The word “diet” cannot be uttered anymore without at least several qualifiers. Sometimes, a diet just means this is what a person eats all the time, like a vegan diet or a carnivore diet. But, most of the time, hearing “diet” means restrictive food intake of some kind.
Many of these have self-explanatory names, like a calorie deficit diet or a low-fat diet. You know what those mean, you either cut calories from your meals, or you avoid foods that contain a lot of fat.
And then some companies offer their own brand of weight loss programs. The idea behind this is that the company has done extensive research and come up with an optimal diet that will get you to lose weight successfully, and most likely with a good amount of social proof, like those before and after photos that none of us could resist checking out.
What Is Isagenix
One such company is Isagenix. Founded in 2002, it is an international multi-level marketing (MLM) company. This means that their customers are paid to sell their products. And when you become a distributor, you can recruit more salespeople under you for commissions, as well as selling directly. But, does the Isagenix diet work?
The Isagenix 30-Day System
This is the company’s most popular product. It is a cleansing and fat-burning program and advertised as a great starting point to weight loss. Moreover, it is supposedly sustainable and beneficial for long-term use.
The Isagenix Diet consists of meal-replacement shakes and fasting. They ask you to replace 2 meals per day with pre-packaged shakes that come in different flavors. You’d combine that with one meal that offers high nutritional density at a caloric content of 400-600kcal. These are called Shake days. Cleanse days, or fasting days, are suggested at up to two per week. While fasting, you’d also use the company’s Cleanse for Life drink, which supports detoxification of the body.
The company claims that within the first week of the 30-day program, your body is preparing for the weight loss transformation that is too follow. It provides your body with all the nutrients you need that will allow your body to lose weight efficiently.
If you do everything you’re supposed to, results should follow, or at least that’s the plan. This means not only weight loss but also repressing your cravings for unhealthy foods, in addition to muscle tone improvement.
The Benefits of the Isagenix Diet
Limited Calories
This form of weight loss does well with portion control. You always know exactly what is on the menu. You have only one regular meal to prepare, and Isagenix offers a lot of ideas for recipes on their website.
Many Supplements
Isagenix really does give you everything that’s ready to use, including the supplements. Your daily portion is pre-packaged and contains a blend of herbs and vitamins. These will help you boost your metabolism and promote fat burning.
Time-Saving
It might sound like a cliché, but time is a currency in the 21st century. None of us are too thrilled about prepping our own meals for the week or cruising around grocery store aisles. Sure, cooking can be fun, but figuring out what you want to do for 3 meals every day can be frustrating. There really is a convenience to having 14 weight-loss-promoting meals per week delivered to you.
The Downside of the Isagenix Diet
The Price
The price of the Isagenix 30-day System is currently listed on the company’s website at $378.49. And considering that this is only for one person, a family of 3 who wants to sample the 30-day System may quickly call into question the affordability of this program. Plus, there are people who can’t shake the sneaky feeling that MLM products are overpriced. After all, so many people in the scheme get a cut, as compared to only a couple when you buy at a store.
Not FDA Approved
Isagenix has conducted their own studies, and they guarantee the quality and health benefits of their products. Like any non-independent studies, you may find them biased and overpromising. Also, the diet is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – but then, most fad diets aren’t, so this may not be a big deal for you.
Too Restrictive
There is the question of how the Isagenix Diet can be sustainable in the long term. Even if their shakes and snacks are every bit as nutritional and tasty as they claim, how does drinking your meal twice a day turn into a lifetime practice? The answer is – it probably doesn’t. Eventually, both our bodies and our minds will rebel against such a system.
Not Real Food
Isagenix products are not real food. They are highly processed and contain sugar and additives. It doesn’t seem prudent to replace two-thirds of your meals with processed food.
Does It Work?
Does the Isagenix diet work? It depends on what your goal is. It’s important to understand that any caloric deficit, even for 30 days, will help you lose weight. You don’t actually need any products to do that. Yes, it will take the load off worrying about what to eat all the time, but it might also become a tedious thing pretty quickly.
Isagenix markets its products as offering something more than weight loss – a rejuvenation and detox of the body. But, it’s good to be careful about that as well. Our body detoxifies itself all the time. We have our livers for that. It is a dubious trick to make us feel like we always need more cleansing.
And even if that is what you feel like you need, there are perhaps more organic ways to go about it. The Isagenix Diet will not help you to learn about proper nutrition and healthy eating habits. The only way for your weight loss to be a long-term success is to turn to real food and see what changes you can make. That will make your journey more sustainable.
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3610947/
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/isagenix-study-is-not-convincing/
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