No Minivan

I bought a USB powered fish tank for work. It doesn’t filter, but it aerates and heats the water a little bit so the fish won’t freeze over the weekend. The kid helped me pick out a gorgeous male Betta (Siamese Fighting Fish). He’s primarily turquoise with a little bit of red, and apparently his fin style is “crowntail” (very long and feathery – kind of like this one). I also got a small Golden/Mystery/Apple snail to help keep the tank clean. He’s a cute little thing. And he doesn’t appear to be popping out any babies, so I think my teeny tiny tank is safe from snail overpopulation. It’s nice to have a pet at work. It’s very relaxing watching them swim/crawl around the tank.

Sooooo, the whole weight loss thing… um, yeah… That’s not going so well. I pretty much gave up once I started traveling for work about a month and a half ago. It’s pretty hard to say no when the company you’re visiting is offering free meals (and entire pints of gourmet ice cream)that are not diet friendly. I promised myself I’d get back on track this week, but I haven’t been 100% faithful to the diet and I haven’t exercised at all (other than walking down to see the fireworks on Saturday). I’m not mentally in the game right now and I need to be.

It doesn’t help that I am absolutely addicted to the Mcdonalds Caramel Frappe and have a buttload of coupons for a free small. There is not much I like to eat at Mcdonalds (aside from their tasty fries!), but those frappes are some good stuff.

Random updates for those who might still be reading…

- The Kid has officially been slapped with the label of “gifted”. This means he’s bussed to another school for the all day gifted program once a week. Mrs. O (the gifted teacher) is awesome with him, challenging him and yet remaining firm when he gets out of control. She reported back that he has an IQ of 132, for whatever that’s worth. I’m just glad he gets a chance to get out and learn HIS way without being held back in the areas he excels. I’m not saying these two things are related, but his behavior has improved remarkably in his regular class since he started the gifted program. Imagine that!

- Boo is just as smart as his big brother, in his own way. The moms in playgroup are jokingly accusing him of “showing off” when he starts spouting his huge vocabulary (like “Skeleton!” at the Science Center). Even people at the grocery store today were commenting with amazement on the 21-month-old shouting “Quesadilla!” in the ethnic food aisle. He recognizes at least 90% of the alphabet and has started counting objects up to three on a regular basis. His two loves right now are Sesame Street and Max & Ruby (Max is a bad little bunny!). I do believe that Sesame Street contributes a lot to what he knows. The Electric Company (original) taught the Kid to read. TV isn’t all bad.

- There’s a pretty major change a-coming at work, but I can’t talk about it just yet. It’s a good thing though and I’m excited about it. An opportunity to get back to some of the things I’m most passionate about. I’ll be give more details in about 2 weeks.

- I wore a dress to work yesterday. No, seriously. Stop laughing! Unfortunately (or fortunately), there is no photographic evidence.

- Two things I really want to buy when I get some money: a dressy coat and some knee-high black boots. These things may or may not be related to my former dress wearing. And the fact that I’ve bought more jewelry in the past month than I ever have before. I’m just full of surprises, aren’t I?

- OMG, I got so fat in Vegas. Well, technically I was already fat, but eating those huge meals and sitting in presentations all day did not help. I came back and started 750mg of Met.formin XR twice daily. This should help me lose some weight, if only because I spend half my time on the toilet (TMI!). I’m still not dieting really, but I am working out on the elliptical 3x/week. I do well with eating at work: I eat a sensible breakfast and lunch and don’t snack in between. However, once I get home I eat a carb-laden dinner and inevitably cap the night off with chocolate or ice cream. And weekends are just a wash since I forget to work out and just eat whatever’s handy throughout the day. I’ll get there, but right now I’m slowly easing into the lifestyle changes.

What’s new with you?

Instead of talking to my OBGYN about the BCP vs. mental meds, I’ve just decided to stop taking the BCP after I finish this pack. It’s just not worth it. I don’t even know how much the BCP helps with the PCOS symptoms and my chances of getting pregnant are extremely slim to none. So after this week, I’ll be finished with this pack (except the placebos which I never take anyway) so hopefully my serotonin levels will be back to normal before the Christmas madness really begins.

In the New Year, I want to try some other things for dealing with the PCOS. I want to go back on Met.formin and start exercising. The Met.formin will lend itself to eating better too, since there are awful GI side effects if you eat high fat/high carb foods while on it. Getting my insulin levels straightened out and losing some weight should help with the PCOS symptoms and maybe keep me from continuing down this path to Type II Diabetes. Then there’s the fatty liver that would also benefit from a few less pounds. I know I need to do it, I just need to get myself pumped up mentally and the holidays are not the time to start trying to eat right and exercise. I’ll wait until January before I give up pumpkin pie!

