On this week’s Losing It With Jillian Episode 7, Jillian travels to Michigan to help a husband and wife, Todd and Amy Franklin from Detroit, to shed pounds. They have been overweight most of their lives and the loss of their family business has added extra stress to their lives.

Two years ago Amy had gastric but gained all the weight back and Todd can’t breathe at night. He uses one of those CPAP machines. Amy also smokes while Todd has 49 percent body fat.

Jillian worked with them and kids to clean out the bad food. This is always a great part of the Losing It With Jillian show.

The kids were super concerned with parents because Dad can’t breathe at night and Mom smokes cigarettes all day. Thankfully, Mom buried her last cigarette and promised her two daughters that she would quit.

Jillian worked out with Todd separately and really pushed him boxing. Unfortunately he quit with 10

seconds left. Then the 2nd time he quit again. Jillian was struggling to find out what will motivate the couple. Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t miss this week’s episode of Losing It With Jillian – Changing a Nation, Indian reservation. I think it is going to be especially powerful to watch. The family is the Plunkett-Marquez Family and the show airs Tuesday, July 6th 8/7c on NBC.

Jillian travels to Arizona to help improve the health of the family and also the entire tribe. There are not many stories sadder than what this country has done to Native Americans. Now, on top of that, the production and marketing of cheap, unhealthy food is causing them to be some of the most obese in the country. I am pretty sure it’s going to be a tear-jerker for me.

If anyone can change the future for these fine people, it is Jillian. Expect the usual yelling and “in your face” workouts that we have grown to love from Losing It With Jillian, but I think there will be even more of the heart-to-heart conversations she brings too.

I am anxious to see how the rest of the Indian tribe reacts to Jillian. I hope they hear her message and make changes for their health. This is not a society I want to see lost (period) but especially not to something like obesity.

Read the rest of this entry »

The “Learning to Live” theme song from Losing It With Jillian is awesome! It’s by Beth Hart and here it is with a video to go along with it. The songs on Losing It With Jillian are pretty inspiring so get them onto your MP3 players pronto! Losing It With Jillian Theme Song, “Learning to Live”

On last’s night episode of Losing It With Jillian, tips on cleaning out kitchen to lose weight were featured. Jillian was in the kitchen in her usual style, throwing things and yelling “NO” (which I love) and the family was having a hard time giving up a few items. Canned fruit for one. Cleaning out the kitchen to prepare it for healthy foods to help us lose weight is, I think, one of the biggest challenges we have in the whole process. There are some really concrete things you can look for and do to make the process go smoother.

1). Get help. Before you even learn what you are going to have to throw out, find someone to help you. This will make you accountable and not allow for any “cheating”…(“I am just going to finish that one jar of high fructose corn syrup jelly and then ok, that will be it”).

2). Plan for where the food will go. Is there a food bank you can make donations to? Some people just CANNOT put food in the trash, even if that is what half of it is….But do me a favor will ya? Buy one bag of organic food, or brown rice, or bags of beans, and donate that too?

3). Clean it. This is a great opportunity to get into areas you might not have been in for a while. Clean food deserves a clean place to put it in, so scrub off that juice that was making the refrigerator shelf sticky and get those crumbs out of the spice drawer!

4). Immediately go shopping afterward. (Unless you are planning on doing some sort of cleanse first to kick start the weight loss.) Now, you are probably thinking this is going to be a really expensive process, right? But, actually it shouldn’t be. First, you are just going to buy what you need for one week. You don’t have to buy every piece of organic fruit or every kind of whole grain this or that. Keep it simple for week #1 and you can build on that.

The way I did this was by trying new recipes. Each recipe, there would be one item I would have to get, like a spice I had never tried, or whole wheat bread crumbs for instance, that I could use and then have on hand for later. Before you know it, you have a kitchen stocked with healthy foods that you can’t really mess up in.

5). Now that you have the food you need and your clean, healthy kitchen is ready to go, you will need support to keep you motivated along the way. Recruit your friends to do what you have done. Help them to make the healthy steps you have made. Use things like the forums and boards on Jillian’s website to be accountable. Nothing better than having Jillian on your side pushing you to lose the weight you want. It’s $4 per week, so less than the cost of all those fast food meals you wont be having anymore! Really good tracking stuff in there too. 

