In the Limelight with Clarissa Burt interviews Barbara Schwartz: Owner and CEO of AccuWeight-Loss “The Bead Diet”

 

 

 

Clarissa here and we are In the Limelight today! I've got not only a friend, but someone that I absolutely adore. This lady is one of the kindest people I've ever known. I love what she does. She is what they call Chief Magic-Maker and the CEO of AccuWeight: The Bead Diet. I've tried this diet, it's amazing and it works. She is one of the sponsors of In the Limelight for videos, podcasts and the magazine. I wanted to make sure that we fully explain to everyone what the diet is and what it isn't. Your three steps: weight-loss, stabilization and maintenance – let’s start with the weight-loss. You talk about acupressure. You talk about balanced nutrition and Qigong breathing. The floor is yours, honey.

Barbara Schwartz: Nice to meet all of you and welcome! AccuWeight-Loss is revolutionary. It evolved out of Chinese practice from a thousand years ago, blended with Western detox, dieting and putting it all together for an absolute reset of your system. It is a three-step system: there is weight-loss, stabilizing and maintaining. Our long term goal is maintenance. The short term goal is losing weight and/or detox. What's beautiful about what we do is, it's all-natural. We use acupressure, balanced nutrition, and Qigong breathing. I call it the ABC's of weight loss to pull together an all-natural, fast, healthy means to reset your digestive system, reset your body and reset your relationship with food. Going through the process, you're able to lose 15 pounds minimum every month of just body fat. We're not touching connective tissue. You're not reaching nutrients from the bones. We are focused only on burning body fat. There are two different ways to actually become a fat-burning machine. One is what you're hearing about all over the place which is ketosis. The Keto diet is a genuine way to burn fat, but you're burning fat when doing ketosis by forcing your body into a chemistry that is putting your body nutritionally out of balance. What AccuWeight is going to do is use balanced nutrition. We're going to put your body in a state called glycolysis, which is the body's natural way of burning fat while being in balance. That's why when we get to phase 2, we start to reintroduce food and build a maintenance plan for you. You're not going to start gaining weight back because your body's in balance and we bypass metabolism.

Clarissa: You talk about this diet being more about chemistry than calories. Can you explain that?

Barbara Schwartz: While on the Accuweight plan, we're going to focus on the components. In this case, the Qigong is an adjunct, it's giving other health benefits. We raise three prongs and two components: the acupressure and what's now called intermittent fasting, Along with a balanced nutrition diet based on core ingredients which are going to allow your whole digestive system to reset back to about 10 months old like a baby's diet. With a temporary diet change, you're going to be re-alkalizing your digestive system back into normal PH balance. Most of us are way too acidic, that’s where acid reflux, digestion issues, heartburn and more, come from. High acidity levels create inflammation and pain in the body. Also this temporary diet change will rebalance your blood sugars naturally. If you're borderline diabetic or diabetic, have low or erratic blood sugar, this is going to be incredibly healthy for you. If you don't have blood sugar issues, wonderful, but this will let the body rebalance the blood sugars. Another key component, also a function for maintenance is you're going to naturally clean out your large intestine. We build up a lot of toxins in our body. One place we can reabsorb hydration and fluids in, is from our large intestine. Think of it like your kitchen sink; sometimes you need Drain-o to clean out the buildup around the pipes. The same thing, our intestines have buildup. So we’re cleaning out the large intestine naturally over time by getting this three pronged detox. Again, we're rebalancing your acidity levels, naturalizing PH balance, alkalizing the system, rebalancing blood sugars and we're cleaning out the large intestine.

Clarissa: As I remember it, because it was last year, the diet consists of two days of dairy, or dairy alternatives, and two days of fruits and vegetables. Am I correct?

