Читать книгу 8 to Your Ideal Weight - MK Mueller - Страница 8

My Journey

In August 1986 I was lost. The counselor on the phone had just told me I was in a domestic violence marriage and that my life was in danger. Then she gave me the address of a shelter where my daughter and I would be safe.

My denial was thick, but I had too many secrets to share them with anyone else, so I trusted that she knew what she was talking about and packed up a few things for us. After my husband left for work the next day, we left.

That month-long program changed my life forever. Where my degree with honors from a prestigious university had given me knowledge, my counselors at the shelter gave me wisdom.

Four weeks later, as I re-entered my world, I didn’t want to forget what I’d learned about honoring and standing up for myself, so I decided to start a support group. I put notes in 10 neighbors’ mailboxes, inviting them to my living room on a Saturday morning for the very first “Taking Care of Me” class. Five people showed up that day, and although none of them were in a domestic violence situation, the empowerment message resonated with all of them.

Soon I was hosting classes in church basements and small businesses, regularly hearing the same request: “Please put this in a book.” My reply that I wasn’t “a writer” got weaker as time went on, and eventually my first book, “Taking Care of Me: The Habits of Happiness,” was published.

The journey from those early days of watching women and men reclaim their happiness and personal power to today as a Life Coach and International Keynote Speaker has been a glorious one. For the past three decades, I’ve been coaching people of all ages - from business leaders and educators to CEO’s and Moms groups - to happier and more successful lives through my 8-step process, “8 to Great.” Today I’m so proud that over 2500 PowerCoaches are living and sharing that process around the world.

So in January 2014, life was good. I lived every day in gratitude, but also in fear. I woke up every day afraid of what I might eat, and went to bed every night guilty about what I’d eaten. I wasn’t consuming food, food was consuming me.

Meanwhile, what my audiences didn’t see on stage was that my energy was low and getting lower. Getting through a day of speaking wore me out. Playing tennis after a day of writing was just not an option, and I watched my life become more and more sedentary. My weight continued to increase, but I couldn’t bring myself to go back to counting calories or points. I attributed it all to getting older, and resigned myself to believing it was inevitable.

It was at that point that my chiropractor and friend, Michelle Robin, D.C., suggested I consider a dietary change - release sugar’s hold on me.

“But I don’t get sick!” I challenged, dreading the thought of having to give up my fast food breakfast and daily dose of diet soda. What I didn’t tell her was that I was successful at only one thing with diets - failing. I had tried every weight loss gimmick available for 30 years. Like 90% of women, I’d gone on more than 16 crazy calorie-counting and point-counting diets in my 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. None of them had been sustainable.

“You’ll feel and look years younger, MK. Just give it a try for 2 weeks.”

I trusted her, so I watched the documentaries “Fed Up” and “That Sugar Film.” I was stunned when I found out how the big food industries had stacked the cards against us by putting addictive levels of sugar in almost every processed food.

Instead of getting depressed, I got mad. I had been the “Sugar Queen” who had to have my favorite candy every day and had been tricked into a life of fat and fatigue. I trusted the mountain of new research findings - that if I just gave my body a few days to “detox,” and started checking food labels for added sugars instead of calories or fats, I would be on my way to a lifetime of freedom.

I purchased the hottest new diet book on lowering my added sugar intake and gave it a try. (I remember feeling really dizzy for the first 24 hours. My body’s detoxing really took it out of me, so I was glad I’d chosen a weekend to start it.)

But there was a problem. Over those next two weeks I could barely keep up with all the “rules.” The diet didn’t just limit my added sugars, it required 10 daily supplements, 30 minutes of exercise each day, daily detox baths, a media fast, no dairy, no caffeine, keeping records of sleep, food intake, etc. I told my friends it felt like a part-time job just trying to remember it and get all my homework done.

By the 14th day, I had released 7 of the 20 pounds I wanted to lose and I had no sugar cravings, (no small miracle!) but the rest of the program was just too much. I couldn’t sustain it. Within a month I had gone back to my old ways and gained back the weight.

I felt like a failure again, and I was angry.

I knew that removing added sugars was good for me. Why couldn’t someone offer a program that was easy, that worked in everyday life for normal people, and that would be a way to eat for life rather than for a few high-deprivation months?

That day I went back to my notes, got out my scissors and started cutting. I would test a food plan that did allow dairy and caffeine so I could have butter and cheese and drink my morning cup of coffee with cream. What did I have to lose but my belly fat, fatigue and mood swings?

Within 8 weeks on this incredibly simple program, I released 20 pounds while enjoying the most delicious food I’d ever tasted. Eating real food was not only easier than I believed, but all of a sudden it tasted like a banquet.

