 Hey guys, it's Monica. I'm going to share with you a couple of things that I am excited about starting and how some of the hair clips that I bought for the wedding worked out for me. A lot of you have asked if I like the clips, if they held my hair, etc. So I'm going to talk to you about that. And then I've had a number of questions, mostly on Instagram, on my Instagram live about my diet. You know diets are a funny topic. I did the the diet collab with Natalie, the beauty diva, Maline from Fab and Glam and Modury. I'm going to call her the keto diva, but she's coffee and keto with Modury's her channel. I'll link that video for you to watch if you're interested in seeing that. If you're interested in hearing about diets, a new product that I bought that was a little expensive that I'm really excited about using and a couple of things that were sent to me. Stay tuned. So hey, you know the drill guys. So if you're new to the channel, please subscribe, please comment on the video, please like the video. I would truly appreciate it. I have the most wonderful group of survivors. Maybe survivors is the right term if they're watching my videos all the time. Oh Lordy. Maybe I'll edit that out. Anyways, I do have the most wonderful group of subscribers. And I always, always get the most amazing comments and interactions and I try really hard to answer all your comments. The only time I really don't want to answer comments is if a video was a giveaway like my last one. Some of the questions that I have got on that and also on my Instagram, mostly on my Instagram story has been my diet. I am really happy to say that as of today and it is Sunday, October 14th, I'm down 24 pounds. So yay me. Yay me. I'm also very happy to say that I annually go for a physical with my doc, you know, to my doctor and a couple of, I was like, it's been two weeks. I went for my physical and I had my complete blood work done, metabolic, my whole nine yards. My blood work is absolutely awesome. My cholesterol, which was never super high to begin with, is down. My good is up. My bad is down. I think my total number is in the 160s for both combined and my doctor was very, very impressed. So I just want to get that elephant out of the room health wise. I checked everything out. I'm very, very careful because I have had a lumpectomy. I have lost my gallbladder and some people, when you lose your gallbladder, you tend to bloat and gain weight. So there's all sorts of different issues that come along with that. So, you know, and I'm not going to go back into the history. So, you know, I gained some weight. I had a hard time losing it. I've always been, I've gone, I went from a pure keto to a low carb. I've always been a low carb person, but I enjoy a lot of vegetables and I enjoy certain fruits. I don't eat a number of fruits, but I enjoy the berries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries. I also, my favorite, favorite apple and honeycrisp. And we have several apple orchards around us. And so in the season, I have an apple and I may not have it the rest of the time, but in the season when I can get fresh honeycrisp apples, I buy them and it's not unusual for me to have an apple a day. I incorporate into my diet, low carb lifestyle, no bread, no pasta, nothing white, but moderate meat. We eat a lot of fish. We eat a lot of chicken. We probably have beef maybe once a week and lower carbs in the sense of where you have a low carb spectrum where people eat hundreds and hundreds of carbohydrates grams a day. I'm very, very low in that spectrum, but still higher than keto approved and higher than Atkins would approve. My fat is also very moderate. So, I have modified my diet and one of the things that I've always done is I've always taken a protein supplement. So, if you go into the health store, GNC or any other health store around and you ask about protein supplements, they're going to show you a protein supplement that might be 120 calories. And it is just that. It is a protein supplement. It's designed to supplement those people that may not get a lot of protein. A meal replacement shake is completely different than a protein supplement. I just want to clarify that. So, when I went to the Isogenic program, which yes, yes, because I've had a lot of people say that, oh, it's a multi-level marketing program. It is. And there are many, many, many multi-level marketing programs out there. Some are good, some are bad. But when I went to the Isogenic, I did do research and I did know people that had been taking it and I read good and I read bad. The one thing that I was impressed with was the meal replacement shakes while higher in calories and higher in carbs. The ingredients were, for me, made a lot of sense. And when I tried them, especially the peach flavor that I absolutely love. This one's empty. That's my new one coming on order. But I absolutely love the peach flavor. So, when I make this in the