 Hi guys, it's Monica. This is a highly requested video about diet and lifestyle. So if you're not interested in how a soon-to-be 65-year-old woman tackles her diet issues and lifestyle issues, now's the time to tune out. But if you are interested, please stay tuned. But before I get into it, I want to ask you all, if you have not already, to please subscribe to the channel. When I look at my analytics, and I know some of you really don't care about analytics, but when I look at those analytics, it tells me that over 62% of you watching this video are not subscribed. So if you would please subscribe, ring the bell, leave me a thumbs up, that would truly help me out a lot, and I would truly appreciate it. So here I am, diet. I'm very kind of reluctant to go into a diet update, mainly because diets are such a personal thing. You know, what works for me may not work for you. Everyone has to have their own path that they're walking, their own level of when they finally get to that point where they look in the mirror and they say, enough is enough. Where they say, I have got to make changes. For some of it, it's health. For some of it is just how we physically look. And for others, it's wow, you know, I just want to be able to move. I want to fit into clothes. I want to not have to go in the plus size department, whatever it is, whatever your why is, you need to focus in on how come you're walking this path. And then when you make the decision to do it, you need just to find motivation. And I've often said, it's ironic that motivation is the hardest thing to find. And it's the easiest thing to lose. Once you lose that motivation, it is so hard to get back on the bandwagon or back in the saddle, so to speak. It is so hard. So this is all going to be about what I'm doing, because many of you have asked, what do I consume a day? You know, why am I doing the program I'm doing? And then how do I stay motivated? How do I find my motivation? What keeps me going day in and day out? What are those things that I avoid? What are my pitfalls? That's what this is all about. So first of all, my diet journey has been up and down for many years. And I started a ketogenic diet back when keto, and it wasn't popular. So when I started keto, it was it was very much people were like, wow, this is a great, great program to really help you lose weight, get healthy and all that stuff. And I went right on that bandwagon 100%. I jumped in, tried to go pure keto because all my research, everything I was looking at this new sort of diet trend was fewer was the way to go get rid of all the artificial crap, don't buy packaged food, do what you can eat with your new macros, calculate your macros and eat within that program. And after a while, if you do something long enough, the impact isn't as powerful anymore, your body adjusts, especially if you're starving yourself. If you're really going extreme low calorie, your body adjusts and starts to store fat. And it starts to sabotage your diet efforts. And I hate to use the word diet, but for me, it's lifestyle. So it really does. It's sabotages you when it does not become as effective anymore. And that's what I was finding. And so even though it was really good, I did a lot of things. I wasn't working out as much. I had a job change. I had all these lifestyle factors that impacted what I was doing. And then because I wasn't working out as much and I was still consuming a moderately low carb, I wasn't mindful of my caloric intake versus my caloric output. And for some of us, and not for all of us, calories and count calories out count. I cannot just go on a pure keto. I cannot eat high fat unless I have a very active lifestyle and work it off. I can't do pure low carb because even in that case, sometimes the calories were much higher than what I was burning off. And so for me, I had to be very mindful of my calories. And that's where I'm at today. So with all my up and down, my diet, I knew that come summer, last summer, I had to do something. I really wanted to try to lose some of the weight that I'd slowly crept on. Like I had like a 20 pound gain. And I was like, Oh, over the course of, you know, a couple of years after I had my surgeries, I, I started the end of June, the isogenic male replacement program. I hesitate to really talk about it because it is a multi level marketing company. And some people just totally, you know, have just totally disagree with any kind of multi level marketing. I'm not here pitching this to you. I'm not, I'm sharing with you what I'm doing for your request. So I did, I bought into the isogenic program. I had, I had my money where my mouth was so to speak, you know, and I had skin in the game. And so when I had skin in the game, it made me work all that harder towards that goal. So I bought at the end of June, July, I went away for a vacation to Canada. Jane, I went on a road trip. August, we went away for a vacation in Bar Harbor. Throughout the whole vacations, I was still able to follow the program, have a fork and knife meal, go out to dinner, have a drink, have, have fun on vacation without feeling deprived. Because the more you deprive yourself, the harder it is to stay on point. You know