Category Archives: Fabulous Females

#HipNJ Social, Fabulous Females, Fabulous Moms, The Hip List

February Fabulous Female: Lynn Hazan

This month’s Fabulous Female is Lynn Hazan!

Lynn is the founder of ChicpeaJC, a blog focusing on everything related to Jersey City. She’s also the owner of Content Creators JC, a full service social media marketing company that manages over 20 accounts in and around Jersey City. On top of this, Lynn is a single mom to an adorable 5-year-old, who keeps her just as busy as her businesses.

Lynn started her career, like most of us, in corporate America. Around 2014 she had been promoted to Director of Training at Cisco Partner, in NYC. From the outside, her life seemed ideal; the perfect life with the perfect man and perfect job. Despite this, Lynn felt unhappy and unfulfilled. She felt robotic, waking up every day and doing the same thing over and over.  Even after accolades from her boss, and shares in the company, she still felt hopeless. She asked herself “Is this it?”. While everyone saw her as a success, Lynn knew she had much more to accomplish.

Months before, Lynn had started posting OOTD’s (Outfit of the Day) on social media. For her it was a creative outlet that showcased her love of fashion.  While shopping one day, she started chatting with a men’s influencer.  He planted the idea in her head about starting her own blog and writing about her outfits. Shortly thereafter, ChicpeaJC was born.  Writing the blog brought so much joy to Lynn’s life that a few months later, she made the boldest move. She walked into her boss’ office and gave notice.
Loving her life in Jersey City makes it  for Lynn to write about all that there is to do, see, and eat in the eclectic pulse of the northeast. Part of the appeal of writing her blog, is that Lynn loves giving back to her community and promoting local people and business. She believes there’s enough love and wealth to spread around, and she loves networking with and connecting people. I found her to be a kind and very giving person.

What impressed me most about Lynn (as I stalk her on social media) is her ability to successfully juggle so many things. She works full-time, exercises at a ridiculous hour, is a hands-on mom and manages an enviable social life.

As a single mom myself, I asked for the secret to her balancing act, because personally, I was starting to think she was a cyborg. Lynn said her secrets are outsourcing, time management, sacrifice and COFFEE! For example, her nanny often helps with the housework, her village of friends pitch in when needed, and she sacrifices sleep so she can work out. This way when she takes her daughter with her, that can be her main focus.

Lynn also keeps organized by keeping a master list and schedule for all that she must accomplish during the week. Each weekend she does a data dump and starts fresh.

Lynn is an inspiration for those looking to live life on their own terms. She has an ‘eff you’ attitude and lives Oprah’s philosophy “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

If you need a bit of motivation, follow this bad-ass boss babe on social media @chicpeajc. It’ll be the boost you need to get your ass up and work out, work harder and live your life in the manner that suits you best.

 

 

Fabulous Females, Fabulous Moms, Health, Wellness

Fabulous Female – Beth Candela

This month’s Fabulous Female is Beth Candela. Eighteen years ago Beth found herself a widow, and single provider for her two young children. Beth’s husband was John Candela, a Senior Trader for Cantor Fitzgerald, who lost his life on 9/11. While working through that terrible tragedy, Beth was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Realizing that she was the sole provider, and only parent, for her two young children Beth decided to quit teaching and focus on living the healthiest possible life for her children. Being unhappy in her teaching position, this was an easy decision for Beth.

Always being someone interested in nutrition and fitness, Beth decided to take some post graduate classes at Montclair State University. She not only received her certification in Sports Medicine Exercise Physiology (ACSM EP-C), but she loved the nutrition courses so much that she decided to go back to school and get certified as a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist.  Upon receiving her certifications, Beth decided to start her own business and Beyond Nutrition was born. Through Beyond Nutrition, Beth offers nutrition, fitness and wellness coaching to an array of clients.

In addition to her schooling and business, Beth also trained and ran a half marathon in New York City. During this race she was inspired by a woman, in her 60’s or 70’s, who was running the race.  Wanting to push herself further, Beth decided that she would run a half marathon in every state. When Beth turned 50 she set a new goal for herself and ran the New York City Marathon.  After running this race, she decided to run all 6 world major marathons, and a race on every continent.

