Weight Loss Helps Lighten Your Heart’s Heavy Load

Your heart works hard. Really hard. It’s pumping away, keeping you alive and well. But are you working hard for your heart?

If you’re participating in USANA’s RESET™ Challenge: Destination Transformation, you can answer with a resounding yes. Your effort—even if you started out to just to lose weight, look good, and win amazing prizes—is definitely helping your heart out. Because the more weight you carry, the harder your heart needs to work.

According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), being overweight or obese increases your risk for suffering from heart disease. If you have a body mass index of 25 or higher and a waist circumference measurement of greater than 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men, the NHLBI says you need to lose weight. Plain and simple.

The good news is that weight loss of just five to 10 percent of your current weight over a six-month period will lower your risk of developing weight-related diseases. It’s a realistic, achievable goal. And the RESET Challenge is a great way to lose that weight, and begin a transformation that will do wonders for your heart.

Losing weight is hard work, but simple math. You need to use more energy than you take in. That means eating a healthy, well-balanced, nutrient-rich diet and incorporating regular physical activity. The NHLBI suggests an emphasis on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and fat-free or low-fat dairy products. The institute also mentions controlling portion sizes, minimizing saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, sodium, and added sugars.

Luckily, USANA has products that make it easy for you to eat right, control portions, and get the nutrients your body—and especially your heart—needs to keep you healthy and happy. 


To learn more about how these products can help you give your heart a helping hand, check out this video featuring Dr. Brian Dixon, USANA’s executive director of scientific and clinical affairs.

Isn’t it time everyone lightened his or her heart’s load a little? Committing to the RESET Challenge is a great first step. If you haven’t done it already, opt-in now! There’s still time to win great prizes and get a big high five from you heart in the process.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

USANA Associate Shares Message of Hope After Losing 320 Pounds

he following is a guest post written by Hattie Montgomery, a USANA Associate who has lost 320 pounds through diet, exercise and a lot of hard work. She recounts her weight loss journey below. 
 

Hattie Montgomery in 2008.

Imagine being 530 pounds. You know your life is slowly slipping away, and you’ve allowed that to happen because of all the pain you endured. But there’s this yearning inside you to live, to save your life. Where do you go? What do you do?

That was me three years ago.

Faced with an enormous task, I found myself wondering where to even begin. The first year, I practiced a calorie-restricted diet of lean proteins, fruits and vegetables, eliminating all refined carbs and sugars from my diet. The only exercise I could do was a bit of walking. It was slow and painful, but the more I tried to do it, the further I could go. After that first year I had lost 180 pounds and knew my life-altering journey was really happening.*

I’ve always been the person who researches and tries things out. I began exploring protein shakes and protein bars to add to my diet plan. I tried so many, I lost track, but they all gave me the spike then crash reaction.

That’s when my life and journey took a turn. I was plateauing with my weight loss. I knew I had to revamp my diet and expand my exercise, but again, I was left with the questions of what do I do. Then I met Matt Ryan and was introduced to USANA. I tried the RESET program and lost 8 pounds, jumpstarting my weight loss again. As I used the USANA program, I was ecstatic to finally find products that left me feeling energized and didn’t leave me needing a nap two hours later from the terrible crash.*

Hattie works out at the gym.

I began practicing the transform phase and was amazed at how easy the program was to follow. One thing that I found myself struggling with was planning my days and meals.  There is such an emotional connection to food, so when I have a plan laid out for me that’s quick and easy to follow, it makes my life so much easier.  I believe in this program so much because of the quality of products, but also because it’s the first time that I haven’t been stressed or worried about what to eat. I have been following the USANA Transform program now for two years, along with the daily MyHealthPak™ vitamins, and would never go back to any other plan.

I also ventured out and tried adding more activity into my routine. After Year 1, I could move, and so I decided I would try to take up tennis, practice yoga and even try jogging. I joined the gym and started working out with my personal trainer, Ray. Each week I do three days of resistance training and three days of cardio. I also spend time outside walking each day with my dog, Bear. In February, I competed in my gym’s indoor triathlon; I cried at the end because I just couldn’t believe how three short years ago I could hardly walk and now I was becoming the athlete I always dreamed of being.

By following the USANA program and adding more exercise to my plan, I lost an additional 140 pounds in two years.**

Hattie after losing 320 pounds.

Imagine being 530 pounds and giving up on your life. Suddenly your life is blessed with an amazing company that believes in your success and happiness so much that they put out the best quality product and then take an active interest in your life. All of the pieces finally came together for me — the right eating program and supplements, the right exercise program, and an amazing group of people who love and support me unconditionally.

In three years I’ve lost 320 pounds. Yes, my life is forever changed, and I’m so grateful to have this amazing second chance to tell my story and spread the message of hope. It’s never too late, and USANA will be with you every step of the way.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

 

**Individual results may vary. RESET weight-management system lowers your daily caloric intake and recommends moderate exercise for best results. Average results are 4.5 lbs. in five days.

USANA RESET: Cody Blair 140 Pounds Later

Every year my family and friends "reset" our bodies after eating a "ridunculous" amount of food for Thanksgiving and Christmas! It's always great news to hear someone else getting great results. Congrats Cody!

Cody Blair still gets called names.

Whether those names are better is debatable, but the names certainly are different. They come from a different place, for a different reason.

“Now they call me anorexic,” the 22-year-old from Las Cruces, New Mexico said.

And those people are joking, of course. It wasn’t an eating disorder that transformed the Cody Blair of 2008 into the Cody Blair of today — healthy, fit, and missing 140 pounds.* It was a change in lifestyle and an introduction to USANA’s Nutrimeal™ shakes — and later, the rest of the RESET program—that has people commenting on his new, slimmer, healthier physique.

The names Cody used to be called were very different. He remembered going to Pennsylvania for college and hearing insults about his weight hurled at him on a consistent basis. These insults cut deep, diving Cody into depression. For a month, he stopped eating regularly. 

Then his mom introduced him to USANA’s shakes. The selling point for Cody was the way the shakes made him feel fuller for longer. He started having a shake at noon and another before 7 p.m. This allowed him to start losing some weight. Pretty soon he was giving up junk food and parking further away from his destination so he could get exercise walking to and from his car. Other people started noticing the results.

“I didn’t know it until I got home from Pennsylvania, but my clothes didn’t fit,” Cody said. “My mom said, ‘Your pants are too loose.’”

The weight loss has continued for Cody. Just this summer he won a RESET contest for those in his mom’s USANA organization. His final total after those two months: 43 pounds. For this impressive accomplishment, he won $500 — most of which has gone toward buying new clothes that actually fit.

“It’s an awesome feeling, except it’s expensive,” he said.

Money and a new wardrobe aren’t the only reward Cody’s weight loss has earned him.

“To be able to be told by people that you are their inspiration, to help somebody is a bigger benefit,” he said. “I know that when I got my smile and pride back, it made the world seem so brand new, one day I hope to help as many people as I can, so that they can feel what I feel.”

During this year’s International Convention, Cody spent a lot his time in the store staring at the wall of the USANA Foods display — the wall adorned with his picture. He started getting recognized.

“People were happy to see a real person,” he said. “Someone that’s not on TV, that’s not Photo-shopped or anything.” To help other people realize that weight loss is possible for normal people, Cody said he’s thinking about starting a blog.

For now, he is planning on starting a workout regimen so he can start building some more muscle.

“I want them to call me muscle head,” Cody said. It seems like that’s a name he could live with.

by David Baker

For more information about USANA products, please visit http://www.yourhealth2b.usana.com/.

*Results not typical. The typical weight loss is 4.5 pounds in 5 days.