189. The Importance of Taking Care of Your Health

Transcript:

 Welcome to the Connected For Real podcast. I’m Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a marriage coach for women in business. And my mission is to bring God’s presence into your life, into your marriage and into your business. Let’s get started. 

 And we are live. Welcome to the Connected for Real podcast. I’m Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman. And today with us is Aviva, Aviva. Introduce yourself. Okay. I’m Aviva Yoselis. I’m a medical advocate and I have my own company that helps people navigate the medical healthcare system  uh, all types of issues in Israel for the most part. 

Cool. Okay. So I’m going to give you guys a little bit of like behind the scenes. I just came back from the tragedy of my sister-in-law, Tzeela Gez. So I am going to be as, you know, as normal and upbeat as I can, but there may be times when I’m just like, not focused or not myself, and that’s okay. We’re gonna be human here.

Also, this is the reason why we did not drop this episode on time because as you know, my podcast is built in a framework of the four pillars, God, marriage, business, and you. And we usually take the topic of the month and just talk about that topic from the four different angles. So we had health and God, health and marriage, and then we were going to have health and business.

But that’s when I. The tragedy happened, so we are a little bit delayed, but we didn’t wanna miss it. So this is coming a little bit late in the rhythm of the podcast, but still it’s really important for us to, you know, to not keep you hanging. And so that, that was just a little bit of background behind the scenes.

I see your face with like the, the four pillars and you’re like, Hmm. So yeah, I, I love the fact that my business has four pillars. Yeah,  I like that construct.  When I heard your other podcast and I heard that. I like that. Yeah. It’s really, really cool. So let’s talk about  how did you get into the health world?

What brought you here and how did you start being an advocate to help other people?  Right. Okay. So  I actually.  For  as long as I can remember myself, I have been interested in health like women’s health. Like I remember very clearly my mom sat me down when I was like in third grade, and she was like very science, biology oriented.

And nobody had ever told her  how women’s bodies work and why you get your period and, you know, things like that. And she sat me down and she like drew me a little diagram and she showed me how things work. And like, it just made, first of all, I was fascinated and it made like perfect sense to me.

And I was like, oh, this is amazing. And then I ended up talking to my friends, like, before I even had my period or was anywhere close to it, I was sitting with my friends explaining to them how their bodies worked and what to expect. And,  and it just, you know, just made sense to me. And I  I loved the field and I decided in high school, that I was gonna go to medical school.

I wanted to be a doctor. And so I went to college and I started pre-med. And then  I went to South America. I ended up staying there for a year. I decided not to go back to college.  I I went to work for health services in Spanish speaking community in Philadelphia.

And then I worked there and I was like, okay, now I’m gonna go back to school. I’m gonna go be a midwife.  So I applied for, to go back to college and I went on vacation in Israel for a month. ’cause I was feeling a little bit burned out. I, I remet my husband which we had known each other before, and then we had lost touch and I remet him.

And long story short, I decided.  To move to Israel.  Left my, my midwifery plans and ended up moving to Israel again, getting married and having children.  That’s really cool. Yeah. So I, I ended up, I did get a master’s when, after, very soon after, when I was pregnant with my, my first child, I started a master’s in public health.

Okay. Because I realized that I really, if I wanted to stay in the field of healthcare in Israel, like I really needed to get a degree in Israel. Right. So, and that like opened me up to the whole world  of health education and health promotion and epidemiology, which is a word that nobody knew until the COVID epidemic. 

Yes.  It’s so funny. It’s like, you know, I was using Zoom for my graphic design work. Like almost on a daily basis, meeting people and clients and trying to figure out like how to design certain things and what’s needed and whatever. And then like suddenly with the whole world got on board, it was like, oh, right.

I knew this is, well. So  I got into the field of health advocacy about 10 years ago and, and, and Israel, because I saw that people were not  accessing the benefits and they weren’t accessing the healthcare system  that they needed to be. And at that point, you know, I wanted to make sure that anybody who was an English speaker in Israel could have these services.

So I, I always, like, I did telehealth before telehealth was like, you know, a thing. So I, I like. 97% of my clients, like I’ve never actually met them. Right. You know, and in person, some of them I actually haven’t even seen because, you know, it was like telephone and not everybody had zoom initially, et cetera.

Right. So, and I have like a lot of older clients who, you know, like I was like, talk to their forehead a lot or like, you know, they can’t forget how to turn on their camera.  So Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yes. But I’m so proud of them. By the way, if you’re older and you’re figuring this out, good for you. Because it’s not easy, you know, for people grew up, if like you’re, you’re born with a cell phone, that’s one thing, but you really know life before this and it’s amazing how quickly things change and how you’re able to stay on top of it is very, very impressive.

So give, I don’t know how to take a selfie. I don’t know anything about many things on my phone. I hand it to my kids and I’m not my father. Admit 120, he’s 92, and he taught himself how to go on Facebook and how to do Zoom, and like, he’s, he’s mister cell phone. So, you know, we actually had to take him off of TikTok because I said like, he was like sitting there, you know, like scroll.

I was like, okay, dad, you’re like a teenager in the back of the car. I actually told him like, look out the window. He’s like, what?  Yeah, yeah, yeah. My husband says, if you ever have any tech issues, get the youngest person in the room  and ask them to fix it completely. Definitely. Yeah.  Yeah. So, so now you are that person.

For people who just don’t know what, what to expect  in the healthcare system, tell us a little bit about what is actually behind the scenes of the things that most of us just don’t know, so first of all, there’s just sort of like your general taking care of your health, like the sort of,  they, they use the word like preventive, but you’re really not preventing things because we’re not God,  you know, it’s like things are gonna happen to you that are out of your control.

And even though I think that we’d like to think if I do A, B, and C, you know, like if I eat these certain foods and I do these certain things, then  I’ll be protected and I’ll be fine. And it doesn’t work that way. You know? Like how many of us know, God forbid whatever, somebody who’s cancer, like, you know, age 18, you know, or somebody who has a heart attack in their mid forties.

You know, so there’s a big difference between having a healthy lifestyle, which I think is important. I’ll talk about that in a second. But, but like, there are just things that we need to put into place that are called like, early detection. And, that’s really what I push.