what I'm saying? It really is. So I had a great time. So ultimately today here I am. It is the beginning of February. I am going to be 65 in two weeks. And I've lost about 27 pounds on my program since the end of June. Now for, you might say that's not a lot, but for an older woman, a mature woman, it's really important that especially my skin is not, it's not firm and tight. You know, I would love a little facelift. But anyway, so the older you get, the quicker you lose weight, the more your skin drags down. The more your skin falls, the more you lose your skin tone. So I'd rather try to lose it as slow as possible to give my skin time to recover and get used to my new frame, so to speak, than fast. So 27, 28 pounds, I fluctuate up and down a couple of pounds here and there. And this program works for me. If you are interested in the program, leave me a comment. I'll give you the information. Other than that, I will link the website, my website for it. I am not pitching this. I'm just sharing with you what I'm doing, but I did become an associate because it helps me purchase it. So anyways, I start my morning off every morning, religiously. I have what we call, and I will link the nutritional information. I have a six ounce glass of water mixed with the Ionic Supreme. This I call my wake up, my good morning drink. I mix it all up. It's a very pleasant taste for me. I drink it down. And then I usually have another six or eight ounces of water. And then I have my black coffee. I have my black coffee. I put two tablespoons of my collagen supplement in there and a couple of drops of my easy sweetener. In my black coffee, I have that. I get up early. So I may have my breakfast at eight o'clock or it may have it at nine o'clock. Sometimes I have it right when I get into the office, but it all depends. So if it's eight o'clock or nine o'clock, I'm very mindful that two hours after I consume that I'm going to have a snack. So I normally have my protein shake. What I do, and I love the shake flavors. So when I have my shake, my power shake, as I call it, my favorite flavor is the peach mango. In the morning, I mix it with frozen blueberries and or frozen strawberries and ice and water in my skinny girl blender. And it's like a frap. I really love it. That would be my breakfast. I usually put a little bit of cinnamon in there. And I also then will take this little plastic ziplock. It's just the cheap little plastic container. It perfectly holds two scoops of this, a little bit of cinnamon and also holds my collagen. And I'll pack it and bring it in the office. I have a couple of different flavors. I have mocha, I have mint chocolate, I have vanilla, I have strawberry. When I have any of the chocolates, I normally mix it with coffee. And I love that. So I bring this in my little lunch bag. Two hours after I have my breakfast, I will have my first snack. So I'm consuming something very consistently all day long, keeping my motor running, so to speak. So two hours later, I'll have my first snack. And typically, I normally have a hot boiled egg. I usually take a hot boiled egg. I put it in this little container and I put some hot mustard in there. I put some pepper in there. That's typically my snack. I normally will boil up maybe a dozen eggs in a week and a half. And I'll put them in little containers. And I bring them in for snack. So I'll either have a hot boiled egg for my snack, or I'll have a yogurt cup, a couple of wedges of cheese, an apple with some cheese. But my snacks are typically about 100 calories, maybe 120 tops. But usually they're around 100 or less. That would be my snack. Two hours later, oh, I had my breakfast drink. I always forget this. I don't forget to take it. I just forget to mention it. Right after I have my breakfast drink, I take a natural accelerator. I will link the ingredients. This is what I consider boosts my metabolism, gives me, you know, gives me a bunch of gas in my furnace, so to speak. And then my shakes and everything else just keep powering it. So I have one pill with my morning shake. And then I have my snack. And then I mix my lunchtime shake. And then I have another pill. There are some days where I'll have a fork and knife meal for lunch, just because I'm going out to an event. Then I'll have my shake at night. This program is designed, if you want to maintain or lose weight, you can have two shakes a day and a fork and knife meal, or one shake a day and two fork and knife meals. Whatever works best for you. I normally have one pill with my lunch, one pill with my breakfast. And then my snack. Two hours after my lunch, I have another snack. And again, it's the same thing. A tuna pouch. I have that often. I buy the little tuna pouches. They're about 90 calories. They're really good, different flavors. Works out perfectly. So by the time at the end of the day, my frozen breakfast drink in the morning might be about 250, 260 calories. My lunch drink is usually about 240. So I've got about 5, 520 calories. And then I have two plus or minus 100 calorie snacks. So let's just round it out to 700 calories. That's what I've consumed. So at the end of the day, I can have a fork and knife meal and it would fluctuate