People have started to think more positively, quit smoking, started to exercise, have lost weight, and taken many other steps on their way to increasing the overall health of their mind, body and soul. For specific feedback, you can see the 79 comments posted on www.drvik.com during the month of May.

In regards to food consumption, Sacheen and Niki have provided some interesting stats:

1. The chips category consumption has gone down 5%.
2. The candy consumption has gone down 40% (although Miss Patti confessed to not eating any more Hershey candy bars which may have skewed the count).
3. The 100 calorie snacks have gone up over 300% – Great Alternative!!!
4. The beverage consumption has remained the same yet a switch has bee made to Fruit 2-0.
5. The fruits and vegetables have also been a big hit.
6. The water consumption has also gone up.
7. The cinnamon roll/donut group is adamant about what they want and will not budge.

Over all, Mission Accomplished. The month has made those who were ready, more mindful and aware of their health.

Congratulations to everyone who participated and to those who have made some progress, no matter how small, for you are not only taking your lives to the next level but setting an example for others to follow.

Yours with Pride – Coach

During the month of May, some of you have expressed an interest in
continuing it…so being the family that we are, putting it to a
majority vote seems the only fair thing to do.

So if you would like to see the daily health awareness or life
improvement series continue as it was in the month of May, just respond
Y or yes, and if not , respond N or no and anyone not responding will be
taken as a No.

Please reply today or over the weekend and a tally will be held Monday
morning!!

And again, congratulations for all of you that have moved, however much,
to the next level!!

Yours in a vote – Coach

We at Zappos would like to give a Big Thank YOU for your participation in May’s Health Awareness Month. We have set the stage for our lives to keep improving in the future.

And a Big Thank You goes to the Illustrious Fred Mossler for spearheading and implementing the successful month!

Also a very Special Thank You to the volunteers who also helped in the event and they are: Eric Villafuerte, Lindsay Roberts, EricYanez, Susan Johnson,
Chris Van Wie, Angie Moorhead, Cindy Lee, Katie Wilson, Cameron Guerrero,
Melissa Rockoff, Jamie Naughton, Sacheen Gray, Niki Riley, Jeanne Markel,
Chris Peake, Thaddeus Kaczmarek, Catie Fahrner, Jennifer Mummert, &  Libby Whitmore.

This is the last Day of the Month and we would like your participation in one more thing:
Please register and comment on www.drvik.com on what you did for the Health Awareness Month no matter how small…someone told me they walked 2 times but it was better than before!!!

So if you have quit smoking, eaten better, exercised more, took your mental health to the next level, or did anything to improve yourself …tell us what you did and how you did it!!!whatever it was, WE NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU!!!! It will help us get a summary AND it will inspire others!! So Please post those comments on www.drvik.com

Yours in Congratulations and Thank You – Coach

Through evolution, we people had a diet consisting of a very low variety of foods per meal. For instance, if we grew corn, that’s what we ate. If we foraged and found a patch of ripe berries, that’s what we had. If we were lucky enough to trap an animal, we had that…and so on.

Your body is also pretty specific on how it breaks down food.
Eat a carbohydrate and the breakdown starts with the enzyme amylase found in the saliva.
Eat protein and the HCL and pepsin start the digestive process in the stomach.

With protein, the pyloric sphincter closes so that the protein can pre-digest for up to 8 hours in the stomach and since carbohydrates do not need to pre-digest, they should go through the stomach within about an hour, and that’s just scratching the surface of what your body does with the foods you eat.

So by mixing too many different foods at one time, your body can get confused as to what to do to best digest and absorb in the most effective manner resulting in an incomplete breakdown and absorption.

Therefore, keeping the food groups to a minimum, you can assure that you are doing is what will be easiest and less taxing on your body while getting the most nourishment out of the foods you eat.

Yours in Digestion – Coach

When you boil it down, washing machines WORK, employees at the post office WORK, they both do a task just to get a job done.

If the employees at Zappos simply WORKED, we wouldn’t be a company for long.

If the Merchandising team just WORKED, buying stuff to get the job done to stock the shelves at the fulfillment center, we would have high returns and poor sales. They have to use their product knowledge to ADD VALUE.

The same with our team members at our Fulfillment Center, if they just WORKED, and filled orders, our customers may not get their shipments on time. They  orchestrate perfect timing and logistics to ADD VALUE.

