Round

I’m reporting in from vacation, a brief stop at Starbucks for internet.

So far, so good on the diet front.  I’ve been able to successfully stick to low carb eating, passing up lots of junk at the beach and the full breakfast options.  My husband has been only mildly annoyed (he would love to just go to a coffee place for a muffin for breakfast instead of finding a place that takes longer and serves eggs) - he is very supportive, however, especially since I’ve now lost enough that it’s noticeable.  My own mom didn’t recognize me when we went to pick her up - she looked right past me, and for once I could see it was because I looked smaller than she was expecting, which was nice.

I haven’t even had an indulgence yet on this trip - every meal I’ve been able to find bonafide low carb fare to eat.  Yesterday after hiking in burning hot (110° F) Joshua Tree I did cave and get a sugar free Slurpee, I drank about half of it, but it was Sugar Free, therefore allowed, it’s just that I generally avoid sugar free completely.

For the next 10 days or so we’ll have a kitchen still on our vacation stops, which makes the breakfasts and chocolate a little easier.  The last week of our trip will be more restaurants 3x a day, which will be a bit more inconvenient.

NOTE : apologies for those reading just for the weight updates … the endometrial cancer diagnosis of May 25th has sent my life into a tailspin and it’s not been possible for me to separate out the weight and these other issues.  That’s true on a daily basis, and it’s true again in today’s post.

Ok, since for the third day in a row my weight has shown up as 199 I’m making it offical and moving my ticker, Hello again Onederland.  Goodbye forever 200+ land.

I’m not putting my next big milestone on my ticker yet (to get back to the weight of my wedding 2 years ago, which was also my previous stable weight).  I want to celebrate the accomplishment of coming this far, and I want to keep the scale stable (or slightly moving down) over the next 3 weeks in California. I’ll be happy to come home from our trip weighing in at 19x.  199 will be just as acceptable as something lower, let’s keep the expectations realistic.

I also saw my gyn oncologist today and talked with him about the other experts opinions and what my fertility guy had said on Tuesday.  He reiterated that from a cancer standpoint I’m not facing a lot of worry (in that it’s quite manageable and all the tests have come back looking encouraging) but also said that he understood the desire for a pregnancy and the time lag that the hormonal treatment would involve (my fertility doc felt the additional 9 month delay was not a good idea).

So we agreed to move forward with a ’simple’ hysterectomy, meaning removal of the uterus, but leaving the ovaries.  I’d be able to do egg collection via IVF 8 weeks after the surgery, and the surgery is scheduled for September 1st.  He also said he didn’t want to do the hormone treatment for the next month, said the risk is very minimal and that it’s better from a cancer staging perspective to not have the hormone treatment.  That made sense to me and avoided the need for the IUD placement, so I agreed.

I feel like it’s a good decision, and one I can be at peace with.  In the meantime my husband has come around this past week to the idea of a gestational carrier with our embryos.  This option doesn’t pose moral dilemmas to him, and that is ALL HIM coming to terms with it, not me leading him here, as I’ve purposefully given him lots of space on this.

I’m even ready to face the facts more, and will call the US fertility doctor today, and also start seriously researching finding our gestational carrier (surrogate).  One of my sisters has offered to be our surrogate, but she just announced her third (and final) pregnancy, and by the time she’d be ready it’s out of the time window that we need.  So we’ll be in the more-expensive (but less emotionally complex) situation of hiring a surrogate, which apparently can take a long time.   Working all this out will no doubt keep me busy and occupied for quite a while.  But it feels hopeful and smart and life-affirming, all while having the safest options for my health.

Without the progestin treatment for the coming weeks, I have no excuse to gain weight, which is good and will keep me on track for our trip.

Okay, 2 days in a row I’ve seen glimpses of Onederland on the scale.  My offical weigh in days are Mondays but this week if the One number holds Friday morning I’m moving my ticker.

I’m really happy about it, and I can see the difference in my face too.  My husband has been quietly supportive.

I’ve been doing this low carb thing for about 4 months now and as a result we have much less junk in the house.  I still buy him bread and he sometimes still has desserts, but apparently he’s also really cut back, and he hopped on the scale yesterday and — with no effort really — he has lost more than me.  Men suck.  Still, I’m glad he’s down several pounds, and he told me that he listened to what I was doing and has been skipping the bread and potatoes a lot when he eats out (he eats out very frequently), and now often skips desserts too.  Frankly I haven’t seen a lot of restraint when we’re together, but no doubt the meals at home are lower carb, because if I cook I think of what I can have, and sometimes throw a potato in the oven for him… and sometimes I don’t.

