Physical Wellness Archives - Melaleuca Journal

Melaleuca Customer Wins the Louisiana Marathon!

January 22, 2015 by Melaleuca 2 Comments

Melaleuca customer Adam MacDowell as he crosses the finish line to win the Louisiana Marathon
Photo Credit: Advocate Staff Member Angela Major

It’s typical to start the New Year off running—whether that’s enthusiastically setting new goals and finding a way to reach them, or actually stepping on a treadmill to shed some weight and get healthier. One Melaleuca customer did more than head to the gym. Earlier this month, Adam MacDowell won the Louisiana Marathon, crossing the finish line at 2 hours and 27 minutes! In a nutshell, Adam is really fast and he can prove it.

Over the years, Adam has clocked countless miles as a competitive cross country and track runner. Once the captain of the University of Missouri’s track team, Adam ran a 5k race in only 14 minutes and 26 seconds. (For some of us, that’s as long as it takes to run a third of the distance!) After he graduated, Adam ran a half-marathon in just over an hour, which means he ran a 5-minute mile for more than 13 miles! He even qualified for and ran in the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in 2012. You have to feel kind of sorry for the man’s running shoes.

Yet these days, Adam isn’t running next to world-championship contenders. Instead, he’s teaching math to high school students in Louisiana, coaching cross-country runners and entering an occasional race to stay in shape and stoke his competitive fire.

“When I was training at a high level, I was running 90 to 110 miles a week,” he says. “I’ve been doing this sport my entire life, but now that I’m getting older, I’m looking for anything I can find that will help me keep doing the sport I love and help my body recover.”

After Adam had an allergic reaction to a household cleaner, he and his wife found Melaleuca while looking for safer-for-your-home alternatives. One day, Adam was reading Leadership in Action magazine when he discovered Vitality Elevate™. He started purchasing Vitality 4® with Oligo® every month, along with the Vitality Elevate™Amino Boost and a box of Access Bars.

“I eat an Access Bar before I run because I know it helps me burn fat, and I don’t want to burn any muscle!” Adam says. “After any of my long runs, I used the Amino Boost to recover.”

Until this past Sunday, Adam hadn’t seen the results of switching over to Vitality for Life. And when he toed the line for the Louisiana Marathon, he wasn’t sure how it would go. He’d only been running 40 miles per week—far fewer than the distances he’d run before past races.

“You never start a marathon thinking, ‘Oh yeah, I’m definitely going to finish this,’” he says. “Anything can go wrong. You can start with a little pain in your toe that can completely end your race after 20 miles. You just never know.”

For 20 miles of the race, Adam and his training partner cranked out the miles at a steady pace, and then his training partner suddenly fell behind. Instead of easing off the gas, Adam “threw the hammer down” and ran his last six miles even faster. He crossed the finish line at 2:27:12—and claimed the overall race win!

“I’ve never won a major marathon, ever,” he says. “That was the best I’ve ever felt after running a marathon, and I’ve run a lot of marathons.”

Already, Adam is looking at how he can take his performance even further with the Peak Performance Pack. Since hearing about the Freiburg Study and the science on free radicals and inflammation, Adam knows that it will help his body recover even faster than before.

“When you run a marathon, it can be a real shock to your body,” he says. “So I’m really conscious about the recovery process and how I can give my body everything it needs to get stronger.”

Like Adam, each of us could stand to put a little more effort into getting strong and treating our bodies better. But that doesn’t mean running a marathon, or 40 miles a week. Melaleuca advocates a life of health and wellness. That’s why we seek to provide you with products like the Peak Performance Pack that will supplement an active lifestyle and help you reach your dreams. So set some goals, big and small, to feel better in 2015. Then walk, run, lift, bike, or dance to the finish line of your choosing.

Peak Performance Pack

January 5, 2015 by Melaleuca 19 Comments

Freiburg Study proves significant whole-body benefits

Why Freiburg? Freiburg, Germany, is home to one of the oldest and most esteemed scientific communities in the world. Nineteen Nobel laureates hail from Freiburg. And its history of scientific excellence stretches back to 1457 with the establishment of Freiburg University—which today remains one of the most distinguished and leading-edge research universities in multiple areas, including biomedicine.