I mean, unfortunately people, when they come to me often, it’s like they’re already in a crisis, so they miss that part. But if I get people who are,  you know, who come to me, like, who are older, let’s say they’re in fine health and they’ve moved to this country and they want me to help them make their appointments or find their doctors.

So then we focus on like, you know, for women, like, are you getting your routine mammography?  Because, you know, I, I spent a large part of my career raising awareness about breast cancer, early detection, especially among Jewish women. But the truth is, is that it’s still one of the biggest cancers, you know, for women in general. 

And you know, it’s like we all focus on,  you know. Catastrophic. Often what we worry about, which is reasonable, especially I think given our day and age and what happens. But statistically, and that’s usually what I work on. ’cause I come from that, you know, epidemiology background and I can’t help it the statistically, it’s like, what’s gonna get us and, you know, our, these like chronic cancers and aging, you know, those are the things that  we really sort of, I wouldn’t say worry about ’cause I don’t, I don’t believe in worrying about it.

I don’t think that’s helpful. But like, you know, just  doing things. So for women it’s like making sure that you get your mammography once a year and it’s making sure that you go to the gynecologist to be examined, not just when you like, are pregnant or just had a baby.  Which a lot of women, you know, realize, they don’t realize like, you have to go to a gynecologist even when you’re not, you know, pregnant.

It’s making sure that you go to the dermatologist once a year to have the moles checked, you know?  Like to, because so many of these things, if they’re caught early, like really are manageable, you know, and they’re dealt with like in a local fact, you know, fashion and you can handle, it’s when things  aren’t managed and when they’re not dealt with that it can really escalate into something that is, you know, a crisis, right?

And that really affects your life.  So those are the things that I really emphasize, you know, with people and, and  making sure that, you know, we talk about having a good diet and also making sure people do routine blood tests to make sure, you know, testing about diabetes, which is really the disease that like no one, like no one talks about it.

’cause it’s not like,  I don’t know. Interesting as it were. But like that’s what, that’s really like, that is a real, real problem, you know? And I think people are like, okay, well what I get, I’ll take a pill, you know? But you don’t wanna be at the place in your life when you have to take a pill to manage.

You know? It’s like,  as you get older, you wanna  enjoy your relationships, you wanna enjoy being with people, you know, you wanna, like, I mean, I’m very blessed, like I have two little grandchildren.  Aw. And you know, you see yourself like, okay, I just wanna spend time with them, you know, and I wanna have energy and be healthy doing it.

So.  So is there anything in the system that encourages these types of,   proactive ways of staying healthy?  So, first of all, just the tests that I mentioned first of all in Israel, they’re covered like in the basket of services. And I know in America, America, they start mammography much earlier than they do in Israel.

Mm-hmm. But the thing is, is like, like anything else, like you have to be your own case manager.  You have to be on top of it. So I  encourage people always to like, sort of like, you’ve got your checklist and you have a day. I mean, I have many things going on and I very much believe in calendars and scheduling.

So I have administrative day, which is like a few hours every Tuesday morning, and that’s when I  make appointments for myself and other people. That’s when I fill in forms if they need it to be completed. You know, like that’s if I have to make a phone call to a doctor or something like that.

So for myself and for my family, ’cause I, you know, also manage their care.  Right. Yeah. No, I, I once heard Rebecca Saltzman, she’s an organizer. Yeah. So she, she says she makes all the appointments around the kids’ birthday because that way anything that has to be done once a year is taken care of in that month of when they were born.

And so like, she doesn’t have to try to remember when was the last time you had you, you know, went to the dentist, when was the last time you had a, you know, a cleaning? When was the last time you went, whatever. It’s like she already knows that all those things were taken care of around that birthday.

Yeah. So it’s easy to remember, which is really cute.  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.  Like I have reminders in my calendar, like, you know. Okay. You know, make an appointment for this or make an appointment, you know, and, but I always tell people  the best thing to do is when you’re in the office and you know there’s gonna be like a six month follow up, make the appointment then, you know.

Right. Don’t wait and say like, oh, when I get home I’m gonna do, because then you never do. And then you wait. And by the time you wait, like so much more time has passed, you know? Right, right. Yeah.  Yeah. And the other thing I’m just gonna make a plug for, since I’m already here, is telling people, men, women, doesn’t matter to, to do a routine colonoscopy, which I’ve told this to people and they’re like, what? 

So, so because like that’s so, it’s a little bit more, let’s say, invasive than it would be like if you just did like a stool test. But the thing is like if they find something, ’cause it’s like they go into the lower intestine. ’cause colon cancer is again a very widespread cancer that affects us.

You know and it’s also easily controlled if it’s found. So again, it’s not one of these things, like you can’t prevent, you know, these things from happening. You can have the healthiest lifestyle and unfortunately still find one of these things. So then you do the colonoscopy, and then if you’re clean bill of health, then it’s like once every 10 years.

So it’s a little bit of investment.  Oh. But yeah, I mean unfortunately I’ve known too many people who’ve, you know, who’ve passed away from colon cancer at young ages, and this is like a way to Yeah, right. To avoid cancer.  Oh, really Interesting. What I was thinking about is more towards, like, I heard, and I don’t know if this is true, but  it’s on my list of things to look into.

Okay. That there’s  an app now that you can get a discount for going to the gym or that you can get discounts on all sorts of  things that are preventative. And that’s what I was going to ask you about. Like, there’s, there’s things that people just don’t know about, and even if they hear about them, it’s hard to actually follow up and do Yes.

But make it a lot more doable.  Yes.  So for sure. So in, for specifically in Israel, like each of the, like the HMO, not e, not like at least two of them, they have these apps where you can go in and you can track  your eating regimen and your exercise, and you can get discounts. And some of them have like subsidized personal trainer who come to your house to put a, like a personal plan for you.

Cool. And then there’s like a ton of international apps where you can like, you know, anywhere from like tracking your calories to  giving you exercise routines and, you know, I mean. It’s amazing today, like if you wanna take charge of your own,  health in terms of like, you know, eating and exercise, then there’s so many options out there, you just have to find which one works for you.