Beth told me that the real catalyst for her to start participating in these races was that “running was always  a time for me to relax, worship God, pray and re-center myself”. After the loss of her husband she felt there was not enough road to run out the pain of losing him, but that running these half marathons gave her a sense of overcoming 9/11 and rising above the terror attacks made on NYC “my favorite city, the one I grew up staring at across the Hudson.” 

Due to the stress that marathons put on her Crohn’s disease, Beth discovered cryotherapy. Beth told me that cryotherapy is a way to reduce inflammation, both systematically and locally. Pre-cryotherapy she ran a marathon in Berlin. During this time she suffered from plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinitis, hip flexor strain, and a proximal hamstring strain. Post-cryotherapy, when she trained for a marathon in London, she had no plantar fasciitis, no Achilles tendinitis, no hip flexor strain, and no issues with her hamstring or Crohn’s Disease.

To combine her love of fitness and helping people lose weight, manage heart disease, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and auto-immune diseases – services she offers as an RDN, she opened up Beyond Cryotherapy, in Caldwell,  New Jersey, last Fall.  Beth is very hands-on with all of her clients, and offers them her expertise from years of training and studying nutrition.

In talking to Beth, despite all of the challenges and loss that life has thrown at her, I found her to be the most positive person I’ve ever met. I asked Beth how she manages to stay so positive, and have the energy to juggle everything in her life. Her tips are “eat right, run, sleep well, supplement properly and do cryotherapy or the infrared sauna!”.  She told me that after 9/11 she coined a term “Perception is a product of perspective. You can tweak anything to be positive, it just takes a little change in perspective.” Sound words to live by, if you ask me. Beth is not just fabulous, but she’s also inspirational and motivational!

Beauty, Fabulous Females, Fabulous Moms, Fashion

Fabulous Female – Erika Batista

This month’s Fabulous Female is very successful blogger, and mom, Erika Batista! At an early age Erika new she wanted to be a mom. When she married her husband they had the conversation about her desire to stay at home with her children. For Erika it was important to be there for her kid’s formative years, participate in school functions and be present for all of their milestones. While this didn’t come without sacrifice, she told me that the benefits outweighed anything she had to give up.  It’s Erika’s belief that family comes first.

While caring for her oldest Ben, she would get questions from friends and family about her clothes or makeup, since she was (and is) always so well put together. While Erika loves nothing more than being a mom, she recognizes that she’s a woman first. From her love of beauty and fashion, and as an outlet to keep the essence of the woman she loved to be before her kids, she launched Bye Erika Batista (formerly Lolabluestyle).

Through her blog Erika hopes to share the message that “mom life isn’t the end of your life… we can still be powerful, sexy, independent, loving and hardworking while being moms”.  She wants women to know that our goals are not limited once we have children. Erika’s philosophy is that it’s the opposite, and as mother’s we are natural multi-taskers, and becoming a mother empowers us to realize we can accomplish anything. While her passion is to achieve her dreams one step at a time, at the end of the day what drives her is being an example to her children, and inspire them to be and do whatever they set their minds to.

For Erika it’s a priority to empower and support other women in any way she can. Erika believes that “women who are leaders and support one another, from the kindness of their heart, empower me”.  She loves to use her platform to pay this forward by sharing details, of her life, through her social media accounts and blog. She takes pride in sharing her journey, whether they be wins or losses, so that she can create a connection with other women.

Erika credits her mom as being her biggest inspiration. As an adult she reflects back on her mother being a single parent, and how hard her mom worked to give her the world. Erika knows that she can never fail and the life she lives is so fruitful because of the lessons, and morals, that her mom taught her.

While her mom is such a big role model, she acknowledged that her husband, kids and aunts play a critical role in her success and are her biggest support system. Whether it be her kids cheering her on, with hugs and kisses, her husband being her photographer or getting that helping hand with dinner or laundry Erika says that “my village is golden and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t thank God”.

You can follow Erika at Bye Erika Batista or on Instagram @byerikabatista and on Facebook to get lifestyle, fashion, and make up tips as well as recipes or parenting advice!