It was only in Freiburg where Melaleuca found the specialized instruments, facilities, and expert scientists necessary to evaluate the in-body benefits of supplementing with the Peak Performance Pack.* In fact, Melaleuca commissioned the pioneering researcher who invented the scientific device capable of measuring free radicals in a live human body. Although not a Freiburg University study, the expertise of the area and labs associated with the university were necessary for the clinical analysis of the research.

First-of-its-kind research

The Freiburg Study protocol measured more than 25 key health markers in humans, including difficult-to-obtain data like resistance to induced inflammation, circulating free radicals, mitochondrial free radical activity, and rate of oxygen consumption by blood cells. All of which paint a more detailed picture of what effect supplements can have in a live human body.

The results are profound!

Melaleuca knows of nothing that compares. To our knowledge (and we have researched this), no nutritional supplement has ever produced these kinds of results in the human body. Nothing even comes close!

The Freiburg Study was conducted with 48 human subjects of various ages. To be included in the study, participants were evaluated on their cholesterol measurements, triglycerides, blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight. As with the general population, many exhibited the characteristics of metabolic syndrome—meaning their numbers were elevated but still within a normal range. The testing was conducted before taking the Peak Performance Pack, one hour after taking the pack, after taking the pack for 6 weeks consistently, and after taking the pack for 12 weeks consistently. Some of the key indicators of health measured before and after light exercise included the following:

Free radical activity
Cholesterol
Blood fat
Blood pressure
C-reactive protein (heart health)
Heart rate
Glucose levels
Inflammation

The Freiburg Study showed significant improvements across several key measures within one hour of taking the pack (reduction in free radicals, heart rate doesn’t raise as high during exercise [greater efficiency], improved resistance to inflammation, and significantly reduced glycemic spikes after meals). Even greater improvements were seen after 6 weeks of taking the pack, and the greatest level of improvement was observed after taking the pack for 12 weeks.* Benefits in as little as 60 minutes! For nearly a century, supplement manufacturers have been saying that the benefits are strictly long range—that the true benefits of the nutrition they offer will take years to truly manifest. Melaleuca broke that mold with its 90-Day Challenge—promising you could feel a difference within 90 days. But now Melaleuca takes that promise where it has never been before. The Freiburg Study shows that many of the incredible benefits of the Peak Performance Pack are measurable in the body in as little as one hour! Think about that—your health begins to improve within just 60 minutes!

The damage free radicals create throughout the body is random. Millions of molecules are affected every second. But whether or not that damage impacts your health depends on the function of the molecule. Many molecules can be damaged without any consequence. Others are essential to your continued good health. Of course, the greater the number of excess free radicals present, the greater the chances for significant damage.

The amount of damage done when a free radical steals an electron from an adjacent molecule depends completely on the function of the molecule. For example, if an electron is stolen from a glucose molecule in your bloodstream, the damage will have little to no impact at all. However, if the affected molecule is part of a cell membrane somewhere in your body, significant damage may be done— perhaps causing the cell to age prematurely. If the molecule makes up part of the DNA of a cell, the free radical damage could cause the DNA of the cell to mutate, potentially leading to serious health problems.

Consider a golf ball dropped from an airplane at 40,000 feet. A single golf ball, dropped from an airplane at that altitude, will probably not do any damage to the ground below. The odds are it will fall harmlessly into some farmer’s field or land quietly somewhere in a forest. But it could, by some improbable chance, hit someone’s house, someone’s car, or worse— land squarely on someone’s head! The damage would be terrible! But most likely, it would land harmlessly and do no damage at all.

But if you were to drop a bucket of golf balls, the chances of one of those golf balls doing damage is greatly increased. And if you were to dump a semitruck full of golf balls, the likelihood increases even more. And if you dump a trainload of golf balls, it is quite likely that at least a few of the golf balls will do some serious damage to something.