Just the thing is that,  you know, you need to do it. That’s like, at the end of the day, no one else is gonna do it for you, but you, and I think that’s the hard thing.  So yeah, so, so diet and I mean, like. I can’t tell you when I give my lectures, you know about women’s health or health navigation.

So I always say  nobody ever knows like what’s real and what’s not. ’cause you’ll read a study like have a glass of wine once a week, you know, once a once a day and like, that’ll reduce breast cancer. Or like, I saw this one study outta France once, you know, like have dark chocolate a square once, you know, and that’s gonna be like, great, that’s gonna prevent diabetes or whatever.

I, I highly recommend dark chocolate for everyone. And then once you buy it and you realize you don’t like it, you just come and deliver it here. We will happily eat it for you.  Which I definitely think the enjoyment past is very important. But like the health benefits, you know, they’re still up here. But like I remember my grandmother had a bar of 80% chocolate and she would take one square every day and I would come and  ask for some.

I was like, no, it’s my medicine. I don’t like it. I eat it because it’s medicine.  And I’m like, oh man, because I love this stuff.  Ugh.  And you still eat it. You still eat the 80% dark chocolate. I mean, a friend of mine for the morning period brought me 90% chocolate. And she knew  it was the exact thing I needed.

It was the exact thing I needed. It’s, I love it. I love the dark chocolate. Why? Because the more I cut out sugar. Mm-hmm. And I’m not sugar free by any means. I love sweet stuff, but the more I veer towards healthy sugars, like, you know, the dates and and fruits and whatever, and the less I eat junk junk, the more actual things taste good.

Yeah. You know, like.  You taste the sugar and the almonds, or you taste the, the flavor and the cucumbers. Like, it’s, it’s very interesting. Yeah. But it’s really just about like clearing those numb ments. I think that’s, that’s pretty much what I think of it as. I make cookies and then my friends say they’re not sweet enough and I think they’re just way too sweet and I can’t eat them.

I’m like, Ugh. But like, I, which is great. I mean, that’s where you wanna be, you know, like, I mean,  yeah. And then, you know, now we were just going through all this emotional eating and we’re all like, you’re eating and talking about how this is just emotional eating. We’re emotionally eating, like we’re all just sitting around like, you know,  eating.

But the things I was craving were things that weren’t. Bad for me. Like I wasn’t going to be sorry that I ate the emotional eating. Like even though Yeah. You know, I did eat the cookie and I ate the cake and I ate the, you know, the muffin or whatever. I ate one, you know, or I ate. Yeah, that’s the thing.

Yeah. If you just like, it was enough.  So when you eat the chocolate, can you eat just one square  and then you stop anytime? Like when, when we were growing up,   we were six, right? Because it was my parents and four kids.  And my mother would buy this like, you know, really nice milk of chocolate, like the, the purple.

But that was what we had in like, you know, wherever we were. So she would get that and it had six lines of four cubes. So each person in the family would get a line of four and the whole bar  was done. Like that’s all there was. There was six cubes per person  and I just thought that was normal. Like I grew up enjoying my four cubes.

Some of us would like share cubes, like I don’t, I don’t feel like having so many today you can have mine. And then the next time, like I, you know, Hey, can I have one of yours? I’m really in the mood, like it was basically business of like, can I have your cube or, you know, not. It was really like max five cubes, you know, per, per event.

And then I started working at this office. I was a graphic designer before I was a marriage coach. I started working in this office and the lady showed up with an extra large chocolate bar. Like one of those, like extra big ones, not the ones my parents bought that was family size. It was like the extra big,  and she showed up and she put in the middle and she said, you know, anybody who wants can take, you know, happily.

Like, I bought it for everyone. It’s fine. I’m like, there’s three of us, right? It’s like, not that many people. And so I took a, a line of four and I put it next to me and I  fully enjoyed it.  And suddenly I look over and I realize that the, the girl who bought it is almost at the end of the full thing.

Like she ate more than half of this bar. And it blew me away. I never in my life saw anybody eating so much chocolate. But I think it was just, it’s one of those like paradigms that like, it’s just how you live or how you grew up and that’s all you know. Totally. And then suddenly it’s like, whoa, you can do that.

Like you’re even allowed to do that. Like.  And you were an adult. You were an adult. You know, it wasn’t like, yeah, yeah. I was an adult with two children. Like that’s how far we’re talking. Yeah. But like, it never occurred to me because anybody who ever showed up with chocolate, it was like either the mini things.

And of course like if you have a mini, it’s just like a personal size. It makes sense. Yeah. And or like they, there’s like the regular size and then you split in half and you give your friend and it’s like normal size, normal sizes that those like felt normal to me. Right. But that was an experience that blew my mind.

And you realize like it’s a totally different, people are having a totally different perception of like, I didn’t even really understand that you could order pizza until I was in college.  Like, it just, it wasn’t like, I didn’t know that it was a con. I mean, I grew up in, in suburbia of South Jersey and, but, but like my parents, I mean my father, like they’re from the Depression, like it wasn’t a thing.

I mean, you know, it was just like wasn’t, you didn’t do that, you know, it was like you went out to a restaurant once a year, you know, it was like either a birthday or Mother’s Day or something, you know? And like,  I like, again, it was ridiculous. Like, I saw commercials, I saw like why didn’t, but it didn’t occur to me.

’cause, you know, it was like so far, you know, it’s funny how you, like my daughter says, ’cause after my third child was born, I was getting sick all the time. And I went to so many doctor, whatever, I went to this naturopath and he was like, you have to stop eating processed sugar. Like your insulin levels are bouncing up and down.

Like, I didn’t, you know, I was young, but,  so I cut out sugar for,  I cut out sugar probably for like.  Five, seven years. I mean, then I had my fifth child and dad sort of fell out the window. So I didn’t, I, but I was like a long, so my daughter was growing up then, so she, in her mind it was like, mothers don’t eat sugar.

Like they just don’t have the, you know, they don’t eat those desserts. So like, she, like, remember she was in high school and like her friend’s mother, she saw her eating cake and she was like, that’s strange. You know, mother.  So I have a friend who studied. She was a therapist and she specialized in addictions and part of part of what they had to do was they had to cut out sugar during the time they were studying addictions so that they can understand what the person they are dealing with is going through.

