an Etsy Christmas (dolls dolls dolls)

Dolls dolls dolls dolls dolls I've got doll's on my mind and all over my table in my studio and slowly but surely dolls are finally showing up in my Etsy shop - hip hip hooray!!!!!!
Here are some sneaky peeks:

I'd show you my studio but it's a mess - which really, is kind of a good thing! :D

How I lost 65 lbs in 4 months (and got my life back!)

Hello.  My name is Autumn Sousanis.  I am a proud mama of 5 little kids.
 I also have a secret.

Until VERY recently, I used to be quite heavy. About 200 lbs. After the birth of my 5th baby I was heavier than ever and nothing I tried, not diet, not exercise, was working to bring my weight down.  And then, amazingly, I found an online 'fat cure' that promised to release my stored fat and - it DID!

Here's a before and after pic of me mid-way through my weight loss (after one round)...in the 'before' pic on the left I weighed 200 lbs, and in the 'after' pic on the right I weighed 160 lbs.



 
This picture of me and my family, was taken just this past Mother's Day (May 9, 2010).

That's the me that WAS.  Surrounded by my lovely family, but full of bitterness that I was so heavy, unable to be very active...some days it was hard to enjoy my lovely family...felt like life was passing me by...

here's another pic...me holding Olivia and Lucy...

We were flying kites, it was a beautiful, warm spring day in Michigan, a beautiful Mother's day...except I was about 200 lbs and hating myself...had to sit and watch, my knees were killing me...

Now, fast forward to October of the same year - after the happiest of Google searches led me down a path to rapid weight loss and total transformation, here's me NOW!

I feel like I have my life back.  If you want to know how I did it, go to this link here.

It will take you to the Trim You site (formerly known as Ketomist, and My Fat Cure before that.) where you can check out many many other success stories and where you can purchase the same homeopathic spray and follow the same Dr Simeon's Pounds and Inches Protocol and get the same online support that I did.  I can vouch for this homeopathic spray and program - because it WORKED!!!  And it worked without willpower! without hunger! and I feel better than I have in YEARS!  And, the best part? It's permanent.  At least, it sure seems to be - I did not gain weight over the holidays and it's been 3 full months of regular eating for me so far!

(Update July 13, 2012: Please check out my blog all about this subject called 'Autumn Weighs In' which is where I give you all the nifty details of my journey, including how I had another baby, gained another 65 pounds, and then, most happily, came back to my pre-pregnancy weight of 135 which is where I am again today.  I could not have done it without the spray, or at least never could have done it this fast, in time for bathing suit season!  Yay!!! I'm so happy for me, I wish I could help the whole world reach their goal weight!)

"Metabolic Syndrome."
Did I suffer from metabolic syndrome? Probably.
Following this protocol is supposed to permanently re-set your metabolism and 'fix' what is going wrong with your hypothalimus - Dr Simeons believed that obesity is a symptom of a larger problem, not the problem itself, and he was very successful in using injections of the pregnancy hormone HCG to help people easily and rapidly shed weight.  He found that 70% of his patients could expect their weight loss to be permanent but at the end of his life (d. 1970), he still could not explain exactly why it HCG worked, just that it DID work, and so he wrote his 35 pg book and left it to future generations to figure out the why of it all.  So, here we are 40 years after his death and many people are diagnosed with 'Metabolic Syndrome' these days and yet, really that is just a catch-all phrase that just refers to the metabolism not functioning well and the person is usually overweight and has a very hard time losing weight.  (Sound familiar?)
Interestingly, the metabolic hormones ghrelin and leptin that control appetite were only very recently discovered in 1994 and 1999, and we are still learning how the metabolism and hypothalimus function, and the complexities are mind-boggling.

My favorite part of all of this, though, is that I did NOT have to get the actual HCG hormone injections.  Instead, I took the homeopathic version of the hormone in a oral spray (Ketomist).
My mom thinks I've discovered the fountain of youth and my friends tell me I don't just look thinner, I look younger and seem revitalized!

It took me 2 rounds of the homeopathic 'Ketomist' spray to release 65 lbs of my 'forgotten fat stores'.  Each round took 6 weeks and I lost weight at the rate of nearly 1 pound per day for the first round, and .6 lbs per day for the second round!!! (the more weight you have to lose, the quicker it comes off)

And now I weigh 135! From size 'elastic' to size 8 in only four months!!!

I feel like a walking miracle.  So I want to tell the world: there is hope! There is a 'cure'! You don't have to be heavy!  You CAN release that extra weight and do it without killing yourself on the treadmill! Give your knees a break!  Heck, if I can do this - anyone can.  I had to take care of and feed 5 rascally kids the whole time I was losing weight and now I'm keeping the weight off easily and eating really well and not counting calories at all - it's just the BEST thing I ever did for myself!!!

So now, 65 lbs lighter, I go to yoga class, I bike with my kids, I go sledding, I take care of the house - I do all of the things I need to do and want to do and my knees don't complain anymore!

And this year, instead of sitting by and watching -  I'm flying my own kite.
:)