New Plateau but Making Progress

I have hit a new plateau of 218, around which I hover and have only dipped as low as 216 on the scale once. I know my body is changing because exercising is easier and I can do it longer. I wake up earlier naturally, or I should say, I don't feel inclined to snooze anymore.

There is more to be done, and it likely involves less cheating when snack foods are around, and more proper foods. I continue to do an Isagenix shake in the morning, and one at night on the days I am not cleansing. I have cleansed two consecutive days, Monday and Tuesday for the last two weeks, and this week I only cleansed one day. Still I am amazed that my results don't more closely resemble the majority of the people who get on the Isagenix program.

Because I feel my body changing, I know my results are lagging but will catch up and I will see great results sooner or later.

Still, the journey of transformation continues.

So Many Things To Undo

What is fun about this self realization I am going through, this re-sculpting of my life, one pound at a time, is that we sometimes get in a hurry because they can come on in a hurry, these pesky pounds. But the truth about losing weight, is that it is a process of retraining the body, and replacing old habits with new good ones.

Isagenix did something important for me that I have not been able to do on my own, in many years of trying. The habits are hard to break, much less replace if the cravings remain, and one thing that I have noticed, is since I have been cleansing and nourishing my body, the cravings my body had for such things as soda pop, and sugar in general have ceased, and even fast food, ( not sure that is a real craving, ) but I find myself no longer tempted to pull in and get a greasy burger when I am hungry like I used to, but am content to wait until I get home for a shake or a salad, depending on what is in store for me.

My body is able to do more exercise now, than a year ago, and tolerates the process more than it has for a long time. It recovers faster during exercise and from injuries, such as the bruises I got from aggressive racquetball the other day.

I have finally broken down below 220, last weigh in being 219.2 and I believe I am on my way down faster. I have been eating some wrong foods, as they are constantly before me, but more out of convenience and never too much any more. Like literally a small plate of cheese and crackers or 1 slice of pizza. I will continue to update and make them more frequent, but the progress is coming along.

Progress is Slow but Steady, All I Could Ask For

I am a total believer in the new Isagenix lineup of nutritional cleanse products that have produced significant results for people all around me, and I have been on the shake product for over a year, two protein shakes, one for breakfast, one for dinner, and a healthy meal for lunch, usually a salad or low calorie sandwich from Subway. I use only organic dressings, and try to keep the portion regulated to one or two servings of the dressing, depending on how big the salad is, but still I hover at about 222 lbs. I have been diagnosed as type 2 non-insulin-dependent diabetic, and am on Metformin and Glyburide.

I feel great, and exercise about 3 times a week right now, but know that I need to do more. The thing I think is great is that before recently, I did not even feel up to exercising as much as I do now, so I can feel my body changing. I recently had my body fat percent measured and noticed that since my reading in January 2008 of 38.7%, I have dropped to 35.1% in April. I know that at some point, the muscle mass will reach a point, if I continue to trade muscle for fat, where the greater muscle mass will help burn fat at a faster rate.

Still, the visceral fat is not burned the same way, and will take longer to get rid of, which is why Isagenix. Nutritional Cleansing has been amassing plenty of anecdotal evidence of late, in the area of visceral fat loss, as the body rids itself of impurities, and begins to shed the visceral fat that, in large part, is there to encase the toxic waste we have collected in our bodies.

I am changing my lifestyle, rather than expecting any one silver bullet to change my life. Some people have faster results, but I feel like I can expect my body to take longer, due in part to the fact that my liver and pancreas have diminished function right now, and need to come back up to speed, which I hope is still possible.

The Results Are Slow on This

While countless others are achieving notable results using the Isagenix system, I have found that my body is still unresponsive to my efforts though I must add a caveat. I have not yet used the cleanse without being hungry enough that I may be wrecking the cleanse effects with my snacking, because I can never seem to limit my snacking to the prescribed amounts. I have a couple of coaches but have been out of touch for a couple of weeks because of a new job that has me driving across town now.

So I need to pick up the pace in certain areas, because I am committed to see this system work for me. I am non-insulin dependent Diabetic, which means I am taking Metformin and Glyburide every morning and Metformin again in the afternoon, but I have not stuck to the afternoon dosage in quite a while, mostly because I have not taken the bottle with me and forget by the time I get home. I suppose if I felt bad I would remember, but I need a better system.

I also heard from someone that he has known several people who seriously did about 6 or seven 9-day cleanses in a row before their body started to respond to it, but that the weight started to drop. One person was reportedly low on Magnesium when they had their tests done and that Magnesium is a very important element needed for proper function of a lot of the systems that Isagenix Cleanse works with. So I have also increased my daily Magnesium intake via Magnesium Oxide in the form of IsaFlush, another product of Isagenix.

