Hi, everyone :)
 

Thought I should introduce myself! Sorry about the length. I'm in my late 20s was just diagnosed with some sort of metabolic disorder (possibly PCOS) and had a hysteroscopy earlier this month. I was put on Metformin a week ago because my insulin levels are not right (sorry, not sure of the exact terminology to use) and while I'm not diabetic, it might be messing up my fertility. My doctor thinks my husband and I have a small chance of conceiving a baby and one of the things we're going to try in order to make that happen is have me lose weight. I'm at 220 right now and want to lose as much as is healthy in the next two months because that's when we're going to start trying to have a baby. The doctor wants me to get down to 150 eventually. I will of course continue trying to lose weight after that, though my exact diet and how much I try to lose will naturally depend on whether I get pregnant.

The good news is that I'm very motivated to lose weight and am really hopeful that it will help with my health issues. I'm trying to take the whole dieting thing easy and not jump into anything really strict because I really want this to develop into a healthy eating lifestyle instead of just a way to lose a lot of weight quickly and risk gaining it all back when I stop dieting. I will also start going to the gym soon, just have to wait a couple of more weeks until a health issue resolves. I used to be a real gym nut and was there every day lifting weights and doing cardio (really enjoyed lifting weights), so I'm rather looking forward to getting back into that. As a child and teenager I was not overweight and I know how to eat healthy, so I'm hoping that once I get the ball rolling on the weight loss and eventually get to my goal weight, I'll be able to maintain it for the rest of my life if I work hard.

So far, my eating approach is based on what my doctor told me to do. I'm completely cutting out all grains and starches (wheat, corn, potatoes) and sugar (except for natural sugar in fruit and veggies). This is a big one because I LOVE bread, potatoes, pasta, rice... I think cutting them out is what will make the biggest difference for me and is what has been hardest so far. I don't have much of a sweet tooth so the sugar thing isn't a big deal. The doctor said to eat a lot more lean meat because I usually only eat it once a week or so- eating it every day has been interesting! I'm also eating lots of veggies and fruits, and trying to eat more dairy. Things like beans and lentils are high in carbs, but the doctor said I should eat them anyway because of the protein. Beans aren't what made me overweight! I'm also keeping an eye on portion sizes and fat.

At this point, I do plan to allow myself the occasional meal that has grains and sugar in it, but I will be careful not to go overboard. Thinking I'll do this once a week. If it makes things worse or harder, I will of course ditch this idea! My reasoning behind this is that I THINK (might be wrong) having a bowl of mac and cheese or a cupcake once a week will help me feel like I'm not being limited too severely.

I'm only on I think day 4 of my new way of eating, but so far, so good :) Haven't slipped up yet. We still have quite a bit of non-HuggerBunny friendly food in the house (going to donate it to the local food pantry soon!), but I've done okay so far. We desperately want a baby so the knowledge that the more weight I lose (in a healthy way!), the more likely we are to conceive is a great motivator!

One last thing- for now at least I will not be weighing myself except for at the doctor's office every month. In the past when I've tried to lose weight, it's been so tempting to step on the scale every day and it's frustrating if the number doesn't go down and panic inducing if it goes up. I think I will keep calm and stay the course better if I just do my best to eat properly and exercise without the scale as a frequent companion.

Sorry about the novel :o

Welcome HuggerBunny (adorable name!). It sounds like you have really thought through your plan, are willing to adjust as you go, know all about the ups and downs of a scale, and have a great positive outlook!

I really can't imagine a better start and set-up for success! I look forward to reading about your journey!

Welcome! It sounds like you are ready for what's ahead! And that's so exciting that you guys are going to try to have a baby!

Thanks for the kind welcome, Kelly and Mrs Snark :) I hope I will be successful! I know I can do it! Realizing I have health issues and then getting into the right state of mind goes a long way.