That is brilliant. Brilliant. That is such a brilliant, I mean, everybody that’s, that’s it blew my mind that the people who created this program were so smart that they got you to experience something that you can almost not experience if you never were addicted to actual substances. Yeah, yeah. But.  The addiction to sugar is the exact same thing as any other addiction in the ways that you have to deal with it.

And she said she couldn’t do it because even if you cleaned up your whole house from sugar, you go to an event and there’s sugar and you go with your friends and there’s sugar and there’s a peer pressure of sugar. Exactly. And there’s all the things. And she says this is exactly what the people are going through.

When they’re addicted to the things that they’re addicted to, their friends are gonna pull them down. Yeah. They’re, their, their, their whole social circles are about this. Right, right. You’re right. I it’s, it’s a brilliant, it’s a brilliant plan on their part because Yeah. ’cause it is, I mean, so  I mean, so when people ask me like, okay, so you’re a health professional, what should I do?

So, you know, obviously you can’t tell someone cut out sugar ’cause it’s. Really impossible. And also it’s not like cigarettes that it has like a warning label on it.  Not that people don’t smoke ’cause they do. Right. But like, you know, at least everyone agrees that we know that smoking is bad for you.

And so we have a warning label on the cigarettes, but it’s like, it’s not like your sugar bag has a warning label on it. You know? Even though like, it obviously should told even worse than that. I think the worst part is, you know, I had, I had a conversation with the Nette. What is that in English? The teacher, the kindergarten teacher?

Yeah, the kindergarten teacher.  I had a whole thing back and forth with her. I said I would really like to request that we don’t give the kids so much sugar in school. Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah. And, and she says, but we can’t do anything. This is just what, you know, what we need to do for birthdays, for weekly. You know, Ima Shel Shabbat, every week we get junk food.

And, and I said, why? I don’t understand this entire thing. Like, you  as a teacher are looking at me going, you are the mother. You are the authority. You decide, and now I’m telling you, you are the teacher. You are the authority in this room. You decide, can you just announce, we are all deciding that we’re not going to give our kids, like, let’s just say like, no toffee.

You know, like the trophy is terrible. It gets stuck. And also  the dentist, but it’s, I know I.  I stopped having that argument. I stopped trying to have that. I requested, I’m like, even if you, if we have to give them everything, like let’s give them whatever they want except one thing. Like, let’s pick the worst thing and just say no.

Because like you say, we’re not gonna give our kids cigarettes. Like, but that’s what everybody’s doing. You know? It’s like, no, you don’t go to first grade and get cigarettes. You’re not, it just doesn’t make sense. But like you know, socially here in Israel especially, this is one thing that’s really, really difficult and. 

I’ve even, I even had a teacher tell me that I need to relax because I’m putting my kid in a situation where they want it, but they know they shouldn’t have it. So if I just tell them that it’s okay, then the kid won’t feel so bad. And I was like, wow. And you’re like, that is a parenting error on so many levels.

I can’t even tell you.  I’m like, I’m really sorry I’m making your life so miserable. But like, I am the mother. And I don’t think that telling my daughter that she should have the chocolate, the, not the chocolate chocolate’s allowed. Chocolate is food. Just like my husband says, you know, if, if al, if the, sages, the sages would have had coffee and chocolate. They would have said it was not allowed on Passover. But because they didn’t have that yet, they didn’t make that part of the, you know, kidney oat. So that is the reason why chocolate and coffee are always different than anything else we talk about because chocolate has its own little section over here of like, chocolate’s actually real, it’s real food.

It really gives comfort. It is allowed. So please. Well, I think you, I, so I think you hit on the important is the comfort. I think that,  I think that as like a society, we wanna give comfort to little kids. We wanna give them a reward  and we don’t know how to do it unless it involves like something that.

Is, you know, that sugar, that’s like, that’s soothing, that’s like comforting. You know, we, we, words aren’t enough. Actions aren’t enough. Little prizes aren’t enough. It’s the, it’s the, it’s the soothing nature of sugar that we can’t, I mean, my to, just to go back to what you’re saying, like my children, I got a call once from my son who was in fourth grade who was at a birthday party and called me and he said, Ima, can I, can I have half a cup of coke?

Everybody’s drinking the soda. Can I have,  I mean, like, what, like a better parenting moment to know that like your child,  like, is so internalized that soft drinks are just like not, I mean, it sounds like terrible, but it wasn’t like an abusive situation. It was just like he, you know. Like, he just realized that it wasn’t something, I mean, now they’re all adults and they all, you know, feel very comfortable about drinking soda when they, but,  but I think that, like, I, I tell them that I worked so hard to wean myself off of Coke.

Like, really? Because I,  you have one of those Coke addictions. Really? I was, when we were growing up, Coke and, and Sprite were like, those were the treats. You had to have that, it was normal. Yeah. I wasn’t, I wasn’t allowed. I was like, my mom was like way ahead of her time, way of her time. She was like, it was not in the house.

See that? So we grew up and socially also, everybody was having it. So I, and I liked it. I thought it was delicious.  It’s delicious. It’s, no,  no. Now every so often. Yeah, every so often we’re like at a wedding or something uh, like taste. Coke. I’d be like, Ugh, too much.  Ugh. Because once you’re off of it, you can’t go back.

It’s like there’s this real understand, like your brain finally clicks in that. It’s not yummy, but like I explained to my kids that I used to be addicted. I think it was delicious, you know? And it was, it was because I belongs, we were social. It was the way that you connected. It was the thing that was represented as like the, you know, the prize, the thing that you get for being good, whatever.

So there’s a lot of things that it meant for me, and I am very open about it. Like I worked so hard to get off of it, but if you find it delicious for some reason, and I make this like really gross face, I’m like, go ahead, you know, I’m not gonna make you miserable. But then they drink and they’re like, yeah, it’s not even that good. 

So, thank God.  I mean, there is always the balance of like, you don’t wanna make something like.  Forbid it so much that then it becomes a temptation to your kid. You know? On the other hand,  you know, very much boundaries, boundaries for food, boundaries for sugar, you know, I mean, in general, boundaries are important part of parenting, you know, and,  and I mean, it’s definitely something like sugar is in everything that we eat.

