Round

I’ve been sticking to my low carb eating successfully this trip, not even with stress or regret.  This is despite being back in my hometown, with, of course, all the hometown temptations.

But there are lots of ways to make Mexican low carb as long as you avoid the rice, beans & tortiallas, so that’s been okay.  I’ve even managed to take my husband to a favorite bakery just for him, and also to a smoothie place, just for him.

I did have 3/4 of a peice of pecan cinnnamon swirl bread (whole wheat) yesterday morning because I wanted my carb counts up for a urinanlysis & blood tests at my doctors office because I didn’t want to get into a discussion about my diet.  I slathered it with butter to cut any blood sugar spike and while I was happy to have the taste and texture of bread in my mouth for a few minutes, it was really clear to me that I didn’t miss it so much, and that I wouldn’t even finish the slice I took with me.  No carb cravings later on either, so I think I portioned it just right…  (By the way, when I hit weight maintenance mode I’ll be able to eat stuff like this in this kind of controlled way a few times a week).

Last night I had a craving for pizza.  Actually my pizza craving has been growing for weeks, but last night was screaming, and we were in Denver & one of my childhood faves - Beaujo’s Pizza was on my mind.  This pizza is incredibly thick and they serve honey with the pizza so you can leave your crusts and eat them w honey for dessert.  It was perfect. Because it’s so thick I was able to eat just the top of the pie and throw away the crust, and feel completely, totally satisfied.

Everything is progressing well here (although my husband will be very glad to have the injectable hormones behind us– I’m pretty emotional & sometimes a wee bit sensitive & irrational).

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REPEATING UNTIL THESE 2 WEEKS ARE OVER :

*** On another subject, for those who pray, or send wishes to the universe, or good thoughts etc, I would very much appreciate al the good will you can throw my way over then next 2 or so weeks as we go through the IVF egg collection.  I am taking the stimulation drugs now and sometime early October they should be going in to get the eggs and make the embryos, which we will then freeze to use with a gestational surrogate because I have to have the hysterectomy for the endometrial cancer.  So we’re making snowbabies right now, and all your well wishes are much appreciated.  ***

Yesterday was a full day of flying.

I had the presence of mind to buy sliced cheese and salami to take with me on the flight, which was a lifesaver (well, diet-saver) because the meals were not low carb at all and I doubt I’d have made it through the 22 hours of travel without diving into something carby without them.  I did have time to grab a salad & quiche combo to eat on the second plane, but knowing that I was prepared put me in good shape to head into another trip to the US full of temptations.  But I’ll be okay and able to stick to low-carbing while I’m here — I am anxious to get that scale below 195 and that’s been good motivation for me recently.

On the flight we had tons of options of movies to watch but I had brought the book I was reading and another that was almost 400 pages that I figured I’d only attack on a long trip, and I ended up reading pretty much the whole way.  In all I read about 500 pages on the various flights - finished the second book this morning waiting at the doctors office.  It felt much more satisfying to have read 2 good books on the flights instead of watching a bunch of lame-brained movies that I didn’t particularly want to see (I did look through the films to see if there was anything I had really wanted to catch, but there wasn’t).

The worst part of the flights was having to do my shots in the airplane bathroom.  Cramped, dirty, etc. I had to find surfaces to put the supplies, cover them all w paper towels, rewash my hands, and do 2 types of shots.  About 8 people knocked on the door while I was in there, which didn’t help my stress at all.  I broke not one, but two ampoules for my shots - shattered the tops between my fingers instead of neatly snapping off the glass tops, and had my fingers bleeding all over me, my jeans, the syringe while I was trying to inject.  Really awful.  Knock knock…  I got the shots done, maybe a little less thorough than usual about getting every drop out of the vials.  Then tried to clean up the mess, getting the glass shards out of my jeans first, then trying to get them off the floor, then trying to clean up the blood.  The cleanup part was worse than the shots I think because when I first started bleeding I kept myself calm to get through the shots and figured after that I could deal with anything.  I was shaking I was so anxious by the time I got back to my seat.  I was really grateful the second plane was on time and I was able to do the evening set of shots in the rental car bathroom instead of in the plane.

Anyway, we got here just fine, and even made it to the gym today.  My mom is a member at this gym and they were really nice and told my husband & I that we can use it for free all week.  Sweet.

