Finally.....

after years of going to doctors and getting blood drawn and tests of all sorts done, I have been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome. Its one of those things I figured I had for years, but supposedly every test came back normal. The weird thing is the only person who took me kind of seriously has been my dermatologist when I saw him for acne and hair growth issues. He diagnosed it based on bloodwork today. He said although the actual levels are fairly normal, the ratio between two of them (I can't remember which two) is greater than 3:1 which is typical of PCOS. It explains lots: infertility, constant bleeding, ovarian cysts, weight gain, hair in places it shouldn't be, acne....

I asked the treatment and he said he has already been treating it with my BCP and Aldactone. Honestly, other than the weight gain (which I have to work on losing) most of my other symptoms have subsided. He up'd my dose of ALdactone and said I'll be back to normal in no time. Huh...normal. Its been over a decade!! :0)

I'm thankful its over!

Thursday is my weigh in day so I obviously didn't weigh in this week. Picking Thursday as a weigh in day ended up being a nice buffer! By next Thursday, Thanksgiving remnants should be gone and I should be back on track! I'm on track already. My MIL made a very good WW Thanksgiving dinner last night. I think we all enjoyed, except my FIL. He liked the turkey and asparagus. I think he was waiting for his non-WW meal to show up at any minute while we were eating the healthy stuff! LOL. It was funny. I ate things I never would have normally like squash soup. At first I didn't like it but it was weird...the more spoonfuls I had, the more I wanted. I even went up for seconds! Maybe knowing it was zero points helped. The asparagus was super delicious and I was a fan of the mashed potatoes. Mixed into the potatoes was cauliflower and cheese. I'm a huge cauliflower fan so I really enjoyed it. I think we all mutually decided the stuffing recipe could use a little tweaking but it was nothing my MIL did wrong. The recipe called for LOTS of sage so the taste was quite strong. But, like I told her, WW recipes are hit or miss. Some are absolutely delicious and others taste like diet food. By reading the recipe its really hard to tell how it will be til its made. For dessert we had angel food cake with strawberry puree and FF Cool Whip which was delicious. We're a pretty big chocolate chip cookie family so she made WW chocolate chip cookies which were delicious. They were 1 point for 2. Granted they were small, but they were tasty.

How'd it go at my parents house for Thanksgiving? I'd rather not talk about it. :) I ate lots of veggies, even squash and rutabegga, which I don't even like, but I did dabble a little into my Nana's pork dressing. Oh well. That day is done and over with. No sense in dwelling on it now.

My mom made cranberry apple muffins and they were so super delicious, I'm honestly salivating now wishing I could have one. They're small, but wonderful. And only 2 points--I put it through the recipe builder.


Apple Cranberry Muffins


main meals
POINTS® Value: 2
Servings: 12

Preparation Time: 0 min
Cooking Time: 0 min
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Course: main meals

Ingredients
1 cup(s) whole wheat flour
1/2 cup(s) Quaker Oats Quick Oats Cereal
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp table salt
1/4 cup egg beaters
3/4 cup(s) packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup Country Crock margarine with calcium, melted
3/4 cup(s) apples, diced
3/4 cup(s) cranberries


Instructions

Heat oven to 350. Grease muffin cups or use foil cups. Mix flour, oats, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl. Add egg beater and sugar together and whisk until smooth. Whisk in margarine and vanilla. Stir in apples and cranberries. Pour over dry ingredients. Fold in just until dry ingredients are moistened. Scoop batter into muffin cups. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until browned and firm to the touch. Let cool on cooling rack.

For my Xmas list

This could be the best (or worst!) thing I'll ask for this Christmas. I probably won't mention my interest in it at my meetings.

Week 1 meeting

On my way to have lunch with Amy, I stopped at a WW meeting. It went well.

Week 1: down 1.6 pounds (now 218.2)

I need a meeting.

I haven't had my first weigh in since going to WW meetings. I think I really need it. Here's the thing....I know I've made some major changes over the past week or so. I also know I've made some mistakes along the way. As with most people, it seems its easier to focus and dwell on the negative aspects of anything, so I'm focusing on the mistakes I've made instead of the good I've done since attending my first meeting.

My other mistake? I step on the bathroom scale every day. Every time I do that I feel like I'm not doing as well as I should be, even though I don't know if that is even true. So....long story short....I need a meeting. Especially before I head to PA for Thanksgiving.

Oh, nuts.

I made the mistake of buying nuts the other day and I think I may be overdoing it now. At the time they seemed like a perfectly healthy snack, but my little handfuls all add up. I was searching different foods and came across some nut that is 21 points for 1 cup. OMG thats crazy! Not that I think I ate a cups worth, but I'm sure there are days where I am definitely taking in more than I should be. I love me some mixed nuts, but I'm starting to think I may have to ban them from the house :(

Auntie Anne's deliciousness

I know I'm doing WW and all, but I'm thinking this would be a pretty great prize to win. I never win anything, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Do you believe in coincidence?

