Jill Birth - Isagenix IsaBody Winner 2011

I can never hear enough of people who overcome their food addictions and succeed. Tonight I listened to a call with Jill Birth, the 2011 winner of the IsaBody Challenge in the 35-49 year old age group. At Celebration she'll find out if she is the grand prize winner of $120,000 cash! - update... she DID win the $120,000!!!

Watch this inspiration video to see how she transformed from a size 22 to a size 4. She went from 263lbs to 131 and weighs less now than she did in 3rd grade when the school nurse told her at 140lbs she was too fat. After many failed diets she thought getting on The Biggest Loser would be the ticket... after she didn't make the show a friend challenged her to commit to Isagenix. She had been a user of the products for years but would binge and cleanse.

She mentioned that the extra IsaSnack wafers (6-8 per day) and IsaPro in the shake helped her lose a lot of weight.

Progress: One Year, 8 Months - 70lbs maintained (30 more to go)

Wow, the time has flown by since I started this journey to lose 100lbs in Oct. 2009. I know it WILL happen (I was only 10lbs away this past Jan then proceeded to just eat too much junk food on and off through the winter/spring). So now I am 20 pounds heavier and have to back-track.

If you can just eat ONE or TWO bites of this then go ahead and indulge. If after you eat this you proceed to have another piece or feel like you ruined the day and keep eating junk then you it's best you avoid it all together if you are still trying to lose weight.

Some friends and I were talking about this habit of not being able to just have "one" of something. Just having one bite of something, one cookie or one handful of chips is not going to lead to massive weight gain, it's when one leads to another which leads to another. My friend and I are of the same mindset that we can't seem to have one (of a sugar-laden item) because it's just too literally addictive. The addictive nature of salt, sugar and fat is explained in the book The End of Overeating.

Anyway, I have kept off 70lbs for over a year now and I have Isagenix to thank for that. It gives my willpower a fighting chance because it gives me the nutrition so my body isn't craving junk. I know this would be another failed diet without this nutrition. The side benefit is that I have SUPERIOR blood work on all counts - yeah.

It's all about LESS CALORIES + MORE NUTRITION + EXERCISE. Isagenix gives me the first two, I do the rest (love bike riding with my ipod).

Flip This Switch to Lose Weight!

My journey to  lose 100lbs is still ongoing and along the way I continue to read everything on the topic of nutrition, health/wellness and losing weight.

This is something I've seen before and when it popped again today in my RealAge email, I thought it was worth sharing...

Talk about an easy way to lose weight . . . a new study suggests that you could avoid packing on extra pounds just by flicking a switch.

The switch in question? Your bedroom light or that alarm clock that's too bright. A new animal study suggests that being exposed to even just a little bit of light at night might make you fat.

 

In the study, some mice were kept in darkness during the night while others were kept in dim lighting. And even though the mice in dim lighting weren't fed any extra, by the end of 8 weeks they had gained 50 percent more body mass than the mice who were kept in darkness. The light-exposed mice also started showing signs of prediabetes. Researchers think the extra light at night may have altered the mice's levels of melatonin -- a hormone known to influence metabolism.

If you want to find out more reasons why a dark bedroom is best for your health and wellness - go to www.drmercola.com and search on the topic - there are some very interesting studies!

Jenny Craig number 1 diet plan on Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports published ratings of "popular diet plans."  Isagenix wasn't reviewed because it really isn't a "diet" and it's not sold in stores. When you meet as many Isagenix users as I have you find that weight loss is way down on the list of health benefits that people enjoy. 

Jenny Craig "Breakfast" - 190 calories

Here is what you can eat for breakfast on Jenny Craig (photo taken from their website under the breakfast category). You can just imagine the list of ingredients. There is no comparison to the nutrition your body gets from an IsaLean shake. If this is what you want to feed your body every morning for the rest of your life then Isagenix is not for you. 

Jenny Craig has support so that is probably one of the reasons why it is successful - people can choose the level of support they want with Isagenix (one-on-one with the person who enrolled them or part of a FaceBook group of 1,500 or other groups who have weekly conference calls). 


But what is your goal? My #1 goal is to live a long and healthy life and #2 to be at a healthy weight but not at the expense of health.

Addicted to Food - Oprah Winfrey Network

I watched the first episode of Addicted to Food on the new OWN (saw it online), I think it's on Tuesday nights.

When you've found the answer to healthy living and weight management (hallelujah - Isagenix) but you still find yourself sabotaging yourself with bad foods (not at "celebrations" but by yourself) - you have to realize that a lot of food addictions (or problems) are rooted in your emotions. This is a lot of what this show addresses. I am going to watch it.

Chips are worse than candy bars - say it isn't so!!

Since I quit sugar over two years ago I fell back on potato chips - the relatively "healthy" ones (in moderation) as my junk food.  Well, as the saying goes, you can't eat just one and I think those innocent handfuls of chips have been largely responsible for my weight-loss plateau :(

Well, it seems the party is over when it comes to chips... this week I learned two things:

1. I read an article from Dr Mercola there is no such thing as a healthy chip - ALL chips are bad (not because of the calories) but because when carbohydrate-rich foods like potatoes are cooked at high temperatures (including the "healthier" baked chips),  acrylamide -- a tasteless, invisible chemical byproduct -- is formed. Animal studies have shown that exposure to acrylamide increases the risk of several types of cancer, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer considers acrylamide a "probable human carcinogen."

2. The genius nutritionist Jim Rhoades (who I met through Isagenix) said tonight when counseling a diabetic person that "chips are worse than candy bars" in terms of their affect on blood sugar. While I never had any blood sugar issues (even at my highest weight), he explained that chips are converted even more quickly into sugar, which affects insulin (too much and those chips get stored as fat) and that is not something I want to do to my body.

Am I saying I will never have another chip? No. But I need to change my thinking about them for myself and my family. I already know it's one of the reasons that I've plateaued.

Oprah Magazine Shakeology, May 2011 Issue

I get Oprah magazine but rarely have time to read it, I save them and hopefully get to read them at some point...

But when I got the May issue of Oprah the other day, something on the cover caught my eye:

6 Superfoods that Will Change the Way you Eat

Of course I had to find out what these where but I was pretty much already sure they are in the Isagenix super foods I already take.

On page 214 it talks about Darin Olien - he traveled around to get all good stuff to eat then made a shake out of it - sounds familiar, doesn't it? That's what our founder, John Anderson, did.

I am so glad to see this article because it will help to educate people about what great health benefits we can get from plants!

Is it sold in stores? No, it appears to be a similar set-up to Isagenix: "...you can't buy it in stores, but you can purchase it from one of our thousands of authorized Coaches."

Shakeology vs Isagenix: I can't say I know everything about Shakeology but I can say Isagenix products have even more ingredients with all 90 nutrients the body needs plus Chinese adaptogens and way too much to write here.  The Shakeology site doesn't say where their whey protein comes from, ours is from New Zealand where the cows are 100% grass fed; no chemicals put on the grass AND the whey is undenatured (very important to preserve the nutritional benefits). I also appreciate all the other stuff I get from Isagenix; the Cleanse for Life, which is aloe vera juice, the Ionix with shilajit... I could go on and on.

Lastly, a Shakeology shake cost $4.00 per serving, an IsaLean shake costs $2.75!