Baby Steps

Well, it's been a long time since I've updated. My life has improved in many different ways since I started taking the Metformin.

The biggest thing is that my weight has been steady, despite eating whatever I want when I want it. I know it's not healthy to do that but it's also encouraging that my weight has remained steady. Imagine what it'll do when I get my act together?

My headaches are gone. I realized the other day that I had a headache and it's the first time in 2 months that my head has hurt. I was so amazed. I've lived with headaches and migraines so long that I just assumed I'd always have them and yet I haven't and I didn't notice until the other day - strange!

My skin has improved drastically. I know that those who know me think I've got gorgeous skin anyway but for me this is even better. I used to get the one a month breakouts and my skin would do all sorts of strange things and now it just looks gorgeous all the time. Yay!

My hair is starting to grow back! I have baby hairs along my forehead and I'm so proud of them. My thinning hair has probably been the hardest thing for me to deal with because everyone sees my hair and to have it all over my clothes and looking so sad was just heartbreaking for me. I don't think I'm losing as much on a daily basis either so that's even better.

Oh yeah, the big ones, my cycles are nearing normal. I didn't have the horrendous cramps and flow that I'd been having and it's still a couple days longer than it's been most of my life but I think it'll work itself out. I'm really pleased though.

I'm just so grateful for these things and they may seem trivial to some people but they are a big deal to me. I have another ultrasound on Tuesday to see how everything looks (yay for more embarrassing moments ).

Unfortunately I'm beginning to feel concerned that I might have irritable bowel syndrome now .. I suppose one can't stop collecting syndromes one you start. :p I'll talk to my Doctor and see what she has to say ..

As for other stuff .. I made a short visit to the T-Tapp forums and I have to love these women for trying so hard but it makes me so tired to read the Nutrition forum. It's a new diet and idea every other post and they are so diligent in their efforts to try them. I have such hope for all of them yet I feel a bit of pity as well that they are so desperate. I hope that doesn't sound as bad as it seems to.

I know that I haven't found the "one true way" but I do know that paying attention to my body is more important that paying attention to some expert, whoever the flavor of the day is.

My motto recently has been K.I.S.S -- the more complicated I make things the less I do them so it's simple for me and I end up getting results.

I haven't been doing my low-carb lately but I've been more careful with my choices and trying to moderate my intake of carbs and that has been good but I need to buckle down a bit more. Like I said I'm holding steady right now and that's a total win in my book but I want to start moving downward.

Baby steps ...

Update: 1/4/2007

so I'm back on track with my eating and everything else is falling into place as well. I have a tendency to try doing a lot of new things at once and then I end up stopping ALL of them. I make up some excuse and then just go on my way. I do this over and over and I decided I was tired of it.

I'm perfectly capable of eating right, exercising, cooking for myself and keeping my house clean. It's not like I'm asking myself to do brain surgery. These are every day things that millions of people do every day - why do I think I'm incapable?

I'm feeling a lot better about myself lately and the cleaner my house gets the better I feel. I never quite realized how important the home environment is to mental health and well-being. I find that when my kitchen is clean I do better at nearly everything - strange sounding isn't it?

I'm going to bed later than ever lately, around 11:30+pm which is super late for me. I'm feeling OK when I get up but I have a tendency to just keep snoozing instead of getting up and moving around.

My work is going well, it's busy and I'm happy at my job but it's a growing period for me. I'm a team lead now and while I've gravitated toward leadership it's entirely different when it's your job. I feel a bit more self-conscious when I'm doing my job lately.

Anyway .. that's it for now. I'm down 2.5lbs and feeling good.

PCOS

It's been a bit since I've posted and I thought I'd give a little update. I lost about 25lbs doing low-carb, actually it was more like no carb. I felt really realy good and I'm looking better, sleeping better (but still not great) and overall doing good.

I started to feel a bit wonky and I fell off the proverbial wagon and have ended up spending the past few weeks eating anything I wanted. My weight went up about 7 pounds but I'm maintaining at that weight despite eating "normal".