Even foods that aren’t sugary have sugar in them, and we know, we know it’s  an issue. So anyway, sort of going back to the center of like yeah. When you’re, you know, focusing, I, people always ask me, I’m like, look, there’s not one diet that you can do. And I, you know, it’s like,  it’s just being aware  of your eating and what you’re consuming is really important,

and reducing the sugars as you can, eating  real foods as much as possible and not  processed foods and  exercise.  Yeah. There is like, exercise is just like, you know.  You see all the, I mentioned before, like you see all these trends in research and I, I spend a lot of my time reading scientific articles.

’cause I also do scientific writing and I, you know, I write articles  and I also happen to love it. So I read and like you see all the time, these new theories and these, you have to do this, you have to eat that you have to do. But like what you see consistently over the past 30 years as peace people will have like a normal diet.

And people who exercise regularly,  their health is preserved as you know,  obviously there’s no guarantees, but in general, statistically,  better than those people who don’t have those two items, you know? 

  Hey, before we continue the episode, I want to ask you something. Are you ready to get answers from God directly, feel more in love with your husband and more supported than ever? Run the business of your dreams without having to sacrifice any other part of your life? That is exactly what my one-on-one private coaching is for, and I want to invite you, just you and me.

For a free deep dive discovery call, this is a 60 minute free call where I ask you lots of questions and we extract the three main things that are holding you back. I then put together a personalized plan for you where I create a roadmap of recommendations. With practical steps,  the call is free and so valuable in itself.

So go book yours today. Now back to the show. 

 So now I wanna get into something really interesting because, you know, we’re, our title is health and Business, but also this is true in business.

This is true in, in everything that you do. I feel like when you try to be perfect, I. And try to do it how it’s supposed to be. It never really works because you end up like stopping before you even start. Ah, it’s just not good enough. You know, I think about business, I’m like, I design a, you know, a sales page.

It’s never good enough. It never goes live. I’m sitting there just sitting on it and overthinking it and, you know, agonizing over the whole totally perfection thing. And with, you know, with sugar, I, I’m really into like the 20 80 20 rule where it’s like, as long as 80% of the food you’re eating is mostly good and is, you know, vegetables, fruits, pro, whatever, proteins, foods that you can, you know, you can read the, the, the non labels ingredients, right? 

The actual ingredients without the label. Then what if 20% of your stuff was junk food? Big deal. You know? And so, like I said, even though we ate emotional eating and we did, you know, like go crazy with all these like junks  it was fine because we had this sorta balance thing going.  And so like, again, also with exercise, I feel like if I wait until I can exercise three times a week for a full hour each day and blah, blah, blah, blah, then I would never do anything.

Yeah. And, and I know for myself, there are weeks that it’s just like all I could do is one time yoga this entire week. It’s just all there is. Yep. Or you know, or all I could do this week is take a walk for 20 minutes.  I want that to be enough. I want this to be okay. ’cause I don’t want you to like, you know, sort of fall over yourself trying to.

Do it right? Yeah, I completely agree with you. And the whole like, have to do it right.  Perfection, you know, like that is never how I have operated my life and for sure not my business.  You know, and, and anything in life, being a mother, being a business owner, being like, it’s good enough, you know, it’s good enough and it’s putting you in the right direction.

And I think so much of it is more like having an awareness, you know, like, look, my youngest child  is 15,  so  my flexibility in terms of time is completely different than when, you know, my oldest was 15. Right. So I think that it’s important to have, like, you know, do I have 10 minutes?

Can I do an exercise video? Like I don’t believe, like you don’t have to go to the gym and you don’t have to do things that are complicated and you don’t have to hire a personal trainer. Like,  can I walk instead of taking the car? Can I take the stairs instead of taking the elevator? Like they’re small choices like that, but they add up, you know, they really do.

Like, I’ve got 10 minutes.  Can I do 10 minutes of yoga if that works for you? You know, like I have not, I always say like, when I’m older I’ll get into yoga. Like, I just has not clicked for me yoga at all. I have  and I do not. Yoga and me, we’re not, we’re not buddies yet. I don’t know, maybe sometime there will be, but like that’s, but I, I to dance.

So do you like Pilates?  I do, I do like Pilates. I can’t say like I do it, you know, enough, but I do Pilates with other things. But like,  I love to dance, so I’ll do like, you know, like a dance video or I do, like, for me doing YouTube videos, like that works, you know, like, I know, ’cause I have friends who go to the gym now.

It’s not realistic. I’m not gonna do that. But I, I, I know for myself at this point, like it’s a mental health thing as well, you know,  it’s not just like I’m investing for the future. It’s like that half an hour walk, you know? I find, especially now with everything that’s going on and, you know, the chaos that we have in our,  that we are living in a bit, you know, in Israel.

And I think also globally, I feel like you need time to like check in with yourself, you know, and not do anything else,  right. And make time. So, you know, sometimes like doing something very physical, like, you know, like a cardio. You’re just focusing on doing the motions, you know?

I agree. I was gonna say, I, I swim like I found. Oh, that’s amazing. I found that I get to be in water and it counts as exercise, like Sure. I’ll take it. So I wasn’t a swimmer, but maybe like  couple years ago.  Well, really two years ago I swam across the Kinneret. That was the first time I really became a swimmer.

Wait, how can you go from not swimming to swimming across the Kinneret?  How, how does that happen? So there was, there was a group of us that weren’t comfortable swimming, like across the big pool, you know, like there’s laps and they’re like, you go to the, you go to the pool and what are you gonna do?

Just like hang around like the little kids, you know, like, I’m not afraid of water, but I just don’t actually feel like I’m capable of getting to the other side of the pool.  And we were just hanging out talking to each other like, we should really stu like learn to, to swim again. You know, like we learned when we were six.

Yeah.  So we hired the swim teacher who teaches the kids to teach us. And that was like, I don’t know,  a long time ago, probably like seven, eight years ago.  So we did this class and we all learned to swim and was like, yay. You know, now we know how to swim. And the teacher said she’s so excited about.

Swimming the ary. She wants to do it this year, let’s all do it. And I was like, yeah, right. And I didn’t do it that year because it, no, I’m, I said seven years ago, but I think I’m warping time because it really was like  soon after. My first time was two years ago and this year I did it for the second time.

