Is Herbal Life
Healthy?
I’ve been
biting my tongue on this subject for quite some time now but I feel it’s the
right time to educate the general public on this area and give you a few facts on
Herbal Life that you may not knew about.
For those of
you that aren’t sure what Herbal Life is then it’s a supplement company that
pride themselves on being completely healthy and great for weight loss.
It seems
that more and more people are using Herbal Life for their nutrition now. Only
the other day I got an email from a Herbal Life representative trying to sell
me a range of their “healthy weight loss supplements”. And only yesterday, I
got a phone call from another one trying to sell me the benefits of their
supplement range.
Not only
that but it appears that many personal trainers and fitness experts of late are
now endorsing herbal life as a healthy weight loss system for their clients
without maybe completely understanding what ingredients go into these
supplements and what impact they will have on liver health and hormone health.
First of
all, let me just clarify by saying that I’m not questioning whether any of
their weight loss systems get RESULTS. They clearly do and they will certainly have
hundreds of testimonials to back their claims up, which is great!
But I guess, we as individuals have
to decide and understand what is TRUELY health and what is not?
I wanted to quickly show you some of the ingredients that Herbal Life use in
their main shakes and bars:
So let’s give you a few facts about some of the ingredients in some of their products:
Soy Protein – Soya is one of the most heavily
sprayed crops out there meaning it will add to your toxic load and over burden
the liver. Most modern soy foods are not fermented which means the toxins
aren’t neutralised. It is also processed in a way that can increase levels of
carcinogens. Carcinogens are the substances capable of causing cancer in living
tissue.
And if that wasn’t enough then I’ve highlighted some other points as to why
Soya is not as healthy as we’d like to think it is:
Ø Free Glutamic Acid or MSG is a highly
potent neuro-toxin that is formed during soy processing. A neuro toxin means
that the liver cannot break it down so it sends it straight to your brain.
Ø Soy foods contain high amounts of aluminium
which is toxic to the nervous system and kidneys.
Ø Soy foods increase the body’s
requirement for vitamin D
Ø Trypsin inhibitors in soy interfere
with protein digestion and can cause problems with the pancreas.
Ø Soy phyto estrogens found in soy
beans and soy products can play havoc with your hormones, screw up your thyroid
gland and have the ability to cause infertility and promote breast cancer in
woman.
Ø Another point to note that has
nothing to do with the affects soy has on the body but I thought was
unbelievable is that soybean farming has caused more loss of the Amazon rain
forest than cattle ranching has. What a waste!
I could go
on forever about the health implications of soy but if you want more
clarification on why Soy is bad for you and then a great book to read is “The
Whole Soy Story” by Kaayla T. Daniel from the Weston Price Foundation.
Anyway,
let’s carry on with the other ingredients J
Sucrose, dextrose, sucralose,– All of these ingredients are
artificial sweeteners and are MUCH stronger than normal sugar so will have a
huge impact on the hormone insulin. If insulin is constantly being spiked
throughout the day with food that is high in glycaemic load then you won’t be
losing fat any time soon. Too much sugar makes you fat (especially around the
love handle area) and gives you diabetes but if you want 146 more reasons WHY
you should give up the white stuff then read this staggering article I wrote a
while back:
https://www.facebook.com/#!/notes/sam-winkworth/are-you-a-drug-addict/425381068807
Herbal Life
also use a sweetener called Acesulfame K in their products. I have written
about the health implications of this controversial sweetener before.
Acesulfame Potassium (non-nutrive sweetener) - otherwise known as Acesulfame K is another popular sweetener that many manufacturers
use. It’s also found in food and beverages aswell.
The problem with Acesulfame is that there have been no long term studies done
on it. Acesulfame K contains the carcinogen methylene chloride.
Long-term exposure to methylene chloride can cause headaches, depression,
nausea, mental confusion, liver effects, kidney effects, visual disturbances
and cancer in humans.
There has been a great deal of controversy to the use of acesulfame K but at
this time, the Foods Standards Agency has not asked for any tests to be done on
this sweetener.
Emulsifiers – Soya Lechtin is an
emulsifier used to stop water and fats from separating which basically helps
improve a products shelf life. We’ve
just spoken about why soy is detrimental to our health.
