Page 13 - Standard Bank KZN Top Business Women 2021

Health is your wealth and wealth is your health,

and that’s what we need to teach to empower and influence others.

Founder iTravelsmart, Marilyn Beuster Wellness and She explains, “I walked into the house, and I said to my with the food you eat, healing your microbiome, your
YummyKeto husband, Mike (who is a digital developer), you’ll need to gut health, and your immunity.
make me a website, so let’s formulate this. We spent about
If Marilyn had to tell the younger version of herself what
a week just getting the structures right. Covid afforded a
arilyn Beuster has been in the travel she knows now, she would say look towards health and
time when there were no distractions, and we started the
industry for most of her working career; the way we perceive our body confidence and the way we
Marilyn Beuster Wellness journey.”
in 2009 she opened her own travel look at food. “I would tell her now, how to heal yourself
Magency, iTravelsmart. Business and life Marilyn birthed her guided three-month wellness with food, how to fast, and how to treat and heal your
were both bespoke until March 2019, when the entire coaching course, and her new company, “Marilyn Beuster hormones.” As she is talking from a women’s perspective,
tourism industry was turned on its head by the Covid-19 Wellness”, which soon became a phenomenal success. To because men are a little bit different, her future goal is
pandemic leaving a lifelong passion for travel in threads. date, over 670 people’s lives have been changed and over to teach young ladies how to heal themselves with food,
350 people have been coached to renew themselves – not to take responsibility for their food, and to build their
However, the pandemic has allowed her the opportunity
just locally, but also internationally. knowledge around health.
to undertake two very personal journeys for herself.
Marilyn took the time that the pandemic offered to start Story of health Empowerment is a journey
a wellness and weight loss business, Marilyn Beuster
Many people were asking what to eat and how to prepare Since it’s not a diet, but a lifestyle choice, Marilyn has
Wellness, and a food range called YummyKeto.
the foods that Marilyn was eating. Although recipes were loaded tons of advice onto her website for people to use
Her journey started two years prior to Covid. She had put onto the website, Marilyn made the decision to put the and practice on their own. “Empowerment is a journey
previously lost 40kg of weight in a short period of time foods into production under the ketogenic lifestyle genre that I’ve walked, and once you have those tools, you can
with a host of tablets and gym to fit into her wedding and birthed the business “YummyKeto”. Her biggest drive use them and reflect them onto others. The thing about
dress, only to rebound to her then original weight of 120kg. is to heal people’s gut and microbiome through her food. women is that when we get things right, we shout it out
Marilyn found the need to do a mind and body reset over from the top of the mountains, so it’s using that influence
She commented, “Imagine the shock and joy in level 5
the following year, and lost 60kg (half her weight), and has in this whole journey of health and wellness,” she explained.
lockdown, after launching our home-made sugar free
kept it off with a formula of whole foods, intermittent and “My mantra, and what I practice, is that ‘Health is your
ice-creams, bone broths, Kefir Greek yogurt – first on the
prolonged fasts (healing fasts) ever since. wealth and wealth is your health’, and that’s what we need
market, and specially prepared and ‘loaded’ spinach meals,
to teach to empower and influence others.”
Paying it forward which went into a local home produce store, and fast led to
bigger chain stores buying into this story of health.” However, she added, “It is important to show gratitude
Many people asked Marilyn how she had lost weight
and self-love, and if you can project that over someone
and kept it off. She explains, “I had to lose weight for Marilyn says she is proud that her two new businesses
else, you will empower them and the other people that are
my health, and I researched how to do health first and have given local suppliers a boost as well as have employed
looking in from the side-lines, and people that are looking
weight loss as a byproduct.” Consequently, she was able new staff during lockdown. However, she is prouder of the
straight at you; it all starts from small things.”
to start helping her friends with their lifestyle choices hundreds of lives she has been able to help and change
and the word grew. through her experience. Marilyn says that as travel is coming back, she has another
challenge, which is how to divide her time. She added
During lockdown, Marilyn says one morning she was Her goal for the future is to teach people that healing
that she can’t give up something where she helps people
out walking in her slippers, probably with the little starts in your kitchen and that they need to start
to make memories. She says, “I’ve got fellow women and
freedom we had, in tears, and worrying about earning an thinking about their health differently. Healing starts
men (‘my village’) that help me too, just as I help them,
income, when suddenly she knew that she had a journey with food, and with things that are for free – fasting
as that’s what’s made my success – through their success.”
to follow. Now in the time of chaos, was her time for and prolonged fasting, because that is what this journey
creativity. This was the test to act and follow through is about. The future of medicine is changing, and Marilyn concluded, “Take on things that you love, do it in
on this gift of her own health plus the knowledge she’d functional doctors are starting to realise that healing the comfort of your home; you don’t have to find outlets
learnt, to pay it forward. starts within. Healing doesn’t start with tablets but to fix yourself, you can fix it yourself in your own home.”

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