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I couldn’t do it. I am sure you all saw my fling with Plexus. It was real. It happened. No regrets, YOLO, and all the rest, but I am (maybe) done. No hard feelings and we can still be friends. It’s not you; it’s me. Well, actually, it’s probably a little more you, ‘cuz, well, you are a weight loss program, and that’s a difficult thing to overcome.

I hate to be a hater, so let’s talk about the good stuff first.

Weight Loss. Yes, I started my Plexus adventure almost two months ago on September 16th. I weighed about 162 on that date. This morning, I weighed in at 154. That is cool enough, I guess. I also lost 2 1/2 inches from my waist. Plus inches from my lower waist, hips, thighs and elsewhere. If you are looking for weight loss, this might work for you.

Health Benefits. I have already discussed the most impressive health benefit I saw from a Plexus product, so I won’t TMI you again. If you missed it, catch up here. Also, with a little Plexus push I have kicked the soda habit. Typical dehydration symptoms are gone as I (mostly) kept with the Plexus foundation of drinking tons of water all day long. I also felt more energy throughout the day

Business Aspects. A good portion of my Plexus colleagues were very supportive. They followed and shared my posts, answered questions and let me do me. They encouraged me and assisted me. Interested customers are easy enough to come by and sought me out. Also this little journey has really opened my eyes to a lot of amazing things about MLM (multi-level marketing). Some research supports that as many as 80% of the women making $100,000 or more annually do so through MLM. MLM is growing and shows no signs of stopping. Of course appx. 3/4 MLM sellers drop out before their first year and never see any success at all. I would argue that this is why finding a company you truly, passionately believe in is the elemental key to success in MLM. Of course I have never experienced MLM success so my advice is basically worthless, but it seems legit in my mind. ;)

Overall Wellness and Social Aspects. It is enjoyable to be around those positive and uplifting ambassadors and feed off of their excitement and motivation. What? I am a little sucky-fish. Get over it.

And my ifs, ands, and buts for each of those…

Weight Loss. This amount isn’t really so impressive to me because I never got that “surge” of weight loss that some Plexus users talk about. While following a vegan diet (not counting calories or any other such nonsense) and working out a little, I was losing about 5 lbs. a month. I dropped that final pound to dip below the 155 mark AFTER my Accelerator ran out and after I had not drank slim for several days. I give only myself credit for that one. That said that means I was at 3-4 lbs. of weight loss month on Plexus. I am quite sure it would be less if I had not added in the BioCleanse and ProBio5 to the Plexus Slim and Accelerator. So yea, while it is nice to fit into my clothes a little better, my real complaint is that it just isn’t enough bang for my buck(s).

Health Benefits. As one TMI issue was resolved (yeast infection),  the other TMI issue (constipation) was never an issue until I began Plexus. Sure, BioCleanse helped a little. And additional laxatives helped a little too, but that just started me down a dark alley I would really not rather venture into again. Nothing helped as much as not taking PS and Accelerator. I am not sure which ingredient was having such a bad effect on me. And I am not sure why it seems like it’s just me and a handful of other people out there with this problem. I just know when it started, and when it stopped. No other side effects. No other pre-existing conditions for PS to battle.

Business Aspects. This is where it gets a little hairy for me. The things I don’t like about Plexus Worldwide, are the very thing making some people LOVE it. Plexus is still pretty young. For many people in some areas, this is still a ground level opportunity – Not in my area, but in some. The thing is, Plexus Worldwide focuses far more are recruitment and business advancement than it does on health. Ambassadors are rewarded for growing their team as expansively and as quickly as possible. There are no bonuses or perks based on sales, just recruitment with sales as an added layer to that. Similarly, in the “back office” of each Plexus Ambassador’s website there are lots of training tools. While of course there are some health benefits type info, there is significantly more on selling. I am all for business, success and prosperity, but this rampant, ambassador breeding virus is insanity and leads to an over-saturated, competitive community. Buying in as an ambassador is not enough to earn commission. You must also have auto ship on. and if your month’s commission isn’t enough for Plexus to think it is worth send out the money, they won’t. It will get carried over. If this goes on for a month or so, it is easy to see how some sources state that 10% of ambassadors never actually get paid earned commission. (Checkout a more in-depth review here, for whatever it is worth.) For what it’s worth, I think Plexus is young enough to take all the excitement and enthusiasm and continue towards success.

