Isagenix Event

Today, I went and supported my coach at an Isagenix event that she threw. It was mainly for the business side of things, which as of right now, I'm not really interested in. Yes, it would be nice to make some extra money, but I don't think I'm at the right place to say, "Hey, I've been doing this for three days and I feel great, you should shell out $400 a month and do it, too!" when I'm still so overweight. Amber is perfect for it. She's fit, she's healthy, she's cute, she's perky...it's a great fit for her. For me, not so much right now. Who knows where things may go in the future. I imagine, when I start losing a noticable amount of weight, people will start asking what I'm doing and I'll be more than happy to share, but I'll probably just send them Amber's way. I don't know that I'm ready/willing to commit to a business.

There were some excellent speakers there. One was Michael Clouse. He is a friend of Amber's, so we were able to go out to lunch with him after the event and pick his brain. He is very charismatic, great at what he does and a wealth of knowledge and information.

Oh, by the way, I did really well at lunch! We went to an Italian restaurant, which, of course, had my FAVORITE...bread dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I may have been drooling a little bit. I didn't have any bread, then had salmon on a bed of spinach. I asked for my dressing for the spinach on the side, but they didn't do it that way and the spinach came drenched in dressing, so I only ate some of it. I drank so much water today I was practically floating!

Tomorrow is my first cleanse day. I'm a little nervous! It's also my daughter's birthday party, with macaroni and cheese, meatballs, rootbeer floats, etc. I may cry a little. lol

IsaSnacks

So, I had nowhere near enough calories yesterday. Even with my two shakes, I had under 700 calories...not very good considering I'm supposed to have 1200. Today, I did better. I had Chinese Chicken Salad for lunch, minus the carrots and with about half the sugar normally called for. A couple of hours after lunch, I had an IsaSnack. I'm officially NOT looking forward to cleanse days. You don't have the eat the snacks on shake days, but they're vital on cleanse days. They're GROSS. They smell like kiddy chocolate lip balm, and taste just like they smell. Someone had told me that they like to suck on them to make them last longer. I tried that. No way! When I chewed it, it tasted a bit better, but still pretty gross. I just keep telling myself it's good for me and just keep chewing!

Shake #1

Yes, two blog posts in a single day! I'm sure they will slow down,  but for now, I just plan on blogging as I think of things to write about.

I had my first shake! I used the vanilla IsaLean shake with 8 ounces of ice water and blended it all up. It was SO much better than I was expecting it to be. It was really thick, though. Maybe I need more water and less ice.

I had a problem, though. I was out running unexpected errands (the car was making a funny noise) until 11:30 today, so I didn't get my breakfast shake until then. I think lunch will hold off until 2 or so. To remedy this problem in the future (afterall, if it happened the fist day, it's bound to happen again!) I've purchased a shaker bottle with a little ball whisk inside and I will keep a few shake packets in my purse so I can have a shake on the go if I need to.

Bought a scale, and started!

I went out and bought a scale last night. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had already reached my first goal! lol My official starting weight is 297. Wow, that's a lot of weight.

I just got off the phone with my Isagenix coach, Amber. She had a lot of great info and insight into the program and she encouraged me to start today, so that's what I'm doing. The only question I really had was if I could take the Ionix with breakfast or if it should be on a empty stomach. Empty stomach is best, but with breakfast isn't bad. So, down the hatch with an ounce of the Ionix. It smells a lot worse than it tastes. It actually wasn't as bad as I had worried it would be. I need to go get a little cup or something that holds an ounce. I just took two tablespoons, but that makes me feel like I'm taking medicine. lol 16 ounces of water and I'm good to wait an hour or so before I have my shake for breakfast! I think I'll go vanilla.

Amber made a really great observation this morning. My first three days on the program should be easier than it is for most people. Today, I'm going to her house to get some measurements and before photos and talked on the phone with her for about 20 minutes. Tomorrow night I'm going to her house for an Isagenix party, then Saturday I'm going to an Isagenix seminar and then out to lunch with Amber, the speakers from the seminar and some other people. I'm going to be surrounded by Isagenix support for the first three days! Awesome! I'm planning a cleanse day on Sunday and Amber said she plans on being on the phone with me throughout the day to help me get through it because the first day of the first cleanse tends to be the most difficult.