Anti-caking agents – An anti-caking
agent is an additive put into powder based products to stop lumps forming. Any
kind of additive used in a food product (in particular protein powders) isn’t
really designed to be in us and so the body will recognise it as toxic.
So…
Let me ask
the question again…
Is Herbal
Life “Healthy”?
I’ll leave you to make your own mind up…
As a fitness professional that promotes health and eating the way mother nature
intended us to eat, I'm afraid I simply cannot endorse a weight loss system
that allows you to eat toxic food that will stress out the liver.
I really hate to be a party pooper on
this but the ingredients used in herbal life’s supplements (stated above) will
unfortunately compromise the liver and if the liver is ALWAYS dealing with chemicals
and toxins coming in then people will find it harder to lose those last few
extra pounds. Not only that but overall health will eventually be compromised
aswell.
Surely a few toxins are OK in moderation though right?
Well, Yes…But the problem with “moderation” is that NO ONE CAN DO IT which is
why we have an obesity epidemic on at the moment, which is why we are SICKER
than ever before in our history and is why NO ONE is getting awesome fat loss
results from their training programmes.
So these days, most people can’t do a
few toxins and haven’t been for quite some time now
Here’s how toxins affect your liver and your
ability to drop body fat.
When you put food in your body that’s either allergenic or stresses out the
liver, your body cannot deal with all these toxins coming in. It also DOESN’T
want them in your blood stream for very long so it sends them to the adipose
tissue (your fat cells) to be stored out of the way.
This is why you gain fat so quickly if
you’re eating toxic food all the time.
So basically when you STOP putting
toxins into your body, your liver can go back to doing its job. It can then
start dealing with the excess toxins that are stored in the body fat, so it
will get rid of the toxins AND the body fat that it’s stored in.
The liver also produces sex hormone
binding globulins which are responsible for cleaning up androgens like
testosterone and estrogen. But if your liver is stressed and its working over
time trying to deal with chemicals and toxins coming in, then it either sends
out dysfunctional sex hormone binding globulins or doesn’t send any out at all,
which means that this excess estrogen has to be stored somewhere and unfortunately
for woman it will be the leg and bum area and for guys it will be the man boob
area.
So your liver health is the key to fat
loss.
Ok so now that we understand a bit more about how toxic food affects the liver,
let’s talk about how we can go about restoring TRUE health and losing fat…for
good:
1) Stay away from toxic food and anything that
stresses out the liver. Focus on
eating organic lean proteins like beef, chicken, turkey, sea food and eat
plenty of organic fruit and vegetables.
3) Manage your insulin levels better. Avoid spiking your insulin with too much
sugar and artificial sweeteners. Focus on foods that have little effect on
insulin and foods that are low in glycaemic load if you want to lose fat and
stay healthy.
4) Get READY for the ONSLAUGHT! Herbal Life are REALLY starting to target fit
pros and personal trainers to sell on their supplements to their clients so
expect to see a lot more “professionals” fronting their products. To be honest
with you, I really don’t have a problem with what fit pro’s choose to endorse
however I do feel that it’s my duty as a fat loss coach to educate people more
on the truth behind these “healthy” supplement companies.
5) Be WARY of supplement companies that claim
that they are 100% healthy because
quite often they are not. Check the ingredients out for yourself before you
take the supplement company’s word for it. Be aware of additives, preservatives
and sweeteners, especially in protein bars & shakes. Food that is toxic
will stress out the liver and sweeteners will spike your insulin.
And that’s it!
I hope that’s given you a bit more of an insight into Herbal Life and has given
you more of an understanding into the ingredients they use in their
supplements.
Peace
out J
Sam Winkworth
Body Transformation Specialist
PS - If you would like to transform your body and regain your health in just 28 days without the use of supplements then I'll be holding a free taster week at any one of my 3 fat loss Bootcamp venues in the Sevenoaks & Tonbridge area. It starts on Monday 7th October, you can come along to as many fat loss workouts as you like and you will also receive a FREE 7 day meal plan aswell.
Text or call me on 07817 403398 to reserve your place or you can go to www.evolutionbootamp.com to see some awesome body transformation photos from current members.There's only 5 places up fro grabs so if you want to take advantage of this free week then dont hang about.
.PNG)
.PNG)
.PNG)
