Hey Guys! Happy Friday! I hope you are having a great week so far. Here are a few things in my life from this week!
1. BBG Workouts
I am finishing up week 2 of the Kayla Itsines BBG workout program.
The plan has 4 weeks of pre-training if youโre not conditioned enough to start out with week 1. Considering I just did a triathlon 6 weeks ago, I thought I would be good to go to skip pre-training and start with Week 1.
Silly me. I did the the Week 1 Day 1 workout (legs) and I could hardly finish it. By the time I got to the second workout on Wednesday (arms and abs), I had to go back to the pre-training workouts. Iโm going to cut myself a break because I really havenโt used my wrist in this way since I got my cast off in Jul,y but still. My abs were so sore that I almost cried when I coughed the other day!
Iโm finishing up the second week and I am really impressed with the plan so far. The workouts donโt require a lot of equipment and I can do most things at home if I wanted to. I also like that they are short (28 minutes) but are really a great workout! I used a jump rope for the first time in like 20 years this week. I was a little rusty and this was at the gym, so that was not embarrassing at all.
2. Back from London
B came back from this trip this week and it’s nice to have him around again. He brought back some tea and chocolate for me because he knows the way straight to my heart. We also realized the tea actually originated from Australia and is now packaged in Moroccoโฆ. and there’s a T2 store in New York :) Whatever, I love tea!
3. Awesome book!
Guys, I read the best book this past week and I feel like everyone should read it. It was life-changing for me, so much so that I plan on writing a full post at some point about what I learned from it. It’s called 6 Months to 6 Figures by Peter Voogd, and I read it because I kept hearing it being brought up in business podcasts for being awesome. And it was awesome!
It’s basically about how to use your strengths and talents to build a successful career, and how you should go throughout your day intentionally to be able to meet your goals. The reason I loved the book so much is that even though it seems like it’s meant for entrepreneurs, most of it can be applied to every day life, eating well, exercising, blogging, personal relationships and to your normal 9-5 job.
Again, I definitely plan on doing a full review on the book because I think it was really great.
It’s available for free on Kindle Unlimited, and you get a free 1-month trial of Kindle Unlimited subscription that can be cancelled at any time. So basically you could read it for free if you wanted to. I downloaded it on the Kindle app and read it on my ipad. (side note: Iโm actually thinking about getting a Kindle instead of reading on my iPadโฆ. thoughts on this?! Do I need another electronic gadget?)
4. A Little Helper
Iโve been working on some blog things lately and I have a personal photography assistant.
Lily likes to be near me at all times. She basically follows me around wherever I go and sits right beside me. Very sweet. Sometimes kinda awkward depending on what Iโm doing 
She always has to investigate when Iโm taking a picture and her favorite thing to do is to sit right beside my photography object.
5. Business Update
So. Starting a business is hard, yo. But despite all of the moving pieces, which can get stressful at times, I accomplished a lot this week!
Office space
I went and looked at a potential office space. Itโs a massage therapistโs studio and she wants to sublease it 2 nights per week. She was also willing to do Saturday mornings. Itโs a good arrangement for me right now while I have no clients and Iโm working FT, so I wonโt need much. I would ideally like to find something thatโs available every evening, but this is a good starting point. I would LOVE to find an office space with another RD or health/fitness professional. If any Charlotte readers out there know of anyone then please send them my way!
Business stuff
I checked a few big things off of my to-do list alsoโฆ earlier this week, I purchased my domain name (and got a little crazy and bought 5 othersโฆ but we wonโt go there, LOL) and also got a PO Box. Iโm not sure if a PO Box was absolutely necessary but I donโt want to get business mail at my apartment. Now that I have my PO Box, Iโm ready to apply to become an LLC. They ask for a mailing address on the paperwork, so I had been waiting to do the PO box first. I actually filled out the LLC forms last night and signed them but then realized I need to scan them into the state commerce website. My scanner is way up in my closet so yeah, that didnโt happen last night. But maybe tonight!
Dilemma
I really like sharing my progress and goals with this business on my blog. I know I have a lot of future RD readers so I hope my experience helps someone. Iโd also like to ask for your input on something.
Iโm having a big dilemma over my website and whether I should combine it with my blog. My blog gets great SEO on a lot of posts, which I know attracts readers to my website. When I think about my brand and where I see myself in a few years, I picture everything being under the โG&Gโ umbrellaโฆ virtual counseling, presentations, e-courses, webinars, etc. So it makes sense to have my blog and โbusinessโ site be one entity. For the layout, I could still have my homepage be my blog stuff but maybe have some buttons below my header that heavily advertise my services (so someone sees that first before they get to my blog post). I would need to hire someone to re-do my site and all of the estimates Iโve gotten have been over $1,000. I definitely believe that itโs worth the investment but not when Iโm unsure of how I want to do things.