I am still quite stressed by these decisions regarding fertility and the stupid endometrial cancer.  Saw my fertility doc yesterday who basically said that I am right, waiting for 9+ months for another attempt at my age makes no sense, the likelihood of success due to age is a real issue, therefore the smarter choice for fertility is to do whatever I can faster.  I knew this, of course, that’s why I made the appointment with him, but still it was jarring to hear it from him.  I’m also getting scared about getting an IUD put in tomorrow.  I’ve read these horror stories of pain and bleeding, and have no interest in having that be my California vacation.  Since my appointment for the IUD insertion is the night before my morning flight to the US, I’m wondering how smart an idea it is, or if I should do the rest of the treatment now and save the IUD for when I come back… to be discussed tomorrow with the doc (who no doubt will try to reassure me about the IUD).

This morning I weighed in at 200.  That’s a 21 pound loss since March, with a steady one-pound loss most weeks.  And no hunger, no stress.  Not a lot of exercise.  No bread, pasta, rice, potatoes or sugar.  Well, one weekend of indulgence, and a few bites here and there, but 100% out of my regular consumption.

I’m really quite pleased.  I know I have exercise that I should kick up a notch, and my calories are no where near restricted - putting straight cream in tea is hardly holding anything back.  I can go out to eat most places with ease.  A quick grab of breakfast or lunch is much harder than dinner - skimpy take-out salads of veggies and protein never contain enough protein to satisfy, and the take out dressings are often full of filler and not so full of healthy fats like olive oil - but I manage, usually by eating before hand, or sucking it up and going into a restaurant for a real meal when in the past I might have just grabbed a sandwich.  Breakfast on the run in Paris is a carb-based affair, one I haven’t found a low-carb option for, so I try to eat at home, or skip it completely.  If I must, I find a small grocery store and buy some cheese or sliced lunchmeat.  In other words, I’ve found ways to make it work.

I’m still a fan of taking nuts with me - although I have a tendancy to overdo it with them if I’m not careful.

We leave on our 3 week California vacation on Friday.  I’m hoping for a glimpse of 199 before I go - if I see it I’m moving the ticker, because I really want that mindset that I’ve cracked this barrier before the holidays.

I have every intention to continue the low carb thing on vacation.  The US if full of options of what I can eat, eggs for breakfast is much more common than it is in France, most of the time we’re staying someplace with a kitchen, and while I don’t mind a rare indulgence (I’ll spend my birthday there), I’m not eating junk for 3 weeks and undoing 21 pounds of hard work in a few days.

In addition, I am starting the hormone therapy for the endometrial cancer on Thursday.  It’s a high dose progesterone which - get this, it’s so IRONIC it kills me - is the treatment that they give to anorexics to get them to eat.  Yes, you read correctly, the biggest side effect of this medication is increased appetite and weight gain.  Oh joy. For those of you following my tormented choices regarding my health and reproductive issues, this is not a definitive decision - just a decision that I’m better off with SOME kind of treatment for the next month rather than nothing.  In France, vacations are long and sacred, and while the medical establishment does handle urgencies, things that can be safely put off until after summer break are almost always put off - so the surgeons, orderlies, nurses, doctors, administrators, etc can all take their 4 weeks of summer vacation without problems (good news : so can the patients).  It’s that fact that made me decide to go ahead and start the medical treatment, and it doesn’t lock me into anything down the road, but it will make me feel safer these weeks.

So bucking that trend, and keeping my eye on the 199 and lower range is really important.

I have my next milestones laid out in my mind - but first I need to knock out 199 (Onederland!!!) and then 198 (10% loss of starting weight) before I focus on the next set of goals.

The good news : I’m confident I’ll make them all.

I am almost at a weight milestone.  The scale has shown numbers all over a 5 pound range this week, but I’ll live with what show up tomorrow as my ‘official’ number.  We were out of town for this week’s weigh in and I didn’t weigh the day we got back, so this will be the last official weigh in before summer vacation (unless Friday, the day of our departure, I happen to hit Onederland, in which case I will record it, because damn, I want to be there & it would be great to have that as my mindset on vacation.

I am almost at a decision for the treatment for my endometrial cancer, at least short term.  I’ve had more medical appointments in the past 2 months than anything else, and have researched the topic throroughly.  I’ve not managed to get the exact same opinion twice, which is a bit disconcerting.  I had the pathology re-read by an expert pathologist in the US who actually downgraded the diagnosis (less scary), although doing so changes nothing in the longer-term treatment (hysterectomy) it does reassure me with respect to timing (can be more confident that several months of hormonal treatment is safe).  I’m lucky to have access to so many top experts, but on the other hand when they contradict each other it just gets more confusing.  Each comes from their own perspective and expertise and therefore biases.  The challenge is negotiating what they think vs what I want, at least insofar as the disease progression issues can be dealt with.