morning, ice cubes, water, frozen blueberries, two scoops of this, I mix it in my magic bullet. I actually have a Skinny Girl blender. I put it in there and it comes out pretty thick and sometimes I eat it with a spoon or sometimes I let it, you know, add more water and I drink it with a straw. It actually holds my appetite. So, the way this diet, if you want to call it that, is that I get up in the morning and I drink what they call is a good, I call it my good morning drink. It's one scoop. And I don't miss the ingredients for anyone that really wants to know. But this is the Ionic Supreme. I start my day with six ounces of water and then I mix this in about six ounces of water. So, before I'm even sitting, I've got like 12 ounces of water in my system. This is kind of like wakes me up, gets my body going and all of that stuff. And then an hour later or so, I have my shake and then I drive into the office. Within two hours or so after that, I'll have a snack. And then around new time, I have my second shake. That's because I am on a weight loss mode. So, I'm having the two shakes. Once I get to maintenance, I'll just drop that down to one and it'll make a lot of sense. During the day, I have a natural accelerator. I'll also list the ingredients. I take this twice a day once in the morning, once in the afternoon. And that kind of helps rev up my metabolism. Yo-yo dieting, years of dieting, up and down, abuse and all that stuff. You know that destroys your metabolism. And I really did a number to my metabolism. So, I am really trying to rev it up. My way may not be your way, but it's my way. And so, being down 24 pounds, I started this the last week of June, this year. And I feel fantastic. And my blood work is fantastic. So, you know, for those of you that are worried health-wise, the only compromise that I have to make for my health right now is I'm choosing my health over my face. Because the more weight you lose, you all know that, especially at a certain age. The more your face falls and the more older you can look. I know someone that lost about 25 pounds. Same as me. And I swear she gained five years in age with her face. So, you know, I've been doing all sorts of different trying to do facial exercises. I've been doing a bunch of different things to try to somewhat help tone. Nothing is going to do that. But I'm happy with my weight loss being slow, so that I hope that my skin can catch up to it. So anyways, that said, a couple of products that I have tried. And I'm going to share this with you because I love this one. This was actually sent to me from Viya the Octoly Network. And this is by Undone Beauty. And they sent me a foundation, a warm-up bronzer, and a brush. And this warm-up bronzer, and I love the brush. The brush is really nice. I've been using this all week, this warm-up bronzer. It's got a couple of different shades and a little bit of highlights. So, you know, you can either swoop it or whatever. But I really, really like this. This is very, very nice. The foundation they sent, I do like the applicator. It is just like this. Oops. So, this foundation is very thin application. It's a nice, dewy application. So, I like that. I like the finishing look. It just, it doesn't cover well on my skin because I have the veins and all that stuff. But if I just like, like a day, like yesterday, I was just beating around. I went into the stores. I did nothing much. I had that on all day. And I felt perfectly fine. I had a little bit of a nice, light coverage and an even tone. But it didn't look like I had foundation. It didn't look like I was all made up. And that I liked. So, that was sent to me from Undone Beauty by the Octoly Network. And then I have this. So, I can't remember where I first heard of this. I mean, many people have talked about, I love face masks. And many people have talked about, you know, putting a face mask, a rubber mask over the face cloth mask. And this is, I thought this was the one that people were recommending. But I apparently have a much better face. I found that when I put this on the first time, I was like, it was pushing the skin up so that the eye socket had my fat eye things, bags, hanging right over it. And I'd look at it and I'm like, uh-uh, I'm not walking around like that. So, I ended up having to slice the eye socket to make it fit. Of course, I'm not a seamstress here. So, I just cut it to make it fit. But that seemed to work a little bit better. So, I did not see anywhere where it told me a size. So, if you're going to be buying something like this and you have a bigger face like me, you just might want to be a little bit more aware of that issue. One thing I am, I'm starting, I haven't started it yet. Way back when, glitzy foot Ritzy Mary, and I'll link her channel. Now, I was just admiring her skin. She has probably got the most beautiful, naturally almost flawless looking skin that I've ever seen. Yes, I've only seen her