for me also based on my activity level because if I'm sitting all day, I want to be really mindful of that. But I don't sit all day. I have an Apple Watch that tells me to get up. I have an Apple Watch that monitors when I'm moving. It tells me when to take deep breaths. It tells me when to relax myself. Anyways, I try to maintain some sort of a activity level every hour I'm walking around, even if it's five minutes, going up and down a few flight of stairs at work. I have a stand-up desk, so I am trying to stay active. I'm not necessarily working out, which has what I need to be doing. So I'm not like going to the gym or doing anything of that nature. I come home. I normally have my fork and knife meal, whatever it is. And again, the beauty of this is that I can have that fork and knife meal in the morning if I want or depending on what I'm doing that particular day. Or I can have two fork and knife meals. I can modify this. It's very easy for me to pack my protein. I love these little containers. It's very easy for me to have a snack, the tuna pouch, anything, slices of cheese, apples, anything like that. I absolutely love. Then when I'm all done that at night before I go to bed, I take, now during the course of the day, I'm really drinking a lot of water. I'm monitoring my water intake. And then right before bed, I take two ice of flushes. This kind of helps keep everything moving in my system flowing, so to speak. So I'll link the nutritional information as well. But this is just going to keep me regular. And I need to be kept regular. So I don't have leg cramps. I don't have any of those little twitchy things since I've been doing this. I mean, before, you know, you could, your potassium was low. I was had, there was always issues. So I don't have any of that. This has just been really fabulous. So this is how I end my day. And that is pretty well consistent every day what I consume. One fork and knife meal, my two meal replacements, my two snacks, sometimes three, if I want one after dinner, but very rarely. I'm consuming probably about 1400 to 1500 calories a day unless I'm indulging in alcohol or at a party and doing something else. Then it's a lot higher. Now two days a month, I do what we call a deep nutritional cleanse. The deep nutritional cleanse is part of the program. And it is where I actually take one of these little containers. And this is called the cleanse for life. And I mix it in 24 ounces of water. I take half 24 ounces of water because I'm doing a two day cleanse. So it's a deep nutritional cleanse. The first day is the hardest. The second day is a breeze. So I will start my morning. I will do the same thing that I do on a regular day of shakes is I start my morning with my Ionic Supreme, my good morning drink. I think an hour or so later, depending on that, I'll have this all mixed into a 24 ounce of shake jar. I will drink four ounces of it. And then I'm going to be very mindful. It could very well be in an hour, an hour and a half later, I need a snack. I can feel my stomach rumbling. The two approved snacks that I have. And this is actually a wafer. Two of these chewable wafers are 30 calories, four grams of carbs, two protein. There is a little bit of sodium, not much. But this is the isogenic snack. This is I only use this on cleanse days. And then I also use the isa delight on cleanse days. These are a little tiny chocolates. You three pieces are 170 calories. So I normally might have one, I might have three, maybe I might have four, I don't know, in a day. So on a cleanse day, I'm going to have my good morning drink. Then I'm going to take my cleanse for life. And then I might take one or two of the little wafers, depending on how I am. And then an hour later, I might have one of the chocolate isa delight. Then I'll take another shake. I'll drink the 24 hour hour mixture of the cleanse throughout the day in equal proportions with those two snacks. So my calorie intake on my cleanse day, I'm not starving myself, although I'm not eating. It's probably very low. I mean, I might have, you know, three or four hundred calories, roughly, if that on those cleanse days. And it is not at all, I'm not, my stomach will growl. I'll feel that I'm hungry. And but it's, it's all, I'm motivated. It's all very doable. When I go to bed, I take the flush, and then I repeat that same process for the second day cleanse. I drink a ton of water. During my cleanse, I can have my black coffee. I do do my collagen supplement. But then the rest of that is exactly what the program prescribes. So depending on what you want to do, how much weight you want to lose, you can do one cycle of two day cleanses, or you can do two. My first 30 days, I did two. And from November, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, I did two. But in general, I do one two day cleanse cycles per month. And that kind of like helps equalize me. It cleanses, gives me a deep cleanse. It makes me feel fabulous. High energy. I feel really good. I'm not bloated when I'm done. It's just really good. I don't get the runs. I don't have to be chained to a bathroom or anything of that nature. I just feel really super, super good. So I know this is a long