Almost a new year

Usually I do a year end review but those tend to track what horrible things my health has done to me lately. So, I will refrain and just post a little recap. Obviously I still have MS, and PCOS, and a wonderful husband (thankfully) and crafty hobbies. I am still overweight, worse now than ever, but hopefully that can still change. I am still able to work, which I think is a good thing for the most part.

I have had the idea of not weighing myself for an entire year. Trying to make healthy choices and exercise more, and not be defined by a number. I figure I can just close my eyes at the doc appts. and tell them what I am doing and why. Then on December 31st of 2014, I can weigh myself and see what happened over a year. I will know if changes are happening because my clothing will change but I won't have to obsess over a number changing. I think it could be cool. Trying to figure out a program to help with this that doesn't require you to put your weight in could be a little more difficult. I could always get on the scale, and have hubby change the numbers. But I think it would be too tempting to look. And I know what is a good choice and a bad choice when it comes to foods. So it will require me to weed out more bad choices which would be a good thing for me. We'll see, not sure if it will happen, but I have been kicking it around a little.

I am hoping that the new year will be a bit easier on me health wise than this year was. I had a bad relapse in March and the steroids with that are never fun.  I have been very good about taking my shot and medicine every day so that should help keep me on the straight and narrow.

29 and committed yet again

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 29 years old. Holy cow. I had a great weekend and pretty much celebrated the entire weekend which was kind of awesome. Saturday I had church which was awesome as a girl-night reunion with Krystal and Marissa. I don't know when three voices ever blended so well as ours do. I am sad that it will probably be the last time we will get to sing together. Then Eric came over and he, Steve, and I sat outside and watched fireworks while eating s'mores. We can see them decently well from our house in the front yard. Sunday we got to sleep in a bit and then had lunch with my dad, Thomas, Tori, and Trevor at the Mexican restuarant. Though we had a little trouble finding a table that my dad could sit comfortably in while in his wheelchair, the food was great and I even got a birthday dessert. Thankfully no one sang to me though. Steve and I then went down to Quincy to see a movie and have dinner. We saw Monte Carlo, which is just a chick-flick. The movie was good though the annoying girls who sat behind us and kept talking were not. We ended up moving farther away from them which helped some. Then we wen to TGI Fridays because I love that place. All in all it was a great day. Yesterday on my actual birthday I got woken up by my grandma who called to tell me Happy Birthday. We had lunch with her and my mom and stepdad at the local chinese restaurant, mostly because it was one of the only places in town that was open! After we went home and took a nap, we headed up to Carthage to watch fireworks with Eric since they were actually holding them on the 4th. We had dinner at a local restaurant that served us even though they had closed 15 mins before we got there. Then we hung out until it got dark enough. The fireworks were awesome and we picked perfect seats to watch. I got eaten alive by the mosquitos but otherwise it was awesome. I think this was one of the best birthdays I have had in a long time.

Regarding the recommittment. I have gained all but about 19lbs back that I lost. I realized that I hate feeling fat and gross so even though I am not really in the mood to focus on losing weight, I am going to focus on my eating at the least and start walking again. I am also drinking lots of water which my body really needs. So we will see if I can get my head in the game by forcing it to be. I had set a goal to be at my goal weight by my 30th birthday. So I have exactly a year to lose about 100lbs. Good grief. I may not be able to make that but I can surely put a good dent in it.

Starting over....

That's what I am doing today, starting over. I have gained weight back, thankfully not all of it. Something about the MS, winter, and meds has really thrown me off. It's so easy to get thrown off the correct path. And that applies to many things in life. Easter is the perfect time to really think about what matters in life and who I am following - my own selfish self or the Lord. I am going to have to do most of this by myself this time as my husband's schedule will leave him gone in the evenings. Perhaps this will make me stand on my own two feet. I hope so. My clothes still fit but they aren't very comfortable anymore. Time to change that. Prayers are welcome!

Week "Something-or-other"

I have gotten a little off track, both with updating this and with keeping my eating in check. I am finally mentally back on track and thinking about my choices. The numbers have begun to go down again thankfully. It should be getting warmer soon which means we will be able to walk outside again on a regular basis, also a good thing. Unfortunately, not only do I have to lose the like 13lbs I gained but I have to then keep losing after that. I don't doubt that I can do it, but it will certainly be easier when spring gets here and I don't have as much need to huddle under the covers for warmth.

