I hit a pretty strong weight loss plateau at about 40 pounds after my first cleanse.   A lot of it had to do with the fact that I was unwilling to make some structural changes in my life, including leaving behind the alcohol habit of weekend drinking. Over the years, I have found that drinking alcohol is just incompatable with losing weight. The liver can only do so much, and if it is busy metabolizing alcohol it can’t burn fat.  In my experience, even one drink causes a disruption in weight loss momentum for about a week.

In the last few months I have also been doing excess carbs, and basically gone back to my (abusive) old eating habits.  I let a 2-3 week carb “reset” turn into a four month reemergence of old habits.  One day I ate a whole box of cereal. I ate an entire lasgana over a two day period. I ate a 4.4 pound bag of M&M’s in less than a week. Ugh…. The weight is coming back, and as of this date I am back to 325 pounds. I have regained most of the weight I lost in my original cleanse.  In hindsight, one hting I noticed is that when I was actively doing the Isagenix system, it has indeed changed my body so that I could eat most of this junk and stil not really gain weight.  But when I compeletely cut out the shakes and other supplements, a few weeks later the weight piled on really fast. So what I have learned is that a little cheating is okay, a lot is NOT.

My plan is to try to be disciplined and serious starting January 2nd.  I am hoping for a three month alcohol-free period, but that will be really difficult for me. I am really gonna miss drinking wine with dinner. The New Year is a good time to insititute new changes, so we shall see. Stay tuned here for results.