Many diets are passing fads. They come and go. The ones I hear about often is Weight watchers, HCG diet and Jenny craig. The Shaklee diet plan is called the Inch Loss Plan with Cinch. It focuses on losing inches first off and adopting a healthy lifestyle while using the Cinch products. By using Cinch you can get to a healthier weight and dress size.
Many diet plans don’t have research or science behind them. If you listen to the ads there are many warnings of possible side effects that can occur. Many weight loss medications have been pulled from testing and development due to the adverse side effects or lack of results. Then other medications have made it through regulation to later be pulled or banned due to dangerous side effects that occurred later.
I trust Shaklee because unlike other supplement companies, Shaklee does research and develops our products based on that research. In 2011 alone 3 clinical studies were published about Shaklee research, more than many nutritional companies do at all.
The one most recent I would like to site here as it really is significant. Dr. Steven Chaney a well know cancer researcher and Shaklee Master Coordinator reviews the results.
Shaklee has just published another clinical study (Westcott et al, Journal of Exercise Physiology Online, 14: 120-133, August 2011).
And like most of the clinical studies that Shaklee participates in, this was a totally independent study conducted by Dr. Wayne Westcott and colleagues at Quincy College.
They looked at the effects of exercise and supplementation on lean muscle mass, blood pressure and bone density in a group of 52 older men and women (aged 39 to 82, mean = 59).
The study lasted 9 months and the participants were divided into three groups – a control group, an exercise group and an exercise plus supplementation group.
The control group continued to vegetate (The authors noted that only 3.5% of adults and 2.5% of older adults meet the current exercise recommendations – I didn’t realize that it was that bad!).
The exercise groups participated in 2 to 3 one-hour exercise sessions each week. The exercise sessions were supervised by nationally certified fitness professionals and consisted of 25 minutes of resistance training and 25 minutes of aerobic training.
The exercise plus supplementation group used Shaklee’s Vitalizer Gold (which provides 500 mg of calcium and 1,200 IU of vitamin D3) on a daily basis and drank one serving of Cinch Shake Mix following each workout.
The results were quite remarkable.
The control group lost muscle mass while both the exercise and exercise plus supplementation groups increased lean muscle mass.
However, the increase in lean muscle mass was much greater in the group that was supplementing, and it was only in the supplementation group that the increase in lean muscle mass was statistically significant.
Similarly, the control group experienced an increase in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure while both the exercise and exercise plus supplementation groups experienced a decrease in blood pressure.
But here the difference between the two exercise groups was even more dramatic.
The group that was just exercising experienced small and non-significant decreases in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, while the decreases in blood pressure in the exercise plus supplementation group were much larger and were highly significant.
For example, the decrease in systolic blood pressure was four-fold greater in the exercise group that was supplementing than the exercise group that was not – and the corresponding differences in diastolic blood pressure were almost 3-fold.
However, it was the effect of exercise and supplementation on bone density that intrigued me the most.
Bone density decreased by 1% in the control group during the 9 month period. Exercise alone was able to prevent that loss in bone density. These results were not a surprise. They are consistent with over 19 published clinical studies and two meta-analyses.
The intriguing result was that bone density actually increased by 1% in the exercise plus supplementation group.
None of these differences reached statistical significance because of the relatively small size of the study groups and the short duration of the study, but the trend is very encouraging.
So what does this mean for you.
Once again this proves that Shaklee products work. Vitalizer and Cinch together are a great combination for diet success. However, it is the increase in bone density in the exercise plus supplementation group that is perhaps the most novel and important finding to come out of this study.
Osteoporosis is a major problem in this country, and it is only going to get worse as the population ages. Osteoporosis leads to serious disability and even death for millions of Americans. When it comes to natural approaches all of the discussion up to this point has been about how to reduce the rate of bone loss as we age. The potential for actually increasing bone density in older Americans without the use of dangerous drugs is huge!
And, if this study is borne out by future studies, the needed intervention is as simple as a serious exercise program plus a relatively simple supplementation program.
When you retain your muscle mass while you use the Shaklee diet, you retain your metabolism and are less likely to yo-yo back and forth in weight. Under that layer of fat is nice lean muscle so as you lose weight and fat, the beautiful muscle appears.
Cinch is a plan for all of us, simple to follow, easy to swallow and with proven results. Your health is worth you taking a look.