Make America Healthy Again: Introducing AMAC’s Better For You Podcast | Melanie Griffin

Transcript:

Rebecca Weber: Hello, everyone. I’m Rebecca Weber. You’re watching Better for America. In 2024, we polled AMAC members to assess the interest of regular health advice, information, and nutritional guidance, fitness tips, resources, and your response was overwhelming. What did you have to say? You said that health and fitness were important to you and that you were eager to learn more about wellness.

And to gain more information relating to healthy living. And that’s why I am pleased to introduce today’s special guest. Melanie Griffin is an experienced professional in the health, wellness, and prevention industry. She brings over two decades of expertise to the field and has honed her skills to specialize in creating comprehensive wellness programs, emphasizing the importance of exercise, balanced nutrition.

And hormone health in achieving your overall wellness. Now Melanie’s experience has endowed her with a profound understanding of the psychological aspects of behavior change, weight management, wellness, and her primary area of passion, prevention of chronic disease. In the coming weeks, AMAC is proud to engage with AMAC AMAC members via the Better For You podcast.

And the host, Melanie Griffin. She will be the host of this great new podcast. Melanie, welcome to the show. I’m thrilled to have you here with me and to share with AMAC members all about this incredible initiative. Welcome.

Melanie Griffin: Thank you, Rebecca. I’m so excited. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation and certainly looking forward to the launch of the Better For You podcast.

Thank you for having me today.

Rebecca Weber: It’s terrific. I’m thrilled to be with you. And you know, this is at the forefront of so many people’s minds. Make America Healthy Again seems to be very popular these days. Can you share with us why you’re so passionate about engaging with AMAC’s membership through this latest podcast, Better For You, and through AMAC Active?

This is a new platform designed to enhance the physical and mental well being of AMAC members.

Melanie Griffin: Well, Rebecca, you know what? You just said it. And I don’t know if you can see you. I have my make America healthy again hat right here in the background. It is at the, at the front and center of conversation.

I’m really thrilled about that. My personal story about, just kind of getting into this area of passion goes back 20 plus years. My grandmother lived in, in the home with us growing up from the time I was 12 until 22 years old. And she suffered from many chronic. lifestyle related diseases. And I watched not only just her suffering her day to day and struggle with that, but also the impact that it had on my mom as she was in midlife at that point and being her primary caregiver.

My grandmother developed dementia. And I just have this, this really clear memory of going into her room to spend some time with her and she said to me, she just, you could tell she was trying really hard to kind of put all the pieces together, but she said, I don’t know what your name is, but I know that I love you.

And it was one of those just really deep emotional moments. where I, I was like, wow, this is, this is a, a, a disease that really, really impacts families and causes a lot of pain and, and it’s sad to watch. And I think that was kind of the light bulb moment for me. I, in fact, changed majors in college and switched colleges, and I, I.

I really devoted, you know, my path forward to fitness and wellness and health and lifestyle and prevention. And I went on to get my bachelor’s degree in sports and fitness from the university of central Florida. And that just led into, a long career, where I’ve served in many different capacities in the health and wellness field.

So I can’t think of a better platform to be able to partner with AMAC to help launch AMAC active and the better for you podcast and, you know, our. You alluded to this earlier in your intro, Rebecca, but this is a, you know, the AMAC members are, they’re an active, savvy group, and they are listening to podcasts, and they are technologically savvy, and they’re really interested in health and wellness, so I really can’t think of a better platform than a podcast to educate and empower and equip and enable the AMAC members.

Rebecca Weber: terrific. Tell us a little bit about the podcast. What can people expect to hear from Better For You?

Melanie Griffin: Yeah, that’s a great question. So yeah, it will be different. I think this is my favorite and most exciting part. we know, from the, survey that we did with AMAC members that they really are looking for this information.

They report themselves. In fact, 80% of those survey respondents said that they are either moderately active, very active, or active on a weekly basis. So that’s great news. And, and we know that they’re eager, they told us they want nutrition tips. They want diet information, information about the prevention of disease, physical fitness, exercise, and more.

So that’s what we’re putting together. We’re really truly responding to the call of the AMAC members and putting, that valuable content together on the podcast. So we will be, doing expert interviews. I’m very excited about that around those topics that the a Mac members asked us to provide. it will focus on health and prevention, wellness, stress management.

We’re doing, quite a bit of focus on brain health and the prevention of cognitive decline. But you can content areas around nutrition, strength training, falls prevention, gut health, grief support, and certainly my favorite part being personal stories, growth stories, stories of AMAC members and how they have integrated health and wellness into their lives.

inspiring stories for sure. So I’m really thrilled about that. if it’s important for you as a listener, to age with grace and strength and vibrance, you definitely are going to want to check out the better for you podcast.