I don't think I will number the weeks anymore, because it is more depressing than it is motivating. I could have been a lot further by now if I had stayed on track. One good thing is that we got the car accident from 2009 settled and I finally got my settlement check. We were able to pay back a family member we borrowed money from and also pay off my husband's car. Those will help us roll over the payments into the next debt and get my truck paid off sooner. I am looking forward to that for sure!

Weight lost = -28lbs

Week 39

So, I totally forgot to weigh-in on Sunday, though I know I had a gain. I would have weighed in on Monday and counted that but I forgot that day too. Since it was MLKJr day, I didn't have to go to work, so I spent much of the day in my pj's. I did get a call to go and see the neurologist early. It was icy and nasty here so they had a lot of cancellations. Since I was supposed to see him two weeks after my last appt. I took advantage to get in there. I saw the doc for all of three minutes. He said that the diagnosis is "probable MS" and is going to refer me to a MS specialist in Des Moines. So I go see that guy next Wednesday to get a definitive diagnosis. Until then I am scrambling to get a copy of all my records to take with me. I am glad I got the appt. as soon as I did but it doesn't give me much time to make sure I have all my info to give to them. But, I will get it done and hopefully get some answers.

Weight loss this week: ????
Total weight loss: ?????

A Look Back at 2010

I felt for certain that this year had to be a vast improvement over 2009. After my car wreck in Feb 2009 and subsequent physical problems, I had hoped that I would have a more physically healthy year. Of course it's much easier to remember the second half of the year as it is more recent...

I did get some major projects taken care of this year that I am really proud of. I got the kitchen painted and updated a bit with new hardware. It definitely looks much fresher and less dated than it did, especially when we moved in. We also got a new water efficient toilet and a new vanity for the bathroom this year. The rest of the bathroom will hopefully be finished in 2011. We rearranged the whole house and wound up with a dining room, separate living room, and a library/study of sorts with a fireplace.

I completed all three graduate classes that I needed to finish for licensure this year. I took the first one in the spring semester, and it was relatively easy to complete. I only had to drive to Quincy four times over the semester. I took the other two classes this fall and they were much more time intensive and difficult. I drove to Quincy twice a week and had class three hours at a time each night. Add that to all the homework and papers we had assigned and I am not surprised that I was so stressed out. And to say that I was stressed out is probably putting it lightly. I did get an A in both of my classes and felt pretty good about that!

Health-wise, this was another tough year for me. I think I did pretty well the beginning of the year, just the normal colds and such things. But about half way through my fall semester of classes, I started experiencing pretty bad pain in my stomach, abdomen, and sides. When I finally broke down and went to the ER, they said it could be my gall bladder or an ulcer. Then when I went to my doc, he said pretty much the same thing. The gall bladder ultrasound came back normal though so they ruled that out. Finally after dealing with it too long, I called a GI doctor and got in there. He was pretty sure that it was actually muscle pain probably exacerbated by stress. That had no more than really stopped hurting and one day I suddenly had double vision. It really came on that fast. After it didn't go away for a week, I went to my eye doctor who then called my regular doctor to order an MRI. There were spots on the MRI that suggested some problems so the eye doctor referred me to a neurologist. The neurologist ordered an EEG and a lumbar puncture. The EEG was fine and easy. The lumbar puncture however, that is a whole other story. The nurse warned me of a potential spinal headache which results if the spinal fluid continues to leak after the LP. Well, I had that horrible headache for six days. I went to the ER here in town after four days and all they did was load me up on Demerol (seriously, I was slurring they gave me so much) and gave me a script for pain meds that didn't help. Finally, the sixth day, I tried going back to work but felt so horrible that I couldn't make it and called the neurologist begging for a blood patch. Thankfully he ordered it and I went up immediately and got the blood patch to stop the leaking spinal fluid. It worked and I was soooo glad. I haven't gotten any results yet, I don't go back to the doctor until Jan 4th. They are currently trying to rule out multiple sclerosis (MS) and I am really praying that I don't have it.

