There's No Such Thing as "Quick Results"

Ok, that title is partially correct. But you'll understand what I mean by the end of this post.

In my last post, I talked about how a friend got me a 30-cleanse program called "Isagenix."

Well, I just finished Day 5, and, well, this program is terrible.

Why is it terrible? Well, the past two days have been what are called "Cleanse Days" which means you can't consume any food and are only able to drink this cleansing power and water, and if you pay extra, you can get these chocolates that you are allowed to have as a snack. The package my friend got me only had one chocolate in it-yippee. Well, today I was excited that I survived the cleanse. But, I couldn't have food until dinner time because on this program you are only allowed to consume one (yes, one) 400-600 calorie meal a day, and replace the other two meals with a powdered protein shake. So I basically went 72 hours without legitimate food in my system. And today, I had an emotional breakdown. Who has an emotional breakdown about food? Oh yeah, a person who hasn't had legitimate food in 72 hours.

Now that's crazy. And you may be thinking that I just wanted to go back and eat all the food I could and give up. I do have willpower. However, today at work as I was sipping the protein shake, I was jealous of a co-worker walking by eating a banana. A BANANA. I didn't care about the the person a few cubicles away eating a cookie, that didn't bother me a bit. BUT A BANANA! I DON'T EVEN LIKE BANANAS! But at that moment I was terrified. So when I came home from work, and discovered that dinner plans had changed to a meal, according to Isagenix, I couldn't eat, I lost it.

Why was I putting my body through all of this torture?

Sure, I have lost about 1.5 inches and about 3 pounds in the past five days. But how have I been doing all that? By basically starving myself. And according to the program, I still had 25 days left of this nonsense. Now I'm putting an end to it.

Some of you may be thinking that my quitting after five days means I have zero willpower.

No, you're wrong. I did successfully follow the program for five straight days. But, it's not for me. It shouldn't be for anyone quite honestly. I know people have gotten results; I did some research. But I have also found multiple articles written recently about Isagenix and how much of a scam this program really is. One said "The weight loss that comes from following a plan like this isn’t from some super dooper magic formula. It’s called “I just lost a bunch of weight cos I ate my food through a straw and then starved myself” formula" (bionicafitwarrior.com) and I couldn't agree more.

So what's next? I'm not going back to my old eating habits, that's for sure. I guess I do owe Isagenix a little bit because it showed me that I don't have to eat the crap food I used to. I honestly don't want that food anymore. But what I didn't like about the last five days was that I felt very limited. I was walking around with pill capsules and "snack" wafers that basically tasted and looked like Tums or Rolaids in my bag to get me through the day when a normal healthy person or a person on a diet would be carrying around a banana or some almonds in their bag to get them through the in-between cravings. Who's the weird one?

I believe that the goal of Isagenix is to show people who are struggling with weight that you can change your lifestyle and get on a good track with food. But their whole "quick fix" thing is a joke. Apparently you can lose 15-25 pounds in one month on this program. But what happens when the 30 days are up and you are out of the shake powder, pill capsules, and "snack" wafers? Do you pay $300 again the next month? I guess you could. But what if you don't? Then it's likely that you'll put some of the weight back on because you'll shock your body that you are consuming legitimate food more than once a day. I'm not a nutritionist by any means; that's just what I imagine would happen. So the quick results later on go away and you're back to square one. Isagenix doesn't REALLY teach you good eating habits besides that you don't need fried food every day.

There's no such thing as quick results if you want long-lasting results. So I'm doing this whole lifestyle change in a different way. No "snack" wafers or pill capsules or starving myself for 72 hours, just cutting out the bad foods, exercising more, smaller portion sizes, and making a change. Here I go!