Social Aspects and Overall Wellness. I just can’t do it. It’s not really against Plexus as much as against weight loss supplements and plans. People can tell me it is about health until they are blue in the face, but whether or not they are experience positive health benefits, they are mostly in it to lose weight. That’s why there is buzz, ‘cus if there is anything people love to obsess about, it’s weight. That’s is where I get lost. I cannot and will not suggest anyone needs to loose weight. I will not pretend that I am an expert on such things. I will not play into our cultural obsession with weight (You know, more than I already do. ;) ). And I felt like that was the only way I could succeed. SOME ambassadors are awesome, like my SIL, Jackie. She doesn’t even weigh herself. She eats what she loves, she drinks her drink and she buys new clothes when her wardrobe becomes to large. She shares her story, her progress and her family’s progress. They have some pretty amazing success stories in their kinship. I am not talking about just weight loss. Jackie’s dad is a diabetic who is a total skeptic and has lost only like 10 lbs. in several months or something, but the changes in his diabetes is pretty impressive. On the other hand there are multiple other ambassadors who made me genuinely embarrassed to be even slightly associated with Plexus. And with that, I graciously will bow out and feel good about where I am. If potential Plexus customers approach me ready to buy, I can still sell to them for the next 10 months, and I am glad to do so if they ask. And if you have more questions and really want to be under an active ambassador, I am happy to refer you to Jax and her crew.

Fat is ok. Have some.

I keep feeling like I am a big, fat quitter for not making it the full 3 months to which I committed. Except then I realized I just committed to 3 months of spending $135++/month on products I did not fully believe in. In a family that does need to budget and with Christmas right around the corner, that is just not something I am ready to justify. So quit I do. I will likely purchase products on an “as needed” basis for the remainder of the year. BioCleanse and/or ProBio5 specifically, but otherwise this is the end of the line for me. I am not saying it is not a good product. I do not want to undermine the beliefs and successes of my peers. I do firmly believe that each body is different and each body responds to things differently. Just because I have not experienced succesess worth the hype for me, does not mean others won’t. My only definite statement is one that directly defies the Plexus Queen, and that is that no, Plexus products are not worth every dime for me and my family.

As I bid adieu to Plexus with a nod of my cap, I also will continue to embrace drinking 80+ oz. of water daily and will just say no to soda. I will continue to take a daily multivitamin and will consume 7 servings of fruit and veg daily.

Smith out.

Self Love and Plexus

I sometimes forget what I say and post where. I have been posting a lot more to pinterest, facebook, and instagram than I have posted here lately. To make up for it, I have created an image to say much of what I post regarding Plexus on my other social media outlets.

In essence, it is to take a stand against so many disgusting body-shaming, pro-anorexia Plexus images I see circulating. They are often enough to turn me against Plexus forever. If I thought for one second that they were created and promoted by Plexus Worldwide, I would quit and boycott on the spot. But in this day and age it is simple as can be to create catchy images and layer them with any quote you please, and I know many (often well-meaning) Plexus ambassadors are doing just that.

This is me. Taking my stand.

Love yourself and your body every step of the way.

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!

A Plexus Slim Woman?

Womanhood brings challenges most men don’t even notice. Hell, maybe most women don’t even notice. At any rate, I do notice and on that basis, almost every issue I encounter becomes an intellectual and spiritual battle within myself.  And yes, my insatiable desire to read everything I can makes me question whether showering myself in others’ opinions weakens my own intuition. With that in mind, I am now an ambassador for a weight-loss product. I promise, there is a connection.

As you may recall, back in February I made a 6-week commitment to a vegan diet. I began losing some weight. It felt good. I made a commitment to a 12-week weight loss challenge at my gym. That felt good too. I ran. I did things I had never done before in my life. That felt empowering and vibrant. At the beginning of February 2013, and at the less-than-towering height of 5’4”, I weighed 180. I don’t say this to shock you, mock myself, or provoke any other body-shaming line of thought. It is simply a fact. By the time I stood in the line for my brother and sister-in-law’s fabulous July 20^th wedding, I weighed 157.

During that time I started hearing about Plexus Slim. A couple of friends were on it and doing well. Losing weight. Energetic. Excited. After more and more seemed to jump the bandwagon and achieve their desired results, I was plateauing in my weight loss journey and curious. I won a three day trial from a girl in the weight loss challenge at the gym. Later I contacted the most vocal of the Plexus people I knew and got a 3 day trial from her. I liked it. I like the taste and I liked the energy pep. I didn’t see dramatic results, but I didn’t take my measurements either. I did do a lot of research. I read it all.