over a camera, but I have seen her on her Insta stories and Instagram. I've seen her when she's not had a lot of makeup on at all. And I think her skin is flawless. And one of the things that she has talked about for a long time, and I'm not talking different products, but I'm talking about her microderm system that she's been using has been the Trophy Skin. So, I looked, when she first started talking about, when I first thought it, noticed that she was talking about this, I did look it up and I went, holy mackerel, that's an awful lot of money. And I'm like, you know, I fall for gimmicks sometimes. So, I'm like, I'm not jumping. I'm not going to be influenced. I'm not going to be nothing. So, I didn't do much of anything, but I kept, you know, reading a little bit more about it. And I thought, wow, this is just really awesome. I really want it. I had it in my cart for a while. And then one day, I got a Facebook message from Marge. She does have a channel, I think, on Instagram, but I'll link her information. And she told me that QVC had the big microderm MD from Trophy Skin on sale. And that, you know, you could obviously also do the payment plan. And I was so intrigued. I went right over, went right over to Mary's channel to see if she had a link, a magic link. And anyways, I ended up going to the QVC and I bought it. I haven't used it yet. But I don't think I have been more excited about using something like this to exfoliate my skin, to help exfoliate my skin. And I don't expect it to turn the clock back. And I don't expect to wake up with skin like Mary at all. But I just, I'm always looking for something to do with deeper exfoliation. So I'm planning on doing that maybe once a week to start with, you know, and see how it goes. But I'm super, super excited about that. I just got it yesterday. And I'm like, yes, yes, yes, yes. So anyways, I'm going to be, I'll definitely let you know how I like that. A couple of you have asked about the blingy thingies, the combs, and the wet knots that I bought for the wedding. Those of you that saw her in the wedding, you know that I bought some items to put my hair up in. Some of them, I do have to tell you these things are very, if you have fine hair, as beautiful as this is. And it really is pretty. But if you have fine hair, these are harder. The small one isn't as bad, but these are heavy. So you need to make sure that you grab your hair exactly where you want this, because they tend to slide out of fine hair. Of course, if you texturize your hair, you'll be okay. This clip, I got, I clipped my hair up and it worked out just fine. Again, this is on the heavy side though. So when I clipped my hair up, because I was going to the wedding, I had, in one of them anyways, I have my fake little bun in, which I have now. I just put my hair up because it's kind of a messy Sunday for me. But, and I have another clip. So I'm going to just turn around, but no way do I want you to think that I would do it. I would style my hair a little bit better. I just kind of threw it up. I put a fake one thing on there and I've been putzing around. And then I took one of the clips and I just clipped it in the back so you could see. So if I were to really go out with this, I'd fix my hair up a little bit better here, but can you see the, and this is what I really, really liked about these clips. I really like that they add a little bit of a dimension as far as contrast, color, whatever to your hair. So I'm going to do this one. So basically you just put it wherever you want, obviously. And I don't know, you know, I have no idea what it looks like. But what, it just, to me, it worked out really well for my hair. I have the thin hair with adding a fake piece onto it. It did give me a little bit more texture. But more importantly, it made me feel really good. It made me feel nice. And then these combs, I didn't, I didn't, uh, I wouldn't, you know, obviously wear both. But this one I just played around with, I didn't actually wear it at the wedding. It's probably more of a bridal. But I think if you're going for a dressy thing, I think it'll go, it could be really nice. So anyways, oh, one more thing. Yeah, so one more thing. I, um, had gone shopping yesterday and I went into Maurice. I don't know if you have that store online or not, but, or in your area. I didn't get anything, but I saw a number of talks. I really liked, but I ended up getting some new booties and I really like these. So this has got a little zipper in the back. But more importantly for me, it's got a very cushiony, cushiony, um, insole there because standalone, I stand a lot. And when you stand a lot, the more comfortable they are to stand on and walk around the better. So I got two pairs, the different styles and these I kind of really, I can't, they're kind of like suede. I think these are like Dr. Schultz. So all of these, these shoes I got a famous footwear and I also got a pair of