And on the flip side of that, I know I need to just set my foundation first. I want my website to look professional, and Iโm afraid if I reach out to physicians and other professionals that they wonโt really โgetโ my blog. One of my RD friends pointed out that she looks very young, and her website is what gets people to take her seriously. Iโm getting ready to turn 31 but I have this same issue at work when people think I look 22 and assume I donโt know anything. So now Iโm wondering if it might be better to just start out by creating a really professional website with either Wix or Squarespace and then re-visit combining the two later on?!
What do you think?!
Nutrition in the News
Wow, this post got really long but I also enjoy checking in with you guys. I had already put together some nutrition articles for you this week, so Iโm going to go ahead and make this post even longer. Youโre welcome
Review says calcium won’t harm the heart
Other physicians urge caution, however, and say these findings aren’t conclusive
Interesting article for sure! One of the questions I frequently get is whether someone needs a multivitamin. The answer to this is completely dependent on an individual, but something that’s always in the back of my mind is the research indicating that there might be a tie between calcium supplements and increased risk for heart disease or stroke. Sounds like the information is still not conclusive!
Fast-food calorie labeling unlikely to encourage healthy eating
Just an FYI- it’s getting ready to be mandatory nationwide that calorie information is provided to us. This study found that <10% of fast food eaters made healthier food choices based on calorie information. This doesn’t surprise me because, like the article states, those who are eating fast food are doing so because it’s either cheap and/or convenient. I am wondering if this is really indicative of dining out as a whole, though (like if you were going to a sit-down restaurant). B just told me that when he was recently eating out in NYC, he passed on ordering a lobster mac & cheese when he saw it was over 2,000. I do think listing calorie information as a whole will encourage people to make better choices, just maybe not in the fast food setting.
Heart Group Advises Personalized Nutrition Counseling
This article really resonated with me as a dietitian. It’s hard for me to talk to a client who is struggling because they’re received blanket nutrition information and they’re having a hard time applying it to their life. Nutrition is not one-size-fits-all and it’s important to consider health, finances, work-home life balance, genetics and much more when helping someone improve their diet. This is actually why I’m starting my own private practice. It’s so frustrating seeing patients who could be improving their health if someone just 1.) took the time to listen to them and 2.) gave them a little bit of personalized guidance.
Thatโs it for today! Hope you have a good weekend!! Please leave me a comment below and let me know:
Do you read e-books? If so, what device do you use to read with?
Thoughts on my website dilemma?
Any fun plans for the weekend?
That’s so exciting that you’re making so much progress on your business. Getting an office is a really big step. A few years ago when I was consulting and got my office space I felt so cool! The only downside was that almost all of my clients were in California so I mostly sat in my office all by myself (well, with a cup of starbucks).
Personally I would not advise you to use wix or squarespace because they are so limiting in what you can do. Transferring your site to wordpress, something you’ll almost certainly want to do down the road, will be a pain if you start with wix or SS. At work we never advise anyone to use Wix or SS. You can always get a nice, professional wordpress template from a site like themeforest (https://themeforest.net/category/wordpress) for about $50. Being an open source platform, WordPress is always expanding and becoming better because developers can work on custom plugins to enhance the platform. That’s not the case with wix and SS, so you’ll always be limited in what you can do.
I would setup your homepage as a professional overview page and then set your blog as a separate section on the site. That seems like it could be a great solution that allows your site to feel professional, but remain under the G&G brand. It would also allow you to retain all of your blog SEO, bringing you potential clients directly to the site that houses information about your services!
Whatever you decide to do I’m sure it will be great. Lily looks like an excellent assistant who is there to help you through it all!
So how would that work for my blog readers?
Oh, and also- I bought a new domain. I don’t want to use Grapefruitgranola.com as my URL for my business. So how does that work with my SEO and incorporating everything together? Maybe I can hire you to be my professional consultant!!!
I’ll have to check out that book! Hmm that’s a tough one re: your business. I feel like you should do whatever you feel expresses who you are best. Because ultimately, I think that’s why people would choose to work with you… so if part of that is your blog, than have it all be integrated. I hope that’s helpful. :)
It is! Thanks so much for your thoughts. I think you would like the book :)
Would love to network/talk more about your nutrition business- feel free to email me sometime soon :) Congrats on everything you have accomplished so far!!
Yes, I’d love to! I’ll shoot you an email this weekend :)