Do you have weight loss plans for 2010? What diet plan or exercise regime are you planning to follow?

I think if I can come up with more high-protein, low-carb foods, I will survive this diet. I need to stop by the store this weekend and get some different cheese and meat items. That should help me feel more full and still keep my blood sugar (BS) down. I promise this will not turn into just a diet blog, but I need to keep track of how I’m doing this and it might help someone else down the road…

Here’s my plan for today:
Breakfast: 1 slice whole grain toast with peanut butter (PB), 1/2 cup of cottage cheese (I realize now I could have had another carb choice)
Snack: 1 slice whole grain toast with PB and 1/2 banana
Lunch: 1 can of soup (2 carbs +1 protein +1 veggie) and 1/2 banana (need more protein for this meal)
Snack: 8 wheat thin crackers with PB and a tangerine
Dinner: A controlled portion of whatever Kevin makes with a glass of milk
Snack: Yogurt and peanuts (not mixed together – blech!)

Last night I had a big bowl of Kevin’s “Roundsteak Surprise” (basically Beef Stroganoff without the sour cream) and a tall (pilsner) glass of milk and my blood sugar was still well within range. So I don’t think dinner will be too much of a problem for me. However, my fasting reading this morning was high. It’s supposed to be under 95 and it was 111. Probably because I ate a whole banana right before I went to bed. The bananas keep the leg cramps away, but they are very high in sugar.

The dietitian revealed in yesterday’s class that pregnant women produce some hormone in the morning that causes high BS. If I’d have known that, I’d have scheduled my GTTs for the afternoon and maybe we could have avoided this whole mess. So note to any pregos getting ready to take their GTT, no matter how hungry you might be, you will probably be better off testing in the PM!

Someone tell me how the hell I am supposed to follow this diet and *not* lose weight? Keep in mind that I am going from eating relatively healthy, but pretty much whatever the hell I want, to the most restrictive diet I’ve ever been on in my life.

My food plan:
Breakfast – 2 carb choices, 1oz of protein, and 1-2 servings of fat.
Snack – 2 carb choices, 1oz protein
Lunch – 3 carb choices, 1 non-starchy vegetable serving, 3oz protein, 2 servings of fat
Snack – 2 carb choices, 1oz protein
Dinner – 3 carb choices, 1 non-starchy vegetable serving, 3oz protein, 2 servings of fat
Snack – 2 carb choices, 1oz protein

That looks like a lot of food, doesn’t it? Keep in mind that 1 carb choice is something like 1/3 cup of cooked rice or 1 slice of toast or 8oz of milk. Also, 1 non-starchy vegetable serving is something like 1/2 cup of cooked green beans. The only type of food that I can eat/drink as a “freebie” are sugar-free foods that have less than 5g of carbs and less than 20 calories (IE: sugar-free jello). I don’t do artificial sweeteners for the most part because they taste like crap. I can do sucralose in small amounts, but aspartame skeeves me out.

To put this in better perspective: Right now I eat pretty much the same thing for breakfast every day. I eat 2 slices of whole grain toast with peanut butter, some cottage cheese (probably around 1/2 to 3/4 cup) and a banana. Following this diet, I would be restricted to 1 slice of toast (1 carb) with 1oz peanut butter (1 fat and 1 protein) and 1/2 the banana (1 carb). I just don’t see how that much of a diet change is not going to cause weight loss.

The dietician said I should not lose more than 3-4 pounds total on this diet. I followed the low GI diet (my version at least), which is not as strict as this, and I lost over 20 pounds in 2 months. How does she figure that I won’t drop more than 4 pounds in the next 2 1/2? She’s all worried about ketones, but this is an optimal weight loss diet so how do I avoid producing them?

This just doesn’t make sense. I understand the need to control carbs. I don’t understand why if I want to sit down and eat a can of green beans, I can’t do that. I don’t understand how I can follow this diet to the letter and not start dropping the pounds. I just don’t see that happening.

It’s Friday. I still wish it was Tuesday.

- I forgot that I do have a few plans for this weekend. The first two discs of Dr. Who season 2 should be arriving today so I can have me a Dr. Who marathon (Is 6 episodes a marathon?).

- We also have unscheduled plans to attend the Greek festival at St. Nicholas Greek Orthadox Church. It’s going on all weekend, so feel free to come on down. I’ll be the redhead in the corner snarfing on spanakopitas.

- I had forgotten that I’m off on Monday so I’m thinking I’ll use that day as my crop day. Then it will be like a normal day for Gavin and Daddy and they can do their thing while I hide in the basement.