Barbara Schwartz: Correct. Now, these are the core ingredients: milk, whole milk, yogurt and vegan alternatives for people who don't use dairy at all. If you are lactose intolerant as I am, you can use lactose-free whole milk and organic whole milk, yogurt, fruits and vegetables – all core ingredients – you can buy in your local supermarket. What's fun and exciting is we have over 500 recipes being used while you're on plan and growing every day. I spoke to a client this morning who just created a new ice cream recipe because she's doing a dairy diet. There's a lot of fun things: people drinking lattes, milkshakes and making frozen yogurt, making a lot of really creative things. For digestive health and digestive cleanse, we’re going into a chemical reaction, forcing your body into the state of glycolysis, into natural fat burning, by putting eating into the hours of noon to 6:00. It's a specific intermittent fasting period. We do this because these are the hours where your body maximally absorbs nutrition. On a baby's diet, we want to make sure that your body's absorbing all the nutrition that you're given. We do have what we call “Anytime Treats” that you can have any time of day. It's not that you can't have anything outside of noon to 6 but those are core eating hours. A combination of the hours of eating foods with core ingredients and the acupressure are going to trick your brain to not understand we took calories away. Since your body is not living in a calorie world, it's just going to hunt for ways to create energy in the way body creates. Energy is sugar, what’s stored in those fat cells is your excess sugars. Your body is going to become a fat-burning machine with this temporary diet change and the use of acupressure if you'd like to talk a little bit about the acupressure?

Clarissa: Yes. I'd love to.

Barbara Schwartz: This is the revolutionary part. We're talking no pills, no supplements, no hormone shots, no anything. This works at any stage in life, our oldest client is 91 years old and we work with both men and women. We're really hitting a big niche with women in perimenopause and menopause because this causes a minimum of 15 pounds of body fat in 30 days, every month. We're working with 12 different points doing acupressure, not acupuncture. Acupressure actually predates acupuncture and Chinese medicine. There are no needles, nothing piercing your skin, no pain or discomfort. I actually find it a comforting thing to do. You're always wearing one pair of beads, one behind each ear in the acupressure areas between our hairline and where our ear connects to our heads and there are twelve different acupressure points behind our head. The points are the same for everyone but the pattern is unique to you. If I said, “There are twelve doorbells outside my front door, but only one is actually wired to ring the doorbell.” You need to know which one to press, right? The acupressure beads are going to be placed each week on the working acupressure point that is “ringing your doorbell”. The hypothesis is: the acupressure is speaking to the gland in your brain called the hypothalamus, and the hypothalamus is your satiation center, this is so powerful. The pressure is going to suppress your appetite. Honestly, there are times you're going to wish you're having something else and you might miss a day, that's okay. That's not hunger, that's desire. A lot of people at first say, “OK, I think I can do that.” Then they talk to me after their first week and they're like, “I couldn't finish it all.” The thing is, you're going to eat to the level that your body says you need. One of the reasons this is much more powerful than what your standard acupuncturist does, is typically they're using the points that suppress appetite in the stomach, but our mind is a lot stronger. That's our controlling center. Acupressure is suppressing your appetite in your hypothalamus telling your brain you're not hungry. Number one, you're not walking around hungry which makes this, and food, very simple. The second thing the acupressure is going to do, combined with the food plan, protects your metabolism because we're reducing calories now. You ever hear that nasty word called plateau? A plateau is: the only way to lose weight is to reduce calories. You can go to the gym and for a week or two, you might lose some weight while your body's acclimating to the new burning of calories but the only way to genuinely lose weight is to reduce calorie intake. Your brain is going to recognize that calorie reduction and going to bring down your metabolism to meet your intake. Reaching a plateau in a standard diet, your brain is telling you it's recognized your calorie intake, learned to live there and the only way to lose weight again is to reduce calories again. This becomes a never-ending cycle of plateau, reduce, take. When you reach your weight goal, how are you reintroducing a normal diet to your life? Because you killed your metabolism.

Clarissa: What about exercise? What does this diet suggest?

Barbara Schwartz: Here's the cool part. We encourage exercise, but when we promise you a minimum of 15 pounds every month, there is no exercise required. I'll be honest, we do get quite a few people who gained weight because of an injury or they just had surgery, can't move then gaining weight because they're sedentary, haven't exercised in years and not in a position where they can. The beauty is it's going to work with or without. Candidly, there are many health properties to exercise. We actually have an announcement coming out – which will be eligible for your followers as well – where we are aligning ourselves with a company called Zeamo; a network of gyms that are not a gym membership, but a Zeamo membership. You'll be able to visit any gym on the network. If you're not exercising, is the fat reducing? I don't have a lot of body fat. You can see my biceps but I get that jiggle under my arm because you don't really use your triceps. I'm just getting back into the gym because I don't really like that hanging tricep muscle. I could lose as much weight as I want, that isn't going away. The only way that will happen is exercise. As your body fat is getting smaller, your muscles are going to appear. If you are someone who has been going into the gym, you may be getting frustrated with your trainer or saying, “I'm working out so hard, but I can't see it.” That's because the layer of body fat is covering it over. As the layer of fat is actually reducing, your beautiful muscles that you've been toning are going to pop, you're going to look twice as good.