The good news in all of this is that all of the doctors agree that this is not life-threatening, and the risk of it progressing to a more advanced, agressive & scary cancer is pretty small.  Exactly how small a risk does vary by who I talk to, but in general everyone says how ‘lucky’ I am this was found so early.  I am very aware I am indeed fortunate to be able to twist myself into knots thinking about the treatment options where I preserve some degree of fertility, since 6 weeks ago I was petrified my life was on the line, which today I know it’s not.

Somehow, knowing that I’m ‘fortunate’ to have the choice doesn’t seem to make it any easier.  And what makes it even harder is that my husband and I don’t have the same assessment of all the fertility options.  This has created enormous stress - both for our couple and for each of us individually, especially as we started to get expert opinions saying that from a cancer point of view the hormonal treatment and an eventual pregnancy are possibiliites.  From my point of view the next issue then becomes SUCCESSFUL pregnancy.  As I’ve said to my husband, I’ve been on this infertility ride long enough that I’m really clear about one thing : I do not want to get pregnant, what I want is a HEALTHY BABY.  So then the questions come up as : if my body is able to crank out a few viable eggs next year (older! and I haven’t had successful ones yet, so this is a big IF), if I do get the eggs, will they be more likely to grow to healthy babies in MY uterus or in that of a surrogate?  I suspect that between my age, my miscarriage, my clotting factor, my ectopic and now my cancer (even after treatment), the answer is that there will be a better chance of success with a surrogate.  My husband’s ears and mind stopped listening when the cancer doctors said I could carry a baby after the treatment, whereas my mind was wanting the answer to the above question from a fertility expert (not a cancer one, who does not know infertitlity).

So we’re at an impasse of sorts, although I think my husband will come around, and I am not decided - just wanting more info.

I also am keeping myself quite guarded in terms of getting up hope.  I’ve been through quite a lot in the past few years trying to have a baby and have had just about every complication that you can have - and now cancer on top of it.  While I would love to believe that the answer is as simple as a few months of treatment and then magically being pregnant, I know that for me it won’t be that easy, and that even a successful IVF (not a given at my age and with my history), a successful pregnancy test doesn’t mean a successful pregnancy — a baby.

so ALMOST decided on a lot of things also means NOT decided, still in turmoil, still preoccupied by this, still a huge stress in my life.

But I’m also ALMOST at a weight milestone, and definitely holding the course of keeping to a healthy eating program and getting a small amount of exercise, and doing a number of things to manage my stress.

I am enjoying my summer so far.  Despite this stupid endometrial cancer thing.

The days are sunny and warm.  I am loving my sunbathing, although I am adding back sunscreen to my face (no need to look old before my time, and I’ve read the face is such a small percentage of our skin to make vitamin D that protection makes sense).

Our backyard is great, full of flowers and plants and greenery, eating out there is pure pleasure.  The hibiscus tree is in bloom.

I am working from home and my boss is being an angel about work - she basically said she’s going to run my team for me until after summer vacation, and she’ll keep me in the loop but out of responsiblity, which is exactly what I needed.  I’ll be able to put some of my mental energy into some of the longer-term researching projects that I never have time for, because the day to day will be managed by her.  Best for my team, especially as I can’t make any firm committments right now since doctors appointments must and do come first.  Our conversation today really took a big load off my mind.

I LOVED my weekend - gosh, it was wonderful.  I got back in a pool (that’s been TOO LONG), and had all these great spa treatments (the best was the modelage sous affusion, heavenly), drank their herbal teas and laid in the sun between treatments, reading my book.  The food was quite good and aside from a few bites of my husband’s desserts and one crepe for lunch (no choice, salad wasn’t available), I kept completely on the low-carb thing without any difficulty.  I’ll need to make sure I have my 99% chocolate with me in the US, because those bites of dessert were mainly because I didn’t have MY treat, so I need to make sure that doesn’t happen for 3 weeks.   We went on a bike ride (uh, I bonked, but it was good while it lasted), a really long walk on a gorgeous coast, then another shorter walk the day before we left.

Here is a picture of the hotel where we were - our room looked directly out on this bay - gorgeous!

