Part One of a Two Part Interview

I can’t publish this article without telling what happened on my first attempt at interviewing Marilu. I was a bit nervous….Marilu Henner is a well-known celebrity who I first saw on the TV sitcom “Taxi” while I was in high school. She is also very well known for her remarkable efforts in the wellness industry. Personally, Marilu is a shining example of health and her company, Marilu.com, is well respected. So, I wanted things to go well.

The interview was great. Marilu was gracious with her time and willing to share a plethora of valuable information. When I hung up the phone I was quite pleased – until I checked my tape recorder. I hit “rewind” and then “play” and what I heard was….NOTHING! The entire hour on the phone – the month it took me to get that hour on the phone - and not a word was recorded!

I wish I could explain the sinking feeling that came over me. I wanted to crawl away and hide somewhere. But, instead I decided to tell the truth immediately and throw myself at her mercy. Marilu’s response to my email entitled “Disaster” told me a bit more about her character. Here is part of what she wrote:

Please don't worry. We can do this again (sometime this weekend perhaps?) I always believe these things happen for a reason, so let's wait and see what fate shows us.

Anyway...I really did enjoy talking to you...and now we get to do it again!

BEST of Health
Marilu

What a great attitude…maybe health and happiness really are related. Well, enjoy Part I of the interview and stay tuned for more from Marilu in the next issue of Healthy Times.

HT: Ok. We are, in fact, recording this time.

Marilu Henner: And you’re sure it’s working?

HT: I triple checked it this time!

HT: Will you explain your perspective on the role of small business in the wellness industry?

Marilu: There is no big business movement – when you really think about it – that is behind health. There really isn’t. There are a lot of little special interest groups and small companies that don’t have big advertising budgets, etc…

I was shocked when I first saw a commercial for Silk (soy milk) on television. It was the first time I’d ever seen anything like that. You don’t see Muir Glenn on TV…you don’t even see commercials for Whole Foods, which is probably the biggest health movement ever.

I feel like my role is to try to get all these small businesses together and create one big voice. Right now we don’t have anyone who is doing that. When I went to Congress last September, everyone had an opportunity to discuss the dietary guidelines. Of course, the Dairy Industry was there, as was the Salt Institute, the Lard Institute – but there wasn’t a lot of representation for the health industry. Whoever was there for health was very small! PCRM was there – the Physicians Council for Responsible Medicine was there – Dr. Neil Barnard. He’s fantastic.

It’s like the real purists – the people concerned with pure health – don’t have financial backing. There is a lot of money behind the meat industry, the dairy industry, the sugar industry. But there’s not a lot of money behind the smaller health products and businesses. They don’t have huge advertising budgets – so you’ll see them in local publications and in some smaller circulation national magazines, typically.

To me, health is the new frontier. We’ve tried everything else. Why don’t we just go to health? Why don’t we just do what we should have been doing all along? Instead of looking for a magic pill, or a magic product, magic diet – or a magic protein bar that keeps all day in your car…..someone needs to bring all this together and that’s my goal – that is my mission.

HT: It’s very validating to hear your take on the role of small businesses….that’s the world I live in – working with small health businesses and practitioners who work their guts out trying to make it happen and contribute something of genuine value.

Marilu: With all the people that I deal with, nobody is in it for the money – or to pull out the snake oil and fool people. People in the health industry are the real deal, and want to make things better for you – that’s it. But people don’t always think what’s good for you is fun – so that’s also what I’m trying to do – to make healthy things sexy and funny and interesting and accessible. I’m doing a show called “Shape Up Your Life” that begins October 14 on Fit TV and the Discovery Channel. Every episode starts out with me doing something fun and funny. For example, I’m at an Angels baseball game doing 7th Inning “Yoga” and I sing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” while I have people do yoga moves with me. And I also give out bananas and edamame and wheat grass. It’s a joke, you know, but I want to show people that health can fun and we have sense of humor.

