Last week I attended a NYC blogger event called “A Woman’s Infinite Confidence.” It was held at Townhouse Spa in New York (on the same block as Physique 57!) and sponsored by MS&L Worldwide.

This is what the event invitation said:

We are inviting a handful of the leading women’s health, wellness and lifestyle bloggers to join us for drinks, hors d’oeuvres and complimentary spa treatments and to learn more about what OB/GYN and women’s health expert Dr. Rebecca Booth calls the Venus Week.

Each month there is a week when you feel more confident, more beautiful and even more in the mood sexually. You feel skinny, you don’t feel as hungry, your hair and skin look good, you look good and your man looks extra good to you. Venus Week, named after the goddess of love, fertility and nature, is what Dr. Booth calls this magical grouping of days.

Dr. Booth will be on hand to answer questions about the Venus Week and how Always Infinity can help women take control throughout the month.

 So obviously I was curious! I arrived at the event and was given a name tag with my name and my blog’s name. I felt a little silly since Dori’s Shiny Blog sounds so silly! Background on my blog name: My brother is a software development engineer at Microsoft and loves the language of the computers. He had his own domain (jemts.com) and one day decided to set up blogs for me, Mallory and Santana!  (Note — check out Santana’s new summer dress and baby pic!)

He told me he was creating a blog for me and asked me what I would like the color scheme to be. My only request was that my blog “resembles the hue of Blankey.” Blankey is my brother’s baby blanket, who is primarily a nice cloud blue. I don’t care much about blue, but I just really love Blankey.

So Matt set up the closest WordPress template he could find. It was not the same color as Blankey. He also named the blog Dori’s Shiny Blog because of a hilarious character, Cat, on our favorite TV show, Red Dwarf. Cat looks and talks like a person, but he was descended from cats. After 3 million years of evolution aboard a space ship, Cat is the result.

You see, Cat, being a cat, loved anything and everything shiny, be it a silver pack of cigarettes or a yo yo. He is also the voice behing my blog’s previous tagline, “You can’t have my shiny thing. I found it, it’s my shiny thing.”

While I have since changed the look of my blog and the tagline, the name was already in place. It was a little too known to change and I decided to just keep it. I do love it, but I can’t help but feel silly when I have to say the name of it!

So anyway, back to the event…

I pick up my name tag and am escorted into a room with incredible displays of food. I was told to help myself, and help myself I did. I got mini brownies, cheese, giant strawberries and sushi. I also had 2 classes of champagne! I met some bloggers  from very established sites which was really cool, like Vera from I’m Not Obsessed. We talked and ate until the presentation began.

Dr. Rebecca Booth, an OB/GYN and women’s health expert, spoke to us about Venus Week.

From her website, a description of Venus Week:

Most women notice that monthly, as if by magic, they have a group of days in which they look better, feel better, and respond better to the world around them. Their hair is glossier, their skin glows, and the men in their lives (or at the local Starbucks counter) suddenly seem very appealing. The men respond with equal enthusiasm and interest. They seem to know that these women are appealing, often very attractive, and receptive to men’s attention. This phenomenon is not an accident or a fluke. It is very real and occurs regularly, according to a woman’s hormonal cycle, specifically during the week that precedes ovulation. This cache of days, which happens around the same time each month, is what I have come to call the Venus Week.

This is a chart of women’s hormonal cycles that we go through each month, with Venus week clearly marked as the time where estrogen and testosterone are the highest:

That is the time, immediately preceeding ovulation, where women feel their best. They have more energy, they are more communicative, their waist feels smaller and their clothes fit better. And they feel more inclined toward romance. This is nature’s way of leading women to relationship building.

Dr. Booth wants to teach women to feel this way ALL the time. And she discusses how, with Venus Maximus. It involves exercise and eating in a way that will enhance the hormones that create Venus Week. Dr. Booth recommends avoiding white sugar and white carbs. These can cause excess insulin, which interferes with ovulation. She emphasizes eating more plant proteins that are derived from the reproductive parts of the plant, such as soybeans, chickpeas (HUMMUS!) and nuts. Great news — dark chocolate, cinnamon and red wine are also good for the Venus!

There are also supplements you can take, such as Omega 3, multivitamins and calcium. Dr. Booth advised us that stress leads to increased cortisol, which is not good for feeling our best. The good news is that improving your core strength (HELLO Physique57 and Exhale Core Fusion) actually lowers cortisol, and is therefore a “Venus enhancer.” This was all fascinating information that really just reiterates what we already know — if you want to feel and look your best, eat healthy and exercise. But Dr. Booth presented it in a way that simply MADE SENSE. She had science behind everything she spoke about — and Venus Week is a proven phenomenon. Who wouldn’t want to extend that to Venus Every Month!