Yesterday was Bastille Day here and my father in law received the Legion of Honor and it was so cool to see the ceremony.  We spent most of the day in the car after that, but it was a fun time and there wasn’t too much traffic. Even tried to make it to the gym yesterday (but they were closed for the holiday - so did a short walk instead).

We are having a nice long holiday weekend here in France (July 14th is the French national holiday, so it’s a 4 day weekend this year).

We are also leaving for our 3 week summer holiday in 2 weeks, so I decided to approach this little vacation as my ‘training wheels’ time for the big vacation.  While I can often go on a weekend away and eat indulgently and get right back on track with nothing worse than a one-week stall in my weight, the same cannot be said for going off plan on a longer vacation.

In addition, my weight gain from 190 to 220 that started 2 years ago was kick-started by our last 3 week vacation in the US - huge portions, Mexican food, all those foods that I don’t have every day here in France…  The excuses are many, but the damage of 3 weeks of unrestrained eating is enormous, and I’ve been fighting like hell to get my weigh back under control for 18 months, and just finally started losing a serious chunk a few months back, so that kind of backslide is simply out of the question.  I will stay on low-carb eating during our 3 week California vacation.  It’s doable, and I’ll still be able to eat a lot of treats (Mexican, most restaurants, etc).

So this weekend has been my test period, and instead of allowing myself a certain number of treats (my usual strategy) I’ve just tried to stick to the carb-restricted plan.  I’ve had a few bites of dessert (3 bites total over 3 days) but otherwise have stuck to the plan.  I won’t describe the beautiful breakfast laid out at our hotel (because they do have ham, eggs and cheese) nor the dessert buffet at lunch (because again they have a nice cheese platter).

Today’s lunch will be the biggest challenge - we are going to a creperie which is supposed to be one of the best in the world (crepes are from the region we are visiting right now).  Ordering a salad should be a possiblity, and maybe just a bite of my husband’s crepe will be enough.

I’ve been on this carb-restricted way of eating for well over 3 months now.  I continue to be amazed by the lack of hunger, the indulgent foods (butter! cheese! salad dressing!) and how easy it’s been to stick to. I’ve not had cravings, or the carb-flu or any other bad effects frankly.

Hardest for me has been giving up the fruit.  And the copious quantities of veggies that I’ve eaten for, gee, forever.  I still eat veggies, but I don’t go hog-wild on them (I have more meat if I’m still hungry).  And fruit is a Special Treat now.  I haven’t had an apple or orange in months, and almost all the fruit I have had has been berries.  Usually (but not always) in small quantities.  And often served with cream. (Jealous? Well, I’m not eating ANY bread and I live in Paris, so I suffer too…)

But my go-to stress reliever and diet-trick extraordinaire for years has been dark chocolate.  I have kept high-quality, expensive gourmet bars in stock at all times.  At home, at the office, in my suitcase.  In Summer I have to pay more attention, but knowing that I have Good Chocolate that I can have just a square or two from has kept me able to say ‘no thank you’ to tons of processed snacks and bulk-produced desserts over the years.  Plus, if you read the news, you always see that dark chocolate is healthy, right?  Flavinoids and all.  Whatever, it’s delicious and satisfying, and I am lucky to be one of those people who can eat a square or two and put it away (a big chocolate binge for me is like 4-5 squares).  So it’s always been part of my diet.

Until I read Good Calories, Bad Calories and it convinced me to give low-carb eating a go.  So out went the chocolate.

But recently as my husband has been hitting the cherries, the blueberries, the apricots, the peaches after dinner as his treat, I’ve been trying to find what will be MY treat.  When it was strawberry season I could indulge with him, but now? I’d been feeling a bit deprived.  I actually started to buy the mascarpone cheese when it was still strawberry season - because having fat with carbs slows down the insulin spike, so I would spoon out a bit and dip my berries into it.

And then a few weeks ago I hit on an idea.  Take the mascarpone cheese (which is really pretty much pure dairy fat with no flavor) and add a spoonful of cocoa powder.  We happened to have cocoa powder from one of the best chocalatiers in Paris at home (bought for some holiday recipe) … the result was : AMAZING.

Now, bear in mind I’ve always liked DARK chocolate, this is the key.  And I am doing the low-carb thing without artifical sweeteners (which I stopped using about 6 years ago and wasn’t going to add back just because I cut out carbs).  So basically I just never taste sweet anymore.  My few cheats since being on this diet have always had me putting the spoon down quickly when it comes to dessert, because they just taste cloying to me.