The Email that Birthed

this Book

What happened next was much more than a coincidence. I got an email from one of my readers. Jim had heard me speak years before and wrote to thank me. In his email he shared how, when he was on the brink of absolute despair, the 8 steps of my 8 to Great book had helped him find the courage to get healthy, release 150 pounds, and turn his life around. He got me thinking.

I knew that releasing sugar addiction was the only sustainable way to release weight without cravings, and that most people believed it was impossibly difficult. I also knew that my 8-step process would supply the motivation to stay the course as new habits were developed. I decided to test a blend of my simple 4-step sugar awareness program with my equally simple 8 to Great process.

Today I not only have hundreds of success stories, but scores of Certified Coaches of this process around the world who are helping women and men achieve the same amazing and sustainable results.

And now it is with great gratitude and joy that I am sharing this powerful process with you.

Here we grow!

MK

The First Step in Your Journey to Your IdealWeight

You are reading this now because you are considering a powerful change. With this program, change will come your way immediately, not just in how you relate to food, but how you relate to feelings, to family, and to your reflection in the mirror.

This process won’t just change how you eat. It will change how you feel about yourself.

So if change is what you’re looking for, you’ve made a great choice.

This program is based not only on the newest information on the epidemic of addiction to added sugars, but also on my 30 years of learning, living and coaching a proven process for aligning our hearts and minds.

I call that process “The 8 High-Ways” because it will get you on the road to success faster and get you where you want to go. Picture an iceberg.

Now imagine that the peaks above the surface are your “problems.” One might be money, or relationships, or a job you don’t like, but the big one is weight. “If only I could lose this weight,” you keep thinking, “then I could be happy.”

So you go on diet after diet, chipping away at that one peak. Maybe even making some progress, but it never helps. Why? Because all the ice underneath the surface keeps attracting and freezing more ice on top.

Here’s the good news:

1. This program will take a huge sledge hammer to what’s below the surface, helping you release regrets, self-doubt, worry, and all other thought forms that lead to unhappiness, addictive eating patterns, and an ‘ice-olated’ life.

2. Once the underlying issues are released, not only will the extra weight fall away for good, but so many other issues in your life will start to clear up, from indecision … to debt … to clutter, and more.

“We come into this 8 to Your IdealWeight program thinking that releasing the weight will solve our problems, then discover that solving our problems releases the weight.”

- Lorri C.

What this healing requires is your focus and coachability for 8 full weeks.

The Challenge - Finding Your Balance

I believe I know something about you. If you’re like most people reading this, you take better care of others than you do yourself. It’s time to balance the scales. So as your Coach, here is my first challenge:

Put yourself first. For 8 weeks make taking care of You the prime focus. What’s the worst thing that could happen if you rebalanced your priorities for that short amount of time? Whatever it is, it pales in comparison to your potential for creating an amazing life six months or a year from now.

You are worth this time. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have come off the Heavenly production line. You deserve happiness by being here, and it’s time to claim it.

Meanwhile, in return, I promise that I will keep this process simple, because if a concept isn’t simple, it is impossible to remember and therefore impossible to use. Therefore, you won’t be asked to count points, calories, carbs or steps. I am regularly thanked for creating “the simplest food program ever!” and believe that simplicity is the key to its success.

Through 8 to Your IdealWeight, you’ll be joining a community of women and men who, after completing the program, are some of the happiest and healthiest people I know..

On this program you will learn:

 Why diets don’t work.

 That the 1980s “low fat” movement resulted in the industrial food industry tripling and quadrupling the amount of added sugars in food.

 That sugar is 8 times more addictive than cocaine and added sugars are used in many foods we think of as healthy options.

 That the dramatic increase in obesity and diabetes is due to the sugars added by the food industry, not from eating fats or lack of exercise.

 The influence the food industry wielded in the absence of reporting requirements for added sugars on food labels.

“Food is being intentionally manipulated by the top 12 food industries. Their foods are designed to create cravings and addiction. Sugar addiction is the root cause of why people are overweight and sick today.”

- Dr. Mark Hyman,

author of “The Blood Sugar Solution”

Imagine feeling free of cravings after just one week of lowering your added sugars to healthy levels (18 g. or less per day). These are some typical results our participants have shared after following the program.

 Cravings for sweets disappeared

 Inflammation and joint pain were dramatically reduced

 Energy to spare for the first time in years

 Fewer headaches, backaches, colds and flu viruses

 Discovered new healthier ways to be comforted without food

 Noticed clearer thinking and sharper memory function

 Real food tasted good again. Really good.

 Belly fat and scale numbers decreased weekly with

 no hunger

The Three Prongs of 8 to Your IdealWeight

Because this program will help you live your IdealLife, I’ll be referring to you from now on as “Ideal.”