’cause I skipped a year so  that you learned. So whatever it was, we were like, you know, it was, it was recent.  Anyway, so she said she went and did it and she came back. She’s like, it was amazing. They give you bananas and dates on the way so you don’t, you know, lose steam and, and you just like swim and there’s like all these stops along the way and it’s not hard and it’s really fine and blah, blah.

Wait, you stop. Like what? There’s like floating stops. Yeah. There’s like all and you and you these.  Yeah. Wow. Yeah.  And so she like really got me into it. So I was like, fine, next year I’ll do it. And then wait, so you swim in like full, like modest regalia? Like you had like a swim skirt and No, they close, they close the, the beach, like the, you know, the, they close it for us.

So it’s all, oh, it was a women’s only swim. Yes. And there is like four or 500 women doing it.  Wow. It’s like a whole event for raising money for these special needs adults who live independently as part of a community and every year they build them another thing. So like another house, another like a cafe, a place where they could work a, you know, a therapy room, like whatever.

Right. Every time it’s different. It’s very cool. Anyway, I just did it with my daughter last week and it was incredible last week. What? It’s cold. If it’s the beginning of May.  No, they always do it.  The first week of June or the previous week? The last week of May.  Oh yeah. So, oh, right, this last week, right.

Wow. Yeah. So it wasn’t cold.  No, it wasn’t, it was really a hot day. So yeah, so in order to prepare, I started swimming. You know, every, I took upon myself twice a week just so that I can really come ready.  But the first time I swam across, I couldn’t like get to the other side. I’m like, there’s no way I’m doing two kilometers of this if I can’t even do one lap. 

But the teacher said, like, you just keep going. So the next time I did, you know, 10 laps, and the next time I did 20 laps. And very quickly you get into this rhythm, like as soon as you get past the 20 laps, you start to swim as if nothing happened.  But like, it’s hard to get to that point. Yeah.  Like you’re all talking about how you’re like, you’re, you’ve taken on a huge thing and you did it.

That’s amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I like 10, 20 minutes of exercise and I mean, I’ve sw but I, I haven’t gotten the pool yet this year because I get cold.  Yeah. I’m very wimpy.  I hear that. I hear that. That’s amazing though. That’s like such an accomplishment. I mean, you know,  a lot of, for a lot of people, like that’s what gets them to, to do exercise.

Like having that, that goal, you know, like really makes it able for you to  put those things in place. Like you’re right, you start with two laps and then it goes up to 10 laps, but you’re like, I’m gonna swim across the Kinneret. You know? 

You know what? It’s cool because you’re part of something bigger. And for me, for me that was. It’s the social part that, that motivates me. So it’s like there’s this like a big banquet at the night before and you get to meet all the other swimmers and you get, you know, this like really like event. And then the next morning you wake up at 6:00 AM and you go and you get on the bus and they go across and they let you off.

And then you cross, you know, you cross the Kinneret and you get to the other side. And then even just through the swim, everybody’s cheering each other around like, Hey, are you okay? What’s up? You know, whatever. And it’s like you just constantly being social, even though swimming is a very boring, non-social thing.

So I think that’s where I find my balance because I’m such an extrovert and I need a little bit of that. Yeah. A lot. And, and sometimes people like see Swim as a very  like internal introverted type of, right. Right. It’s like it’s not a sport you do with people. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.  Wow. I came in number a hundred. 

That’s amazing. I’m very proud of myself because you should be, 

it’s outta like 400 and something women. It’s a, there’s a lot of women,  so it’s very cool. Very cool. You have definitely internalized, like the whole process there.  Yeah. Of, you know, incorporating into your life in a way that works for you.  Thank God. It doesn’t mean that like every day you’re gonna feel motivated and, or even every week you can be like, oh, you know what I’m saying?

But like, it’s in your awareness that this is part of your lifestyle and that’s what I think is so important, you know? Yes. And  once the thing is over, I haven’t been back in a pool. I. You know? Right, right, right, right. There is, that is that is the problem with these like milestones is like you do the thing and then, right.

 And I don’t make it a thing, you know? And it’s okay because two years ago, as soon as the thing was over and I did, I went back to the pool and I tried practicing like, this is so boring. Like why am I doing this?  My body was in resistance. I was like, what? So I didn’t feel like doing it, so I wasn’t hard on myself and I just didn’t, and, and then like, you know, two years later, here I am doing it again and I’m totally capable.

My body remembers what’s, you just had a baby a year ago, didn’t you tell me that? Yeah. That’s why I didn’t do that. That’s crazy. You know? Yeah. That year,  that’s amazing that you can like get back into that kind of shape and you know, like.  I feel like after each baby, it took me like two years for my body to like, you know, put itself back together again. 

And then you’re already pregnant. Yeah. So you can’t get back together. Uhhuh. Yep. Yeah, I know. So, so, but I think back to when, you know, when I was younger and overwhelmed, I remember like  when I was mother of three kids, I think it was really the hardest part for me. Like I say, having eight kids is harder than, is easier than having three kids.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I see that because it’s, it’s like crowdsourcing. It’s like, you know, it’s like, it also, you can like divvy it up and then you’ve got like, yeah. It’s a totally different type of parenting also, like at that point, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So like, having three kids and just being one on many is, is so overwhelming and so difficult. 

And then you don’t really have the skills yet of how to make room for yourself and how to prioritize certain things. Yeah. And everything feels like it’s on fire.  There’s so many things that I had to learn, but they only came once. I finally said, I can’t do it anymore. Like there’s a breaking point where, you know, I hope if you’re listening and you’re in the three kids stage, like, please just raise your hand before your break because it, you are exactly where you need to be in this place of like, there is more that I need to learn than I need to like really click into.

Yeah. But I remember myself then and I remember saying like, you need help. Yeah. I think like, people are fairytale, like, ask for help, you know, it’s like, you need, it’s okay. It is totally legitimate. You do not have to do it all by yourself. There is no, like, it is hard and then it’s okay to, you know, it’s, it’s important to ask for help.