Regarding health, I did lose a lot of weight this year. I have obviously been chronicling it on here so if you have been following you can see where I am currently at. I gained a little bit back over Christmas but am looking forward to losing that an more. I have gotten up to losing like 42 pounds but am currently at about 38 I think. Am still doing weight watchers though we haven't been walking for awhile. My classes were so stressful that I just didn't feel like walking and then of course it got cold outside. That makes it a lot more difficult too. I have grand plans of starting that back up again and I know my husband would really like that.

I had a lovely Christmas with lots of running around like normal. Nice presents from the family and my husband. We are taking a mini vacation this week to spend some time together and shop with our Christmas gift cards. I am very much looking forward to relaxing and getting to spend time with just my hubby. I am seriously considering turning off my phone while we are gone!

So, that's a bit of a look back at the year 2010. Some really good things (weight loss) and some not so good things (health crap) but over all, I am still hanging in there!

What it's like to be the world's most efficient eater..../ Week 28

When I went to the reproductive endocrinologist in April of this year about my PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome - there is a link to the left where you can see info about it), he talked about how women with PCOS are the world's most efficient eaters. I will admit that I didn't really understand what he was talking about and forgot about it. Steve and I were talking about it yesterday morning and I asked him to explain what it meant. Apparently, given the way my body processes food, it absorbs or stores most of it and creates little waste. This makes it efficient. So, where someone with a normally functioning system could eat something and his/her body would just burn off the calories, my body's natural tendency is to hold onto the calories in the event I may need them in the future (i.e. FAT).

Now if you consider this from an evolutionary standpoint, it basically means my body functioning is superior. Why you say? Because you and I can eat the same things but I will retain the calories and create little waste. So, after your body has already burned the calories and expelled the waste, mine has hung on to them. Who do you think is going to starve to death faster? Won't be me!

Okay, so if you consider this from a 'trying to lose weight' standpoint, you can begin to understand my problem. I have to be cognizant that anything I put in my mouth that my body does not actually need to function on a daily basis will not be expelled, but will be turned into fat in the event that I will turn into a cave woman and be starving or something. So, I have to find the perfect balance between what my body needs nutrient-wise and what it doesn't need so it will start burning calories. I haven't been doing a very good job of considering this. I have a theory that my body craves sugar and carbs so it can convert them into stored energy (i.e. my butt and thighs). I don't know if this is actually true or not, but it makes sense to me.

So take that into account and then add in insulin resistance that occurs with/causes PCOS and then you really have a problem. "Insulin resistance is a condition in which the body produces insulin but does not use it properly. Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas, helps the body use glucose for energy. When people are insulin resistant, their muscle, fat, and liver cells do not respond properly to insulin. As a result, their bodies need more insulin to help glucose enter cells. The pancreas tries to keep up with this increased demand for insulin by producing more. Eventually, the pancreas fails to keep up with the body’s need for insulin. Excess glucose builds up in the bloodstream, setting the stage for diabetes. Many people with insulin resistance have high levels of both glucose and insulin circulating in their blood at the same time." (http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/insulinresistance/)

Not only do I store what my body doesn't need to live and function but my body sucks at using the glucose for energy. These functions are obviously interrelated and it's a real 'chicken and egg' problem in understanding what happens first and then second. After a certain point it doesn't really matter because the problem remains that my body desires to gain weight and hold onto calories and I desire to not be overweight and to burn the extra fat my body doesn't need.

I am trying to reorient my way of thinking to include these ideas when I am planning meals and exercising. Weight watchers helps me stay within a certain caloric range based on the amount of points that are available for a given day. The responsibility falls on me to stay within this range and also get exercise so my body is encouraged to burn the excess that I don't need. I did really well with that at first, but have fallen off the wagon a bit recently. I have noticed positive results from the weight that I have lost so far. My overall blood sugar has decreased which has resulted in lowering my chances for developing Type II diabetes (yay!). I still have some further work to do in that area, but it's good to see the results. I also feel a lot better and have an easier time walking up and down stairs and walking for longer periods of time.

I have also been able to stop taking all of my PCOS meds (admittedly without doctor supervision). I was able to use birth control without gaining weight (not sure what helped this but it was nice.) So, if any of you take Metformin, you can relate to how nice it was to be able to stop taking it. Additionally, I think the spironolactone I was taking to reduce androgen levels caused some fatigue and tiredness. That has gotten better as well. And certainly not the least, I look better! People are really starting to notice how much weight I have lost and are responding kindly with encouragement and praise. It's very reinforcing for me to hear that.