So it is with free radicals. The greater the number of free radicals, the greater the likelihood of serious damage. The goal is to decrease the total amount of free radical activity, thereby decreasing the likelihood of meaningful damage.

Minor radicals do major damage

When free radicals steal electrons from DNA molecules, they can cause the DNA molecules to mutate.
Free radicals can damage lipid components in the blood.
Free radicals can also negatively impact proteins by altering their structure and compromising their function.

This is especially dangerous since many proteins serve as critical enzymes within the body.

Powerful, unparalleled results.

In the simplest terms, health can be broken down into broad categories that represent the interconnected bodily systems that make up our intricate human anatomy. Though further research is planned, the Peak Performance Pack has already demonstrated incredible, measurable benefits in the key categories of holistic health: heart health, metabolic health, and cellular health.

Improved Heart Health

Cholesterol and triglyceride levels dropped significantly, especially in those studied with normal but elevated levels of cholesterol, allowing us to state that the pack helps:

Maintain healthy cholesterol levels within the normal range*
Maintain healthy triglyceride levels within the normal range*

Blood pressure—both systolic and diastolic—remained stable for those already in a healthy range and dropped significantly for those studied with elevated levels. The major metabolite responsible for maintaining healthy blood pressure levels—nitric oxide, a known vasodilator—nearly doubled. This leads us to conclude that the pack helps:

Maintain blood pressure already in a healthy range*
Boost the healthy production of circulating nitric oxide in the blood*

Improved Metabolic Health

The spike of blood glucose after a high-sugar meal was significantly lower after participants started taking the Peak Performance Pack and the body’s insulin response was significantly lower. We may now conclude that the pack:

Helps your body more efficiently utilize blood sugar*
Helps support normal insulin response in healthy individuals*

Improved Cellular Health

As participants continued taking the Peak Performance Pack, the body’s ability to efficiently produce energy increased. To exert the same amount of physical effort, the heart did not need to beat as fast, and all cells were able to produce the required amount of energy without demanding additional oxygen. At the same time, we observed that the spike of free radicals that typically accompanies physical exertion was decreased dramatically. Additionally, inflammatory activity decreased while resistance to inflammation was significantly improved. The Peak Performance Pack also:

Helps support efficient cellular energy utilization*
Helps promote healthy free radical balance in the body*
Promotes a healthy inflammatory response in healthy individuals*
Boosts the healthy production of circulating nitric oxide in the blood*

Melaleuca Launch 2015 – New Products

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

Pay It Forward

December 16, 2014 by Melaleuca Leave a Comment

The Nora and Steve McMahon Family

by Darrin Johnson, Senior Vice President of Sales

Perhaps you’ve already heard the story of Nora and Steve McMahon. A Melaleuca Marketing Executive and a cancer survivor, Nora nearly lost her life on the operating table last year when she had a double mastectomy. Just a few months later, Steve, her husband, suffered a traumatic brain injury while deployed overseas with the military.

In October, for the fourth time this year, Nora had to go under the knife to correct some issues from her earlier surgery. Nora, who’s also a mother of six children (including two sets of twins), managed to square away all of the details with one exception: cooking. Without any short-term memory Steve can’t do the cooking, and Nora would be spending weeks in bed.

Nora’s friend asked her to create a meal calendar so people could sign up online to bring her food. Eventually, word of the calendar got around to Danny Tore, another Melaleuca Marketing Executive.

Now, keep in mind, Danny isn’t Nora’s enroller. He isn’t even in her support team at all. But that didn’t stop him from offering to help. He signed up for a meal and then he posted the calendar on social media for hundreds of people to see.

The calendar soon filled with names of people, many who didn’t know Nora at all but who wanted to help anyway. Nora’s enroller, Jessica Waller signed up, as did Trixie Overcashier, Frank and Maria Mosca, and Lyle and Sandie Siemens. But that was just the beginning.

When Frank and Maria Mosca placed an order online for a restaurant to give the McMahons a meal, an employee called to double-check the order and Maria told them Nora’s story.