video. I did want to share all that with you because you've asked. I didn't want to not tell you what I'm doing. I'm not trying to pitch it. Whatever your program you're doing will work for you, I'm sure. Just find your motivation. Stay motivated. Surround yourself with like-minded people. I think that's the key thing, especially when you find yourself slipping in your motivation. Like-minded people will really help you. And only you can determine why you're doing this. And only you can make your own motivation. You're the one. You are in control of it. You are. I can't motivate you. Nobody else can. I love these hand weights. This is just how I try to stay a little bit active when I'm walking around at the office. I love these hand weights. I believe I saw these on Glitzy Fritz's channel, and I think I ordered it from her link in Amazon. But they're really cool because they, you can do things. You can still putz around the house. I usually wear them at work when I'm walking up and down. And I really like that. The second thing that really has helped me a lot is my Apple Watch. Now my Apple Watch, I'm going to play to it a minute. I mean, my Apple Watch to me, it's a fashion accessory as well. But it is a health monitor. Like I said, it'll monitor my steps. It'll monitor my color. You put in and put your data. It's very intuitive. It stops to know you. It actually tells me when I need to get up, when I've been sitting too long, when I have to move, when I have to take deep breaths. It's really awesome. And it, it's a really cool little fashion piece. Look at these bracelets that I have. You've seen all of these on my wrist at various points in time. I'm, I've got six in this one on my wrist right now. So I have like seven little accessory bracelets. I bought all of these at off of Amazon. So they're all very, very affordable. So my Apple Watch is a health piece. It's probably my favorite gadget. I would be lost without it. It's a health piece and it's a fashion piece. I have the 38 millimeter one that comes in different sizes. That's perfect for my wrist. I love it. Other than that, know what your pitfalls are for me. I am carbon tolerant. If I go into a bakery and I smell, or even when I go buy the bakery, oh my gosh. And I smell that fresh bread. You know how you can smell that fresh bread? I just grab it. And sometimes they have the little piece, the little samples. Just avoid it. I walk right by it. I try not to go anywhere near it because the temptation to put it in my mouth is too great. So carbohydrates do me in, but I will also tell you that because this is a lifestyle change, the more you deny yourself, the more you're going to want something. So if you really, really have a craving for an ice cream, have one. If you really, really have a craving for a donut, have one. If you really have a craving for that fresh baked French bread from the bakery, have one. One. Not the whole loaf, you know. And I believe that you should indulge yourself because it is a lifestyle choice. I want to come back here next month and say to you, I am now over 30. That is my goal. So month of February, I want to be able to get over 30. I don't know if that'll happen, but that's my goal. But whether it happens or not, this is a lifestyle commitment for me. And everyone always says, how much do you spend? Most months, I spend $200, roughly on my meal replacements, my shakes, my vitamins. Now in some months, it's going to be more when I run out of this. This will last me for three months. I only use this on my cleanse day. So this will last me three, sometimes four months, as will my wafers. I only use them on a cleanse day. So the things I go through the most is my supreme, the wake up in the morning. I drink that every morning, gets me going. My eyes are flush at night keeps me going in a different way. And my accelerator. Now my protein shakes, they're very reasonable. I mean, if I were to go out for lunch and eat lunch five days a week, I'm sorry, seven days a week and eat breakfast seven days a week, I'd be spending more than $200 without a doubt. It's just that this is upfront as opposed to, oh, here's $5 for this or $10 for that as you're going through. When you have the upfront fee, it's like, ah, it's that commitment phobia. It's like that commitment phobia upfront fee. Nobody likes it. But that's what I do guys. So hopefully it helps clarify and answer your questions on how I am handling this lifestyle change and what I'm doing and how is it working for me so far? It's working great. And I think, I think that this is for me anyways, a very, very livable lifestyle, especially where at least one meal a day or two, depending on where I'm at. If I'm on maintenance, then I've just probably used this as one meal. I just think it's a very, very doable lifestyle for me. And it is extremely affordable when you break it down to a per meal price. But everyone has their own motivation. Everyone has their own budget and everyone has what is going to work for them. So that's it guys. Love it. Thanks so much for watching and please be sure again to thumbs up, subscribe, leave me a comment, and ring that little bell for notifications. I truly appreciate it. Bye guys.