Our 8 to Your IdealWeight tagline is: Get Real. Get Healthy. Get Empowered. As I’ve mentioned, it’s about healing so much more than our food issues. We will Get Real - not just with food, but also with ourselves and each other. There are 3 prongs to this process, and all are equally important.

The 3 Prongs of the 8 to Your IdealWeight Program:

I. A Program for Weight Release Focused on Real Food

II. A Personal Empowerment Process for Real Self-Love

III. A Partner for Real Connection

I. Real Food

You’ll learn why diets don’t and can’t work, how fat doesn’t make us fat, sugar does, and how you can, like I did, release the hold that added sugars have had on your health once and forever without cravings, hunger, or feeling deprived.

Meanwhile, you’ll discover how delicious Real food (the unprocessed kind) can taste! I succeeded with this program because it didn’t require cooking skills, raw salads or smoothies. Instead, it offered a banquet of delicious, inexpensive and easy-to-prepare options.

I promise that once you stop hijacking your taste buds with highly addictive sugary foods, Real food will taste so good and sweet that you won’t crave anything else. That may be hard to believe, but it’s true.

II. Real Self-Love

After being released from the brain fog, fatigue, joint pain and despair of sugar addiction, we’ll start on an 8 High-Ways journey - learning to love ourselves and follow our dreams that have been locked away.

When I first revealed the 8 High-Ways Process in my book 8 to Great: The Powerful Process for Positive Change, it won numerous awards and was hailed by best-selling authors like Mike Dooley as “powerful from cover to cover, revealing the greatest secrets that have ever been shared.”

This personal empowerment process is designed to help you…

 reconnect with the dreams you thought you had lost

 honor your feelings instead of numbing them with food

 make decisions that are the right ones for you every time

 learn to communicate in more authentic and assertive ways

 discover a powerful positive attitude formula to savor every day to the fullest

More than just the ingredients of a happy life, you will also be given the recipe.

III. Real Connection

One of the strongest prongs of our program is our very active and engaged online community. You have the option to join us. If you do, you’ll select your very own IdealWeight Coach, be supported by and get to know your support group of 10 other individuals on the program, and select or be assigned one Ideal from your small group to partner with. To find a coach or join a small group, go to www.8toyouridealweight.com.

If you don’t choose to journey with a coach or small group, it is essential that you find your own partner to Get Real with for this journey.

Either way, you’ll be sharing four things with your partner each week for 8 weeks:

 Texting or emailing a checkin on eating breakfast, staying on the food program, etc.

 Texting or emailing 3 new daily Gratitudes, with no repeats

 Texting or emailing a weekly photo of your feet on the scale for your weight check-in

 Sharing a weekly phone call to discuss your Reflection Questions from each chapter

Each section of this book will offer Reflection Questions for journaling to share with your partner. Answering these questions will be as important to your success as releasing added-sugar foods. Through the questions, you’ll have the opportunity to Get Real with each other about food, about how you’re really feeling, what you’re really thinking, and who you’re really dreaming of becoming.

“After releasing 40 pounds, I have seen firsthand how reaching out and sharing with my partner and my group has affected my release and my attitude. I couldn’t have done it without their support.”

- Linette M.

This 3-pronged program began as an engaged and enthusiastic small group of 10. Today there are thousands of participants being coached by 8 to Your IdealWeight Certified Coaches around the world. Individuals come looking not only to release their weight, but to restore their power, as Cathy did.

Cathy’s Story

Cathy decided to commit to the process after a conversation over lunch. It was a beautiful fall day, and I had just given a seminar at her workplace. As we sat down to eat, she commented on my food choices, noticing I wasn’t eating the bread on the sandwich. “If I follow your program, will I eat like that?” she asked with a bit of a grimace.

“Yes,” I replied. “And you will not only fall in love with food instead of being afraid of it, you will almost never feel hungry.”

She rolled her eyes and laughed. She couldn’t yet imagine what she’d be writing me just six months later…

“I feel so blessed to have been on this journey with 8 to Your IdealWeight. I have learned so much about myself through this life-changing process. This week I was able to buy birthday treats for my daughter without feeling the need to partake! I love the feeling of having power over food instead of food having power over me. I like to tell people my weight release of 40+ pounds to reach my IdealWeight is a very happy side effect of learning to love myself. Many thanks to MK, my partner and our small group. Today I’m truly living my IdealLife!”

As Cathy demonstrates, our journey together will not only end your cravings for sugary sweets, it will also build a clear path back to self-love. As we release the shame, guilt, regrets, blame, worry, fear and limits that we have worn as a wall of protection around our bodies, our freedom and power will return. With them will come a strong inner confidence - and the assurance that nothing can ever take our power away again.