“The lady on the phone told me, ‘I’m going to cry—that’s amazing,’” Maria said. “Then she said, ‘We’re going to throw in a gift certificate for a free pizza dinner, and we’re going to fix a special dessert just for her.’”

Lyle and Sandie called Olive Garden, which doesn’t usually deliver. But Sandie told the restaurant’s manager the story, and he personally delivered the meal—along with another gift certificate and a get-well-soon card.

“That’s what’s amazing about Melaleuca,” Nora says. “For most people, they’d just bring the meal and leave it at that. But with Melaleuca, there’s this kindness and this culture of helping others, no matter whose organization you’re in.”

She’s absolutely right: There’s something about the culture of Melaleuca that attracts caring, altruistic people who want to reach out and help others. It’s not just what we do; it’s a part of who we are. It’s the result of a seed planted by CEO Frank VanderSloot nearly three decades ago when he crafted our Mission Statement of enhancing lives.

That Mission Statement is an example of how a small act, a simple statement can blossom into something so much bigger. Look at what has happened since Frank introduced that Mission Statement in 1985. Today, it has become a wellness movement that is changing the lives of millions of people and sweeping across the world.

If you’re referring customers on the forefront of this movement, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You see lives changed every day through our safer, healthier products and through our rewarding customer referral program. Marketing Executives have often told me stories of receiving “thank you” phone calls from their enrollees.

Yet it’s also not uncommon to hear about enrollers thanking their customers. You may already know that when someone purchases one of those health-promoting products from Melaleuca, seven other families earn a commission. You probably know Melaleuca has paid out $3.7 billion in commissions over the last 29 years to families just like yours.

This month, on December 15—just before Hanukkah and two weeks before Christmas—hundreds of thousands of families will receive checks from Melaleuca. Those checks will provide hope, confidence and happiness to families throughout the United States and Canada.

Just a few weeks after, we’ll be holding Launch 2015, and this year, we’ll be announcing new ways for you to pay it forward and enhance lives like never before. On January 3, we’ll be announcing some new products that will absolutely blow your socks off. To get the full scope of what these announcements will mean for you, you need to be there at Launch—and I can’t emphasize that enough!

You might be tempted to think, “I’m just a customer; I don’t need to be at Launch.” But I promise you, there will be something at Launch for everybody, customer, business builder and in between.

Don’t just come to Launch. Look around at your friends and family and ask yourself, “Who could really benefit from Melaleuca? Who could use a hand at living a little healthier?” Bring a friend with you to Launch this year. Have them come and experience this incredible culture and rub shoulders with all of these good, caring individuals we have in our Melaleuca family.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead famously said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” And someone much wiser than me said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

I know of no group more thoughtful and committed than the Marketing Executives we have at Melaleuca. Now, it’s time for all of us to “be the change,” and to put our best selves forward in 2015. Come to Launch and you’ll see what I mean. And who knows—we just might change the world together.
Launch is free and open to everyone. Find your Launch location at Melaleuca.com/Launch

Not a Vitamin Person

March 7, 2014 by Melaleuca 8 Comments

“I want my customers to know that I was like them: I didn’t take a supplement and didn’t think they mattered, but once I tried Oligo and understood the science, that’s when I really got it. I know that when others really understand the science, that’s when they’ll never go back.”

Yvette Zona didn’t take vitamins. She didn’t think they mattered. After all, she was in good health and had plenty of energy. Fortunately for Yvette, her presenter convinced her to try the 90-Day Challenge.

“I figured I’d just take the vitamins for 90 days and then get all my money back,” Yvette recalls.

Only something happened—Yvette took the vitamins daily, and she actually felt better.

“I felt totally different!” Yvette says. “I needed less sleep and had more energy. I started reading about nutrition and discovered how difficult it is for anyone to get all the nutrition they need without help. I learned that Oligo had superior absorption, and I’ve been taking Vitality Total ever since.”

Yvette shares her Oligo experience with every customer. “I want my customers to know that I was just like them: I didn’t take a supplement and didn’t think they mattered. But once I tried Oligo and understood the science, that’s when I really got it,” Yvette says. “I know that when others really understand the science, that’s when they’ll never go back.”