My husband isn't terribly supportive of the program, but is supportive of me. He told me to tell him, "More support, less criticism!" anytime he started talking badly about the program.  I've had to use that phrase many times already and I hadn't even started!!! I know he loves me and wants what's best for me. He just doesn't think this is it. I plan to prove him wrong. He is, however VERY excited about exercising with me, which is awesome.

Look what came today!

My 30 day supply plus IsaDelights (chocolates!) and a little sampler package that included a fiber bar, cookie, Want More Energy stick, Greens stick and a lemon meal replacement bar.

So, I think Friday is going to be Day 1 for me. That way I will have my cleanse days on Sunday and Monday. I figure that I will be at church the majority of the day on Sunday and Mondays are pretty easy going for me, so those seem like good cleanse days for now. Although, Sunday is my daughter's birthday party, so that may be a challenge. I'm going to be good!

Now, off to call my coach and let her know it's all here! She says she wants to come over and take measurements and pictures before I get started. Ugh. I do my best to be behind the camera at all times, not in front of it. I plan on having one heck of an after shot, though!

Why do I do this?

I really need to stop deciding "I'm going to start on date X." I mean, I understand why I do it. It takes time to fill your house with foods you can eat, get rid of foods you can't, mentally prepare for the hell that is dieting, etc. However, and I can't be the only one who does this, those few days before I start seem to trigger something in my mind. They seem to tell me, "You're never going to be able to eat this stuff again, so for the few days you're not on your diet yet, YOU MUST EAT THEM ALL!!!!!!!!" Seriously, my plan was to just get rid of the junk food in the house. Instead, I ate it all. Then, I went to the store, bought more and ate that, too. Then I saw Jack in the Box and that sounded good, so I ate that, too. (Not all of it, mind you.) Then, today, I saw something on Pinterest that sounded really yummy, and knowing that in a couple of days I won't be able to eat it, went and bought everything to make it. Instead of saying, "That's not good for us, I won't make it," I hurried to make sure I could make it before "D Day."

Way to self sabotage, Katie.

Goals

So, I guess I had better set some goals. I'm not positive of my weight right now, but I'm guessing around 304. Did I really just say that? Ugh. A lot of scales flip at 300. Pathetic. However, it is what it is and at least I'm trying to do something to change that! When I find out my actual weight, I will do an updated post with goals based on my actual weight.

 I hate to give myself specific dates that I would like to reach goals by because I know from experience that if I don't hit those dates, I get really down on myself and when I get really down on myself, I eat. So, I'm not going to give dates. I'm just going to give weights and how I plan on rewarding myself for each accomplished goal!

Update 6/28: I bought a scale and weighed myself. Starting weight is officially 297

300: Where I plan to start my percentage awards from
Under 300: No reward, just want to be there soon (Woohoo, already there!)
First 10 lbs (294 287): An extra bottle of Isagenix Cleanse so I can do three two days cleanses this month instead of two
10% of my body weight (270): Haircut
50 lbs lost (254 247): New dress (although, if I've lost 50 pounds, I'll probably need one before this!)
25% of my body weight(225): Hike with my family
100 lbs lost (204 197):  Hire a personal trainer
Under 200: (No longer needed because 100 pounds lost is under 200 now that I know my starting weight)
Least I've weighed while actively losing weight (182):Go kayaking with my husband
50% of my body weight(150): Disneyland
GOAL! (134): Trip to NYC with my husband

 Wow, it's a lot more difficult coming up with rewards than I thought it would be! Everything I could think of revolved around food: Dinner out with my husband, take my mom out to dinner, girls weekend with Tracey (which always has a ton of food involved!)...and so on and so forth. I've also decided that for every pound I lose, I'm going to put away $5, so when I need new clothes, I'll have the money to buy them!

Here we go again!

