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!