For people like Yvette who’ve never taken a vitamin before, taking the 90-Day Challenge means creating a new habit. Yvette encourages her customers to set an alarm to remind them each day. “You might not feel a huge difference right away,” Yvette says, speaking of the 90-Day Challenge. “But if you stop taking the Vitality Pack after a few weeks, you’ll feel the difference.”

Through sharing her story, explaining the science, and getting her customers to take the 90-Day approach, Yvette is seeing great success. Just recently, Yvette enrolled a customer who used to regularly purchase from another supplement company. “She watched the Oligo video and realized her old stuff was junk,” Yvette says. “And because of the 90-Day Challenge, she literally feels the difference Oligo makes. She left her old company and started building a Melaleuca business.”

Oligo® The Just Like Nature® solution to better daily health and nutrition

February 12, 2014 by Melaleuca Leave a Comment

In a nutrient-starved world where even brand name supplements may not offer all the nutrition listed on the label, Oligo helps close the gaps and put you in control of your daily health and vitality

LIFE HAS A WAY OF WEARING YOU DOWN, pulling you in so many different directions that it becomes too easy to miss those little moments that make it so meaningful. Getting proper nutrition every day is the best way to safeguard your health and build yourself back up, but fewer and fewer of us are eating the right amounts of fruits and vegetables daily, and the vitamin and mineral supplements at the drugstore likely aren’t giving you everything you’re paying for. Only Oligo maximizes the potency of your supplements to ensure you get the nutrition you need to be your best and make the most of every moment.

Seeking solutions from nature
In fruits, vegetables and other whole foods, plants draw minerals from the soil, and then bind them to proteins and fibers. In this form, they are easier for the human body to use and absorb. Melaleuca set out to duplicate the process used by nature. Melaleuca scientists tested hundreds of mineral forms before developing what would become known as Oligo. And the results were nothing short of astounding.

Proper nutrition: more than diet alone
Studies show that fewer and fewer of us are eating the ideal amounts of fruits and vegetables every day. But even when we make an effort to eat healthier, we can still come up short. Modern farming practices combined with new varieties of crops and even changes in the soil add up to one thing—fruits and vegetables aren’t as healthy as they once were. That means getting the nutrition we need from food alone is more difficult than ever.

Not all supplements are created equal
At a time when health care costs are skyrocketing and benefit programs are more confusing than ever, more and more adults are attempting to take control of their health. An easy and proactive step is to take a daily multivitamin and mineral, but not all supplements are created equal. Minerals are notoriously difficult to absorb. In addition, Melaleuca scientists recognized that the mineral forms found in traditional multivitamins (gluconates, oxides, sulfates and fumerates) trigger massive free radical activity during digestion. These free radicals can cancel out the benefits of antioxidants like vitamins A, C and E. Even more alarming, when out of balance, free radical damage can disrupt bodily systems and can lead to serious health concerns.

Superior absorption
Oligo was developed to be Just Like Nature. Only Oligo binds minerals to organic compounds to mirror the way they are found in fruits, vegetables and other whole foods to maximize solubility. In fact, Oligo minerals are scientifically proven to provide up to four times greater absorption than the minerals found in leading brands.‡§

Maximum antioxidant protection Scientific studies show that Oligo reduces free radical activity, thereby protecting critical antioxidants up to five times better than the leading brands.§ Oligo also extends that protection throughout the entire body!

This protects the potency of your antioxidants and helps ensure that your body gets all the nutrition on the label.

* State of the Plate: 2010 Study on America’s Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables, 2010. Produce for Better Health Foundation. Web. http://www.pbhfoundation.org.
† Worthington et al. (from UK Soil Association Fact Sheet). Journal of Complementary Medicine 7:2161–2163 (2001).
‡ These statements have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
§ When tested against most common mineral types used in multivitamin and mineral supplements.

5 Tips to stay on top of your 2014 weight loss goals

February 10, 2014 by Melaleuca Leave a Comment

You vs February: Running low on fitness motivation? Don’t give up yet.

