During your day as a startup founder, you don’t really want to spend time cooking. You just want to grab something quick to to fill up your belly so you can get back to work.

While doing so might save time, you forget that you have to keep yourself healthy to perform well. Staying healthy will therefore have a positive impact on your startup.

Here are some tips I found helpful to maintain healthy eating habits while not spending too much time on preparing meals…

– Drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day. It will not only keep you fresh and alert, but it will also fill you up and suppress hunger. Water-rich foods like soup, salad, fruit, and vegetables will also fill your belly without contributing a lot of calories.

– Thoroughly chewing your food increases what researchers call “oro-sensory factors,” which send satiation signals to your brain, helping you feel full on less food, according to a 2009 study by Dutch researchers. Study participants who chewed each bite for an extra 3 seconds ended up consuming less.

– Bread: Always pick whole-wheat over white for the extra fiber. Look for at least 3 grams in each slice.

– Greek Yogurt is great for breakfast or as a snack, you can add granola to it which will make it extra yummy and healthy.

– There are a lot of vitamins and nutrients that can be cooked out of foods. To avoid that, just save time and eat it raw!  Raw foods can be anything from fruits to veggies to even fish ( sushi 🙂 ).

Make sure to schedule a day each week to go to the grocery store (my favorites are Trader Joe’s and Sprouts) to stack up on all the ingredients you’ll need to quickly put together meals. You can make quick and simple things like sandwiches, veggies & meat snack plates, salads, etc. Some of the items I buy are tomatoes, mixed greens, mini carrots, hummus, celery, apples, oranges, turkey meat, grilled chicken (great for salads), almonds, avocados, whole-wheat bread, greek yogurt, granola, healthy energy bars (like Kind).

Also, taking vitamins is a great way to keep your immune system strong, thus not wasting time on getting sick 🙂 I like taking Vitamin C and Omega 3 fish oil. When I do feel like I am getting sick, my secret ‘vitamin’ is garlic 🙂 I chop half a clove to small pieces and swallow it just as it was a pill. Works like magic.

Get outside every day for a few minutes to breath fresh air and soak in on some sun to optimize your vitamin D levels.

Have fun and keep it up.

This is a true story about how drinking wheatgrass juice helped my grandma flight and concours breast cancer. Originally posted on my wheatgrass magic website.

Year 2008.

Rosa was 72 when she started to feel some sort of lump inside her body under her left breast. She noticed that it made her breathing difficult.

Several months before that, her granddaughter started growing and drinking wheatgrass juice.

One day Rosa came to visit her granddaughter and was curious about this green grass her granddaughter seemed to juice and drink. “Helena, what is this thing you’re drinking she asked (in Russian)”, Helena explained that it’s called wheatgrass juice and it has enourmase health benefits. Rosa wanted to try it out, so after a thorough explanation and demonstration, Rosa gathered all the ingredients and started growing and drinking wheatgrass juice as well.

After a month and a half of drinking the juice, Rosa suddenly discovered a tumor on the surface of the same left breast. She couldn’t feel the lump inside anymore, so she concluded that this tumor must be the original lump coming out to the surface.

When she went to the doctor, he checked the tumor, and sent her to do a mammogram.

After the results came in, the doctor confirmed it was a breast cancer tumor and she needs a surgery to remove it. He was surprised that she found it herself because it was an aggressive tumor, usually can only be found inside the body and not on the surface. He didn’t see any roots and the surgery would be enough to get rid of it.

Rosa had the surgery and the tumor was successfully removed. The doctor was also surprised to find no spread or branches of the bad cancer cells, which are common with these types of aggressive tumors.

For precautionary measures Rosa was still asked to go through chemotherapy treatments, and even during that time Rosa recalls that the nurses were surprised to see such good blood results.

Rosa finished the treatments successfully and went back to her normal life. She embraces drinking wheatgrass juice as part of her every day routine.

Ben Gurion Airport, Israel, 2013

The happy lady on the right is my grandma 😉

* If you find yourself wonder and having questions about how wheatgrass juice works, read this.