So pure cocoa powder (no sugar, no sweeteners) with the mascarpone cheese mixed together has been a rich, wonderful godsend.  Okay, it’s calorically dense and rich and indulgent, but it’s virtually carb-free and I don’t take very much in quantity (maybe 2-3 tablespoons total, of which 1 tsp or so is cocoa powder).

Last weekend my wonderful, under-appreciated, very attentive and quite cute husband took me into one of the good chocolate shops near his office and they had 99% cocoa chocolate disks.  I’ve actually had these before and next to sugared chocolate found them too harsh, but now?  Divine.  I mean, DIVINE. And very low carb to boot.

Full of cancer-busting flavinoids and stress-reducing anti-oxidants and all the other feel-good factors I think I deserve, but also consistent with my diet and as always - a little bit is enough.

Today?  Feeling a little stressed, I had BOTH the mascarpone/cocoa mixture and also several disks of the 99% variety.  And stayed on my “diet”.

I guess that’s the best word for my current emotional state : wobbly.

Actually, I’m doing okay on a number of fronts, but I am way out of it where work is concerned.  It’s like a switch of what matters and doesn’t has been hit, and I just can’t get myself to focus on the work stuff.  I can, however, build my cancer website and research endometrial cancer and treatment.  I can follow up on any number of personal projects.  But work… just isn’t clicking.

Most of the time my emotions are fine, stable, calm even.  Every so often I have a stressful moment, but they are becoming rarer.  I’ve been able to sleep without drugs or trouble for several nights now (although I keep the pills by my bed for now, just in case…).

I’m still using all the herbal and aromatherapy products labeled ‘relaxing’ or ‘anti-stress’ or ‘rescue’ like they are going out of business.  I am decluttering like mad.

I saw that something went haywire with the feeds at the 3FC blogs - I read your blogs in a reader and click over to comment from time to time, but everyone’s new post counts exploded last night - the good part was that I was able to unsubscribe from the dead blogs really easily, since they were obvious (they didn’t update), but since I had over 400 ‘unread’ posts I just reset it to ‘mark all as read’ - hopefully I didn’t miss much important with anyone.

I’m hoping to get the slides for pathology to get sent for a second opinion today or tomorrow.  Just the logistics of cancer, calls, second opinions etc is almost a job in itself. Maybe that’s why my day job seems less important?

Well, I will stand up and be a poster girl for the Slow Losers of the Universe club.

I have been quitetly keeping at it, not stressing daily, eating pretty much what I want, living without hunger, taking an occaisonal day or weekend off from my plan, and now, 14 weeks later, I am down 19 pounds and the next several weeks I should meet the following milestones :

-1 more : 20 pounds lost

-3 more : Out of the 200s FOREVER

-4 more : -10% body weight loss

I’ve been very gentle with myself regarding goals and timing this round (even moreso after the cancer diagnosis 6 weeks ago).  I’ve dieted more times than I can count, and the days of projecting my weight by a certain date are behind me at this point in my life.  I try to do the best I can in terms of eating a healthy low carb diet and getting in some exercise, and I let the weight fall where it may.

It’s been slow going - generally a pound a week, and I had a frustrating plateau of 4 weeks where I was doing things right and not losing anyway when I was 4 weeks into low carbing.  But I stuck it out and suddenly the plateau busted, and my slow steady loss is now adding up to be something significant. Check out the page “weekly weight graph” to see the pretty picture.

I’m also not thinking of a final number.  My goal focus for now has been to get out of the 200s, and once that’s done my next goal will be to get back to my wedding weight (183).  Then step by step I’ll get to a healthier, happier weight.

It would be wonderful if I can bust out of 200 before summer vacation (just under 3 weeks), but given that we have a romantic 4 day weekend away this weekend, that may not happen.  And it may be a number that stays out of grasp for a while if I do end up starting the hormonal treatment for the endometrial cancer (major side effect : increased appetite & weight gain, ain’t that cool!).  But no matter, I will keep on the path because I feel so much better eating this way.

I’m also pretty confident I can do this on our trip to the US this summer.  Living in France, it’s not the American bread that will get me riled up.  Nor is it the industrial desserts that pale in comparison to the likes of Pierre Hermé.  Even my big downfall for Mexican has plenty of low-carb options, and every restaurant has salads full of protein and other things that I can eat.  Other than breakfasts in hotels offering ‘continental’ I think I won’t have too much of a challenge, and even those hotels must be near a place offering omelets.  I’m not saying I’ll have a carb-free, cheat-free vacation, but a few planned indulgences is not the same thing as 3 weeks of disastrous eating either.

So, sooner or later those goals listed above will be MINE and it feels so good to feel so confident that I’m closing in on them.