Yesterday I had an appointment with a new Dr. because I haven't been happy with my previous Dr. This new one was rec'd by a co-worker and she (my first female Dr!) really got onto me about my weight and in some ways made me feel a bit insulted but I took it in stride because I think she was seeing the whole picture whereas I try to see parts of the whole. If I try to see the whole thing I get too overwhelmed and end up doing nothing. For example, she wants me to start walking every day for at least 30 minutes and that is just blegh but I take the stairs in the parking garage and have gotten to parking on the 4th floor most days. It's a small thing for me but I'm happy with my progress. 30 minutes of walking a day is a huge deal for me - not to mention horribly boring! I respect her advice but am not real sure how I'll manage to accomplish it.

That said, I had a regular female exam and afterwards she expressed some concerns and today I'm going for an ultrasound to see if I may have PCOS. It's one of those things that I don't WANT to have it, yet at the same time I do because I want to have a reason for the way I feel. I want to know that my losing large amounts of hair, bad periods, and general emotional rollercoasters that I've been on HAVE a reason. I don't want that to all just be in my head, you know?

She said that if I do indeed have PCOS and I am exhibiting a lot of the signs that she would want to put me on Metformin (aka Glucophage) because it's likely that I have insulin resistance and that will help. It's interesting how all this stuff is related. I'd never heard of taking insulin medications for PCOS so I ran straight to the computer and started to research it a bit more.

I feel like I'm on the right track with low-carb and if I do indeed have PCOS then it may also explain why low carb feels better to my body. The medication could also help me lose weight but I don't really have a huge time losing weight when I pay attention so that would just be a plus if it were to happen.

Update: 11/9/2006

Yesterday I had the ultrasound to determine if I do indeed have any cysts around my ovaries. I must admit that I never thought I'd have an ultrasound when I wasn't pregnant. I guess I never thought that they were used for anything other than baby related things.

Anyway, that was a big strange and I left with no more answers than I had before. I realize that the person doing the ultrasound may not be the person who interprets the results but at the same time you'd think they'd give you a little hint of "yeah I see something there". Instead I have to wait until my Dr. gets back to me and that could be next week at the earliest.

Oh well. I've been dealing with this long enough, it's not like a week or even more is going to make any difference. I just wish that I knew. I hate saying that I *want* to have PCOS but at the same time it's an answer which has a solution, and I'd take that any day over not knowing.

As for the ultrasound .. yeah .. the external one wasn't bad but the vaginal was just off the charts weird. It's completely graceless.

In some ways I feel a bit stressed by all this but at the same time I feel a sense of relief. I've been very tired this week, moreso than normal and have been getting 9-10 hours of sleep a night. I wake up tired too, even after all that sleep. One of my co-workers has insomnia and doesn't sleep much at all. I don't envy her but sometimes being able to sleep 10 hours a stretch and still being tired isn't any better. I sleep soundly and don't wake at all during the night but I have to wonder about the quality of my sleep if I'm still tired. I keep thinking I should get a new bed ...

Well, I've got to say this Dr. truly is on top of things! I just got a call from her and she told me the results of blood tests and ultrasound.

She said my blood looked good, nothing strange about it. My ultrasound did show one small cyst on my left ovary which looks like it has blood in it(?) and she wasn't concerned about it right now. I'll go back in 6 weeks for another ultrasound since she believes it could disappear on its own - she wants to see if it's still there or if it has by chance multiplied.

But, she said that my symptoms were consistent with PCOS and despite not having cysts she is still going to put me on Metformin.

Phew. I feel about 100lbs lighter.

For so long I've tried everything under the sun to feel better, lose weight, etc, and I'm tired, quite honestly, of trying. I want to see the progress and not spend all my time spinning my wheels. I think that this diagnosis is the first step in gaining traction.

I guess I wasn't ready to give up because that was the point I was at .. put out or get out and quit whining.

I'm back on the low-carb track and while I'm still aiming to lose weight I'im also wanting to feel better. I've been doing really super strict low-carb (under 20gms/day) but I need to learn a way to be more flexible. I tend to be such an all or nothing person that I either do low/no carb or I eat full out and I have to find a way to compromise so that it doesn't take me over.

As for exercise, my Dr. got onto me about that and said I needed to walk at least 30 min. a day but I don't like walking so much so I'm going to start back up on the Pilates workouts. As I said earlier, I'm such an all or nothing person that I can't easily focus on exercising AND eating well. I tend to exercise and eat badly, or eat well and not exercise. Grr!


I just have to remember that each day is fresh, with no mistakes in it - each day is a fresh start so I need to make the most of each day and not worry about tomorrow, just focus on the here and now.

