Eight Days on my Zija Journey

Alright, so I have to admit that my initial feelings after posting my first blog entry were not positive ones (feelings brought on only by my own conscience...).  I laid in bed that night and felt sick to my stomach - 'OMG, what did I do?'... 'this is so embarrassing!'  I felt like I had this moment of great confidence, almost like I walked out onto the beach in a bikini, followed by this awful realization that everyone would point/stare and laugh.  The reality however was that I had beautiful comments, emails, words of encouragement, and support from so many friends.  I knew that I was not the only one who struggles with her weight, but I didn't know that I was not alone in my quest to be done with this problem.

My 8 Day Trek
So here is my account from my first 8 days on Zija.  I began taking the Smart mix every morning - the taste was not horrible, kind of like ice tea.  The taste grew on me after a few days.  I especially liked waking up, going for my walk/jog and then coming home to drink it.  I was thirsty and hot and welcomed the cold drink.  It also filled me up a bit before breakfast so that I wasn't as hungry after all that exercise.  I want to say that I never considered this product as a meal replacement, I wasn't substituting a meal with a drink or a pill, Zija is meant to compliment what you eat and add nutrients and vitamins (from what I understand of the product - my understanding is still pretty limited at this point, so I can only give you a first hand opinion of my 8 day experience).  I would then eat a good breakfast (usually oatmeal with fresh fruit and a yogurt).  I would then take the XM3 pill 2 hours after breakfast, this was tricky, and I did manage to forget taking it quite a bit.  I would eat a good lunch and good supper, and then go to bed.  The product definitely helped with those nagging munchy cravings, and helped make portion control easier because I was less hungry.

If I were to tell you what this product did, I would explain that it made me feel better, healthier, more motivated to take better care of myself, my food choices, and my general motivation toward weight loss.  I know that this sounds surreal, but for the last 3 days I have not been taking the product (my order has not been delivered yet and my sister-in-law is on vacation) - the difference that I feel is that I have less energy, feel more hungry and less motivated to make healthy food choices.  I never thought that I would look at food differently, the 'bad' (yummy) unhealthy stuff was always attractive and I felt deprived if I didn't have it.  While taking Zija the junk food just didn't seem appealing.  I felt like, if I was going to eat something not nutritious that it better be damn good - and nothing seemed to be worth getting off track.  I never thought I would turn down a dessert or a poutine without needing some pretty strong will power, but I did - without any problem or feeling of deprivation at all.

I can't begin to explain what this product is or how it works, I can only share my experience and the results from my scale.  In 8 days, I am down 7 lbs - without even working at it or feeling like I'm dieting.  I'll be back on the product tomorrow (after I see my sister-in-law) and I can't wait to share the next tails from my journey... which I think shall be interesting because I'm going to do the Zija tea (a detox) that has scared me up until last week when I listened to the importance of cleansing your body of the toxins produced during weight loss.  For anyone that has ever experienced a 'detox/cleansing' - wish me luck!

A Revelation Toward Zija...

I've come to a point in my life where I am through with my weight struggles.  My entire life, I have been taught to just accept my 'heft', my 'thickness', my forever battle with my weight and I'M SICK OF IT!  I faced a reality check recently where my clothing size is now the largest size sold in regular department stores - this means that if that item of clothing (in a size 16) doesn't fit - that's it, I don't get to purchase that piece of clothing... I just can't live like that!

I decided to start making some changes, I started walking everyday with my 17 month old son in the jogger stroller and my very energetic boxer.  I also began watching what I was eating - not dieting, but just being careful to not over eat.  I had refused to weigh myself, because I couldn't stand the idea of seeing how heavy I had become, but also because I know how discouraged I would become by the numbers.  Thinking 'I need to lose 40 lbs' is a lot less discouraging than knowing - 'if I lose 40 lbs than I'll be at 160 lbs'... which still seems way too heavy.  I know that weight on my body is much different than on someone else's frame - so I preferred to just take on a healthier approach to my weight loss rather than a number crunch.

So on a Thursday, we walked into my sister-in-law's house.  She had been taking Zija and had lost a lot of weight, but I wasn't quite ready to commit to a product.  Especially since I still had this 'you got yourself into this mess, so you'd better be ready to do the hard work to get yourself out' mentality.  There has never been an easy way for me to lose weight that kept the weight off.  I'd lost lots of weight on diet drinks (and then gained all the weight back... and then some when I went off of it).  I'd also had lots of success losing weight on protein weight loss programs and had the same tragic outcomes once off of the diet.  I know that dieting just doesn't work... so that's why I just wanted to get healthy.  Then enters Zija.  It was the right place, the right time, and hopefully the answer to my journey toward health.  My sister-in-law gave me an 8 day sample of the product and a very brief overview of how to use the product, the results spoke for themselves...