• How to Cleanse Your Way to Weight Loss

    Call it ex-smoker weight gain. Call it pregnancy empathy. Call it what you will, but I gained a LOT of weight this year. I'm talking 35 pounds in extra weight I was carrying around. I'll spare your eyes and NOT show you a photo. But you could ask anyone and they'll tell you that I was getting pretty hefty. It was so bad that I had to buy larger clothes for the second time in two years just so I could go to work. 

    I would likely never have seriously attempted weight loss had it not been for the fact that weight gain is directly related to snoring. My snoring has gotten louder and more obnoxious over the past year, and my wife's concern was that she would never get any sleep once the baby was born. Either the baby would cry to be fed or I would snore and drive her insane. She's been using ear plugs, but that won't be an option while our child is an infant. She'll need to hear the baby when it's time to feed.

    My wife gives me this ultimatum: figure out how to stop snoring / snore quietly or sleep in another room! And folks, she wasn't kidding. The concept of sleeping in separate bedrooms is beyond disturbing to me. It wasn't an option. But neither is a sleepless wife for six months. She had lovingly reminded me several times that weight gain/loss was known to affect snoring. I thought it was a clever ploy to get me to lose weight (it still might have been, but she wasn't lying).

    I started trying Breathe Right nasal strips and that liquid you spray toward the back of your throat. They made a tiny difference, but not significant enough to rescue me from certain banishment. I looked online, but nothing other than weight loss or surgery would do the trick. I don't even like giving blood, and I'm not made out of money, so weight loss was the only answer.  

    I was at my chiropractor's office in October and brought up the snoring issue, hoping for some kind of suggestion or alternative method. He tells me that they sell a cleanse that both cleanses and helps people lose weight. The weight loss aspect is especially effective with men, apparently. He told me of a guy who dropped 26 pounds in three weeks. I was skeptical, because I'd done two other cleanses before and they didn't do anything but cleanse. 

    The key with this cleanse is that you change your eating habits for the duration of the cleanse. I ate only fruits and vegetables for the first week along with the cleanse capsules and shake with each meal. During week two, I added a boiled egg with each meal so I could increase my strength (I felt pretty weak during week one). I also added a little brown rice in the evenings. I drank one shake blended with a banana or two along with every meal. 

    It's a 3 week program, but I'm not skipping Thanksgiving just to finish the prescribed time limit. So I've done 2.5 weeks of the cleanse, and it ends tomorrow morning.

    How much weight did I lose on this cleanse?

    In two and a half weeks, I lost 15 pounds. I don't know how good that is compared to the contestants on The Biggest Loser, but it's enough to drop me down from a size 42 to a 38 waist. Were it not for Thanksgiving, I'd probably drop an extra 3-5 pounds before finishing. It would have been more without the eggs, I bet, but now was not the best time for me to go around weak and starving all day long. 

    So what is the name of this cleanse?

    The cleanse is made by SP, which stands for Standard Process Inc. The company is in Wisconsin. They use whole food ingredients in their programs, not artificial stuff created in a lab like you'd buy at Wal-Mart. SP is sold through healthcare professionals, so you won't find it on the shelf even at your local Whole Foods Market. 

    I don't know where to find it in your part of the country, but if you live in the Dallas / Fort Worth area, I can hook you up with the folks who sold it to me. It consists of a natural shake mix, gastro-fiber capsules, green food capsules, and cleanse capsules. I'm going to keep taking the gastro-fiber capsules for a while and maybe even the shake mix (though we have another very healthy shake mix made by Nature's Sunshine) and an egg for breakfast. 

    Breakfast has traditionally been the ignored meal for me. If I take the shake and an egg each morning, that protein and supplement will help my metabolism start off balanced and ready to face the day. Did I mention that I haven't had caffeine or concentrated sugar in two and a half weeks? It's true. I'm not going back to caffeine unless my body can't handle processing regular meals. If I start feeling extra tired and lazy, I may have to. But for now, it's water, milk, and water to drink.

    Best of luck to you as you cleanse.