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Local businesses are the lifeblood of our community. The Mid-county Memo offers this section to our business neighbors for news, advancements, promotions, expansions and other noteworthy events to be shared with the community at large. Business Memo submissions for the February issue are due by Monday, Jan.16. For best results, e-mail Darlene Vinson at editor@midcountymemo.com. You may also mail submissions to 3510 N.E. 134th Ave., Portland, OR 97230. To leave a phone message, dial 503-287-8904. The Mid-county Memo fax number is 503-249-7672.

Find a better you at Gateway spa
Vickie Hundley pictured before she began passive exercise treatments at A Better You spa.
After ten months of Madame Et Monsieur treatments, Vickie Hundley, left, poses with Carolyn Johansen, co-owner of A Better You spa in Gateway.
Mid-county Memo photo/Tim Curran
Carolyn Johansen feels she and her husband Jan were designed by God to help other people. For years, while running a small business and raising two sons in the Wilkes neighborhood of outer east Portland, they talked about how they could do just that.

To pursue their dream of helping people look and feel better, when their two adult sons took over the day-today operations of the family business - a measurement testing and calibration company - they opened A Better You, a holistic health spa in Gateway. “This is my second vocation,” said Jan. “I'm still in the National Guard. I'm in the Army band; I do all the programming for both companies. I'm a techno-geek.”

Remodeling and equipping the spa, mostly themselves, Carolyn said, “We thought, 'if we were coming to a spa to improve our health, what would we like to see.' ”

Based on the belief good health is crucial to a happy life, the Johansens focus on weight-loss, detoxification and relaxation therapies to improve clients' health. Lifestyle changes and better nutrition are also part of the program. Massage therapy, ionic foot detoxification, infrared sauna, hair mineral analysis and magnetic therapy are some of the other services offered. Carolyn is a certified nutritionist, pursuing her traditional naturopathic degree. “I want to treat our clients like royalty. Our people are important; we want them to be relaxed, we want them to be comfortable,” Carolyn said.

A Better You specializes in weight reduction treatments using a form of passive exercise, the ElectroSlim body-sculpting machine.

According to the inventors' website, www.madameetmonsieur.com the ElectroSlim is a “treatment utilizing equipment that sends trains of pulses with a variable pulse repetition frequency to site-specific areas using skin contact electrodes. These pulse trains produce rhythmic and powerful muscle contractions that result in muscle rehabilitation.”

Carolyn handles electrode placements for A Better You female clients and Jan handles the males.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 68 percent of Americans are overweight or obese.

In 2010, no state had a prevalence of obesity less than 20 percent. In Oregon, the adult obesity rate is 26.8 percent. If trends continue, when today's children reach adulthood, obesity will be the norm and healthy weight the exception.

The Johansens said the ElectroSlim method is especially helpful to the obese and seniors, who cannot do physical workouts anymore, but still need circulation and muscle workouts to maintain physical and mental health.

Eschewing traditional Western medicine - not on religious grounds, but for health reasons - the Johansens work in concert with clients' doctors. “I am not in any way infringing on what the medical people do,” Carolyn said. “I just want to be able to say, 'Hmm, I read about that, let me go to my book and look that up again. Here is what the book says - not me. Or, 'have you read any articles about this nutrient. I've heard it can be helpful in situations like yours; maybe you ought to ask your doctor about it,' but I don't diagnose.”

Her method includes taking extensive personal histories, then developing individual programs and treatments tailored to clients' lifestyles and needs, fine-tuning them as clients progress. “We look at everything differently,” she said. “We approach health from a non-medical standpoint. We tell them what they can do without a prescription, without going to the pharmacy. In a lot of ways I think of myself as the old-fashioned grandmother who is always available with a home remedy for anything that ails you.”

In addition to the ElectroSlim therapy and detoxification, they offer the plant enzyme formula Enriching Gifts.

A Better You client Vickie Hundley said she has been battling weight gain since childhood and was skeptical about the passive exercise concept, but, because she was so heavy and unable to do any exercise, she thought, “what the heck do I have to lose except the weight.” Ten months later, after shedding 110 pounds, she said, “I have lost weight before, but I always turn around and put it right back on. I have a confidence now I didn't ever have when I lost weight before. I know that if I follow the guidelines [Carolyn set up for her] as far as my food, I'll do well. When I first started this, I was having trouble getting around and up and down. The machines they hook me up to are doing things I couldn't do for myself.' Carolyn has also given her a primer on nutrition and clarity on what she should and should not eat, she said. “I've never been one to know about nutrition. It's taken me years to learn how to cook correctly and make better food choices.”

For the first time in a long time, since losing the weight, Hundley said she and her husband Bruce, also A Better You client, are walking together, and - another first - she recently began using the exercise room at their condominium.

At age 12, Jan became a naturalized citizen after his family immigrated to Oregon from Denmark. In 1975, he met Carolyn, whose father was career Army, when he was in the Army stationed in Texas.

Since the Willamette Valley was where Jan landed when his family emigrated, he moved his young family to Albany upon discharge from the Army in 1980.

After a year of commuting by motorcycle to his job in Portland, they moved here, where they raised their family.

Jan is Worship Pastor at Living Hope Baptist Church in southeast Portland.

A Better You is in Gateway at 11118 N.E. Halsey St. To learn more, visit betteryouspa.com, or call 503-954-3218.
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