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REPEATING UNTIL THESE 2 WEEKS ARE OVER :

*** On another subject, for those who pray, or send wishes to the universe, or good thoughts etc, I would very much appreciate al the good will you can throw my way over then next 2 or so weeks as we go through the IVF egg collection.  I am taking the stimulation drugs now and sometime early October they should be going in to get the eggs and make the embryos, which we will then freeze to use with a gestational surrogate because I have to have the hysterectomy for the endometrial cancer.  So we’re making snowbabies right now, and all your well wishes are much appreciated.  ***

The weight where I stabilized for most of the 6 years I’ve been in Paris is 195.  If I was being really honest I’d admit that I was +/- a few pounds of 195 in fact.

I had one pair of great-fitting excellent black pants that fit better at 190 than they did at 195 but didn’t really work above 195 at all.  Those pants were starting to be worn and although I bought a few things to replace them I never really found the perfect black pants that they were (or are, they’re still here in storage).

When my weight creeped up 2 years ago I found another pair of black pants.  Ones that are extremely forgiving of weight fluctuations, they look okay when they’re …er… fuller, and they drape well when I’m smaller.  They’ve been my wardrobe workhorse now for a long time, although when I went above 215 they didn’t work again (yes, I have black pants for the 215-220 range too).  But these Black Pants have been a year-round staple for about 2 years.

Today, getting ready for a really hectic day of medical and financial appointments running all over, I instictively reached for them.  And putting them on realized they were, in fact, too big.

Now, these are the ‘bigger’ black pants (but not the biggEST).  I found in my closet one of the pairs of pants intended to replace my 195 favorites and they fit — not great, they’ll be better in a few pounds, but definitely passable (but these pants won’t make the cut as the replacement to the Great Black Pants That Are Wearing Out).  I tried on 3 other pair of pants that had been unthinkably tight, then looked at the clock and ran out the door.  In nice brown pants that I bought last February as ‘inspiration’ as they didn’t fit at all (am I the only one who does this?).

Bottom line? I’m shrinking!  I’m fitting back into my smaller clothes.  Those boxes marked ‘195′ in my closet will contain TONS of stuff that will fit and look good.  I’m going to spend my money on shoes and cashmere sweaters while I’m in the US since I’ll find plenty of clothes when I come home and soon reach that 195 mark.

How cool is that?

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REPEATING UNTIL THESE 2 WEEKS ARE OVER :

*** On another subject, for those who pray, or send wishes to the universe, or good thoughts etc, I would very much appreciate al the good will you can throw my way over then next 2 or so weeks as we go through the IVF egg collection.  I am taking the stimulation drugs now and sometime early October they should be going in to get the eggs and make the embryos, which we will then freeze to use with a gestational surrogate because I have to have the hysterectomy for the endometrial cancer.  So we’re making snowbabies right now, and all your well wishes are much appreciated.  ***

I’m not very focused on the numbers these days, but somehow I couldn’t let this one slip by without some celebration.  As my weight has slipped down pretty solidly into the 197 range I can safely say that I’ve now lost 10% of my body weight.

This was one of my Big Milestones.

I found an article that listed the benefis of 10% weight loss (apologies, I just cut out these points, I don’t know where it was from) :

1. A fall in premature death by about 20-25%
2. A fall in diabetes-related death of about 30%
3. A fall in obesity-related cancers by about 40% –> more on this below
4. A fall in blood pressure of about 10/20 mmHg
5. A fall of 50% in the risk of developing diabetes
6. A fall in glucose levels of about 30-50%
7. A fall in total cholesterol of about 10%
8. A fall in LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) of about 15%
9. A fall in triglycerides of about 30%
10. A rise in protective HDL of about 8%

Pretty impressive, isn’t it?  And a 10% weight loss is not a HUGE number for anybody.  Even if you start over 300 pounds it’s a manageable number of pounds.

It doesn’t happen overnight, but I’m a poster girl for the slow and steady (and pushing through plateaus) approach.  It’s taken me about 24 weeks - I’ve averaged about a pound a week, which is probably the fastest I’ve ever lost — I’m a slow loser in general (although carb restriction seems to make me lose faster than low cal or low fat did).

