8 to Your Ideal Weight. MK Mueller

       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