When starting this blog, I never intended to feature women that inspire me but I’ve been lucky to have found a number of women that have blown me away like Rachael Faught from glassofwin.com, Julie Flygare from JulieFlygare.com, Erica Sara from ericasaradesigns.com – whom I haven’t featured yet but should – that I might make this a regular feature on the blog.

Today I’m featuring, Loren Brill, founder and CEO of SweetLorens.com, one of my favorite discoveries from the Natural Products Expo/Expo West a few weeks ago.   SweetLorens.com is New York based company featuring all-natural ready-to-bake cookies and brownies made with 100% whole grains and natural sweeteners, and do not contain dairy products or preservatives.

Why is Loren inspirational?  This girl is the definition of moxie!  She became a yoga instructor at age 18 before going to college and became an award-winning entrepreneur (the Next Big Small Brand award in 2011 and 1 of 16 Women On Top by Marie Claire magazine in 2012) – all before the age of 30.  Did I mention that she is also a cancer survivor?  Loren recovered from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2006 but is healthy now.

While doing some research about Loren, I discovered that her mother passed away from Leukemia in 2010.   I know from first hand experience what it’s like to lose a mother (figure, in my case) to cancer at a young age (Wild Boy is named after my stepmother who passed away from cancer when I was 17).  In my short blogging life, I’ve posted about what the fight against cancer means to me (on World Cancer Day and the Ride For Jon benefit I organized this past Thanksgiving). It touches me that Sweet Loren’s donates a portion of all sales to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer.

The tagline for Sweet Loren’s is “Be Sweet To Yourself”, something that so many of us forget to do in our busy lives.  Many of us are really good at doing for others and put ourselves last on the list of priorities.  I also happen to love the core values of the company.  They can (and should) be extrapolated to every day life:

Maybe one of the other reasons I felt a connection with Loren Brill besides the love of nutrition and health is that like me, Loren also has a relationship with NY and LA (raised in NY but went to school in LA and is now back in NYC).  I’m in NY today through Tuesday and I’m looking forward to seeing the city I love in Spring!

Dark Double Fudge Brownies

I’ll be in NY solo for the next few days so I may be indulging in some of Loren’s delectables while I enjoy some non-Mommy solitude.

If you want to try some of the delicious Sweet Loren’s products too, they are available in select NY tri-state area markets or online.

Disclosure:  I was not influenced or compensated for this post in any manner and the links above do not generate any financial compensation for me or for thevalentineRD.com.  All opinions are my own.  Images used with permission.