Every single time I jump on Facebook, my news feed is flooded with ads from personal trainers/fitness experts marketing fitness and health PRODUCTS. These are telling us that we can improve our strength, increase our stamina and endurance, reset our body and mind, get rid of pesky tummy fat, tone our muscles, increase our energy, bla bla bla bla.

What do all of these have in common? The people who promote them are making money off of you buying their products.  Whenever I see an ad such as these, I roll my eyes because, in my opinion, I don’t believe they even use the products.  And if they do, I highly doubt they became fit and toned because of that product.  More than likely, they got fit and toned before consuming the product, and then of course, became a spokesperson for said product.

I am sure they do help in some ways, but the way they are being promoted is if you DON’T use them, you won’t obtain optimal results.

Again, I roll my eyes every single time one of those ads pops up.

I am not completely innocent though.  There was a time, about a year and a half ago, when they too persuaded me that I needed a meal replacement shake in order to lose weight.  The marketing was so effective that I bought a month’s worth of these shakes AND a kickboxing DVD to go along with it.  Want to know how much these two cost me? Nearly $300.  But, I thought, “If it works for everyone else, it must work for me too”.  Wrong.

I made one of those shakes and my hopes were crushed:  they were disgusting and not filling enough for me.  And the kickboxing workout was not nearly as tough as I had hoped it would be.  This was a meal replacement program designed to keep you full for longer and to pump in some ridiculously “healthy” ingredients most people have not even heard of.

So the idea is to replace a meal with a shake? Of course one is to lose weight! I quickly realized, why can’t I just eat healthier, for much, much cheaper? I could lose weight all on my own.

My problem wasn’t not having the right product to help me lose weight, rather, my issue was not getting off of my ass enough to workout every day and to be very strict as to what foods I put in my body.  I gave myself too many cheat days and made far too many excuses for why I didn’t have to workout that day.

I mean, really, how else did people lose weight throughout history? These products are new.  They are marketed to make money.

Since I realized this, a new challenge popped into my head:  “I will lose weight and get toned WITHOUT the “help” of these products”.   Since I love a good challenge, I set out on my own adventure to get toned.  My entire mission was literally to prove these people and their products wrong. So, I completely changed how I ate and how I worked out.  My body received quite the shock.

All I did was change my mindset and forced myself to eat better and to exercise nearly every day.

After only a couple weeks, I quickly lost a good 4-5 pounds and my overall strength and endurance significantly improved, IN. TWO. WEEKS.  All it took was dedication and hard work.  This occurred nearly a year ago.  I am still going strong; in fact, I am more determined and hard-set than ever before!

I work out three days on, one day off.  When I do workout, my sessions last a good 45 minutes to an hour.  More importantly, I do things my body has never done, such as jumping lunges and tuck jumps.

All you need to do is shock your body.  Don’t get lured in by successful and convincing marketers.  Do the work yourself.  Because you know what? Once you stop taking those products, I guarantee you those pounds will come back on faster than you’d like!

Also, do you even know what you are putting into your body? My mom has Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer, the kind that doesn’t go away, the kind that will surely take her life one day (something far too difficult to think about).  As a result, she and others in my family, including myself, have been conscious of what we put into and on our body.  She has since made her own candles and her own bath and beauty products, all of which contain NOTHING proven to cause cancer as every single ingredient is natural and has proven health benefits (if you want to try some of her products, contact me).

When I read the ingredients of these other health products designed to “get you the abs you never knew you had” or “detox your body and reset your mind”, I cringe.  Goddam it people, reset your own mind!

What are people putting into their bodies? Are these really healthy for you?  Maybe they are, but I am going to lean on the side that they are not. We don’t even know the long-term effects (there could be none; I could just be crazy) because they haven’t been around for that long.

If you can’t lose weight on your own, a pill, a shake, oil, whatever, is NOT going to help you.  Think long-term, do you really want to spend upwards of $50-$300 a month on health and fitness products, for the rest of your life? I sure as hell don’t.  But I know that I can count on myself to workout and to eat healthy for the rest of my life, for a fraction of the cost.

Sorry health and fitness product marketers, you didn’t get me.  I lost weight and got toned without you.