Posted by Kelli Arruzzo on Tue, Jun 08, 2010 @ 07:56 AM
When I was younger, snack time in my family was out of control. Of course I didn't notice it back then, but looking back I now realize that there is something truly scary about the platefuls of cookies, large bowls of ice cream, and handfuls of chips I would consume. The thing is - no one ever metaphorically slapped my hand to stop me or, better yet, offered me healthier options.
It was never about me not liking healthy options, it was just that I never considered sensible snacking to even be an option. I was never offered Pretzel Twists over cookies, apples over cupcakes, or Oatmeal Cinnamon Raisin bars over donuts. Had these healthier options been the only ones I was offered and thought of as snacks, I would have never felt as if I was being deprived of something else. You can't miss something you never had in the first place!
Children don't really understand why living a healthy lifestyle is important and depend on their parents to make healthy choices for them, but many adults see healthy living as a complicated and abstract ideal that takes too much time and costs too much money. But - it doesn't have to be that way. To help our centers show their dieters this, we have developed a new program called Healthy Families Create Healthy Futures that will assist dieters and dieters' families in making healthy choices.
How? By focusing on small, gradual changes to start snacking sensibly, eating well on-the-go, and to get moving! Each Robard center was provided with a packet of start-up materials to help them begin integrating this service into their center. And, with an abundance of other information available to them - including posters, postcards, pamphlets, and more - I believe Healthy Families is going to empower individuals to help their families become healthier and happier.
My question to you: What do you think is one change that you can make in your house to get your family on the right track to a healthier future?
If you'd like to find out more about integrating Healthy Families into your centers' services, please contact a Business Development Manager at 800.222.9201, or leave your comments/questions in the comments section below.
If you're a dieter and want to find a local center that offers Robard products, fill out our Find a Provider form.
Posted by Kelli Arruzzo on Mon, May 17, 2010 @ 10:30 AM
We are more than just a product vendor. We aim to provide services, support, and education to help our network of professionals deliver successful weight loss solutions to their dieters. Our FREE monthly webcasts are just one of the ways that we go about doing this.
Open to all weight loss professionals, we search for the brightest minds and most engaging speakers to deliver hour long webcasts on topics they are passionate about - and that we think you will be passionate about. Past topics include Marketing and SEO techniques, the Role of Patients' Expectations and Goals in the Behavioral Treatment of Obesity, Boosting Professional Referrals for your Weight Management Programs, and many more!
I would like to invite you to our next webcast, this Wednesday, May 19th from 1:00 - 2:00 PM EDT. Hosted by Mike Stewart, the Exercise Facility Supervisor for Decatur Memorial Hospital Wellness Center, this webcast, Let's Get Moving! Motivate Your Clients for Greater Weight Loss Success and Increased Retention, focuses on:
- Motivation techniques that keep your clients exercising
- Increase retention over the summer months with physical activities and outdoor events
- Keep maintenance patients coming back through your door
- Exercise prescription for weight loss and better health
For more information or to register, visit www.robard.com/webcast or call 866.650.2723. If you have any questions - please feel free to leave them in the comments section below! Hope to see you on the call!
Posted by Kelli Arruzzo on Thu, Apr 29, 2010 @ 01:51 PM
This past Thursday, April 22nd, was National Take Your Child to Work Day, where the children of Robard employees came in to our offices for a day of learning and making new friends, outside of the classroom setting. Entitled "Focus on Simple Choices," our program was designed to stress the importance of healthy food choices, exercising, using money wisely, recycling, and conserving energy - concepts that will stay with all of these children as they grow older.
One of the lessons that seemed to resonate with many of them was that when recycling plastic bottles, the cap needs to be separated from the bottle before it can be recycled. Currently, all recycling is manually sifted through to find bottles where the caps have been left on - such as water bottles, shampoo and conditioner containers, detergents, flip top caps on tubes, and more - and the caps are manually removed when found. If any of these caps are missed and the two kinds of plastic are recycled together, the entire batch needs to be thrown due to contamination, as the two plastics melt at different temperatures. We've found that Aveda - a manufacturer of professional plant-based hair and skin care products - has a program in place to collect these caps and recycle them into new caps and containers. As part of our Take Your Child to Work Day initiative, we've asked all the children to collect these plastic caps at home and send them in to Robard so that we can forward them along.
The goal of our program was to teach each child that small changes such as this can have a big impact on their future and the future of the Earth. Sure, our program was riddled with tours, crafts, and a wide selection of speakers (I know I saw a pirate!) but it was also a day where we here at Robard got to use our resources to help the future of tomorrow. Our diet programs are designed to help dieters make changes in their daily lives to become healthier and happier - so of course the message of our Take Your Child to Work day events was the same!
For more information on Aveda's cap recycling program - please visit Aveda's website.
Posted by Kelli Arruzzo on Mon, Mar 29, 2010 @ 10:37 AM
For months now our team has been hard at work on a new feature for our website, and I'm very excited to announce the expansion of our online product catalog! We're very pleased with it - and we think you will be too!
No longer just a display of our products, the new product catalog is a tool that can help you quickly find the products you're looking for, while recommending those you may not even be aware we offer! Some of the new features include:
• An intuitive search feature that recommends products and keywords as you type
• The ability to filter items by dietary restrictions - aspartame, gluten, kosher, and wheat - and search by product features - meal replacements, fiber, flavors and more.
• A suggestive list of products you may be interested in based upon your search results.
It still contains full color pictures, nutritional and dietary information, and a list of ingredients for all of our products - but it's so much more than that now. Just today I used it to pull up a list of all of our gluten free products - and I must say using this is definitely a lot easier than scanning through item by item in the old catalog.
Go to www.robard.com/catalog and take a look around. Leave a comment below and let me know what you think; your feedback is always welcome!