- The weight loss thing has pretty much gone to hell in a pizza box. I know I shouldn’t even be worrying about losing weight when “with child”, but I’d like to at least maintain my weight until the “kid” (if there’s actually one in there) is big enough to be contributing to the weight gain. Something the size of a sesame seed surely doesn’t weigh a pound (which is what I’ve gained back so far). I know a big part of it is that I’m not on the Met.formin anymore. Another big part of it is that I ate Las Palmas twice over the past 2 weeks.

- I seem to be in a very irritating sleep pattern. I wake up every night around 3:30 or 4am to pee and then lie there awake for 30 – 45 minutes before I can fall asleep again. In that 3/4 hour EVERYTHING bugs me. The air conditioner switching on or off, the ceiling fan clicking, Kevin snoring, the house creaking, EVERYTHING. Normally, I can sleep 10 hours straight with no problem but for the past week or so, I’ve had this witching hour that destroys my sleep. Is this a pregnancy symptom, too? Because I’d rather have more sore boobs.

It took everything in me to resist taking an EPT this morning. I am 99.99% sure that I’m not pregnant since I have zero symptoms. I know that’s not a sure indicator, but with both of my previous pregnancies, sore boobs was the first sign. However, I am still holding onto that little 0.01% hope that through some miracle I am pregnant. So I’m going to wait until tomorrow when the results should be definitive and I will know for sure either way.

In less depressing news, I’m onto the 4th Harry Potter book. Jesus H. Christ, this book is freakin HUGE! Usually I can just slip whatever I’m reading into my purse. Ha! This 700+ page monstrosity would take up my entire purse and probably break the handles from the weight of it! This is officially the largest book I have ever read. But I figure if thousands of 12-year-olds can do it, I can too.

Weight loss is going well. I’m down another 2 pounds this week so I’m officially at the 20 pound mark. I don’t really feel much slimmer, but my clothes are fitting better so something must be happening. If (When) I’m not pregnant tomorrow, my plan is to up the Met.formin to 4 times a day and start working out on the elliptical machine. My weight loss is slowing (which is a good thing) and my diet is very healthy so I think it’s time to see what I can do to maximize my metabolism.

Let me preface this by saying that I do not believe that oral progesterone does jack shit. Everything I read about how it’s metabolized in the liver indicates that it just doesn’t work. I’ve taken it 3 or 4 times now and never (before) have I seen any increase in my levels. If it’s low, it’s low and it stays low.

With that said, I just thought I’d share that my progesterone level this morning was TWENTY-FOUR!!! Hot damn. There may be hope yet. My theory is that, for whatever reason, my body just didn’t get on the ball with progesterone production until 8-9DPO (which according to Dr. Google is perfectly normal). So we’re back in the game. Well, for another 4 days anyhow. I REFUSE to take an EPT until exactly 14DPO (Tuesday). I am holding on to this hope as long as I can. I will not let that depression suck me back in until it’s a sure thing.

Speaking of depression, I realized this morning that the progesterone supplement is probably not helping my mood. That stuff makes me so tired and irritable and just moody. I’d forgotten how strongly it effects me. I’m still feeling sad and bitchy, but at least now I know that my overwhelming feelings about the upcoming terriversary are probably being more than a little amplified by a little yellow pill.

And in other news, check out my cute little tracker:

Edited to add: I am not trying to get down to 110 pounds. That is how many total pounds I want to lose. And the reason that little dude has such a panicked look on his face is because he is being chased by a large man-eating hamburger. The closer I get to goal the more the scene will be revealed.

Wednesday randomness:

- The kid seems to be feeling better today. No fever and the sores in his mouth are shrinking quickly. It appears that Gavin has our same high tolerance for pain. The doctor was shocked at how he was running around, talking and laughing with these big nasty sores in his mouth. We’re a hardy lot.

- I’ve started making a few changes to my diet to make it a little healthier and more steady (instead of rushed). Instead of just the hard-boiled eggs and a piece of fruit for breakfast, I’ll be adding a piece of whole wheat (whole grain) toast or a 100 calorie snack bar. I’m also adding a fiber and calcium supplement to my daily intake. For the first time in a few months, I upped my Met.formin to 1500mg with no “explosive” side effects. I will say that it is not a good idea to up the Met.formin, add a fiber supplement and eat some fat-free refried beans in the same day.

- Tonight I HAVE to go through my digital photos and put the ones I want to print on a disc to take to Costco. I only have about a month’s worth of pictures left to scrapbook (although the month is last September) and that won’t be enough to keep me occupied on a weekend-long crop.

- I started the second Harry Potter last night and I’m already noticing some scenes that were cut or changed for the movie.

- The box of books I picked out with my birthday gift card from my dad came in last night. I’m thinking it’s a good thing he just got me the gift card. I don’t think he’d be too keen on picking up a book like this for his daughter.