THE NOTE for #4 above : As you know, I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer about 3 months ago.  Endometrial cancer is highly correlated with obesity.  I’ve been through a period of blaming myself and beating myself up about my weight causing this, but the truth is that I’ll never know why I got this cancer (there are lots of the younger women who are diagnosed who are of normal weight, and most obese women won’t ever get it).  Life is not so simple as cause and effect.  Lots of nasty people seem to live charmed lives, and lots of nice people seem to live through one bad thing after another.  Also risk reduction in medical data is always a strange concept — it’s based on overall populations and general risk pools, not on YOU as an individual.  Your own family and personal history can throw the “general” stats out the window.  In addition, as my oncologist said (talking about recurrence), that talking in percentages can be misleading for people who want to avoid a certain treatments, because as an individual you either recur or you don’t.  So you either are 0% or 100% but you don’t get to live with some nice percentage risk reduction.  It’s a scary thought, but actually pretty helpful.  (Part of the reason we are choosing this complicated path of IVF egg collection, embryo freezing, gestational surrogacy & hysterectomy is to keep my cancer recurrence risk at the 0% level.)

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REPEATING UNTIL THESE 2 WEEKS ARE OVER :

*** On another subject, for those who pray, or send wishes to the universe, or good thoughts etc, I would very much appreciate al the good will you can throw my way over then next 2 or so weeks as we go through the IVF egg collection.  I am taking the stimulation drugs now and sometime early October they should be going in to get the eggs and make the embryos, which we will then freeze to use with a gestational surrogate because I have to have the hysterectomy for the endometrial cancer.  So we’re making snowbabies right now, and all your well wishes are much appreciated.  ***

Well, my weight has bounced around a fair amount this week, as I expected with stopping one kind of hormones and then starting another. Still, Monday to Monday I’m flat at 197 but I’m not changing the ticker until mid October when all of this medical stuff is behind me.

Did you know that it’s been almost 6 months since I’ve been back on track? I’ve been losing very consistently for most of that time — several plateaus but more than that you see these losses of one, one, one, one …. adding up to 24 so far.  I’m really proud of myself, and the weight loss has now hit the 10% mark, and the change is real.  My clothes fit completely differently - things that got me through the last 2 winters are too baggy, certain things that were very tight fit correctly, and in a few pounds I’ll open up the clothes I boxed away & feel like I’ve gone shopping.  My rings fit again (well, most of them) and that’s been fun to play with.

I’ve never been a fast loser, but a pound a week is pretty fast for me.  I’m also really REALLY pleased with the ratio of effort and sacrifice vs weight loss.  I talked a lot on my blog several years ago about needing to find low-stresss weight loss, and I finally think things have converged for me.  I don’t eat starch and sugar, and I do have to keep a reign in on fruit (and even some vegges) but the amazing lack of hunger from restrictign carbohydrates and the feelings of wellbeing are definitely worth it.

*** On another subject, for those who pray, or send wishes to the universe, or good thoughts etc, I would very much appreciate al the good will you can throw my way over then next 2 or so weeks as we go through the IVF egg collection.  I am taking the stimulation drugs now and sometime early October they should be going in to get the eggs and make the embryos, which we will then freeze to use with a gestational surrogate because I have to have the hysterectomy for the endometrial cancer.  So we’re making snowbabies right now, and I’m pretty nervous about it.  ***

I’m not really myself lately.  I can blame it on the hormones, but I suspect that’s too convenient an excuse and it’s really stress coming through.

I am incredibly, unbelievably needy with my husband.  I get annoyed with him for nothing, and things I usually do with joy I sometimes feel myself resenting (going shopping, preparing meals, etc).  It’s not like he doesn’t help out or do those things too, by the way - it’s just that I feel this need for complete and total appreciation of the smallest things.  Luckily we’re able to talk about it and I’m usually able to articulate my neediness and he’s usually able to be nice, and I’m sometimes able to overcome my emotional state, so all in all things are working.

I’ve done 6 shots so far - when it’s all done it’ll have been around 50, so I’m in the early stages.  I always have that hesitation before putting the needle into my skin (have to do the 1-2-3-NOW thing about 5 times before I really jab it, but it makes me laugh that a few years ago I actually called a home visit doctor one night that my husband was traveling because I couldn’t bring myself to do it at 10:30pm).