I did get the chance to speak with Dr. Booth one on one. I told her all about my GI conditions and asked her advice on what to do if I can’t eat many of the plant proteins. She was so nice and helpful and willing to talk for as long as I needed! Oh and did I mention she is beautiful?!

She was she told me that the birth control pill actually mutes Venus Week — but the good news is it also mutes the EXTREMELY low point (see chart above) that happens right before the period. But that is good information for women to know who might be trying to figure out their Venus Week and can’t pinpoint it.

Some more info on Dr. Booth:

Dr. Booth is a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist, and has been practicing medicine for over twenty years. Named one of Louisville’s top OB/GYNs, she is a senior partner in one of the largest OB/GYN practices in the region, serving more than 70,000 women. She serves her community of women by speaking to organizations about female health issues and hormonal challenges, participating in radio and television segments on women’s health, and through contributing to women’s publications.

Here are the Top 10 Venus Interrupters:

1. Too much sugar and/or starch in your diet
2. Lack of exercise
3. Lack of sleep or irregular sleep patterns
4. Stress and difficulty coping with it
5. Too much exercise/too little body fat
6. Thyroid or pituitary gland malfunction
7. Some medications
8. Chronic illness
9. Surgical loss of the ovaries
10. Early menopause

Dr. Booth wrote a book all about Venus Week, which I can’t wait to read! I’m sure I will have more to say on the topic after reading this book. A big thank you to Dr. Booth for the wonderful presentation!

The next speaker was Anne from Procter & Gamble. Anne works on Always Infinity pads. At first, I was skeptical. Almost every woman I know is a  tampon user and has been forever. But then Anne told us a very interesting statistic: 84% of women are pad users. Only 10% of women are solely tampon users. I had no idea!

Anne did a demonstration about the absorbency of the Infinity pads using coffee. The liquid absorbed so completely that it looked like there was hardly any there — but when she turned it over, you can see that all the fluid was held between a second layer, away from the body. Brilliant!

The pic below looks gross but it is just coffee!

 

The pads are also designed for optimum comfort and flexibility. They have both dots AND slits to absorb the liquid for when your body moves in different ways, so you can really wear them anywhere. I haven’t tried myself yet, but I definitely plan to.

After the presentations, it was time for SPA TREATMENTS! We got to choose before the event between a manicure, pedicure, chair massage or waxing. I chose the massage. I always choose the massage. And it was one of the best massages of my life. The masseuse, Sherry, was STRONG and good. She stretched my arms and really did an amazing job — that 10 minutes was better than my 60 minute hot stone massage a few weeks ago!

Before leaving the event we received goodie bags! We all got a really nice reusable tote from Envirosax. Mine is yellow and white. You can see it a little on my arm in the pic of me here, along with Missy and Amie. Missy’s got the red tote!

Inside the tote was lots of items all with a tag describing the Venus Week benefits of each! Included in the bag were the following:

Always Infinity pads
Dr. Booth’s book The Venus Week
Another book, The No Sugar Cookbook
Total Body Exercise Bands (I have been wanting these!)
Cinnamon Glazed Almonds from Nuts About You –which were seriously the best cinnamon glazed nuts the boy and I ever had. We LOVED them!
Dark Chocolate Godiva bar
Olay Daily Facial Cleansing Cloths
VitaMuffin, and
Omega 3 supplements!

Amazing! And now, dear readers, YOU have a chance to win a Venus Week gift bag as well!

The giveaway contest gift bag will include Always Infinity pads, total body exercise bands, Omega-3 Vitamins, Dark chocolate treat by Godiva, and Gourmet cinnamon almonds all packaged in an Envirosax reusable tote.

You can receive up to 4 entries. Here’s how to enter:

(1) Visit the Venus Week website and leave a comment here telling me what you plan to do to feel YOUR Venus Week all month

(2) Tell your friends about Venus Week! You will get an additional 2 entries if you do the following:
– If you have a blog, link back to this contest in your own entry
– If you don’t have a blog, get a friend to leave a comment about Venus Week and mention your name. Your friend will get 1 entry while you get 2 more!

(3) Add my new URL to your blogroll: http://dorishinyblog.com and leave a comment to let me know you did so

I will randomy select a winner on Tuesday, April 28. 

A big thank you to MS&L Digital, Procter & Gamble and Dr. Booth!

And don’t forget to enter my free doormat contest!

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