Holy hell. Things just suddenly got better in my life. I don't know what happened and I'm sure it may all be coincidence but I suddenly have all this positive in my life right when I needed it most. I have people supporting me at work. I'll get a compliment just when I'm feeling like I screwed everything up. I found a whole bunch of new blog support friends (yeah!!). Brian and I are working like a team and not like enemies. I feel so on track and good about the way things are going its almost a little scary to be truthful. I talked to my mom about it this afternoon and I told her I guess I just didn't allow myself to see all this positive before or its a big coincidence....she told me she doesn't believe in coincidence. She says its here now because I need it. Maybe she's right.

Still going strong

I'm still on track today. I'm eating like I should be...

I'm trying out a new chicken Ritz cracker casserole recipe tonight. Its in the oven now so hopefully its good because I'm hungry! Its a little high in points (9 per svg) but I think it just might be worth it. For dessert we've got No Pudge brownies already made.

I tried working out today but I quit. I've been sick for the past three days so a few minutes into it I started coughing and needed a break. I watched the rest of the DVD (does that count?) and definitely want to do the whole thing. Its Jillian Michaels Shred DVD. It looks pretty intense but its only 20 minutes long. I think I can suck it up for 20 minutes. In the DVD she says people on day 5, 6, or 7 should notice a change in their endurance from the first day. I'm curious to see just how true that is.

Tomorrow I'll be working so no Jillian for me, but I think I'll head back on the treadmill like I did last shift. I've got a few more chapters of The Shack to read so I think that will be just the time to do it.

I sucked it up....

and moved on. I didn't let a few bad days set me back. Typically, I will have a bad WW day or two and I let it destroy my whole week. I have a hard time accepting bad decisions and letting the next day be a "new" day. My leaders sat with me last week and told me its something I have to work on in order to succeed. It would have been so much easier to wake up this morning and jump into junk food bliss as I normally do, but I still have til Friday to make some changes and hopefully see a loss. In order to do so, I needed to suck it up, move on, and make today a new WW day. I did just that. I'm happy I did.

Puts it all in perspective.

I may have found the article/website I need to jump start working out. So what if it calls me a dummy....

Angels?

This lady and her baby were meant to be here. Congratulations to our crews for doing a stellar job.

I can't imagine why this country has issues.

Overheard by one of my co-workers: "see that's why I'm not getting a job. I make just as much as you do on unemployment."

It could be worse.

I was complaining to Brian about 10 minutes ago that I have to give Remi a bath later today. Then I got this email from my friend Tim, about his black Lab, Porter:

We were walking in the woods and he was off leash. I see his nose go up in the air and I could already smell something funky, but he just went on a bee-line to it from a good 150 yards away. It was way off the trail and he wouldn't listen to me, so i had to make my way through the bush to go get him and see what the hell he was doing. You can imagine my reaction when i got there and saw him rolling around with a skunk carcase. Oh yeah, this was all happening in the pouring rain too, so it was quite the treat. Three baths and a dousing with de-skunking solution later and he still smells a bit. We're going to PA on Friday night, so hopefully the smell fades more because 6 hours in the car with a skunky dog just won't be fun.

Day 3.

This WW thing isn't so bad once you get back into the hang of it. I have been doing well. I'm not going to lie. Yesterday I didn't journal and I know I was over my points. We went to a friends retirement happy hour and I ended up having a few drinks. While out, though, I utilized some WW tips so I didn't WAYYYYY overdo it like I could.

Brian seems to be on board with my weight loss and made an awesome supper tonight. He made 4 point chili (with a bunch of veggies hidden within) and a really great 2 point cornbread. It was one of those meals that I can't wait to have the leftovers tomorrow.

In Giant today, I found WW refrigerated meals. I bought three different ones and hope I like them. I think they'll be super convenient for work. Anyone try them?

I've been snoopin' around at other WW blogs and found the common theme is WI's at meetings. I decided to try it. Again.

I cancelled my WW online subscription and decided to try use that money towards actual meetings. We'll see how it goes. Today I'm on plan. I even skipped three fast food places I wanted to stop at and the pizza section of Weis. I came home and made myself a turkey meatball sub (Perdue turkey balls, RF provolone, 1/4c sauce on a potato roll) with a salad (1 Tbsp light Italian dressing), 1 Tbsp hummus and 1 oz of pita chips. I missed breakfast so I overendulged a little at Quizno's getting a small club sub which I normally would never get. (Delicious by the way....) After talking over my goals with my leaders we feel maybe I'll do better with my flex points if I set it up like the old WW program where you used to get a 5 point range each day. So, along those lines I can eat 27-32 points a day. Right now, I still have 3 to go (if I want to use them all) or I can bank them for another day.