It’s not like a failure. It doesn’t mean that you’re weak and it doesn’t mean that, you know, you don’t have it all together. Right. You think is, yeah. I was, I I’m gonna bring this up, even though it’s like. Feels not related. But when my brother was sitting Shiva ela,  he told people, he said she was a therapist and we went to therapy. 

You know, and I’m not, I’m not embarrassed to tell you, I actually think it’s what she would have wanted you to hear, because it’s so important to  get the external help that you need in order to have the internal skills that you’re going to be using for the rest of your life. You know? So like sometimes you think like, oh,  I should be able to figure it out and whatever.

It’s like, no, just do yourself a favor and get the right people to give you the right skills so that you can then do it on your own and be independent. So it’s like, or, or delegate. Or delegate. And like, that’s not gonna be the thing that you do and that’s okay. You know, like that. Somebody else will take that on and that is like a reasonable thing. 

Right. Yeah. But I think, you know, delegate, I’m, I’m gonna bring up Rebecca Saltzman again ’cause she taught me so much. She came to my retreat. I, I had a retreat that I ran in Natanya. Wow. So cool. So cool. It was like, I don’t know, three years ago already. She was one of the guest speakers and we talked about delegation.

And this is also good for business, so I’m happy we named it business.  We’re like way off topic. I know. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry. No, it’s all good. Listen, it is what it is. We’re gonna get back to the topic in a second. But the delegation, she said, make a list of all the things you cannot delegate, like only you can do. 

And I realized there’s a lot of very annoying things up on there. You know, it’s like only I could be mom only, I can be wife only I can go to the bathroom, only I can eat, only I can exercise. You know, nobody can do these annoying things for me. And when you realize that’s really all you can do, then you start to take responsibility in o owning up that this is what you get to do.

Completely. ’cause I can delegate, let’s say I don’t know what, what can I delegate? Laundry, right? Yeah. I could delegate laundry, but I can’t delegate sitting down to eat.  Yeah. Or drinking enough water. Like I just can’t, I can tell people to like, serve me water. Like, you know, I tell my daughters when I’m nursing, you give me water.

I don’t care if I didn’t ask. If I’m sitting down to nurse, I need to drink. And everybody got into a rhythm already of like, they see me sitting down, they bring me a cup of water or I, I just announce, like I say, anybody wanna bring me water? And I have like three cups coming, you know, because That’s good.

Thank God, thank God. It’s very nice. But I think it’s, it’s important that even though you can delegate. The thing getting to you, right? You can have someone else make the food for you. Yeah. But you have to eat, you have to be the one to drink. You have to be the one to exercise. So, so, you know, those are things that once you realize only you can do them, then you, you make them a priority.

But you, but you also realize all the things that you are not the only one that has to do, you know, which I think also for mothers and also for business owners, is sometimes a very, very difficult thing to let go of, you know,  because it’ll be done.  Say more. Yeah, no, because it’ll be done differently than let’s say that you would do it.

But, but I think that you’re, you’re absolutely correct in like bringing back the focus to what I only can do, which is about really caring for yourself  and that there are so many other tasks like the laundry, you know, like.  You know, there’s so many, there’s women that I know who are like, they won’t delegate the laundry because I have to fold it in a certain way.

I have to hang it, you know, I have to do it  in a certain manner. And, or, or even things like taking out their children. They’ll say, well, my husband can’t put the kids to bed because he doesn’t do it in the, you know, the routine as if I do it. And I said, well, I mean that if you’re gonna do that, then you’re just gonna close yourself in.

It’s gonna be all this whole laundry list of things that only you can do, which is not really the only you could do. And then,  which I, I think it actually feeds back to a much larger issue. I mean, there’s like. There’s sort of the surface thing of, well, no, ’cause it’s the way I do it. But I think it is a much deeper issue for us as women as like, what is our self-worth coming from?

You know, like if I’m not the one who can only the one who can put the kids to bed and I’m not the only one who can fold the laundry, then like, what is my self-worth? What is really my purpose in this relationship and this family, you know? Right.  And, and the same. And I, I see it, it’s the same parallel as in business.

You know, if I’m not, if I’m not doing all the sales pages and if I’m not making all of the phone calls and if I’m, what’s my role in this business?  And uh,  yeah. And I think it’s, it’s so beautiful  that you brought that up and I, I, it’s, it’s the control mechanism that makes you think that you’re busy and that you’re in control and that things are okay, but in reality it’s just stopping you from actually being the thing you’re meant to be.

Yeah. Yeah. So interesting, so interesting.  Yeah. Okay. Let’s talk a little bit about how health affects business  because it’s, you know, we have a lot of women in business listening to this and a lot of us are trying to grow and shine and, you know, this is our calling, but then there’s like all this  health stuff, you know, and sometimes it,  it’s not, you know, it’s sort of like, gets in the way.

So be what? Be more specific. What do you mean by health stuff?  Like I,  I’d like you to just go in whatever direction you, you want.  Okay. So when I hear you say that, so a few things come to mind. So first of all is what we spoke about beforehand, about, you know, what are the, what are the measures that we do to sort of keep ourself healthy?

We talked about like preventative testing or early detection, and we also talked about like, you know, just regular habits, like good eating and regular exercise as best as our ability, et cetera.  Then there’s the issue of  well, and that, which also is, is the self-care, which is really, really important.

Which a lot of women, we as women, you know, forget to do. But then there’s also just like the specifics of like, what do we do when we’re sick, you know, and we run our own businesses. I don’t know if this is what you were thinking of, but I know for myself, like, you know, my husband was a salaried worker and you know,  he gets sick days.

And you’ll work for yourself. Right. There’s no sick days, you know? So I cannot tell you how many women I know who just  power through, and they’re like, no, I’ll be, you know, I’m like, let yourself be sick. You know? Like there’s a benefit.  There’s a reason that you got sick. You know, like being sick isn’t this, like, failure doesn’t mean, it means like, for whatever reason you’re like, you know, your healthy immune system was like fighting off something and, and also it decided you needed to stop, you know? 