It hurts. You’re tired. It’s too early. You’re sore. The gym always plays obnoxious music. You hate getting sweaty. You feel ridiculous dressed like this. You look silly to all of these skinny, fit people. You never liked gym class anyway. Is this even making a difference?

Go ahead: Add your reason to quit working out to the list. You set a goal to get fit, lose weight and improve your health last month, and now you’re into the month where New Year’s resolutions go to die: February. This is when your workout stops feeling new and fun, and starts feeling downright hard.

Want your New Year’s resolution to survive February? Want to keep it up long enough to see actual results and really change your life? Yogi Berra said, “Baseball is 90 percent mental; the other half is physical”—and the same goes for your workout routine. Whether your exercise habit survives is going to depend more on what’s going on in your head than what’s going on in your aerobics class. So how do you get your head straightened out?

Find a Fitness Nemesis … er, Buddy
Having a fitness pal can be a positive, but it’s not for everybody. How do you know if it would be a good thing for you? Well, if your fitness friend outperformed you, would you

a) feel discouraged and quit working out?
b) feel competitive and try to get the upper hand by the next workout?
c) not even notice?
d) get angry and smash one of those large mirrors against the gym wall?

If you chose b) or c), go get a workout partner. If you chose a), keep working out solo. If you chose d), go see a psychiatrist. Having a partner keeps you accountable and gives you additional motivation. If that’s not enough, you could ask your workout buddy (or buddies) to publicly shame you with embarrassing pictures on a website or social media if you fail to show up for your workout. (For reference on how to do this properly, visit November-project.com/ category/we-missed-you/)

Get a Mantra
This trick comes from marathon runners and endurance athletes, but there’s no reason you can’t take this same strategy into the weight room or indoor cycling class. Choose a phrase, or even a single word, and repeat it when times get tough. One marathoner told The New York Times he repeats the phrase “pain is inevitable; suffering is optional” over and over again as he taps out 26.2 miles. Need a few more examples?

“You don’t have to feel good to run fast.”
“Sweat is your fat crying.”
“Bigger, stronger, faster.”
“Go hard or go home.”
“Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

Buy a Box of Access Bars
Yes, the Access Bar® will help you burn fat more efficiently, but that’s not the point of this particular tip. Purchase one box of your absolute favorite flavor of Access Bars and commit (pinky swear if you have to) to only eat a bar before a minimum 30-minute workout. There are 10 bars in each box, and that means you’ll have to do 10 workouts (or two and a half hours of exercise) this month.

If you’re already working out more than 10 times per month, double it and give me 20! That’ll be five hours of exercise per month. The point is, you’ll get a reward for deciding to do your workout, and you’ll have the added benefit of feeling less sore, which will help with your motivation to go do it again next month.

Keep a Workout Calendar
There’s an old saying about planning: “Plans are useless but planning is invaluable.” What does that mean? At the start of every week, write out your fitness plan. (If you want extra credit, you can write out your nutrition plan too.) Every time you fulfill a scheduled workout, draw a happy face over it on your calendar.

But suppose your planned workout doesn’t come through—the weather doesn’t cooperate or your workout buddies bail on you. If you replace your planned workout with another 30-minute workout, draw your smiley face anyway. If, on the other hand, you miss a workout, draw a sad face … or an angry face … in red ink … baring its teeth at you. You get the point.

Hang your workout calendar in a public place where your entire family can see it. At the end of the week, you and your family can look back to see what you did—or didn’t—accomplish.

Focus On The Process
Say you want to lose 15 pounds. When you step on the scale, will it inspire you to work harder? Or will it remind you how far you have yet to go? And how many nagging reminders can you take before you throw your hands up and quit?

If standing on the scale every day motivates you to get better, by all means, do it. But if measuring yourself every day leaves you feeling discouraged, for goodness’ sake, stop doing it. Instead, focus on what you have to do to achieve your goal: exercise and eat better.

Real results come when you execute your plan over the long term. In an ideal world, you’ll even come to enjoy it. And when that happens, goal or no goal, you’ll keep doing it.