why the Kind Diet? Why now?

Oh where oh where do I begin?

This is my first blog....and I don't want to make it one of those things where I go on and on forever with all this superfluous information that makes no sense to anyone except me and then have people be like-what? What is this girl really getting at?

Hello, I am Meredith and I definitely have struggled with my weight from about age 10 up until now. That would be 26 years of struggling. 3 years ago, I thought I was in the best shape of my life. I was on my way to competing in Figure (google it-it takes a while for me to explain), and had been published in major women's magazines (SHAPE and oxygen to name a few). Plus I was a personal trainer....can't get any better than that, right?

Wrong. Inside I was miserable-and no matter how thin I was (and at one point I was pretty thin, try 114lbs on a 5'7" frame), nothing could conceal how miserable I felt. I gained a ton of weight back in no time at all (ballooned right up to 182lbs in less than a year).

Fast forward to my current situation....recently unemployed BY CHOICE mind you. Now sitting pretty at 150lbs-but unwilling to be photographed. Still feel like I am missing something-but what you ask? Oh, let's see....energy, enthusiasm, great skin and hair. HEALTH....it's health. I have come to realize that I have always been at these extremes-either really thin and miserable or big and fat and miserable. I have never learned how to be 'in the middle'.

I am not a slave to Oprah by any means but for some reason, my inbox contained an email from the great one talking about who would be on the show this past Friday. I read about the Kind Diet and Alicia Silverstone and thought, grrrrreat another celebrity diet. I mean these people have personal chefs and trainers and assistants-how in the world do they know what us 'real' people go through every day? Am I even going to be able to get any of the food on this diet? So after reading this, I went on about MY day-runninng my errands and such. As luck would have it, there was a bookstore in the plaza I needed to be in so I wandered in. Was it a sign, I will never know....the KIND diet staring me right in the face. Since it STILL isn't available for Kindle, I made my way up to the register with my rewards card and paid the pretentious clerk.

I read the entire book in one night! Its that good people. That being said....instead of just 'flirting' (read the book), I am jumping in with both feet. This blog is going to cover the ups and downs of that and some random other issues in my life. I may try to tie everything together and it may work or may not. I am taking any suggestions/info/advice from anyone who reads this and hope that you will find it informative as well. I am officially swearing off animal products as of this moment which is HUGE for me. My goals are to feel better, and achieve that balance (oh yawn doesn't everyone say that) and finally toss the size 14's and the 4's....no more extremes!

let's see how it goes.....