Why do you start off taking quarter of bee pollen tablets then go to 3 a day?

Find out more about Bee Pollen – an integral part of the Clean 9 Cleansing system.

What is Network Marketing?

So you’ve  seen a great film. What are you going  to do after you’ve seen it?  You are going to tell people about  it.

You might post on Facebook or strike up a conversation with the person next to you in the queue at the post office,  or tell your friends in the office or gym.

If you like something – you tell people about it.

And when you bump into them again the following week and you find they’ve been to see the same film and loved it too, it gives you a lovely warm glow. You’ve helped someone to have a great experience just by telling them about something you’ve enjoyed.

There is  no greater feeling.

That is the essence of network marketing.

It’s not rocket science or complicated  It’s chatting.  That  is why when you are looking for a network marketing company to join,  and there are many to choose from,  you need to find one with products that you can fall in love with and talk passionately about.

It might sound strange,  but that is how I feel about Forever Living Aloe Vera products. I’ve experienced how the products can make a difference to my life in simple and earth-shattering ways.  I’ve shared my experiences with others I have seen the products make a difference in their lives, too.

There is no greater feeling.

Do you like talking to people about great products you have tried or good service you have received?  If so you are just right for my team – get in touch to find out more.  What are you waiting for? You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

What does Aloe Gel taste like?

One of the most frequent  questions I am asked when I am meeting people to tell them about Forever Living’s Aloe Vera Gel is “what does Aloe taste like?”

If you are in a room of Forever Living Distributors, this question is always replied to with a bit of a nervous giggle – as those of us that have tasted Aloe Gel know this is not an easy question to answer.  We nod and wink and say, “it’s delicious”. It has become a bit of an in joke amongst distributors.

This is why I often have Aloe Gel available for people to taste at events, and I get many reactions to that first taste too.  Firstly by being honest and saying it is not to everyone’s taste, you do lower expectations, so many take a nervous sip and say, “it’s not THAT bad”, whilst others screw up their faces and say, “how do you drink that?” or hardly even let the gel touch their lips.

So firstly, before you taste the gel and walk away in disgust, cast your mind back to that first taste of wine, beer, spirits or even coffee that you had. Did you think that it tasted delicious straight away, or was it a taste and flavour you gradually came to love?

Aloe Drinking Gels

Our Gel does come in four different varieties and flavours, although for many people the Plain Aloe Gel (or ‘The Yellow One’ thanks to the distinctive bottle colour) would be the gel of choice, some people just can’t get used to the taste – so here are a few tips to help soften the blow:

• Drink the Gel quickly – don’t let it touch the sides.  One friend drinks hers out of a shot glass, as the positive mental images of drinking from a shot glass help it go down smoothly, another uses a wine glass for similar reasons.
• Have another drink or snack ready to take the taste away – be that fruit juice, water, or some other drink.  My daughter uses a chocolate biscuit most mornings!
• Add something to the Gel – you can dilute your gel with fruit juice – although orange is not recommended as it is quite acidic.  I have been told that blackcurrant juice works well.  One thing you do need to watch out for is that some of my customers don’t like this method as they can still taste the Aloe in the drink, and it just takes longer to gulp down.  A recent tip from Dr Peter Atherton (who is the GP on our Advisory Board) was to add a little fruit cordial or squash  to your Gel – this has the advantage of being less bulky and stronger in flavour than fruit juice and masks the taste quite well.
• Start with a small dose (say 15ml) and work your way up to the recommended dose of 60ml gradually.  This gives your stomach a chance to get used to the Gel.

If you really can’t get on with the Plain Aloe Gel, then you can try one of the three other flavours.  Berry Nectar has added apple and cranberry Juice, Forever Freedom has orange juice added, and Bits n’ Peaches is the sweetest of the four with, yes, you guessed it, peach juice added.  I have written another post Which Aloe Gel is right for me ? with more details of the 4 different flavours.

The recommended daily dose of Aloe Vera Gel as a general tonic is 60ml per day, taken on am empty stomach first thing in the morning.  If you are taking the gel for a specific reason, however, you can up your daily dose to 100ml per day quite safely.  I take 60ml of Forever Freedom for the glucosamine, and condroitin and MSM due to my active lifestyle, and 60ml of Berry Nectar as I like the flavour.