I didn't exercise but I shopped for 3 hours. I'm not sure how to go about calculating that as an activity. Is standing and walking around a store considered an activity? How do I even figure out those points?

I'm wearing goggles when I leave the house now.

I actually did it.

I went to the gym. I was just OK with losing two pounds over two weeks. I have mixed feelings about it, you know? Like instead of being happy at some progress I think, "well, I could have peed that out." But then I saw on Amy's facebook page that she lost another 1.something pounds to bring her to three pounds total loss. That got me thinking I really should be happy with two pounds and strive for more. Little losses add up, right? What I need to do is go to the gym and use it as a catalyst for my goal.

I was in my workout clothes and ready to go, or so I thought. All day long I put off the gym by finding something more important to do. (There may be an important Facebook update I can't miss!! lol. j/k) Then 5:30pm came along. Once a month we meet the neighbors that live on either side of our house at a local bar for dinner, drinks and pool and we leave at 5:30. I guess I felt guilty for not going to the gym because when Brian was getting ready to leave I heard myself say, "I'll meet you there, I'm going to the gym." I gotta say, it even shocked the shit out of me. I packed my bag and off I went. I did 10 minutes on this elliptical machine that I'm not sure is even an elliptical and 50 minutes lifting. I was happy I went. I felt good and it really let me burn off some lingering frustrations I've been letting get to me. So good, in fact, if I didn't have some place to be I probably would have done some more cardio after lifting.

There was one problem, however. One small embarrassing problem. I split my pants at some point during the workout. Luckily, I guess, it was along the seam of my upper leg so it wasn't a complete crotch or butt blowout but enough that I had to keep my leg covered with a towel and I had to skip the hip abduction/adduction all together for obvious reasons. I'm just glad I know no one there yet.

We have a Borador?

We may have finally figured out what breed(s) Remi really is. While Remi was playing with his Boxer friend, Austin, this morning Austin's dad told Brian he thought Remi had some Border Collie in him. I did a little research and I might have to agree. The hybrid description matches Remi to a T. If I didn't know any better, I'd say the picture above was Remi.

The only downer to all this? Their hybrid name is Borador. Definitely not a cool as Puggle, Labradoodle, or Labradinger.

What to do? What to do?

I've been going back and forth about attending meetings. I still don't know what to do. Part of me thinks it may be helpful. The other part of me thinks its a waste of $12 each week. Maybe I should ditch the online WW and put that money towards meetings? I don't know. Any suggestions/advice would be greatly appreciated though....

Wanted: BLOGS

Does anyone have any good weight loss blogs they could recommend? Unfortunately, there are plenty of bloggers who I followed religiously no longer post. I could definitely use the help of fellow bloggers. Someday I wish to be like Amy and have real blog friends, too.....

Well, hot damn!

I don't remember why, but I didn't weigh-in last week. But that's okay with me, because this weeks weigh in makes me feel better. I'm at 214---down 2 pounds. I really gotta find that weight ticker thing to add to the blog....

So, I figured it out.

I finally got it. How, over two years, have I gained weight and went off and on WW and haven't really had a lot of progress? Why do I get so frustrated even when I try so hard? Because I have been and still am going at it all wrong. Its not about the food. Well, a little bit is about the food, really its about the activity. I reviewed my blog to see what I've been doing wrong and while typing an email to Laura it finally hit me. I started to gain once I stopped working all the time. I used to work at least two 24 hours shifts a week and two 12 hour shifts, if not more, of overtime. I haven't been eating any differently than I was then. I just was on my feet and doing work all the damn time. Then, add a day or two of some sort of aerobic activity and whammo, there goes some extra calories and pounds at that. Its not the food. Theres a reason why even when I follow WW to a T weight isn't falling off. Its just that I've become a lazy ass.

I guess this probably sounds so obvious. Duh, more activity, less pounds. But I have become SOOOOOOO focused on the WW and food portion of things that the activity part has not really registered.

So, where to go from here? Obviously, I gotta get my butt moving some more. And I don't think I even mean like constant workouts or anything. Maybe its more standing or housework or whatever. Maybe its another job. I don't know but I am happy I finally sat down and really looked at the past two years and how my lifestyle has affected me. Now, the goal is to change it for the better.

I'm not getting down on myself. I'm going to look at the good I've done since Sunday, but I just updated all my points online and I'm still overdoing it. I figure its got to be better than a normal day when I don't journal but really...it makes you sit back and think, "holy hell, when did I become such a fat ass?"