Clarissa: That's really exciting news. I love that. If someone wanted to get in touch with you, Barb, if someone wanted to say, “OK, let's just do a consult. Let's talk about my moving forward,” because even in one of the videos that I watched before we started our interview you say, “This may not be for everybody. It's a little bit of work, not going to be the easiest thing. Let's see what's a good fit for you.” What would you suggest is the next step?

Barbara Schwartz: I've given you an overview about the program, but we do have the actual podcast, “How and Why It Works” on our home page, runs half an hour, also available in Spanish. You can listen to the podcast through the website or you'll find on the website a toll-free number where you can listen or should you have any questions and want to schedule a phone consult with us. We're happy to give a one-on-one consult as well. Best way to schedule is [email protected], just say “I'd love to have a phone console.” The other thing is every Monday night at 8 p.m., my father, Dr. Schwartz, one of our founders— and I should mention we are in our twenty third year, established in 1997. We've been around a long time and one of the reasons you probably haven't heard of us is we don't advertise, it comes from referrals. Someone sees their friend or loved one doing this and see the results because it's about 15 pounds of body fat in a month, a significant change. We have longevity and have worked with over 60,000 people with mega success. Our company’s based on the East Coast primarily in New York and New Jersey. We also have AccuWeight online where we work with people across the US and around the globe. We have clients in Australia, New Zealand, India, even China, my most interesting one was Ethiopia. Acupressure is typically a touch therapy but we've developed two things to make this a simple process that anybody can do anywhere, any time. Clarissa is sitting thousands of miles away from me at the moment, but we're able to get her started on the program because she doesn't need to be here in person. The first thing we developed is an algorithm that takes your physiology and your physiologic statistics that calculates your acupressure points, no guesswork. The acupressure pattern is calculated specifically for you and going to be accurate because it's a tried and tested algorithm that's been in use for over 15 years now. We also knew people were nervous putting their beads on at home because if your beads aren't on the working acupressure point you are putting your metabolism at risk. It is really important that the acupressure is positioned on the right position of those twelve locations. It took us over two years to develop this. Now patent-pending and shipping to every household with every AccuWeight online order, is our new AccuPoint Finder. This is a piece you get with a surgical marker you can hold up to your head. All you have to do is hold it to your ear; we guessed you have a loved one or someone do it for you because it's behind your ear but the beads can actually be positioned should you need to do it yourself. We do provide flesh-tone bandaids that you can put over them, this way when you shower, wash your hair, swim, you can do all activities and they will stay on.

Clarissa: They do stay on. They’re changed every week to 10 days?

Barbara Schwartz: Every week to 9 days. Most people do it every 7 days, it helps keep them on track. The acupressure will protect your metabolism for up to 9 days. It's not as effective in day 8 and 9 for suppressing appetite. People are saying, “if you're starting Tuesday, it's gonna be easy to remember to change your beads next Tuesday.” If you're doing AccuWeight online compared to coming to one of our locations, you do have an AccuMember dashboard where you have a calendar helping you keep track of your cycle where you can track your weight, BMI, take notes, keep good-logs, a daily journal, that’s all available to you as well.

Clarissa: I want to mention that you have given a gift to my followers and my guests. I'd love for you to tell them what that is and exactly how it can be applied.

Barbara Schwartz: When you join AccuWeight for the first time, use promo code Clarissa 20, giving you a 20% discount on your first order as a new client. You're going to get your starter kit, a four or eight-week plan. Even for those with less than 15 pounds to lose, if you just want to detox, we do have a two-week detox; a mini version of the program. On any of our weight-loss plans, you can get a 20% discount. While you're dipping your toe in the water and considering whether or not this is for you, on the homepage at the bottom, you can sign up for our newsletter as we launch this Zeamo relationship and be able to purchase their membership— which you can't do direct to consumer, you need a host.

Clarissa: That's really great. We've got a plan, you know what to do. I've done it. It will not be easy, but it's going to be done. The greatest thing about Barbara is she never makes you feel guilty. If you've fallen off the wagon or you cheated a little bit, you've got your cheerleader on your side always. Thanks again. We'll talk again soon.

Barbara Schwartz: Thanks. ✧