BeBalanced hormone center opens in Greece

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Michael Quataert and Paulette Petix proudly cut the ribbon on Oct. 19 in celebration of bringing a unique, innovative franchise to the Rochester area. Local officials gathered outside, amid chilly gusts of wind, included Sarah Lentini, president and CEO of the Greece Regional Chamber of Commerce, and state Sen. Joe Robach, R-Greece, and they praised the arrival of BeBalanced Hormone Weight Loss Center.

BeBalanced was founded by Dawn Cutillo—who cheered on Quataert and Petix at the ribbon cutting last week—in 2007 in Lancaster, Pa. At the time it was a single small business called The Rejuvenation Center and run by Cutillo, a weight loss expert interested in hormones.

After graduating from Messiah College with a bachelor’s degree in physical education, non-teaching, with a minor in nutrition and business, Cutillo was determined to help women in health and fitness. It was the 1980s, and alternative medicine was rare.

“When I started working with women in a very large health club, I started noticing that women in their 30s and 40s couldn’t lose weight,” says Cutillo. “I was watching them exercise and they were on really good diets, but they couldn’t lose weight. That’s when I started researching hormones.”

Cutillo trained under a clinical nutritionist who was also a lab scientist and chemist, thus beginning her extensive journey into the field of hormone balancing. BeBalanced uses all-natural products, but the research behind everything the company does is science-based.

“We’re all about research, which is important because we want our clients to feel comfortable,” says Cutillo.

In 2013, Cutillo transformed The Rejuvenation Center into a franchise and rebranded as BeBalanced Hormone Weight Loss Centers. BeBalanced is for anyone who is looking for help with hormones—women, men, young or old—but the target audiences are pre-, peri- and post-menopausal women suffering from symptoms induced by hormonal imbalances.

BeBalanced offers a weight loss program as well as a multitude of other products designed to aid in getting hormones in check including supplements, creams, protein, probiotics, multivitamins, enzymes, oils—an endless array of all-natural products.

“Our demographic for the weight loss program is women between the ages of 35 and 70,” says Petix. “Those are the ages when hormones really start to get crazy.”

Stress is one of the main factors that leads to hormone imbalance. When stress levels rise, cortisol—a hormone controlling blood sugar levels—rises. Our bodies only produce so much cortisol, so when we run out our body steals progesterone and converts it to cortisol, lowering our levels of progesterone. Progesterone is a female sex hormone responsible for regulating menstruation. When progesterone levels decline, estrogen—the other female sex hormone—becomes dominant.

Estrogen dominance is what leads to the many horrible symptoms of hormone imbalance, including weight gain, struggles with weight loss, hot flashes, hair loss, migraines, lack of energy, low sex drive, mood swings, thyroid issues and more.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 37.5 million women are reaching or experiencing menopause in the United States. Of those millions of women, 57 percent report suffering from menopausal symptoms, and 22 percent report that it affects their lives so much that they are unable to cope without medication.

BeBalanced offers a natural alternative to soothe these pesky symptoms.

“I’m not trying to be mean, but if the medical community was doing their job we wouldn’t exist,” says Cutillo. “The symptoms that all of these women face are collateral damage of hormone imbalances.”

Clients of BeBalanced are offered a free consultation with a trained natural hormone balancing specialist who assists in determining the best course of action, whether it be through the weight loss program, using the natural hormone balancing creams or taking proper supplements.

“There are thousands and thousands of people who need help, and hormone balancing could be exactly what they’re looking for,” says Quataert.

It is for this reason that Quataert and Petix—friends for years and now neighbors—decided to join forces to open the franchise’s 20th center here in Rochester, located at 2170 W. Ridge Road in Greece. Petix also went through the weight loss program personally and became enthralled with BeBalanced and its mission.

With the business open and in full swing, Quataert will continue to run BeBalanced behind the scenes, while Petix will primarily focus on her main job as a mortgage lending officer. The duo will continue to make business decisions together.

Quataert and Petix have hired two employees so far, one part-time and one full-time, who serve to guide clients through the entire process.

“The hiring process was not easy,” says Petix. “You have to be passionate about this in order to attract the right person.”

The Greece location just opened, but Quataert and Petix already have plans to open another center in the Henrietta/Brighton area. After that, if their energy hasn’t waned, they may open a third location in Webster.

The co-business owners both come from sales backgrounds but they maintain that at BeBalanced, there are no hard sells.

“I was in sales; Paulette is in sales. There are so many angry people in the world who are just plain miserable,” says Quataert. “When you start doing the psychology of it, they’re unhappy with themselves and not the world. We realized that we could really make a difference in peoples’ lives with BeBalanced. If we can make one person feel good about his or herself, hopefully that will spread across Rochester.”

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