I wanted to have a weekend where I felt pampered and indulged but I didn’t.  My husband is pretty preoccupied with work (getting things done so that he can come to the US for the fertility stuff for 10 days, we leave on Friday).  And he’s just generally stressed about work and me and everything and I was able to not be a total pain in the a** this weekend.  We watched some movies, walked around a little, but did less than I had wanted to.  I did read a lot, which was nice - I missed that.  I went back to reading lighter, more fun stuff and got swept away just as I wanted.  Plotting my next book now.

I have slightly upped the carbs these past few days, and will keep them up a bit until after the egg retrieval.  I’m not stopping low carb and I’m not back on bread, sugar or the like — just a bit more veggies and nuts and such.  I don’t think that the moment my body is growing eggs is the moment to be trying to drop weight, nor that being in ketosis (state of very low carbohydrates) is necessarily a good thing.  Probably not a bad thing, but it’s only 2 weeks and it seems like a smarter choice to take a more moderate dietary path.

This is a pretty rambling post, which is pretty well reflective of my mind these days.  All over the map, unable to concentrate on anything for very long, swept away easily… and pretty preoccupied by the medical stuff.

Very ironic that now, after 3 days off the birth control pills, I feel better and more like me, but now I start the hard-core fertiity drugs which will probably make the past 2 weeks look like a walk in the park.

I was VERY nervous for the past 10 days that something bad would happen and I’d get cancelled.  Even yesterday seeing my local doctor who told me everything looked okay, I wasn’t convinced until I got the thumbs up from the US.

But I got it!

So now I start the twice daily shots to inject my body full of hormones that will make my body make lots of eggs for the IVF.  In total I’ll have 4 shots a day, 2 in the morning, 2 in the evening, plus a pill of something at night.  For the first 2 days I only have 2 shots, one morning, one night.

I’ve been pretty whacked out these past few days.   If I don’t take sleeping pills I don’t sleep.  I am ornery with my husband, tempermental, bitchy, annoying, needy, and I cry at the drop of a hat.  Who is this person? When is she leaving, because she is getting on my nerves.  My husband isn’t finding her a lot of fun to be around either, by the way.

I’m guessing the worst will be over in about 3 weeks.  Then I’ll have 3 weeks of worry before the hysterectomy, then I can moan about recovering from that.

I’ve been super nervous about getting the authorization to begin the IVF drugs.  I took the birth control pills for about 2 1/2 weeks (to ‘calm everything down’) and they made me hormonal and irritable.  I was super stressed about the testing today to make sure everything was low and normal where it was supposed to be, but it was, so this afternoon I should get the ok from the US to get started.  I told my local doctor about how I’ve been stressed about the IVF, the bleeding, not sleeping etc and he told me 1) to take the sleeping pill every single night for 3 months because ‘this is a time of stress’ (duh! but it’s nice to hear someone else saying it) and without sleep I won’t cope well and 2) that he thinks I’ve been handling all this extremely well “you are quite zen”.   Wish my husband had been there to hear that, since he pretty much gets only the non-zen moments from me…

I slowed down the exercise.  I was feeling obsessive and decided to take a 1 day break that became 2.  Today I walked, but tomorrow I’ll get to the gym again.  I prefer to go at a 3 or 4 times a week rhythym now instead of trying to have it be a daily mandatory thing.

Thanks for the advice on the projects.  A lot of them are going on pause.  I am reading stuff that looks fun and entertaining now (well, I actually chose poorly, but the next one will be).  I took myself to a movie yesterday (Julie & Julia) and that was a good distraction for 2 hours so I might do more of that in the coming days.  I’m just taking it slowly, day by day, and trying to get through.

I’m kind of spacey and distracted these days.

Not on the diet and exercise front - I guess because it’s one of the few areas of my life where I’m really in control, I’m doing really well keeping to low carb eating and getting to the gym pretty regularly.

But in my daily life, I’m pretty much a mess.  I have several half-started projects all over my house.  A bathroom art project that has turned out to be time consuming and boring to finsih.  A lot of organisation / decluttering things that only barely get started before something else grabs my attention.  Good intentions, bad follow through all over.

Even reading books has fallen by the wayside, although just now writing about it I know why — I put 3 books by my bed and told myself I needed to read among those, but in fact all 3 are complicated big undertakings.  I should probably just go for entertaining and distracting, and leave the brain improvement for a time when I actually feel like I have a working brain.

Mainly I’m nervous about how the next few weeks will go.