Another time we went to the zoo. There was a sign that says, “Please do not feed the animals. The animals need a special diet to stay healthy”. So I say “OK wait a minute. This is the food that the animals eat – it’s all like vegetables, roots, nuts and fruit. Then, this is the diet of most people at the park today. It is hot dogs, chips, soft drinks and cotton candy. This diet keeps them healthy and this diet makes them sick. Shouldn’t we come with signs, too? We’re as close to chimpanzees as you can get. 98% of our chromosomal make-up is the same. Our teeth and digestive systems are very similar. Why don’t humans have signs that warn us not to eat food that will make us sick?

I’m trying to show people that health is your birthright and you are a lot closer to it than you think. Most people have an image of where they are compared to where they’d like to be and they think they have so far to go – that they’ll never get out of the rut they’re in. So they never get started. I’m saying, “No, you just have to take your life, tweak it a little, and you are closer than you think”. I’m here to show you how to tweak it. And that is what the show is about.

HT: So you’re showing people that a healthy lifestyle is fun – and it’s doable.

Marilu: Yeah. You know, health is yours. It’s just that we’ve been so influenced by big business and all the crap that they put out there…just because something is on the shelf at the grocery store does not mean it is safe.

HT: One of the Ten Steps in your Total Health Makeover (see Marilu.com) suggests avoiding chemicals in food. I still consume diet soda, chewing gum with chemicals in it – I know I probably shouldn’t, but I have a certain mindset that says, “The FDA approved it. Everybody’s eating this stuff. I don’t see people dropping dead all around me….it can’t be all that bad….”

Marilu: But you know what – your body is making new cells constantly. Do you want to build your house with crappy materials? That’s what you’re doing. And sure enough people aren’t dropping dead before your eyes but every day as you make new cells, that is what you’re making it from. Is that what you want?

HT: You also advocate giving up nicotine, caffeine, red meat, and dairy products….

Marilu: Most people can’t do it all at once. I work with people on my website at Marilu.com….They might do it for 3 weeks and see which steps they want to take and what they want to incorporate into their life. I keep saying there are two types of people. There are the “turkeys” and the “weaners”. The turkeys can go “cold turkey” on something and the weaners have to sort of wean themselves off gradually.

They way I did it is that I discovered the ten steps one at a time. I would follow one step for 3 weeks or so and then go back to it for a day to see how it made me feel. If it made me feel poorly I never went back to it again. I think you need to learn how to flex that discipline muscle and the more you feel successful at doing any of these steps, the more you want to do them.

I think that people should be getting rid of most of the chemicals in their diet. I tell people that if it takes a paragraph to describe what something is or if the ingredient list says “continued on the next can” then you probably shouldn’t be eating it! If it gets you 15 points in Scrabble, forget it!

I think that we shouldn’t be eating chemicals because – well, you’re a real person, so eat real food! That doesn’t mean I don’t eat on an airplane occasionally or have some kind of snack that has chemicals in it…but most of my diet is whole foods. And I feel better as a result. So do my kids. My kids are so strong. They don’t get sick like other kids do – and they’ve been raised mostly on a natural foods diet. And they’re not weirdos – they’re funny, fun, intelligent, cool kids. It’s not that they won’t eat a piece of cake a birthday party or whatever, but their basic palate has been trained to like the taste of whole food.

See, that’s the biggest problem with people. Their palates have been destroyed from so many years of abuse – eating the wrong foods – that they can only taste the extremes – extreme salt and extreme sugar. The chemical taste of chemical foods becomes appealing to them and the taste of real foods doesn’t even taste right. So, what you have to do is “sensitize” your palate again because it has become desensitized from years of bad food.

If you gave up your diet soda for 3 weeks you wouldn’t believe…your tongue would be a different size, first of all – it actually changes the size and texture of your tongue and the taste buds when you give up bad food.

Marilu Henner is an actress with a long list of television, movie and Broadway credits. She is the author of 7 books as well as the founder of Marilu.com.