Right. I feel like a lot of times we’re sick just because we didn’t stop early enough, you know, like I needed a rest,  I needed to sleep, or I needed to just to go out in nature and relax. And  relax. Yeah. It’s, it’s fascinating how our body knows how to do that,  even when we resist it.  Right, right. And sometimes it’ll sort of force your hand if you, I mean, you know, people always like, well get a good night’s sleep.

I mean, it’s hard for me to like, you know, talk about sleep. ’cause I’m such a bad sleeper. Like, I’ve never been a good sleeper. And I can’t even tell you, like, you know, I wake up tons at night, you know, I’ll be up sometimes like, you know, sometimes it’s like five minutes, sometimes it’s like an hour. I’ll read a book.

Sometimes it takes me forever to fall asleep, you know, whatever. Sometimes I wake up, like I try to wake up at five 30 to start my day, but sometimes I don’t because I’ve gone to bed, like whatever. You know, talking about the perfection thing. Like, so I, I don’t wanna like tell anybody we have to get enough sleep.

’cause I don’t know, I just feel like that’s, you know, and then anyway, like in the middle of the night, you’re woken up by the ine bombs anyway, you know,  which I hear and you know, or the siren. So it’s like, okay, whatever  the sleeping is. I slept, I slept right through the siren today.  Yeah, a lot of people do.

I, I don’t even have a siren where I live and I hear the booms in the air and that wakes me up  every time. Yeah. My, my husband told me this morning, he is like, you slept right through it. I’m like, I’m so glad I did. But you know, when I, what, what I found when I started learning meditation and journaling, like I really got into it  when I was pregnant with  Zer.

So we’re talking like four and a half years ago is the first time I got into meditation and journaling and guided meditations, things like that.  And so  I would wake up in the middle of the night and I made it a rule that I don’t touch my phone  and I’m only allowed if I get outta bed. I’m only allowed to journal or do a meditation.

And it is amazing what. Wisdom comes out in the middle of the night when there’s quiet and you’re not allowed to be distracted and there’s nothing happening and there’s nobody pulling your skirt anywhere. It’s just like, focus.  I had the best. You were able, you were able to have like coherent thoughts and write them down in the middle of the night, like you felt like you, I filled my like books,  you know, I get these  journals and I, I, I filled pages and pages of, of, of ideas, of downloads, of thoughts, of processings. 

I teach this  to my clients also. But there is something amazing that happens when you start to babble. Like you think you don’t have coherent thoughts, but really you’re just like at the edge of something really big. I think of it as like the faucet, you know, after like a water. Outage. Yeah, the faucet sort of comes out like muddy browny. 

Yeah.  So what do you do? You turn it right off and you’re like, no, no. You let it run. Yeah. So the same thing when you’re journaling. You have to realize like the first couple of pages or the first co, like the first couple of sentences are gonna make no sense. I was like, I don’t know what I’m feeling today.

I’m just sitting here in the middle of the night and I’m like, you know, and I have no coherent thoughts and I’m just gonna keep writing. And my handwriting is like all over the place because, so, so that’s the question to you, like what do you think about, like, if you were on the computer, you think there’s a difference between using the computer and you and writing handwriting?

I totally believe that. Yeah. I totally believe that.  There’s, there’s, you, you could look at my journals and I’m, I’m up to journal. I’m a 15 now, ever since I started my coaching when I hired my first coach, I committed to journaling and not every day. Not all the time, but just any thoughts I had about business and about life and about in general, the process I’m going through, I made sure to go back to the same journal in order to have it all in one place.

And that’s like genius. Like if you had to hear this whole thing just for this, it was worth it. Because you know, when you have all these like, small ideas and you write them down and you leave them somewhere and they’re all over the place, it’s very different. Yeah, yeah. True. So that’s when I committed.

I have my four pillars thanks to the journaling. I have my calm method, thanks to the journaling I named my programs like Fly and Flow and you know, now I have balance for God’s sake. Like everything is so amazing when you open up that channel of like just receiving downloads and. Some people, I, I don’t know if it sounds normal to people that I say, like it’s just a download, but Yeah.

No, I totally, I I totally believe that. Yeah.  Yeah. It’s, its what it’s, I’m just, I’m just describing because it, I know for sure it didn’t come from me. I didn’t sit around thinking about it. It is just came.  Hmm.  I like that.  Yep.  Okay. We are at time and I feel, I feel bad keeping you here and also the fact that we went on so many tangents, but I actually am really grateful we did.

Yes, I’m too. It was very fun.  Okay. So any, you know, we talked a little about a lot of things. Any last thoughts that you want to convey to our listeners? Do you want them to really like, internalize before we wrap it up?

And I just, I wanna bring back the importance  of making sure that you’re taking care of yourself. I know it sounds like kind of cliche and, and I feel like, oh, people, you know, self care, which is a term my sister hates because she feels like it’s very overused, but   I cannot tell you how many times I have seen people in complicated health situations because they neglected themselves  because they were in crisis or because they were really busy or because they were focused on others, which are reasonable.

But you really need to stop  and, and what you said, like, what only can I, what is what I can do and nobody else can do. And though the basic things like taking yourself to get a mammography is something only you can do. You know, like  going to the doctor to check out something is like only you can do.

It’s not anybody else’s responsibility. And, you know, I think that’s a important thing to, to remember and to just wanna like stick that home, especially for women and mothers and then, you know,  the added joy  of having your own business. So,  yeah. I love that. Thank you so much. How can people find you?

Where can they reach you? So I have a, my website is healthadvize.com. That’s the name of my business health advise with a ZI know it’s not spelled right, but, you know, long term. And on Facebook under Health Advize, I’m on LinkedIn under Aviva Yoselis.  People can find me like that yeah, those are the best ways. 

Cool. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you all. Thank you listeners for, you know, having patience with me  and I’m so grateful that we are back. I am back people. Thank God you’re back. Thank God.  Yeah. So thank you so much. And,  forget to be connected for real. 

 And that’s it! Thank you for listening to the very end. I would love if you can leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. Those are things that tell the algorithm this is a good podcast and make sure to suggest it to others. Wouldn’t it be amazing if more people became more connected for real?  And now take a moment and think of someone who might benefit from this episode. 

Can you share it with them?  I am Robinson Bat chen Grossman from  connectedforreal. com. Thank you so much for listening and don’t forget you can be connected for real.