So what does Aloe Vera Gel taste like?  It tastes delicious, it tastes like TCP, it tastes medicinal, it tastes like it is good for me.  The answer is different depending on who you ask – what does it taste like to you?

If you would like to try our Aloe Gel for yourself then contact me – or take a look at our webshop.

Forever Living Top 10 Products

Aloe Drinking Gels come in 4 flavours.

My Product Top 10

I’ve been a Forever Living Distributor for a year now – and just for fun I thought I would take a look at the top 10 best selling products in my business  –  I am a bookkeeper through and through and I love looking at stats and analysis based on my sales, so here we go, in reverse order!

10. Aloe Berry Nectar (Drink) – drinking gel with cranberry and apple added .

9. Aloe Vera Gelly  – topical cream great for sunburn, burns, bites and stings.  First aid in a tube!

8.  Forever Bee Pollen – a small tablet packed full of nutrients and great for energy and to help hayfever sufferers.

7. Forever Freedom Gel (Drink) – drinking gel with glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM to help with aching joints.

6. Forever Freedom2Go Sachets (Drink) – the same as 7 but in a handy portable sachet with added pomegranates and mangosteen juice.

5. Aloe Ever-Shield Deodorant Stick –  a stick of pure Aloe in a long lasting deodorant stick containing no aluminium salts

4. Aloe Heat Lotion – a wonderful massage lotion which warms and soothes aching muscles.

3. Aloe Vera Gel (Drink) – the purest Aloe Gel we produce and an excellent tonic for good health.

2. Aloe Propolis Crème – moisturising cream with added Bee Propolis – found to be very soothing by Excema and Psoriasis sufferers.

AND MY NUMBER ONE PRODUCT

1. Aloe Lips

Aloe Lips – my Number one Best Seller

Now I know that for Forever Living as a company  the best-selling products  are the drinking Gels, but even if I added all my drinking Gel sales together, the Aloe lips still comes out on top!

Aloe Lips really is a little tube of magic.  Not only is it a wonderful Lip Salve, but it is fabulous for taking on holiday to use on bites and stings as it is just a small tube of pure Aloe in a handy convenient portable pack.  Most people don’t just buy one so I guess that is why it has been my highest selling product in my first year – I’ll be fascinated to see how this changes in my 2^nd year as a distributor!

So what is your favourite Aloe Vera product and why?  Does it appear in my top 10?  Which product would you recommend as the must have Forever Aloe product?  Visit our Facebook page  to find out how to buy any of these wonderful products from my online shop – and also for special offers and product testimonials from real users.

Clean 9 Cleansing Program Top Tips

When you decide to do a cleanse it is often quite a hard decision. You need to make sure that you choose the right product, then decide where to buy it from, then when it arrives you are often keen to get started before you change your mind.

STOP !

But stop – wait – think a little – if you want your cleanse to be a positive and rewarding experience and not end up in disaster then you should follow these tips and preparation guidelines in order to make the most out of the experience, and to achieve the best results possible.

Learning to Run Step One – Get the right tools for the job

As I said in my previous post How life changes – looking back and going forward, I have decided that in 2013, having mastered walking, I am now going to learn to run. I thought I would share the tools I have used to get me started – as having the right tools for the job definitely makes things easier.

My Smartphone

I have a Galaxy S2 smartphone – and I use it for EVERYTHING, so it was the first place I turned to when I was looking for help with my challenge.  I already used the sports tracking app Endomondo to track all of my walks and other exercise last year.  Endomondo has great challenges you can join, and that was how I logged my 100 miles every month – no messy spreadsheets to manage – just turn on your GPS – set Endomondo running – and the app does the rest.

Runkeeper

So I searched for an app which provides an easy-to-follow programme to get you running, and I settled on Runkeeper.  I was able to set my target as being able to run a 5k in early March – and then the app gave me a programme of walks and runs to follow leading up to this goal.  It suggests one workout every other day , which as I used to try and walk every day, seemed quite manageable.

However, Runkeeper did suggest I did short runs from quite early on, before I was really ready to – so I used it alongside my Endomondo, where I set up an interval training programme which would beep every minute or so, and I used this to do my burst of exercise with alternating walking and running segments.  This has really helped me to keep focused and spurred me on to run a little more than I would have done without these apps to tell me what to do.