The link for the specifics of what to throw out and what to keep are below. But…the only one I would add to is the high fructose corn syrup one. Pretty much if it says “sugar” as one of the first 5 ingredients, throw it out. Read my post on high fructose corn syrup vs. table sugar and you’ll see why. Also, the 40-30-30 recommendation from Jillian is pretty much The Zone Diet plan so you might want to read more about that too.

Ready to get started? Here is where you can find the very specific Losing It With Jillian tips on cleaning out kitchen to lose weight and then visit the BurnFatClub Jillian Michaels 5K Challenge Post to get the exercise started too!

In this Losing It With Jillian Episode 3, June 15 recap, Jillian makes a visit to the May family in Bakersfield, CA.  The usual Jillian coming in and kicking booty intro stuff. But my favorite part was Jillian cleaning out the kitchen. I think this is where a lot of people get stuck, not being able to throw out that jar of mayo even though they can read “High Fructose Corn Syrup” right there on the label. The response is “But it’s just mayo, and it’s fat free mayo!” Fact is, if the label says it’s junk, it’s junk. Here are more tips on cleaning out your kitchen from the NBC.com site. Get some friends to come help you. This will keep you accountable during the process.

Ruth and her three children who still live with her, Rachel, Ashley and a son, are struggling with the emotional remnants of a divorce from two years ago. It appears the father is no longer in the picture. The garage filled up with junk reminding us of lasts week’s hoarding situation. Though this time, Jillian holds a big yard sale to clear the house of the clutter and make room for changes.

Ruth challenges Jillian at the dining room table and tells Jillian ” I am filled with hate” (towards Jillian) because she says she didn’t let her go through her things before it was sold. Jillian calls her out on her constantly victimizing herself and that seems to be a big wake up call for Ruth.

The two girls (well one was 25 so not “girls”…young ladies) are really beautiful but each wants to lose some weight too. Jillian takes them to a soccer practice to play the sport they played when their parents were still together. This, for Ashley, is her A-Ha moment as Jillian “Why’s” her to death until she gets to the heart of what is bothering her. She can’t trust anyone because her dad left.

For Rachel…it’s that she is living in the shadow of her mother. Better communication and soon the women are on their way to better family relationships.

The kids sign up mom to an online dating site and she goes on her first date in 30 years!!! Wow! The date was shown for about 2 minutes, seemed ok but don’t know if there were any sparks. Still, at that point, it’s just great to get out there and start meeting people!

Jillian says she is leaving for 8 weeks and everyone states their goals. Ruth wants to lose 20 pounds but Jillian ups it to 40. Ashley wants to get in a size 7 dress and Jillian says, no, size 6. For Rachel, she also wants to lose 40 pounds.

Everyone reaches their goals, and Ruth loses a whooping 74 pounds! (It seemed like that was in the 8 week period but I don’t know because it showed many episodes of her not working out when she was supposed to be). Maybe they were adding up some weight she had lost on her own before Jillian arrived??? 74 pounds is a lot to lose in 8 weeks, but if anyone can make it happen, it’s Jillian.

The Losing It With Jillian show is starting to get a little too predictable at this point. My friend said it is very much like Nanny 911. Same old, same old. Last week, episode 2, was great with the 5K Challenge which we are doing here at BurnFatClub. This week….so so. The biggest take away is that it can be done…at any age and there is always time for a new beginning.

Here is a link to watch Losing It With Jillian Episode 3, June 15 video available online.

This week’s Losing It With Jillian episode 3 will air tonight, June 15 on NBC. There is a slot change as Jillian is now moving to the Biggest Loser’s slot! So, it will start at 8:00 eastern.

This is an episode I have been waiting for. It’s the one with the lady where I think Jillian will be throwing stuff out of her kitchen.

Jillian visits the May family and it looks like we might have another hoarder on our hands as the preview shows a garage full of stuff and a yard sale.

According to sidereel.com, “A family need a boost toward positive change following a life-altering event. Jillian takes the mom out for a night on the town and then arranges a soccer-based workout for the kids. Later, the family hold a garage sale to clear out space in their home.”

Here is the preview for this week’s Losing It With Jillian Episode 3. Don’t forget if you miss the show on TV, it will be up on www.hulu.com for free. And be sure to come back later tonight for the complete recap and details of the June 15 show HERE.

Losing It With Jillian June 15 NBC