About

I’m just a guy with an everyday schedule like the rest of you – but possibly a little more complicated as well. I’ve got a family of going on 5 kids. I’m going to graduate school. I’m running a business and I’m actively involved as a leader in my church. Believe me I understand time pressure and stress.

I was an athlete in High School, among other things, and was in great shape until about half way through college. My wife (Janille) and I, developed some very bad eating habits, and got ourselves into a lot of trouble financially, so the stress levels were out of control, and when you add to that our bad eating habits, and lack of exercise you get a disaster.

I call it the First Law of Eating Dynamics.

As stress and bad eating habits increase exercise will decrease and weight gain will ensue.

I’m living proof of this. In our first 2 years of marriage I went from being about 160 lbs, and very lean, to over 200 lbs. I would sporadicly exercise, but I could not sustain anything because of are bad living habits. Which then leads to the First Law of Exercise Dynamics

Sporadic exercise will inevitably lead to increased injuries and result in a constant decrease in overall activity. Which increases stress levels and without adjustment, will inevitable lead to weight gain.

I started to exercise on occasion but on day playing soccer I twisted my back so badly that I could barely walk. It took almost an hour to make it back to my car. I was literally crawling by the time I got there. I could not sit in the car. I could not drive. I was honestly scared I had permanently damaged myself.

Of course this added to the stress and comfort eating process and so I gained ever more weight. At This time I topped out around 250 lbs.

I then found a work out partner who was great. We both really pushed ourselves. I got into power lifting with him and we dropped our weight considerably. I got down to under 220, but it was a leaner 220 than you might suppose. I was not skinny, but I was fitting into pants that I was not able to wear even at 200 lbs before. Generally I was pleased with myself and only had about 20 lbs to go to get where I wanted to be.

But then it happened. A killer one-two punch. I was doing a really heavy squat (permit me to brag here a minute) called a breathing squat. It is just 1 set of 20 reps. We were pushing almost 400lbs! I’m honestly still proud of myself that I could do that:) Anyway, I got under the weight and was only able to get out 10 that day. I do not know what was the problem, but I just could not stay focused and by 10 I was exhausted. I had just read a story in Arnold Schwarzenegger body building book about attitude effecting ability so I decided to regroup my thought and finish it.

So I got back under the weight and started counting off the reps. At number 18 I felt the back of my head explode. I knew I was in trouble. But I wanted to finish 20 so badly that I did that last two reps, somehow, racked the weight and then collapsed.

I had an exercised induced burst blood vessel in the back of my head. The doctor said it was like a burst aneurysm of a capillary instead of a major artery. So I wasn’t dead. But I hurt A LOT. I was not able to workout for months. Now the stress levels went up, and my eating habits went down and back up went the weight.

Adding to this my workout partner moved. So now, I had no one to even help push me. Then my third child died (Emmaline) at birth and I cannot even begin to describe the effect that had on our lives. No parent should ever have to lose a child. It is the most heart wrenching thing I can imagine going through. NY city Mayor Michael Bloomberg was quoted as saying, “We call a spouse who loses their partner a widow or widower. We call a child who loses a parent an orphan. But there is no word for a parent who loses a child for there is nothing that can describe the grief”.

Believe me I know a little about depression. We went through all the right motions, but there was no meaning behind it.

I think my wife and I suffered in a state of depression for about 3 years and it has only been in the last 2 years that we’ve started to come out of the fog and in the last year where we’ve started to feel human again. I wish that I had gone to a doctor about it. Both of us were so far gone, in a sense, that it just seemed normal. There wasn’t anyone to tell us we needed help. We just had each other and we tried to hang on.

Now, this is a simplified version, there were lots of ups and downs in this story. There were several workout partners. Several weeks and even months of progresses. And I have admittedly condensed all of that down to just a few points here. Please forgive that liberty.The bottom line is that by the time this cycle had ended I was up to 275 lbs and about 45% body fat by my scale.

That is when I think that I finally hit the bottom and decided enough was enough and I needed to start again. That was March 2008. It took a while to get off the ground. I had some business trips and sporadic progress was not great, but I was moving forward. I had a friend that I challenged to a weight loss competition and that was the start of this current journey.

I had done contests like these numerous times in the past and I had never lost. I’m extremely dedicated and in the short term like these contests 4-6 weeks at the most generally I can make some huge progress. Well, this time I lost. I could not believe it! I wasn’t as good as I could have been, but he beat me without a problem. So when he mentioned that he was “cheating” and using a product called Isagenix I was mentally ready to listen.

I work with network marketers all day. My business provides recruiting tools for many companies and all of them have given us products. And I have run in a competition with most of the from time to time, but none of them gave their bearer an advantage over the simple formula of eat less, exercise more. Until Randy and the Isagenix products. If he had not beaten me I would have seen it as just another product that might do some good, but probably not.

But still being the skeptic and a researcher by training and profession I wanted to make sure that I knew for myself that it was going to work for me. So  tested it every way I knew how. I did regular diets, I substituted products, held certain variables constant in the test and measured my results day week after week for almost 3 months now. And the end result is that I lose more weight with Isagenix, I feel stronger and more energetic and am convinced that the products just flat out work. And others started to notice and ask how I was doing it – and I did not have to promote a thing. Just stand as a personal witness as it were.

So that is where I am today. I am a husband, a father, a student, a teacher, a businessman, clergy. I am less of a man than I was before – in weight, and more of a man in stamina and life. I am avid supporter of Isagenix.

I’m going to share more of the results in the blog posts every day and make sure that everything I can possibly test gets a thurough vetting.

Here is to all of our success! cheers!

Matt Stearmer