of a former sea lagoon, and their soil is made of a blue sea clay, and the combination of how this clay nourishes the grass these cows eat, produces cheese with 20% less sodium than the average cheese. I am curious whether this pasture history means somehow there are some omega-3's getting into this cheese…but I couldn't find anything online to answer that question.
If you are a true cheese aficionado and must have Beemster cheese…there is a little bad news…only 2000 wheels are made each year, in the springtime. The good news is, that could be an extremely fun pilgrimage.
http://www.beemster.us/the-cheeses/the-taste/
Now some science to round out Kara's trivia.
Cheese has its good qualities, when eaten in moderation.
--It's high in protein and calcium
--It contains CLA, an omega-3 intermediate which may help with weight control
--It's convenient
--If it's the right kind, it contains omega-3's
--If you are like me, whose first language was German, there is no life without cheese.
Moderation is the key, for several reasons
--Cheese is a good source of saturated fat
--Cheese is one of the few nonprocessed foods that contains trans fats
--Cheese has calories
Susan and Jeffrey and I will be at the first Fertile Intentions Couples Infertility Day Spa on October 25, 2008. Along with our co-hosts, we will be discussing cheese as well as many other great things about food, health, stress management, and environmental awareness as they pertain to balancing hormones and fertility.
Please join us if you can!