I’d really like to be using this time of my life to reset my goals and put my priorities into action, but I keep seeming to stall out on it.  Maybe it’s too big to attack?  Maybe I’m just lazy?

I do know that I’m distracted.

I begin with a disclaimer : I am going to be whining in this post.  And in fact, I am likely to be whining in the next several posts.

But I need a place to vent and this blog (which once upon a time was only about my weight) is it.

I’ll start with the weight whining :

• I “officially” only weigh in on Mondays, but I actually step on the scale pretty much every day.  I don’t write down the daily weights, but I know how things are going and it helps me mentally prepare for the”official’ day.  I don’t usually freak out about the variations on the scale - we all know that ups and downs of 2-3 pounds for no reason are pretty usual, and I firmly believe that if you’re going to weigh daily you have to agree not to freak out about such changes.
• Last week my weight was around 197 3 days running, even hitting 196.something one day.  And then suddenly on Saturday 2 things happened : my boobs started hurting like crazy (before period hurting) and my weight shot up by 4 pounds.  Sunday it was up another pound.  And now it seems THAT is the new number.  Grrrr.
• I might mention that I am eating PERFECTLY low carb, if anything my calories are low (will double check that today) AND that I started back to exercise successfully last week.  I am in ketosis every time I check.  It’s the damn drugs.

Its the drugs! IVF makes people nutty.

• Ah yes, the IVF cycle began without fanfare last week with starting on birth control pills, which I am to take for just over 2 weeks to ’shut everything down’ before the Serious drugs come in.
• The bloated feeling, the sore boobs, the weight gain all are side effects of them, and although I’m annoyed, I can live with it.
• However, 2 days ago I started spotting which freaked me out big time.  It’s been going on for 2 days pretty solid and the IVF nurses don’t seem too worried, but last night I worked myself into a good knot over it, since a cancelled cycle will be disastrous for me — I’m pretty sure the oncologist won’t approve another delay in the hysterectomy (and frankly I don’t want one, I’m nervous enough waiting this long knowing there is endometrial cancer lurking in my body).

What Dr. Google says :

• Dr Google (my favorite doctor of all) seems to agree with my IVF clinic that breakthrough bleeding on birth control pills is very common.  Lots of women going through IVF apparently have it, and it doesn’t usually seem to be a problem for going forward with the IVF.
• Since the new nurse and Dr Google agreed I think I will keep myself from calling my local doctor in a panic this morning (since he’s off Wednesdays and I’d have to see his colleague anyway).  I’ll wait until my US clinic opens and talk again to the nurse.  I’m pretty sure that tomorrow (or today if I can’t stand it) I’ll go have a blood test just to make sure the hormones are responding as they should do these pills.
• Even writing that I felt I should just go out and do the blood test, but it’s true that of the gazillion web pages I visited I didn’t really find anything saying it was a real problem, so I probably just need to calm down and be patient.  Right?

I admit to being pretty stressed about the whole situation.

• This IVF is pretty important to me because it’s the end of the road.  The last chance to have a baby that would be genetically mine and his.  If it doesn’t work we do have plans B, C & D, but I have a strong preference to have at least tried to have a baby with my own eggs (and my concession to the cancer : someone else’s uterus).
• I appreciate all your comments in the past weeks and months about how well I’m handling this, etc but honestly that varies a lot from day to day, and getting closer to the days of reckoning increase the stress enormously.
• Adding crazy hormonal drugs to the picture doesn’t help one bit.
• If I’m having neurotic outbursts just from the birth control pills, how will things be next week when the shots start?  The week after when even more shots get added?

One day at a time.

• I really don’t have a choice, but I’m going to just play this as it goes.  There is a quote I’ve liked for a long time that has particular meaning to me these past few months :
• “DON’T SUFFER FUTURE PAIN”
• Basically, don’t worry about what might be down the road.  Just deal with now.
• So now, today, I am keeping the ticker at 199 even though my scale wouldn’t agree.
• So now, today, I am not going to be my own doctor and go get a blood test - I’ll at least wait a few hours to talk to the nurse who hopefully will okay me going tomorrow morning (whew, that’s a hard one — but if I can hold the line another hour or two I think I’ll make it)
• So now, today, I am giving myself permission to be a little bit of a hormonal witch over the coming weeks

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I am still thinking about the names for the family blog for my gestational carrier journey (post below) — thanks for your suggestions, and please keep ‘em coming!