scurries. Let me show them to you. Now the scurries, I mean, or sneaks or whatever you might want to call them, sparrows, these are, these are so comfortable and they're just slip-ons. I mean, I love these. So I, I did all this and I did find some tops that I really, I really liked that I'm going to check online to see if Maurice has them or if I'm going to go back next week and see if they have them on sale because the ones that I like were not on sale, but they were oversized tops. So I could wear them with leggings. I am going to a convention and when you go to a convention, this one's in Boston. It's just for a weekend, but I, I needed new footwear and it'd be kind of cool to have, you know, a couple of new tops. So I don't know, do you call this a haul? I don't, I suppose I could. Maybe diet update haul, bling, how it worked out for my hair, the trophy skin. I cannot, I'm going to use it tonight. I'm going to read all the directions and I'm going to use it tonight. It cannot wait. I really, really am looking forward to the trophy skin and as far as my diet, I feel excellent guys and my blood work just totally blew my doctor away and she just was like, wow. And then when I told her what I had, how I shifted my diet program and what I was doing, she actually said, you know, she knows a number of people who follow an isogenic plan and she goes the ingredients are really, really good. She says, you're doing great. Keep it up. So that's the plan. I'm going to keep it up and hopefully I can get to maintenance before my face meets my butt completely because, you know, it's going to happen. But if I can get to maintenance, I want, I probably would like to ideally lose because I never got down to goal and I probably never will get down to goal. But ideally, I think I'd like to lose 10 pounds more, but we'll see. I don't want to lose the 10 pounds and look 10 years older. So we'll see. I'm going to monitor that. And if I have to stay, say, if I want to maintain this, this weight, then I'm just going to drop to one meal replacement and all of that. And all of this, by the way, is without doing any kind of an exercise and I'm not selling this. I'm not preaching it. I'm just explaining to you because so many of you have asked, especially after the video I did on the diet update, so many of you asked about it. So yeah, you know, it's what I'm doing. It's working well for me. And yeah, if you, yeah, I'll link, I'll link some information below for anyone who's interested. As I start to incorporate more weightlifting right now, I'm not, I'm just doing some slight weights, but I want to incorporate some serious weightlifting. And as I incorporate, maybe I don't think I'll make it my schedule and let me go back to a gym, but I do walk a lot. I do stand at work. But as I maybe in the situation where I'm going to get on my elliptical in the morning thing is sitting there unused, you know, maybe then I will increase my caloric intake. But, you know, right now I'm pretty happy where I'm at. And I don't know if I mentioned this, but because a lot of people do ask, what are my calories? Roughly, you know, and again, it really all depends. But I am anywhere between 14 and 1600 calories a day with my two meal replacements, my two daily snacks that I have. And then at night, I have a regular fork and knife meal. Now, when I say a regular fork and knife meal, for me, that's a low carb, because that's how we eat. So I might like last night, for example, we had a ton of cauliflower with a little bit of Parmesan cheese and we had some chicken. So oftentimes, you know, we have fish and a vegetable. We eat a lot of vegetables and every now and then sweet potatoes. If I'm going out to dinner, my fork and knife meal, I just might totally blow caution to the wind and I might order fried onion rings. I try to eat clean, but I don't deny myself something I really want, because this is a lifestyle for me. I think that the easiest way to lose motivation is a surround yourself with negative people, obviously, but be always denying yourself. If you deny yourself, deny yourself, it's going to make you want that more and more and more. So I don't look as a cheat, necessarily as a cheat. I might say a cheat, but it's more of a treat. So yeah, I'm not going to deny myself those treats when I really want them, but I am going to compensate for them. So if I'm going out to dinner tonight and I know Jay and I are going to a restaurant that has fried foods and I know they have the most amazing onion rings, I'm going to make sure that maybe I'm more active. I drink more water, increase my water intake and that'll help flush out. I know this is an awful long video. What is it? Oh my gosh. Oh, over 20 minutes and I hate going that long guys because I know your time is valuable and you know, and sometimes I think videos can be boring if they're real long. Anyways, sorry. That's it guys. See you later guys. Thanks so much. Bye bye.