Optimizing your health requires more than taking essential supplements. It means engaging in healthy activities and practices throughout our lives. Here are five fundamental ideas that our founders find essential to health:
Watching our weight. How much we weigh is often a key indicator of our heart health. And Americans are getting larger and larger in recent years. This can lead to coronary disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and many other health challenges. Staying lean and fit is a great way to improve the odds of living a long and vigorous life.
Eating nutritious food. It's not always easy to eat healthy meals, but a diet that is low in starchy foods, sugars and fats, but rich in lean protein, fiber, and fresh fruits and vegetables, can make a huge difference in our cardiovascular health and energy level.
Keeping our bodies moving. Exercise is vital. Choosing something you like, and doing it every day can make you calmer, think more clearly, lower stress hormones, as well as build muscle and burn calories. Leading a physically active lifestyle sends growth and repair signals through our bodies and brains, allowing us to grow younger.
Getting enough sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation doesn't just make you tired, but irritable, unenthusiastic, unable to concentrate, and unhappy. It can predispose you to weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. Getting 8 hours of sleep a night can be the difference between a healthy life, and one beset by emotional and physical issues.
Reducing our stress. To put it plainly, too much stress can cause heart disease. And chronic emotional stress may be making you overweight. Finding healthy stress relievers, such as exercise and quality time with family and friends can be a pleasure that also improves our health.
Chief Medical Officer and Founder
James H. O'Keefe, MD, FACC, is Director of Preventive Cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute, and Professor of Medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, in Kansas City. His postgraduate training included a cardiology fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Chief Executive Officer and FounderJoan O’Keefe, RD is a Registered Dietitian who attended San Diego State University where she received her BA in Food and Nutrition. She then received her RD after practicing as a Dietary Intern at the Mayo clinic.
At age 27, six months pregnant with her first child, Joan was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. Joan’s focus on nutrition and fitness was intensified by this experience. She also felt first hand the healing power of a strong faith, optimism, and a loving and supportive network of family and friends.
Joan does nutrition counseling focusing on weight loss, optimum health and improved athletic performance in adults, teens, and kids. She is passionately engaged in her nutrition counseling and often speaks to schools, teams, families, men’s and women’s organizations, and professional groups. She considers her nutrition counseling a community service and donates all of her earnings to charities.