A new dawning

I feel like a new person. For once it has nothing to do with a diet or exercise plan but a mental shift.

This past weekend I went up to Seattle for a weekend to visit a very dear friend. She's very comfortable in her body and is a big person. She believes in herself and that she's beautifu, strong, sexy, and every positive thing you can think. Now me, I'm not quite that confident and so it was enlightening to be around her, for one. Second, I experienced something I've never experienced before ..

nakedness.

Hah, it sounds funny but I've taken my clothes off before but never truly felt NAKED. We went to a women's korean bath in Tacoma (if you live near there ask me about it) and all the women were naked. BUTT NAKED! We spent several hours being shuffled around and soaking, scrubbed, and massaged. It was absolutely amazing. I felt naked not only in the flesh *har har* but also in spirit. I was shedding my own insecurities as I padded around and bared everything for complete strangers. It really sounds weird but I left there feeling as though that weight on my shoulders had finally been lifted.

I spent 3 days there reveling in my new nakedness (no, I didn't literally walk around naked all the time) and loving it. I came home and I still feel that way. I'm walking taller, feeling proud and aware of my "new" body.

I still have a lot of weight to get rid of but it just doesn't bother me so much anymore. It's a part of who I am but it doesn't define me.

I feel good -why didn't someone tell me how good nakedness was?

Life is pretty darn good right now. I really can't believe how much better I feel about myself. It was like my insecurities were stripped away with all the dead skin from the exfoliating treatment. I know it sounds so fruity (and nuts) but it's true.

I think a part of it too is that I met people who didn't care that I was overweight. They felt that I was attractive and they wanted to be with me. Here in California that's just not typical. Image is such a huge thing here, even in the hippy Berkeley area, and it's hard to be a big woman. I'm only 30 and yet most of the time I feel like I'm 90 because I just felt like hiding out in my house and not socializing. I always said it was because I liked to be alone and I do to an extent but I think a lot of it was fear of being rejecting me or looking at me funny.

I came home lighter emotionally and decided that I wasn't going to stand for it any more. I was going to love myself no matter what size I was. I'm tired of being unhappy and constantly obsessing over my size. I even met someone this week who thinks I'm sexy and loves how I look .. how's that for a $125 price tag? (how much the afternoon soak/scrub/massage cost).

I keep thinking of Margaret Cho's F**k It diet ... that's about how I feel right now. I'm just tired of it all and just want to relax.

Crisis of Self

I've been going through a crisis of self for a long time about my weight. At my highest I was 310lbs and that's not good. It's not healthy, it's not aesthetically pleasing and it's certainly not the way I want to be. I've done a few diets over the years and had results initially but started to have other problems. A few months ago I began looking into weight loss surgery (lap band) because I felt like I had no other option.

I realized a long time ago that my body functioned really well on low-carb eating. I just have more energy, my thoughts are clear, and my emotions are stable. The problem is that I like carbs a lot and I could probably eat pizza every day for the rest of my life and be completely happy. This last week I went back to low-carb eating and am feeling amazing.

I can't lie to myself any more and say that it didn't work, because it does, and I feel better doing it. But I'm so wrapped up in food that I want food more than I want health and I'm tired of that feeling. Honestly it makes me feel slimy! I mean, I'm so in love with food that I'd rather have it to the exclusion of my health and well-being? What does that say about me?

I realized that the only way out of that relationship is to get them out of my system and stop letting the carbs (in particular) control my emotions.

Granted, rapid weight loss is a bonus with low-carb and I'll admit to vanity, it's one reason I like it so much but there is so much more.

Right now I'm eating when I'm hungry and stopping when I'm satisfied, I'm not going long periods of time without food and I feel so much better.

I don't know the NT beliefs on doing low-carb since it is a diet but I think it's the best choice for me right now.

I've always believed in NT even when I just couldn't stick with it. I've carried the principles with me through everything and I think to some extent they have helped me to not get any bigger than I am now.

I think my biggest problem with eating is that I was always under the illusion that I didn't eat that much. I've been tracking what I've been eating lately and it's VERY enlightening .. scary actually. For me it's helping to bring an awareness to what goes into my body - an awareness I didn't have before. It's still very much in a diet mentality and I can handle that because 'fly by the seat of my pants' hasn't gotten me anywhere yet.