Is USANA Staff Surviving with the “5 White Devils”?

Brenda’s experiment has been running for nearly a week now. We received hundreds of emails giving us updates on people’s progress. How are they coping with it?

Nikki Stockton, our new Customer Service Manager of USANA Australia and New Zealand misses carbs desperately. She hasn’t slept properly in 3 nights and has lost 2 kg so far! Leeanne McWhinnie, our Assistant Accounts Manager, a crazy chocolate lover, has lost 1kg as well. Kaushali De Silva, our Returns Co-ordinator, also a self-confessed chocoholic, has lost 2.5kg. “I sleep well, feel good. No hunger pains, but constantly wondering what will be my next meal…” She says. For Kashmira Sachania, our Senior Product Manager, the week has been a breeze, as she has been trying to avoid food instead of the devils. She told us that her body suddenly seemed depleted of all the salt reserves on Day 5 and she can’t wait for the experiment to be over!

Lots of people just have steamed vegetables and meat without seasoning, and have fresh fruit as snacks instead of bars, cake and ice-cream. Headaches, bad-sleep and mood changes are what we heard most from the feedback.



Challenges

One of the biggest challenges is to avoid salt. “I’m finding absolutely everything from the supermarket has salt in it. I wanted to make spinach & ricotta lasagne, using wholemeal lasagne sheets the other day, however the ricotta contains salt. Also with snack foods; I was looking at the contents of crackers in the health food isle, and although I could find ones that did not contain white flour and sugar, all contained salt!” Leeanne says.


Some people found it hard to avoid temptation. “The movies were a challenge! Never realized you could be surrounded by so much sweet stuff, but not one piece past my lips!” Commented Gill Stapleton, General Manager of USANA Australia and New Zealand. “I woke up very hungry this morning which seemed to put my brain into neutral. I was running late but managed to cook scrambled eggs and eat a banana on the run. It would have been the ideal time to cheat but I hung in there.” Shona Martin, our New Zealand Service Representative shares her story with us.

It’s also hard for people to change their eating habits. One of the participants is our International Co-ordinator from the USANA home office, Maki Lerwill. She is initially from Japan and she found it’s extremely hard to avoid rice for a week. However, she finally made her way through with vegetables and chicken.

We wish them good luck as there’s only 2 more days to go. It’s the commitment as a team player that keeps people going, and we appreciate that.

Stay tuned and keep an eye on the coming blog, where we will give you tips, recipes ideas for avoiding processed foods and let you know how our participants feel now that they are finished. If you are in the experiment as well, please leave your comments below.