Although I read plenty from people preaching of the evil of direct sales, and the flaws of any sort of quick weight loss program, those weren’t my real concerns. For each of those nay-sayers there were handfuls of people saying the exact opposite. I read the ingredients, and on that front, I was ready to give this a try. My problem then became, “Why?” I worried that I would get caught up in weighing and re-weighing myself. I worried I would start down this path to then routinely measure myself against unrealistic ideals. Worse yet, I feared I could only become successful by becoming some body-shaming be-yatch with “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” “motivational” quotes and images.

Here’s the thing. Beauty is not everything. It’s not even the most important thing. Especially not the Hollywood variety. My value is far more than my height, weight, body type, and facial structure. Even if beauty were the basis of all that is valuable, thinness does not equal beauty, nor vice versa. So why?

Why, in the name of all so-called pyramid scheme gods did I somehow get so stuck on this particular product that I would become an ambassador and public display of it? I suppose there are a few reasons. For one, although I fully recognize one’s worth exceeds far beyond his or her outer appearance, I am one who really enjoys the whole concept of physical appearance. With that in mind, I like my appearance to reflect who I am, and I like to play with that definition of who I am. To the dismay of some, I still experiment with my “look” more than some adolescents. From switching out my hair color, cuts & styles, adding piercings and tattoos, to attempting to create my own style, I enjoy that creative outlet. In the same way that I HAD to dye my hair full-on, ginger red last spring, I really wanna try for being thinner. Since even as early as jr. high, I have never been smaller than a size 6 – and I was even shorter than my current stature. So that’s it I wanna see if I can slim down, and I wanna see if I like it. Idk. Weird? Yeah, I can be terribly awkward, but I promised truth, gosh-darn-it!

Next, what a slug I can be! Seriously. The past few months I have just felt sluggish. I caught myself at work hitting 2-3PM and looking/feeling like a hot mess of a 5 Hour Energy commercial. I would daydream about the surprisingly-pleasant, refreshing, stevia-sweetened Plexus Slim and how it would be the kick-start I needed to power through my days. Of course, I could just try to drink more water and eat better on my own, but truly, if nothing else, Plexus Slim has some pretty bad-ass placebo effect going on. To keep this blog post on the up-and-up, I should clarify that there are plenty out there who cannot gag down the “pink drink.” I just happened to be one of those who genuinely enjoys it.

In this mess of an obesity epidemic, I do want to take charge of my health. I do. Really. It’s just hard. It’s not that I don’t have time to work out. I just don’t have time to work out that wouldn’t include sacrificing time with my children. Well that or giving up say, the time I am using now to write… But that’s different.

After my dedicated stretch of Veganism, I slowly slipped into a full blown vegetarian. I even ate cheese pizza with a side of stuffed cheesy-bread once. In the past two weeks I have gotten a better grip on sticking to a veganish diet. (Sorry Vegans. I know, I know. That is NOT a vegan. Just a wannabe on a mostly plant-based diet. I’m sorry. If I were as cool as you and there was so much as one single, semi-vegan eatery in this whole community, I would do better. I promise! But there’s not.) And these two weeks I have felt better again.

So now here I am attempting to do my part by actively trying to love my body ALWAYS. Average, fat, or fatter. AND trying to make some healthy progression while loving my body at every stage of that. Every fiber of my remaining high school self screamed to attach, “eew” or “yuck” to my sports bra-clad “before” photos. I told that little b to shut up. The photo says, “Before” and then has the date. After I gulp down 3 months’ worth of Plexus Slim, my body may be different. It may even be healthier. But that is it. Not “better” and not “worse.”

So that’s it. I am doing me. If you wanna play along. Let me know. You are more than welcome. If you wanna just creep on my little adventure, that’s cool too. And if you genuinely want to have absolutely nothing to do with it, I’ve got ya covered. I will through “Plexus” into the title of each and every blog post regarding the product in anyway. If you see that, keep scrolling. I pinky promise to write about other things too.

Cheers!

http://www.plexusslim.com/ellesmith

Before Plexus.

(don’t mind the crappy phone photo or slimy mirror!)

Plexus Slim Facebook Cover