One Month Update: Plexus Slim

If you have been counting or following my Plexus facebook page, you know I have been on Plexus Slim for just over a month now. I started September 16th, and here we are on October 20th. I lost some pounds, some inches and sold some product.

Part of me is disappointed. Perhaps it wasn’t Plexus I was looking for. In retrospect, I think I was hoping for something more along the lines of crack… you know but in a high-quality, legal, natural, organic kind of way. Something to jack me up and shrink me down, all the while making me feel fabulous and helping me make loads of money. If this sums up what you are hoping for, Plexus may not be the product for you.

Plexus is not a miracle product and it requires some dedication. While some people do drop 10 lbs. the first week and experience massive surges of energy, I was not one of them. On the same hand, I did experience results. I will post my measurements and photos and let you judge for yourself. Then I will let you know a few of the other changes I experienced. Fell free to let me know if you have tried Plexus and what sort of changes you have seen. Knowledge is power!

I added my measurements into the image since I never reported those in the first week as I meant to. When I originally took those measurements, I couldn’t find the appropriate tape measure so I improvised with a long strip of Care Bear ribbon and a heavy duty hardware measuring tape. I have still not lost the care bear ribbon and the Sharpie marks I made are holding strong. My initial weight was 162 and now I am at 156. The thing that is most interesting to me is how difficult it was to lose inches just months ago. While trying to fit into the bridesmaid dress for my brother’s wedding, it was taking about 8-9 lost lbs. to equal a single inch off my waist. Now on Plexus, it seems that the inches fall off more easily than lbs.

Pros and Cons:

I like to end things on a good note, so I will start with the cons. First, it is a bit obnoxious that I seem to never get the Slim powder to fully dissolve. Inevitably, there will be a least one pocket of dry power that bursts in mouth. Not a huge deal, but not my favorite part of Plexus either. Since beginning Plexus Slim, I have had a problem with occasional constipation. Not something I heave dealt with in the past. TMI. Sorry. I thought we were trying to keep it all honest here, and I have added prunes into my diet. Now, Plexus does have BioCleanse which I understand would help flush one’s system, not to mention ProBio5 which is a probiotic formula to help with overall gut health and ideally lead to regularity. But, (next con) Plexus is expensive and a girl like me has to look closely at her budget to figure in Plexus Slim and Accellerator, I have already added in ProBio5 (which offered a ‘pro’, but I’ll get to that) so adding in more and more cost, partially to battle side effects, is rough.

Basically Slim and Accelerator cost about $120/month. I justified that cost. Not an additional $100/month for a few more capsules to take daily. I am not saying that some of these costs didn’t pay for themselves by me selling product. And I am not saying that the cost isn’t worth it or justified, but we are on the cons and if the cost is troublesome for me, I know it is for others as well.

Another TMI con: I got a yeast infection. Not a bad one and I have no idea if Plexus led to it all. In fact, Plexus’s ProBio is what caused it to disappear without any other medication. But just in case others experience that side effect, I just want to say it is possible that it was connected. I doubt it, but it’s possible.

Now for the pleasantries. So obviously I have lost some weight, and lost some inches. That’s nice. I am most excited that I seem to have also lost my mid-afternoon humdrums. I was seriously hitting that 2:30 slump like clockwork. I haven’t had that happen except maybe once in the last month.

I also have more energy after work when I return home. Before I was dragging through dinner and then only wanting to lounge thereafter. My whole career/life balance was totally out of whack and my house was in chaos. Behind on laundry, organizing, cleaning, grocery shopping. I hadn’t made a weekly dinner menu in at least a month. Plexus does not make it so that I sing like Cinderella while skipping around scrubbing toilets, but I have scrubbed the toilets. And the floors. And taken old clothes to charity. And reorganized and cleaned the kids’ rooms. And decorated for Halloween.  I won’t turn this into a mommy bragboard blog, but you get the idea.

When I got the aforementioned yeast infection, I contacted my Plexus lead for a bottle of ProBio asap and ordered one to replace hers. I took no medication for the infection and saw improvements within the first day of ProBion5. By the 3rd day, symptoms were gone.

Back to the cost. While becoming a Plexus Ambassador does require some upfront cost, it also allows you to make up that cost. When I signed up, my ambassador was running a special that she would cover the $34 welcome packet fee, so I was really only paying for the product. There are a series of product packages to choose from and I went for one of the more expensive ones, 3 30 days supplies of both Accelerator and Plexus Slim. I sold 2 of the Slim month supply and one of the bottles of Accelerator in the first week and made $235ish. There was some tax on my initial purchase so I was just a bit over breaking even and had my months supply and 2 months of Accelerator covered at no cost. I sold some FastRelief on the website soon and things were looking up. If not for my husband using up my supply as quickly as I purchase it, I would still be breaking even. As it is, we are basically paying for his product. I would now like to try BioCleanse and see if that would help my little problem, so that will be more out-of-pocket cost.

I do believe that Plexus really melt the fat away. Even if Plexus Slim isn’t causing me to loose lots of lbs. or shrink right out of my clothes, I am losing inches. And the inches seem to come from the most fatty places first. My lower stomach area is definitely the flabbiest part of me and that is where I have lost almost 3 inches.  The only exception to this rule (to the delight of my husband) is that I have lost absolutely nothing off of my boobs. Also even if 6 lbs. doesn’t seem like a big deal, that amount has pushed me down to a weight lower than I’ve seen since 2009.