So, I'm not even really sure where to start with this. An intro, perhaps? A picture? A confession? We'll start with an intro. Hi, I'm Katie! I'm 33 years old, have six kids, ages 5, (tomorrow, anyways) 7, 8, 10, 12 and 13. I'm fat. I'm not just a little overweight. I'm not chubby. I'm not fluffy. I'm not curvy. I'm not whatever nicer way you want to put it. I'm just fat. It really sucks. I can go on and on and on about why it sucks, but I'm sure I'll go into that plenty over the course of this blog. I've been married to my amazing husband for 14 years now. We were high school sweethearts. Cue the "Awwwwww!" He's amazing in every way, but as it pertains to this blog, I'll gush on and on about how he loves me no matter how I look. I was 137 pounds when we met. I was 150 after our first child. I was 203 after our second. I was 221 after our third. I was 210 after our fourth, I was 245 after our fifth. I was 210 after our sixth. I was 290 after a year of postpartum depression after our sixth. Where am I now? Bigger than that, but I don't know how much bigger because I refuse to step on a scale. If I don't see the number, it doesn't exist, right? Wrong, I know. Anyways, back to my amazing husband. I'm pretty sure he loves me more now than he did when we first got married. (I guess fourteen years will do that to you) What I find odd, though, is that he thinks I'm beautiful. He tells me so multiple times a day. He thought I was when I was thin. He still thinks I am even though I'm fat. Even though I look in the mirror and cry because I think I'm disgusting, he hugs me and tells me I'm the most beautiful woman in the world...and I think he actually believes it. See, I told you he's amazing.

Like most people, I've yo-yo dieted with the best of them. I feel like I've tried everything. I've gone from Atkins, to raw vegan, and everywhere in between. I lost the most on Atkins (60 pounds in four months!) and felt the best as a raw vegan. Actually, I take that back. I felt the best when I did the master cleanse. Nine days of not eating, and that's when I felt the best? Okay, after nine days, I didn't feel all that great, but in the middle, say day 3 or 4, I felt awesome. It's hard to describe exactly how I felt, but I guess the closest I could say is zen. I felt so peaceful, focused and happy. Weird, right?

 So, that brings me to the purpose of this blog. I'm starting...again. What makes me think this time will be different than other times? Part of me says nothing, that it won't, that I'll fail just like every other time. Part of me is hopeful. My friend, Amber, introduced me to this program called Isagenix. They have a 30 day cleanse program that sounds interesting. You have shake days and cleanse days. On the shake days, you drink a shake for breakfast, eat a 400-600 calorie lunch, then have another shake for dinner, as well as take a metabolism booster and some other stuff. On cleanse days, you drink their cleanse drink, take your metabolism booster, drink tons of water (you do this on shake days as well)and have a few of their snacks. They seem to use the term "snack" lightly. It's actually this wafer thing. You don't actually get a "snack" in the typical sense.

At first, I dismissed it completely. I had heard of friends who did Slim Fast, and even a prescribed shake diet. I thought they were silly. If you eat well and exercise, you lose weight. You don't need a shake. But, I guess if it was easy, I'd have done it already, right? Still, I'm hesitant. I want to be all gung ho, "Yay, this is awesome, I'm totally going to do it this time! This is exactly the program I need!!!" However, I'm not. I feel like I'm setting myself up to fail with this thinking. I just don't feel all that excited about it. Perhaps it's because I've failed myself so many times. Perhaps it's because it goes against everything I've always thought about food and nutrition. Perhaps it's because I just love food and the thought of having one meal a day makes me want to cry. I'd like to think that it's because, deep down, I know this is going to work, and that scares me. I'm afraid to change.

Change is a scary thing. Oh, who am I kidding? I am READY for a change. It excites me. The thought of not being trapped in this body is one of the greatest things I can think of. The thought of being able to cross my legs, sit in a chair without wondering if I might break it, go hiking with my family, go swimming, walk around without being in pain, look in the mirror without wanting to cry...all of that sounds absolutely blissful. I'm not afraid of change. I want to embrace it. I do have a list of reasons that I think Isagenix can work for me. My number one reason being that I don't think Amber would sell me something that she doesn't absolutely believe in. I think that's the biggest reason I'm taking this leap of faith. I trust her. It IS a big leap of faith. This program is EXPENSIVE. I guess, if you think about it, it replaces 64 meals a month, so per meal, it's not too terrible, but fronting all of that cost at once...brutal. When I told my husband how much it was going to cost, I thought it was going to be a definite no go, but he just said that if I felt it was something I needed to do, to go for it, that me feeling better about myself and doing something for myself was worth any amount of money. He did, however, have one condition...that I stick with it for 90 days. I had originally told him that I planned on doing it for one month and seeing how I felt then. He said that a month wasn't enough time to properly decide if this was something that was going to work for me, that the results at the end of the month are just results of my body adjusting to something new and that it would take at least three months for my body to really start showing me how it felt on this program. So, that's what I'm committing to...three months. Here goes nothing!