As most of you know, I went to an Isagenix convention last week, after going on their 30 Day Cleansing and Fat Burning System. Crazy I know, to go to a conference for a product that I had just been introduced to but the more I researched the product and the better I felt, the more I felt compelled to see for myself  the legitimacy of the company and to learn about the people who stood behind it.

It was a tough evening the night before I left having just returned from the BlogHer Conference and as I lay at the bottom of the lanky boy love heap that was piled on top of me I wondered, “So why the hell am I going to an Isagenix convention?”

I woke up at 4:00a.m. to drive to Vail only to discover that my iPhone had vanished. Now what was I going to do? I was attending a conference of 5,000 plus attendees and my only contact, Ellen who was a celebrity within the Isagenix community, would be unattainable without text messaging.  “I can’t find my cell phone, I don’t think I should go,” I whispered to Wade as he lay dead to the world in bed. “Do what you need to do,” he sleepily replied. My signals were getting all mixed up and I sat in bed with my eyes closed trying to make some sense out of it all. When I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere I forged forward and jumped into my car with the stars twinkling overhead.  “This better be good,” I said out loud as I headed for the airport.

I went directly from the plane to the convention center and got in line to wait for the main doors to open. I had been forewarned about the Isagenix fever but it didn’t make it any easier when the crowd, eating IsaLean Bars and drinking the IsaLean Shakes, shoved me forward into the conference hall that was pulsating with loud music and flashing lights.

At any given moment I was either “ahhhhing” from the incredible energy and information I was receiving or “ooooing” from the overplayed hype, laden with standing ovations and stage induced actions toward self empowerment. They pulled me in and pushed me away and I was a mixed bag of emotions, torn between loving the incredible energy and the desire to withdraw from the idolizing crowd. Things began to change as I met the people whose stories I had been listening to from home and I saw for myself the wellness aspect of the products. The stories began to become real for me, where before they had seemed contrived. The emotion emanating from the stage became deeply moving and the stories magnificent.

I found Ellen and her husband Paul and they were a beautiful couple radiating warmth and compassion for everybody around them and that passion never waned throughout the entire week as they intently listened to everybody’s story, shushing everybody else into listening as well. And then I met David, who had lost 100 pounds through Isagenix. David  put authentication behind the emotion revealing to me the true heart of the company. He told me, and one of my roomies Jen, his story of how he had been in bed for two years after a head injury and how Isagenix had given him a new license on life and what I began to understand was how Direct Sales Marketing in this line of business works. Isagenix claims to have the best compensation plan in the world, has been around for eight years and is having their best year yet with an average of 600 new members a day and that is all attributed to the people who have experienced the product, found a path toward wellness and nutrition and have felt the need to share their stories and help others to achieve the same success.

But we must do our research mustn’t we, before we take the plunge, and if learning more about health and nutrition is of any interest to you I encourage you to do so. I did my best to load up on the information that was being offered  to me from the Doctors, Nutritionists and Scientists that were speaking and now that I am home I am researching further into how the nutrients; the plants, trace minerals and enzymes, have all been extracted and from where and as I research I am appalled at how little I know about my body and nutrition.

If you are like me and wanting to find more information about our food, our water and our environment, a good place to begin with your research is to visit Erasing the Bored, a blog written by my friend SuZen who is not in any way related to Isagenix but has made it her mission to inform us of what is going on with our water, our food and our environment, “We should NOT be a sick country but we are being poisoned by so much stuff everywhere you turn that it is more critical now than ever before in history to get SMART about the choices we make and STOP being so passive about what we are being exposed to.  STOP having trust in the FDA, USDA and stop believing the crap on TV ads.” The information is there, we just need to be better informed.

So, the answer is yes, I believe in the company. Aside from the weight loss that is staying off, I definitely have more energy, my nails are not breaking and are actually growing and my skin feels more lustrous. I also have noticed a significant improvement in my mental well being and most importantly, I am hoping that my body is becoming more alkaline.

For all of you who really are completely bored by all of this, please be rest assured that my site is not changing to a wellness site but I felt the need to give you a thorough follow up of what I have learned. For those of you wanting more information, please feel free to email me.

Celebrating life, after hearing David’s story, with my roommate Jen.

Ya know sometimes how you wake up from a dream in the middle of the night, only you’re somewhere floating in between the dream and reality? That’s how I have been feeling ever since I returned home from the BlogHer conference.