Rebecca Weber: Very excited for this. You know, it. It reminds me many, many years back, my father, the late and great Dan Weber, he was so passionate about health.

It was so important to him. You know, he always was reading books when I’d visit him. He’d have stacks, dozens of, of books. He’d be looking into all kinds of ways that he could find healthy ways to keep himself healthy. he wasn’t one to, to want to get another prescription, from the doctor, rather finding, you know, natural ways to, to cure the body and to listen to the body.

And so Dan had come to me and he said, you know, we ought to do something, you know, here at AMAC. this is why I was so thrilled, to learn about your passion, to work so closely with you, and to hear about. What you can bring to AMAC membership, and certainly our members, they spoke out loudly and said, Yes, this is something we’re very interested in.

So I’m thrilled that your passion aligns so well with AMAC’s broader goals, and that is getting good information, because healthy living is so important. There’s really nothing more important than our health. and our loved ones. Everything else seems to matter much less when we’re not healthy. And we want to keep America healthy and certainly help AMAC members keep healthy.

Tell us a little bit about how the podcast, you know, will, maybe you can give us a sneak peek of some guests that you might have coming up, or some of the topics that you have planned in the coming weeks.

Melanie Griffin: Sure do. Yeah. so I can give you a sneak peek down here. We have, some, some really tremendously skilled experts, that I’m so excited about being able to sit down with and pick their brain and, you know, they’re, they’re on the forefront of just innovation and data and research in this area and education.

So we’ll have physicians, nutritionists, fitness trainers, experts in the field of neuroscience, menopause, hormone health, brain health, strength, training, caregiver support, and so much more. So just some, some, very, if we want to get specifics with names, we have Stevens, who is a nutritionist and she is the founder of a, the Midlife Mastery Program.

So, we have an interview with her, Dr. Brett Osborne. He’s a board certified neurological surgeon. Dr. Robert g Silverman. He specializes in the treatment of joint pain using functional nutrition and cutting edge. science based non surgical approaches. and Dr. Edward Park, he’s the founder and president of Neuro Reserve and has over 15 years experience in the research and development side of things with, biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, nutritional therapeutics.

That’s just the beginning of the list, the tip of the iceberg. There, there are, will be many more to come, but that, that’s a, a nice, well credentialed group to start off with.

Rebecca Weber: Just terrific. let our listeners know, how can they participate? How can they get involved with better for you?

Melanie Griffin: Yeah, we, we really, you know, we’re working hard to bring value to AMAC members and to provide this content at no charge.

We just love being able to do that. But what you, what we podcast, get involved. We want to hear from you. subscribe wherever you listen. Leave us a review. That really helps us grow. we, we want, we give you an opportunity on, the AMAC website to submit questions or topic ideas that you’re interested in hearing about on the podcast.

So we absolutely want to keep this very much focused on What Amec members want to learn about. So in order to do that, we ask for your feedback, help, help guide us through this process as we build this podcast out. we’re really here for you. So we want this to be valuable and helpful content. Also ask that you share your, share these episodes.

With your friends, with your loved ones, with your family members, and, you know, maybe people that you connect with at church or, you know, in your, in your exercise classes, just anyone who may benefit from this information, we ask that you would do us that favor and share those episodes out, so that we can get the word out.

Rebecca Weber: Melanie, thank you so much and thank you for joining the show and sharing your excitement about the new podcast. I want to encourage all of our listeners to go to amac. us slash active. That’s amac. us slash active. We want to encourage all of our AMAC members to tune in, to better for you and follow Melanie Griffin.

I promise you won’t regret it. You’ll see so much. valuable content there. And if you go to the homepage, amac. us slash active, you’re going to have a wealth of information there as well, including informative articles and a way to really participate in the community. Melanie Griffin, thank you so much for being with me here today.

We are so grateful for all you’re doing and sharing with our wonderful AMAC members.

Melanie Griffin: Thank you, Rebecca. And thank you for your support and vision and just direction and guidance. in, in really seeing the value in a Mac active and saying, Hey, we want a Mac to be front and center with this movement to have a very joyful, active, vibrant, engaged community.

And we just are really grateful and excited to be. I am personally honored to be a part of it. So thank you very much.

Rebecca Weber: Absolutely. We’re thrilled, and we’d love to hear from you. Leave your comments here. Let us know, what do you think about Better for You? I know you’re going to love it. Don’t forget to tell all your friends and family members, your loved ones, all about AMAC.

Be sure to join or renew. Go to amac. us. That’s it for today, folks. I look forward to having you back with me next time on Better for America. Have a blessed day, everyone.