My next goal is to lose another ten pounds. From where I am this week (2lb gain), I will have ten pounds to lose to meet that goal. I honestly think I can do it before the end of the year, which is about eight weeks away. That would be the perfect way to start my New Year. But that also means that I have to be very careful around the holidays. This could potentially be the hardest stretch of the entire year for weight loss. I want to conquer it and show people that weight gain around the holidays is not mandatory and they can control themselves. Mostly, I need to be able to show myself that I can be in control of what I put in my mouth on a daily basis and how much I exercise. Even though it doesn't feel like it, I do have the time to walk for a half hour each day.

So this is Week 28. I have been working on this for 28 weeks, have lost around 40lbs so far and I have about 80 more pounds to lose in order to a healthy weight. I have given myself til my 30th birthday (July 2012) to meet this goal which I think is reasonable. Now I just need to get my head in the game!

Stats this week are:

Weight gain: +2.0lbs
Total weight lost: -39.8lbs

Week 28

Ahem, so yeah.... I did not behave myself last week. Let's just leave it at that. I am feeling mostly better. Still have pain in the side but getting used to it since the doc just wants to throw more medication at me. It seems to positively correlate with my stress levels though. The more stress I am under the more the pain goes up! So now I am working on getting back to where I was last week and maybe a little more if possible. I just can't seem to get my head in the game with all this other crap going on. But school will be done in like six weeks so that will help. I am nervous about the coming holidays. I am trying to remember that they are just normal days like every other day, and does not give me the excuse to binge out on turkey. Especially when we have like fifty different family functions to attend. I still want to hit fifty pounds before the end of the year so I am going to get my butt in gear. My mom bought me the extension step for my Wii Fit Board which raises it up 3 inches. I love doing the step aerobics on there so that will help work me a little bit more. If I would just make the time to do it!

Total weight loss: - 41.8 lbs

Update

These past fews weeks have been pretty interesting for sure. First of course, was the car accident on the 19th of February. I am feeling much better from that and most of my bruises are gone or a lovely shade of yellow. The only problem is that my right arm still hurts. It does feel like it's getting better but still hurts if I try to do anything like picking up heavy objects or pushing semi-heavy doors. So I went to see my doc and he wanted to do an MRI on my shoulder to make sure nothing is torn. So tomorrow morning at 11am I am going to get an MRI done. I will be glad to know if something is wrong or not so I can hopefully be done with all this stuff. I am deciding if I want to go to my chiropracter or not. My neck and back have been bothering me a little but I want to make sure nothing is going on with my arm before I let a chiropracter pop me and push on me. I don't want to exacerbate anything in my shoulder. I miss being able to pick up my nephew and hug him!

So after the accident and resting all weekend. Early Monday morning I woke up in horrible pain. I have felt the pain in the past when I had kidney stones. So I woke Steve up and told him I needed him to take me to the emergency room. He got up and got dressed and took me on a not bumpy route this time. It seemed like it took forever to get checked in but they were good about getting me some pain meds and an IV because I was really really dry. They did a CT scan because I was concerned that something else could be wrong since I was in a car accident just four days before that. It was just a kidney stone and was apparently getting ready to be passed. So I had yet another day off of work on Monday.

I took Wednesday off so that Steve and I could go get our new cars. We started at 8:30am and headed to the dealership to tell the guy that we wanted both vehicles that we had been looking at. We talked to him for awhile about trading my truck in and prices on the vehicles. They were reasonably priced to begin with but we wanted to see if he would come down a little in price so that we could afford them. At one point we had to walk away because he wasn't willing to come down on my truck. It was more than what I could really afford to pay and I thought we should get a good deal since we were buying two cars on one day. So we left and brought back the Focus that Steve wanted from our mechanic who was checking it out. When we got back, the dealer came out on the lot and talked to us a little more and was willing to meet me in the middle of our price difference. I was happy with what he proposed so we got the deals written up. I got a black '07 Ford Escape XLT and Steve got a silver '05 Ford Focus hatchback. They are both very nice vehicles and we are very happy with our choices.