If our Customer Loyalty Representatives just WORKED,  and placed orders, our customers would not be WOWed. They use their skills to WOW them like they have never been WOWed before to ADD VALUE.

That’s how all our employees roll, no matter what department they work in, they ADD VALUE! And that is the VERY REASON  I am extremely proud to be associated with each and every employee.

What does that have to do with Health Awareness month?? Just see how you feel when someone asks what you do for work and you reply “I don’t work, I ADD VALUE.”

Yours in ADDING VALUE – Coach

It is also THE Day to Appreciate, Thank and Memorialize all those who have kept
America the Free Country that is is.

If it were not for those selfless and brave people who protected and are
protecting our rights as a Free Country, we might have been speaking a
different language long ago and even our rights and freedom which we take for
granted may have no longer been ours to enjoy.

On behalf of all those at Zappos, We would like to say a big “THANK YOU” to all
that have helped and are helping our country to be the shining star that it is
today!

Yours in Memoriam – Coach

In the fast paced world we live in it often times seems as though we are
not in control of our lives and we are consistently being ordered to do
this or do that by our jobs, our relationships and our commitments.

The truth is that we have chosen all that is in our lives and it is up
to us to honor what we have brought into our lives because it was our
choice in the first place. If it is our relationships, jobs or our
commitments, remember we picked them, no one else.

The real reason most of us feel somewhat overwhelmed and therefor not in
control is because we have over committed ourselves and spread ourselves
too thin, or found we are “spinning too many plates” if you will.

That is the time to re-prioritize what you have chosen to be in your
life and make a plan to simplify. By continuing to under deliver to your
current commitments you will stay overwhelmed and continue to feel as
you are not in control.

Releasing what is not in high priority, you can start to have more focus
and pay more attention to what is a priority or what is important and
start to get the feeling back of being in control and once again begin
to enjoy your life and everything in it.

Yours in Simplification – Coach

Research has shown that more money doesn’t necessarily help in the
happiness department. Having just enough money to afford the basics,
like food, shelter and clothing is the baseline for happiness and more
money than that has no effect in increasing happiness…and more
interestingly, the more money one has, there is a correlation that shows
increased unhappiness with increased amounts of money.

The biggest factors in Happiness are:

1. Avoiding negative events, people and emotions.
2. Having a rich social network.

Makes sense? So in being happy you may want to focus your abilities not
on money, but on the positive while developing your social network.

Money can’t buy Happiness and after all, positivity and friends are Real
Wealth.

Yours in Happiness – Coach

Eating less is self explanatory. And since it takes about 30 minutes for you body to realize that you are full, you can help the process by eating slower, eating smaller portions and understanding that you will feel full in time, but maybe not when you are eating. Trust it.

In eating better, many times it is just as simple as being more mindful of what we eat. So surrounding ourselves with better food choices that replace what we used to eat will help do the trick.

And the timing of eating is simply the time when one consumes most of the food. If this is your challenge, the time when you consume most of your food is probably right before bedtime.

If your diet is good and the vehicle to releasing your excess weight is more exercise, the biggest challenge I have found is that people try to increase their movement or exercise too drastically and end up quitting. What works is doing any exercise you like to do with no time limit and thus just increasing movement more than before, at an easy pace. Over time, exercise is fun to do and becomes a fun place to go to.

So if your looking to release a little weight, just check out your EATING or EXERCISING  habits or lack thereof to see what will work for you and HAVE FUN creating the new you!

Yours in “Great Shape” – Coach

Since thoughts drive emotions (sorry Freud), just a quick check of how you are feeling will give you a good reflection of how your thoughts are flowing. And since emotional health can dictate your bodies physiology (eg. you get beet red when you’re mad) it’s pretty important to keep your unwanted emotions in check.

So if you are feeling really  down or negative, you can guarantee that you are thinking negative thoughts, and recognizing that, you have a great chance at starting to change your thinking to jump start yourself back to feeling and being positive.

A big thing to remember about how you think and your thoughts, is that YOU are in control with what goes on in your own mind. How you react or respond to things in your life is up to you, not your environment, experiences or circumstances.

So checking how you feel can be a great bearing on how your thoughts are doing, and if you need to make a change to the positive…REMEMBER – it’s up to you and YOU can do it!!!

Yours in Control – Coach