My weight hovers at 225 which is where I started this whole thing, but I have already seen my fat % drop over a few months, so it may be that I am to some extent trading muscle for fat. I ought to be doing better than I have before. I have completely cut soda pop out of my diet, I no longer eat fast food hamburgers, I mostly eat salads for lunch with less than I usually put Organic dressings, I drink between 2 and 3 liters of water a day. I am patient and will continue to change my habits. This will work.

You Are Literally What You Eat

There is no getting around it. You are the sum total of what you put into your body, and that goes for all the inputs. If you are feeding yourself with things that are not by nature or creation designed to make you whole again, you are only feeding the immediate senses at the expense of long term benefit.

What do I mean? Well it goes for everything, fast food, smoking, pornography; literally all the inputs can be fed good stuff or the wrong stuff, and our bodies will eat it up just the same, but certainly do not process it the same. Our systems, all 7 of them, in no particular order, the immune, skeletal, circulatory, nervous, digestive, muscular, and lymphatic systems, are all as clean as we allow them to be, just as the systems in our car can be properly maintained or clogged from overuse and no maintenance, so can our bodily systems.

If we have taxed our systems to the point where they do not function well, or even at all, then we must reap the consequences of that lack of maintenance. And just like a car, if we wait for the pain, like a red dummy light, it is usually too late to correct the malady with simple maintenance. It is only too late when they are pulling the sheet over us, but some damage is nigh on irreversible and the best we can hope for is to minimize the damage, but for some of us, there is time to reverse the trend we have set for an earlier death.

It involves understanding the information we have heard all our lives and some new knowledge that taps into ages old knowledge. And it involves in many cases making changes to the way we do things that at first may be uncomfortable, but so is a lengthy hospital stay and daily blood tests. I know. So I will be learning and sharing my knowledge, and doing some things in my life and recording those things for others to read and hopefully benefit from. God Bless us all on this great journey, and may we be of some mutual benefit to each other.

Oops, tax time delayed my starting on this

I really did not think about it until days later that I should have waited until after tax time to start and get this rolling. I still had some issues to be resolved and am only now free again to make daily entries so I went and got some updated numbers, and will make an entry tomorrow to reflect those.

Basically, I have not had any changes substantially from the last measurements but to be fair to the process, I want to get snapshot figures from the day I actually get going.

So I went and got my Body Fat % read yesterday, and it came in at 35.1%, a bit of a drop from January's 38.7% for the same weight, 225. So what I have been gradually changing over the last few months is working. But I feel like I am going to see some faster changes as I feel more energetic and begin to pick up the exercise pace. I will be primarily working out at Coyotes Athletic Centers, and Tumbleweed Recreation Center, both in Chandler not too far from my house.

On my way to better health

This is another new beginning for me. After having started a couple of blogs, an idea came to me from several different places, Isagenix, being the primary source. As an associate of Isagenix, I have become highly familiar with the Nutritional Cleansing system, as well as their Wealth Building system.

I have seen many "before/after" photo shots of people who have lost amazing amounts of weight, simply by using the Nutritional Cleanse and changing their lifestyles, and their eating habits. I have not had the same results from casual use, but then again, I am not average, and while my situation is not as grave as some, 60 pounds overweight, 35% body fat, I am very far from optimal health. (I was recently, June 2007 diagnosed with non-insulin dependent diabetes.) I found that out when I was hospitalized with a ruptured appendix.

That was a wakeup call, and from that time forward, I have informally cleaned up my diet, my habits and my attitude about a lot of things. Still, my weight hovers at 225, which is technically 50-60 pounds over where I should be. So while I am 46 years old, and feel like I should have a lot of life ahead of me, there has been a lot of abuse to undo, and a lot of my peers are dropping off early of totally lifestyle related maladies.

So in my next post will be the Before pictures. I have seen lots of Before/After pictures from people after they were done achieving the results they wanted, but I have not as often seen someone lay the before picture out there, with no idea how long it will take to get the after picture, except a goal. That is my purpose in starting this blog. I will be seeking the support of those I know, and those I meet along the way, to regain the wellness that God intended for me.

Our bodies are miracles of complex systems requiring proper maintenance, and I will make no claim now or in the future that Isagenix has cured any disease.

The Isagenix Nutritional Cleanse system is packed with amino acids, enzymes and minerals essential to the proper function of the body and is the best system I currently have seen for getting the body systems, all 7 of them back into proper function, thereby allowing the body to be the miracle it was created to be.

So without further ado, I begin. Check for updates every few days.