Heart Monitor

For my birthday I was given a Zephyr heart monitor.  If you are exercising to lose weight, using a heart monitor makes the calorie burn estimates in Endomondo much more accurate – and you can see your fitness levels improving too by seeing how quickly your heart rate comes down after exercise.  This monitor attaches to a strap you wear round your chest, and links via Bluetooth to the Endomondo app on my phone.  I was very interested to see how my heart rate fluctuates during a Zumba class – we do a very high impact routine to a Rhianna song and that gives me my peak reading!

Supplements

I take several supplements which help keep my energy levels up.  For a start, I take Bee Pollen tablets each morning which helps with energy and stamina,  I take Arctic Sea  for the fish oils and Omega 3 and 6 which has really helped control my inherited high Cholesterol levels and also I take a vitamin C supplement called Absorbant C which helps maintain healthy connective tissues, skin joints and respiratory functions.

Products for Fitness

The new supplement I have been trying is a drink you make up from powder called ARGI + which maintains healthy blood pressure and cardiovascular health.  ARGI+ contains L-Argenine and vitamins and I take the drink just before I go out running – and I have noticed that I can catch my breath more easily  when I remember to take it just before my run. I have seen some excellent testimonials from Iron Man competitors about the Forever Living supplements I am taking and how they have helped others – I am not quite up to their activity levels, but every little helps!  You can learn more about these products on my website – clicking on the Order Forever Nutri-Lean button at the bottom right to get access to the web shop.

Progress So Far

So how am I doing with my challenge?  Well, on Sunday 27th January I took part in my first Just Racing 5k Cross country race.  I managed a time of 38:28 and although I walked up some of the hills, I am very proud of my achievement.   Weather and work have now meant I have missed out on a couple of weeks of running – but you may see me at a Park Run in Northamptonshire soon trying to improve my time!

Myself and Jo with our medals.

Cleanse verses diet – why is the Clean 9 so successful?

How I have Changed

January is the month of diets and cleanses after the excesses of Christmas – but which should you choose – and if you have to do a cleanse or diet every January, then does it really work for you?  I had followed this pattern for years of losing a little weight through the year but then come Christmas, New Year  and two family birthdays, all in 10 days, I would still find myself in the same position needing to lose weight again each January.

So how have I turned things around and changed my life in the last year, which means I am starting 2013 already at my target weight, and I don’t have another year of frustration to look forward to? The secret is the Forever Living Clean 9 Cleansing Program.

Diet vs. Cleanse

One of the complex ways the liver deals with impurities is to increase body fat to wrap up these impurities to protect the body from their influence.  Think of all those take-away meals and sweet treats you eat through the year and especially at Christmas. The problem with a traditional diet is you lose the weight, but those impurities remain so you actually have a higher percentage of impurities in your new slimline body.  Your lean body mass decreases, which means your metabolic rate slows and you burn less fat.  When your body senses an increased level of these impurities it goes into emergency fat production – and when you return to normal eating your weight rebounds, and quite often you end up heavier than when you started.

Traditional Diet Vs Cleansing

Kicking off your healthy eating plan with the Clean 9 Cleanse means that your body sheds the impurities during the 9 day program, which means you feel healthier overall, and with fewer impurities in your system, your body sheds the fat and increases your lean body mass.  A higher lean body mass means you burn more energy even when at rest and you have a higher metabolic rate.  You need to increase your exercise levels as part of the process – the advice whilst on the detox is a minimum of 20 minutes’ exercise each day.

This means that when you finish your cleanse and go back to normal (but hopefully healthier) eating patterns – or move onto the 2nd stage offered by Forever Living – the F.I.T.1 program – you don’t rebound back to your former weight but have an excellent platform to continue your weight loss and achieve your personal goals – whilst feeling healthier and having more energy.

My Story

Wii Fit Screen Shots 2010-2012

Personally, after my hip replacement in 2007 (see my previous blog post on Looking back and Going Forward) I decided that I needed to make my hip last as long as possible by shifting my excess weight and having a more active lifestyle.  I lost more than a stone during the first year (2010) with supplements and a slight increase in exercise, but gained quite a bit back over that first Christmas. So I started again in January 2011 and this time lost another stone by calorie counting and increasing my exercise levels … but from the September of that year I was stuck again.  I was then getting really fed up with the constant calorie counting – and although I increased my exercise levels (and discovered Zumba) I was just stuck on a plateau.  People did start to notice my weight loss though, as the exercise was changing my shape.