I looked like a straight up junky.

235am. A dark firehouse kitchen in MD. Me....searching every cabinet for a snack like a crackhead in an alley. It really was quite a ridiculous scene this morning, but I was so "hungry" I did what I had to do. Thankfully, I suppose, I found nothing except 6 loaves of bread. I'm not sure why we have so much bread, but it did me no good. I wasn't hungry enough just to eat bread which leads me to believe I wasn't hungry. I couldn't even find a carry out jelly packet to slab on there. My other saving grace from a early morning binge? I forgot my wallet at home. No money, no food. I survived. I hated every minute of it, but I survived.

I had a sit down with my crew. Ok, it really was a 30 second stand up conversation with my shift letting them know I wasn't being rude by not joining them in the kitchen for their eggs, toast, bacon (mmmm.....bacon), and potatoes yesterday morning but it was me trying to stay on track. I expected to get dumb guy responses but what did I get as a reply? "Good for you," and, "good if you can beat temptation with firehouse food," as well as a few others. Wow. Not at all what I was expecting. I was pleasantly surprised. I swear to God the devil tried pulling me by the ears into that kitchen making me a plate himself, but I kept my butt planted in my office at the computer. I'm not going to lie. Later in the afternoon I did steal a piece of the bacon and put it on my turkey wrap and my was it delicious. But, had I plopped down at the table for breakfast anything I worked for over the past two or three days would have been undone in a matter of minutes.

That is what is so frustrating to me about WW or weight loss in general. It so hard to work at it and if you give yourself even a little slack its all over. Maybe not for everyone, but for me. I've had plans to go to this wine place tonight for weeks. I swear I've been stressed about it for three days with the fear I'm going to overdo it. My plan is not to and I'm working on eating what I have to at home so I don't give in to junk, but I still have that nervous little flutter in my belly about it. Well, its either that or I've got butterflies because I'm going out with Kim tonight. I'll go with the stressed part. Ha.

Progress?

Maybe. Self-control? Definitely.

This afternoon I received some information that pissed me off to the top level of pissitivy. (New word, use it in a sentence at least once tomorrow....) I mean so pissed off I had tears in my eyes and was looking to break something. I met Brian at work to vent about it (NO, Brian is not involved in it) and on my way home I wanted to stop at every fast food place I could. But I didn't. I didn't!! I made a deal with myself. I told myself I would wait to get to Weis near my house and I'd run in and get some dog food for Remi. If they had a slice of pizza made, I would get one slice. I left the store with one slice. ONE slice. And the world didn't end! Imagine that....

Mean ol' witch

I was one of those mean neighbors last night who left their porch light off. No candy for you! Really, no candy for me! If I didn't buy it there was no way for there to be leftovers. The kids weren't here to trick or treat so there could be no possible way for me to nibble on candy if there was none in the house. (Although I did see a whoopie cushion walking down the street and wanted to get my picture taken with it....)

What did I do for the evening? Of course, I had the lights turned off so I hung out in the basement with the cats and did about 45 minutes of Wii Fit plus. I sweat my ass off. My shirt honestly was soaked through. Wii said I only burned 50-some calories, but I call bullshit on that. It doesn't matter...I had a blast. I played tennis and bowled, did ten minutes of step (the more advanced one), tried baseball but didn't like it, then did ten minutes of the free step which I loved. The goal was to complete 800 steps in ten minutes, but I went a little faster and did 997. Brian was working so after I showered I went to the neighbors Halloween party. Any calories I burned were replenished there with some drinks, but the way I see it, I consumed less calories than if I didn't work out at all.

I'm glad I worked out yesterday and I'm doing well today. I put some thought into my lunch this afternoon which I normally don't do. Normally I find whatever is the fastest thing to make because I'm "starving." I scarf it down when I realize that wasn't what I wanted to eat. I snoop (and taste) around for the next ten minutes til I find what I want, make and eat it, only to be so stuffed and uncomfortable ten minutes after that, I'm ready to explode. And, needless to say, I'm upset with myself. Trying to break that trend, I thought before I ate and made a chicken parm sandwich. It was super easy to make with breaded Perdue baked chicken cutlets. That, a little sauce and mozzarella from the fridge, a roll....delicious, filling, and has left me with with no desire to search for something else better to eat.

I've got chicken thawing and I'm on a search for some new WW recipes to try. I find it is so hard to find good recipes. I'll google it, but never seem to come up with any good websites. Oh well. I'll come up with something.

I was reminded at work yesterday our cruise is only 2 1/2 months away. It will be so much fun, but I should really be try to work on some good habits before I get there. If I think Brian is peer pressure on a cruise, wait til I get with 40-50 people!