Weight wise I have gained a few pounds back and was starting to get worried. However, when I weighed in this morning I had lost 4 lbs since last week. So that is a big plus. Once I get all this car accident stuff figured out, hopefully I can get back to working out. I don't want to risk further damanging myself right now.

Eric got an apartment in the town where he works. He has been living with us since we bought the house. It has worked out pretty well and provided us with some extra money to pay bills. But I think it is time that he wants to have his own space and we would like to have more privacy back. I am planning on using his room as a guest bedroom/craft room. It will be nice to have some space to do my craft projects and not shove them in the closet. It will open a lot of space downstairs as well and that will be nice. I think he will like being closer to work as well.

So that's what's been going on with me. Exciting right!

Okay, now, seriously....

Okay, I went to buy a pair of dress pants for work this weekend and it would appear that I am "between sizes". My regular size that I have been wearing are too big now, but the size smaller are a bit snug. So I am mildly uncomfortable and it's annoying. My solution to this is a good one however. I am going to get back on the dang wagon and lose some more weight so that the smaller sizes fit me right! I changed my weigh-in day back to Mondays because I feel like I was cheating by having them on Friday when I knew that I would be the lightest throughout the week. It isn't an accurate weight for how I would be on a daily basis. Plus it will motivate me to be more careful on the weekend instead of using the week to work off what I gained over the weekend. And I will be able to start over fresh today, which I need. I have been trying to figure out a good time to exercise that I would actually follow through with. I can't right after work, though that would probably be the most likely time for me to follow through. However, Steve is still sleeping most days when I get home and the treadmill is in the bedroom so that will not work. My next thought was to get up early in the morning and work out. That would give me some alone time to be awake and reflect and prepare for my day. The more I think of this, the better it sounds but the follow through will be difficult. It won't work on Mondays because Steve will be home and sleeping but I think it will work the rest of the week. So, perhaps on Tues - Saturday I will get my butt up and spend at least 10-20 mins on the treadmill to start out with and go from there. So tomorrow will be my first day to try to get up and do this. I also want to start doing crunches again cause my tummy felt so good when I was doing those in November!

It feels like there is so much going on right now in my life. I have been working on getting caught up at work and staying caught up. I am doing well with the staying caught up, not so well with the getting caught up part. I have several months worth of notes from last year that I do not have done. So, one step at a time, I am doing well staying caught up, now I am going to work on getting caught up, slowly but surely. My truck is having issues yet again. There is a crack in the bottom of the radiator so while they temporarily fixed it right now, I will have to put in a new radiator eventually. I haven't even been driving it lately and I am used to driving Steve's car by now. I am going to try to increase the money that we are saving in a monthly basis so I can afford a new car in the next year or so. I also want to be able to afford the changes that I want to make in the house.

Speaking of house stuff, we bought some new handles from Lowe's for the kitchen cabinets yesterday to try out. I got four different kinds that I liked to try on and see which one works the best. Ironically enough, the one I wasn't sure if I liked ended up being the one that looked the best on the cabinets and I really like it now. And because the black one looked the best, I can just take the hinges off the cabinet and spray paint them to match. That will save use quite a bit of money (about $60)since we won't have to replace them with new ones. So with some of our tax money, we are going to get the new handles and a big waterproof/firesafe in which to put our house abstract and other odds and ends that we would not want to lose in the event of a fire or flood. I also priced refrigerators (ours is used so who knows how long it will last) and wrote down measurements. We also looked at tankless water heaters (so much more economically sound!) which are expensive but worth it - you never run out of hot water! As we are making renovations on the house, I am trying to be economically minded and get appliances and such that are energy effecient. Not only would that help with our bills, and be kind to the environment, but also increase the resale value of the house. The first major thing we will have to replace will likely be the furnace though. It's over twenty years old and is probably not very energy efficient in the least. Steve did install a new thermostat yesterday so hopefully that will help. The old one almost didn't work anymore and it was cheap. Our air conditioner is an Energy Star and is relatively new so it should be good to go for several more years. Of course there are basic things that I want to do, including painting the front room and pulling up the carpet and refinishing the hard wood floors. Those I can do by myself so, no biggie.

So, this has been a long post but an overdue one. I am back on the proverbial wagon and looking forward to staying there.