So to sum it up: Weight lost, inches lost, increased energy, little actual cost, and still going strong. Ready to fulfill my 3 month commitment.

For fun, I will add in my sorta sister-in-law’s 3 month before and after. Enjoy and Cheers!

*Little note, she hasn’t been working out at all!

About That Weight Loss…

About that weight loss plan… did I mention last week I won a friggin’ mani/pedi?! Well, yes. I did. Okay, so technically I won a gift card to the salon next to the gym I go to, but it is enough for their mani/pedi combo special deal. It gave me a glimmer of hope. Maybe, just maybe, I really could win this whole beach bod challenge.

For the past 5 weeks, I’ve dropped 9 lbs. That puts me at 11 since my switch to a vegan diet and 16 since the beginning of 2013. My goal was to lose 25 for the 12-week challenge. I will need to drop 3 this week to get back on track for that goal as I rapidly approach the midway point. To really get back on track I am thinking I will do a 3-day cleanse. I will not do a crazy starve-fest, but something that is basically blending up all the things I am already eating, eating it raw, and eliminating the between-meal pretzel-munching I may overdo on a daily basis. Here’s the plan I will be attempting to complete. I really that it has the full shopping list included. As of my last gym weigh-in (Friday), I was at 164.7. I will weigh-in again this Friday after I have fully completed the 3-day cleanse and then we can all see if I dropped any more weight. I will also comment on energy levels, withdrawals of any kind, and over all feelings of well-being. Wish me luck and feel free to join me.

Cheers!

Gone Vegan!

I don’t usually like to tell people my plans. Or at least not specific plans and goals. Even the resolution post I did at the start of the goal was pushing it for me. This is the reason I have never stressed my dietary choices. For the past 2.5 years or so I have been a vegetarian off and on. I did great for the first 5-6 months. Then I started craving big ol’ chunks of animal protein. As it turned out I was pregnant so I just followed my body’s cues and ate meat. Not every day & not obsessively. But I guess I just thought it was my body telling me I wasn’t meeting my protein needs. I would do it differently today, but I have mostly gone at the whole veg thing solo, so that’s what I knew.

After pregnancy and breastfeeding for a few months I decided to switch back into gear. It was never, ever hard for me. I am not a person who (normally) craves meat. Before any interest in all this hippie-eatin’, I would go out to breakfast and order a big veggie omelet with hash browns. Apps included caprese or some bread with dipping oils. Dinner was pesto fettuccine  cheese enchiladas or veggie pasta. My comfort foods were carb and cheese with a splash of veg, so it wasn’t a lot of work. And really my version of vegetarian was more like pescatarian—that is I ate some minimal amounts of seafood.

And then I watched Vegucated. The documentary section of Netflix is by far my favorite. Seriously- check it out, you can learn anything! There are several that I watch on a somewhat regular basis. Vegucated may join that list. Although I hear Forks over Knives is pretty amazing too. So in Vegucated, the producer finds three strangers via Craigslist to commit to 6 weeks of a vegan diet and just to learn fully what being a vegan means. Of course there were struggles, tears, and improved health. All three are at least at vegetarian level today. I decided to start my own 6 weeks challenge that Sunday. That Sunday was 3 weeks and 3 days ago. And I LOVE it.

It’s not easy and it’s not like going vegetarian. There are foods I give a full up-and-down check out. ‘Member that whole thing about “carb and cheese”?… Yeah cheese is out. And carb is limited. Not for the popular carbs=devil reasons. It’s a lot more simple. Baked good often have milk, butter, and/or eggs. Soo… that means I usually have to pass. Luckily pasta is a-ok. Not egg pastas, but the rest. Just no real pesto (parmesan), alfredo, mac-n-chees,  or any other of those cupboard staples I loved to love. A funny thing happens when you cut out over half the food you are used to consuming. You have to pick new, acceptable choices. Preferably plant-based foods and not Oreos and Dr. Pepper (technically vegan). For me that’s meant that by noon most days I have consumed AT LEAST the 4-6 servings of fruit and veggies the FDA recommends for an entire day. No more blueberry bagel with cream cheese. Now I have oatmeal with stevia, fruit and almonds and a splash of coconut milk or a green smoothie (spinach + other on-hand fruit/veggies). A banana for a snack. Or maybe some baby carrots with hummus. Lunch is a salad or a wrap with salad-type fillings. I sautee veggies. I  bake kale into chips. I do really enjoy ALL of the food I am eating. I just linger at the shredded mozzarella in my fringe that would probably taste great sprinkled over the potato and leek soup or spinach wraps.

I am taking this time to makeover my entire eating habits. After the first couple of days there were no more Oreos and such. I ditched soda. No candy. No commercial peanut butter. I could probably cut my salt intake back… but eh, let’s not get carried away too quickly. In the first 2 weeks I lost 3 lbs. The weight’s not flying off, but that wasn’t the original point. Last week I joined my gym’s “Beach Body Challenge . Don’t judge. I didn’t name it. Anyway they shoved 35ish fatties in a room together and recorded our weights and body fat percentage. We will have weekly weigh-ins and prizes until the final weigh-in after 12 weeks complete with a $1000 prize. I suppose I should incorporate some sort of workout into the mix, but as of yet, nothing. This is already getting long and I am ‘bout ready for my beauty rest. I just wanted to catch you up to date since I am pretty sure this is gonna turn into a long-term lifelong life choice.

Cheers!