Trying to get my business organized so that my plane can gather speed on the runway, trying to appreciate and love every minute of these last days of summer with my boys…and all of their friends, trying to let Wade know how much I love and appreciate him all the while trying to deal with the noise, the neurotically besotted puppy, the mess, the lack of space.

It’s been tough, connecting fleetingly, and I miss that time when I was completely connected, overly connected, so much so that I felt that Wade didn’t love me anymore. I felt that I was blending into the wallpaper, if we had any. Doing Luvvie’s “Wallslide” every day. Of course, he always thought I was nuts. “I’m always right here,” he repeatedly told me.

So much going on, so exciting but can I hold on? Persevere. Stay true to my goal and my devotion to my family?

Tomorrow I’m off to another conference. My friends who are taking care of our children, so that Wade won’t be even more overwhelmed as he works his cute little bottom off, don’t even ask me what the hell I’m doing but I tell them because I want them to understand, and you as well.

I’m going to the “Believe and Achieve” Isaconvention in San Diego because Ellen invited me to go and  I’m going to trust my instincts that this is something I should do. Why, you may ask? Because I feel good, really good. In fact, I feel better than I have felt in a long, long time. And if I’m going to spread the word, I need to be completely convinced that the word that I am spreading is legit and good and as nutritionally incredible as I think it is .

I want to talk to all the other professionals who also believe in it, the nutritionists, the doctors with Harvard grad degrees, and get their take on it.

I want to see if for myself and mingle with the approximately 8,000 other people who all are feeling as good as I am. I need to see for myself that it is truly network marketing at its finest and not a ponzi scheme or a pyramid or anything sketchy. And I want to tell you all about it.

Let’s just hope I can stay off the dance floor this time.

**As an addendum, I just have to say the BIGGEST thank you to my good friend and new agent, Dede Brinkman, who is challenging me once again to reach greater heights. Dede, thank you for believing in me.

I found this post that I had written about an early morning solo exploration I had taken when I was on a girl’s surf trip in Sayulita, Mexico. I was in search of a yoga class that was being held in a local couple’s home. She was from Cuba and he from Mexico and they were holding their yoga classes on the roof of their palapa. The price of the class was by donation only so that the locals could afford to attend:

BEGIN: Early one Sunday morning in Sayulita, Mexico I walked out my door in search of a local yoga class. As I left the tourist part of town and walked through the narrow streets of the back neighborhood, I absorbed the sounds of roosters crowing, dishes clanking and beautiful music, foreign to my ears,  pouring out of the open windows where colorful pieces of cloth flowed  in the warm, tropical breeze. I inhaled the breakfast smells of bacon and eggs frying, knowing that the food came from their backyard and that the pig was most likely butchered amongst the Bougainvillea and jasmine.

I restrained myself from knocking on any door to ask, in my broken Spanish, if I could perhaps just sit quietly and watch the family enjoy their day of peace and holiness.

I never did knock and I missed the class but isn’t travel all about the journey and not the destination? END

That is what traveling is for most of us. The exposure to other people and cultures and the excitement and adventure of  digging deep, reaching the heart of the town, meeting the locals, finding new lands or streets or food or crafts.

So why didn’t I dig deep while in New York City at the BlogHer conference? Why did I fly all the way there to meet other bloggers and make connections and then forget my mission as soon as the music began? Why did I escape to the Wii dance stage every chance I got to bust a move to their Just Dance 2 program? 
Why did I spend so much time alone? Why? Why?What is wrong with me? How can I be so motivated one minute and sabotage my efforts the next. And now? I am making up for it by reading every post on BlogHer and connecting with these people from my desk, online instead of offline, and I am finding incredible people that I know I would have loved immediately.  I just didn’t find them when I was there, but clearly they found each other and the small few that I did connect with, why didn’t I open up to them and say, hey, I’m all alone, could I join you? It brings back horrible memories of my clamming up in college and never finding my niche, for four years.

I guess I really am a one on one type of girl, as is revealed in my interview with Reda from North Africa. We met Reda when we got in his cab in Boston, and he allowed me to capture his great energy.

Remember Reda’s words, “Be friendly. Present yourself in your best image of yourself all the time. Be positive and be the best you can be. Do your best and hopefully everybody will be thinking the same way.”