So I've seen that some people here are breaking their weight loss goal into smaller increments of weight. This sounds like a really good idea. I'm trying to decide what smaller rewards to have for my smaller goals, nothing too expensive. Of course the BIG reward at the end will be having lost all that weight (and hopefully being able to have a child, that's what I want the most!), but my husband and I were talking about a tangible reward. How funny is this, my reward might be a kitten :D I've wanted a kitten my entire life. We do have one cat but we adopted him when he was an adult. He's extremely playful though and loves kittens, I've been bugging my husband to let us get adopt a kitten for the past year. This might make me sound like I'm about 8 years old, but the notion of a kitten awaiting me at the end of all this even if I don't get pregnant is rather exciting! The kitten would also serve as a tiny bit of a consolation prize if we can't actually get pregnant.

Just wanted to share :)

I adopted a 13 year old schnauzer as a celebration for reaching goal, so I'm right there with you. A kitten doesn't seem odd to me at all, lol! :)

Hi HuggerBunny! :welcome: I'm sorry to hear of your health issues but happy you are taking positive steps to correct them. I hope you get your kitten and have a baby! :D Stay positive! You can do this! Good luck!

Thanks for the welcome, Jacqui :) Mrs Snark, awesome that you adopted an older dog as your reward! How wonderful. I am an animal lover, too- as my username implies, I love rabbits. All of our bunnies were adopted from the shelter and have really sad stories. Then we also have our 2-3 year old hyper kitty :) No dogs, but maybe someday!

Today is one week of eating this way! So far so good! I had 2 slices of pizza last night (from a medium pizza, so not giant slices), but this was planned in advance by several days because we knew the pizza place was having $5 pizza night. The pizza was great and I had water with it instead of soda. My husband offered to get me a diet soda, but diet drinks gross me out. My entire adult life I've had about 12 cups of water per day, there's nothing like a giant cup of really cold water! I'm glad that right now at least I'm not struggling with getting used to drinking water instead of other drinks. We used to often have orange juice in the fridge and I'd have a cup every couple of days, but so far I don't miss my beloved OJ.

Oh my gosh, was fate waiting for me to mention my very much adored bunnies? My husband woke me up at 5 am saying my girl was wheezing, she died 5 minutes later. She wasn't hungry yesterday and right before I went to bed, I wrote "make vet appointment" at the top of my list of things to do today.

Guess now we get to see how I handle this new diet while dealing with grief :(

So sorry about the bunny. We have one too, she was rescued by my daughter from an FFA pal. She would have rescued more, but one was enough!

Best wishes on your goals.

Oh no, HuggerBunny, I'm so very sorry for your loss, that is so sad!

MrsSnark and Marlene, thanks for the kind words. It is very sad :( So weird not having her here. She was such a sweet little thing, I had her since she was a baby. When I adopted her from the shelter, she was the size of a hamster- so tiny and sweet!

I'm on day 9 of my new eating plan. So far so good. I decided to have holidays be "free days". Not every random holiday that comes along, but Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, 4th of July, and my birthday. My reasoning is that I'm trying to do a change for life, and in regular life, to me holidays are days when you have what you want or have special things.

So yesterday was my first "free day" (trying to think of the right term to use, I don't like calling it cheat day). For breakfast I had a quesadilla made with a big spinach tortilla and cheddar, no oil or anything because I make it in the toaster, and orange juice. For lunch I had a bowl of mac and cheese, I love mac and cheese! I also had a bit of candy. For dinner I had... applesauce. I just wanted applesauce for some reason. Applesauce is a food I can have any day of the week (it's unsweetened), but when I thought of all my options, applesauce is what I wanted, so that's what I had! Kind of funny. Normally on Halloween I do chili and something we call mummy fingers (basically a hot dog wrapped in half of a small tortilla), but my husband wasn't feeling well.

I'm missing my bunny girl a ton, and I thought we wouldn't do anything for Halloween because of her death, but for some reason Halloween ended up cheering me a bit. She always liked Halloween because I would take her to the door for the trick or treaters to pet.

Today I am back on track. I did have a cupcake that I had purchased to eat yesterday, but I wasn't in the mood for it and after thinking a while, decided it would be better to save it for a time when I DID want it rather than eat it when I wasn't really wanting it. So I had that for a snack! It was good but the frosting seemed really oily, which was kind of gross. Also, today I found out that tuna on sliced tomato is almost as good as a tuna sandwich! I love tomatoes and really enjoyed my lunch.