I Am Janessa

I have a confession. I’ve been signed to Team Works (my official competition prep team) for a month but April was way too hectic to get it together.

I shaped up 50%, the last two weeks to find some gains for check in. I gain muscle in my biceps/triceps/back. All that with two weeks of mediocre work and an absentee of craft beer and sauvignon blanc.

If I told you that personal wasnt draining it is. I absorb all my clients fears and anxiety in exchange for strategic planning and measured success. I love when they “get it” and my methods to their madness. But at the end of the day, holy hell- its draining. I would find myself ecstatic and exhausted all at once.

But 2013 is about me right? Be a lil selfish Janessa. Get the body You want & Deserve, in spite of it all.

I digress.

Lauren is my coach. I dig her because she’s real. She’s a trainer and competitor and a dog mom, just like me. So she knew I was fooling myself when I unrobed one month after starring and wasn’t up to par.

” you gained weight, Janessa?” I know.
” your upper body came throught but how about you waistline” I can still taste the beer on my tongue from four days ago.
“Are you training legs?” Girl, I am on my feet for 12+ hours a day, how can I?

One look. I knew what it meant. I give my clients the same look.

Sorry Lauren. I will take this serious. Give me two weeks to prove I won’t waste your time.

There I admitted it. I’m just like you. I make excuses too. But I’m blogging about it.

Yup, I said it. I will be recalibrating (bka cleansing) for 30 days straight. It sounds so anti-Janessa but trust me it’s not exactly what you think.

My biggest dilemma with the mass-produced juice and green smoothie craze is that too often the juices lack sustenance. Every client I ever had (and I had many) who tried juice fasting or green juicing had one of two things happen: 1) decreased energy capacity and 2) lean tissue loss.

Let me explain briefly scientific. Sure you will feel rejuvenated from giving your liver a break for 24-48+ hours, it’s been overworked for god knows how many years. Coffee, Alcohol and Fatty foods is all it’s accustomed to, right? Wrong, it’s also been dealing with microbes, pollutants, toxins and parasites. So yes you gave it break but did you really help in its regeneration? Probably not! That’s like soaking in the sun without your SPF. That’s right, extra crispy anybody? Nah, not cute. 

Lean tissue loss is always a probability when you decrease calories to an unsustainable level and the body requires to destroy some lean tissue to remix it into energy. Talk about Chopped & Screwed, huh? That energy fuels your body on your juice cleanse (bka liquid colored water with a dash of fruits and vegetables) and the process of gluconeogenesis (muscle catabolism to the fullest) is tiresome on the body, because, darn it, it’s just not supposed to work that way. The body knows it shouldn’t be happening to this extreme degree but heck it’s gotta live right? {cue in “Can I Live?”}

So I did some homework. On a journey for answers. How can I recalibrate without rendering my decision useless to my weight-loss goals, performance goals and not compromise my ideals.

I watched every docu-movie under the sun: Fat Sick Nearly Dead, Forks over Knives, Food Inc, you name it - I dun seen’t it. Spending an hour trekking to a farmer’s market and purchasing an additional 300 bucks on groceries, to wake up early enough to juice at the shrieking sound of my BlendTec at 4 am, annoying my neighbors, designing fancy ways to make vegetables and fruits sexy enough to consume, and then cleaning up my cutting boards, knives, blender and kitchen before I endure 7-10 hours of work - is not my idea of living healthy, mentally or financially. 

I’m a chic who needs her sleep. If I wake up with the slightest bit of discomfort or unease, my early morning clients pay for it. They pay me more than enough to make sure that doesn’t happen. SO THAT IS CLEARLY NOT AN OPTION!

I used to love Shakeology but honestly, it didn’t cover the other important aspects of my health - like sleep, recovery, energy vs stress, and most important antioxidants. So I passed on that. 

But I did find Isagenix. I’m not going to bore you with the stats or the reasons why it’s great or the reasons why you should be on it too, or sell you a dream or tell you that its a miracle pill, potion, or powder. Because it’s not! 

It’s a Catalyst: Chemistry. a substance that causes or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected.

“When you feed your body right with exactly what it needs, it will become the miracle it’s designed to be”

So instead of looking elsewhere for a magic solution, I’m going to be the magic I was destined to be by assisting my body’s internal mechanic and fix the health issues I have under my hood to improve my performance.  

That’s why I’m on a 30 day cleanse. 

Look, I’m not overweight. I’m sitting nicely at 128 lbs, 34-27-28. But I’m a workaholic who trains 10 - 12 times a week. I swim 3 times a week, box twice, Muay Thai twice, lift three days with an occasional run or spin between clients. I take my physical activity seriously - it keeps me young.

But everyone needs a little fine-tuning sometimes, even the so-called experts.