The change came on April 2012 when I was introduced to Forever Living and did my first Clean 9 cleanse.  At last I shifted off the plateau and reduced my weight – but more importantly, I was able to move down 2 dress sizes as my figure noticeably changed shape – as I had  more energy than I knew what to do with and my exercise levels rocketed.  I started getting compliments wherever I went – I have to admit I feel great.

So, going forward – I don’t need to calorie count any more, but I have improved my diet generally – and I did a 2nd Clean 9 cleanse  in November to build on my success.  I am keeping the exercise levels up but I know if I slip back into bad habits I now have the tools to stop myself – and the usual rebound of putting the weight straight back on when you return to your normal everyday diet has not happened.

If you would like to find out more information about the Clean 9 Cleanse  or the Forever F.I.T. program then please take a look at my website .   You can purchase both products, or try the individual supplements and gels.  Get in touch for a simple online order form which offers a discount and free delivery – full details available on request.

Alternatively like our Facebook page to keep up to date with any special offers.  I have also written Clean 9 Cleanse Top Tips to help you get the best out of your Clean 9 experience.

How life changes – looking back and going forward.

On my feet for the first time.

This is me in early 2007, on my feet for the first time after a full right hip replacement operation, so pleased to have had the pain of 20 years taken away, but looking forward to a long road to recovery.

Skating in December 2012

This is me now, just 6 short years later, enjoying a night out roller skating with my family, and feeling fitter than I have ever done in my life before, full of energy and really enjoying life.

It is good to look back from time to time and see how far I have come.  I was diagnosed with Juvenile Chronic Arthritis at the age of 16 months following a measles jab which seemed to trigger the disease and stopped me walking and left me in great pain.  I am lucky that I don’t remember those long days in hospital, but they are still fresh in my parents’ memories.  When I finally left hospital with a diagnosis, the nurses told my Mum to let them know when they needed the wheelchair – but it was something I was never allowed to have – and thanks to my parents I had a ‘normal’ childhood – went to ‘normal’ schools – and apart from a brief 2-month stay in hospital at the age of 7 for intensive physiotherapy and regular check-ups, I don’t feel like I suffered too much with my disease at all.  It just left me with a stiff neck, bent left arm and painful right hip.

Health and fitness wise, 2012 has been the best year of my life.  I started a challenge in January to walk 100 miles in the month, and never thought I would actually finish that first month.  With the help and support of friends and family I managed that first 100, and then did the same challenge every month this year.  Today I plan to walk a last 4 miles to make that 1300 miles walked this year (that is 25 miles a week for 2012).  Seven years ago I could not walk for more than half an hour without crutches and would be laid low for days if I did too much.  I feel liberated and freed from a body that would not work properly – and the funny thing is, the more you do the more you want to do.  I go to a fantastic Zumba class twice a week if I can with the inspirational Red Zumba and absolutely love the classes.  I am so pleased that my brother Nick comes along too, as it is great to share such a healthy hobby with another family member.

So what challenges can 2013 bring?  Well to go along with my new-found fitness I have decided that I am really going to develop my Forever Living business this year, which goes along with the healthy eating and exercise plans, as the products I sell are fabulous for supporting my goals.  The Aloe Vera drinking Gel and supplements I take have ensured my body has a rich source of nutrients, and the Clean 9 Cleanse helped me lose more weight in 2012 even though I had hit a plateau with my healthy eating and exercise plan and thought I had gone as far as I could. My cholesterol is lower than ever before, which as I have inherited high cholesterol is a real achievement, and I finally seem to have brought my iron levels up to normal levels, which really helps with energy and motivation.

So my new challenge is to see if I can start running,which at the moment seems impossible, but I thought that about walking last year – and at least I am not trying to run before I can walk!  I have proved I can walk – so now can I run? I also want to share the fabulous health benefits of the Aloe Vera products  – and plan to lead by example.  After all if you look at those pictures at the start of my post you can’t deny that something in my life is working and going well – and I want people to look and me and say ‘” I don’t know what she is on – but I want some of it too!”  To see how the Clean 9 Cleanse has helped – take a look at my other post Cleanse verses diet.

Silicon Bullet Forever Products – Clean 9, Body Wrap and Drinking Gels