Insulin Resistant with PCOS

I met with a new doc yesterday - my OB nurse practitioner referred me to an endocrinologist because my lab work showed I had high insulin. After meeting with him, he says it sounds like Insulin Resistance. He says once diabetes develops there's no turning back and he wants me to really work on getting healthy so I can fight it off, since it runs in my family. He is going to put me on metformin, but I go in on monday morning for another fasting lab. Insulin resistence and PCOS is likely the reason we're not pregnant yet - because the old uterus isn't doing what it's designed to do: ovulate.

In order to fix this, he wants me to do 30-40 minutes of exercise every day. I think I can do this, just go for a walk at the park during my lunch break, since it's too dark when I get home at night now. That's what I hate about winter. He also wants me to go on a 1500 calorie a day diet. This scares me and worries me. I feel like I'm being set up for failure. I've never been able to stick to a counting calories diet. But I don't really have a choice, and I don't know how in the world I'm going to succeed. I have to do this or I'm NOT going to get pregnant.

I'm concerned because eating healthy is expensive. The convenience of the packaging of "heathly items" or buying in bulk and it not going bad before it gets used...or something like that. I'm too much of a nerd and I don't want to make excuses, but I feel so overwhelmed right now. This has never ever worked for me before. I did weight watchers for 6 months and while it was great, and it worked, it wasnt something I could KEEP AT. It's expensive to be on a plan that keeps you accountable. Hell, if I could afford a nutritionist and a personal trainier to keep me in check, I'd already be skinny.

One of the girls at work told me to look at it like the getting out of debt thing, which, of course, I CAN relate to, so it makes me look at it in a different light. but getting out of debt has not been easy, and it's not something I feel like I'm a success at yet. I still have over $100 grand (more than my house costs!) in student loan debt between me and hubby, and it's going to take years of more work before its gone and I finally feel successful.... I guess I just gotta look at eating healthy the same way. But it's not the same. As soon as I start to lose weight and feel good, I will hopefully get pregnant, and I'm just going to be fat again. :(

Yes, I'm whining. But I'm trying to get over the initial shock...though I'm not sure why. I'm NOT surprised. I knew it was coming. I just didnt realze that a 1500 calorie diet was going to be the solution. Deep down, I'm excited, though I'm mad. I'm excited because I know that if I can just quit being a baby and just do it, I AM going to lose the weight and feel better. I just gotta quit with the excuses and do it. This is going to suck. It damn well better work, though. The sample 2 week menu he gave me had alot of crap on it (yogurt, peaches, raspberries, BLEGH) that I simply do not like, and I'm going to have to find ways to substitute for things I DO like. Ugh.

Adventure Bootcamp

What in the world did I get myself roped into? One day this week, I heard Anna and Andrea talking about Adventure Bootcamp. Before I could stop myself, my mouth opened and I said "Can I join you?" So after talking to hubby about the cost ($204.99 for 12 sessions) and getting the okay, I signed up.

Today, I went out and got some new running shoes, a yoga mat, and some 3lb weights. Our first session is bright and early Monday morning at 5:30am. I'm really REALLY concerned that I wont be able to keep up with everyone, and will feel like a miserable failure, but I'm going to go and do the best I can. I'm not going to let the money go to waste, so I've got to make it worth it...

Wish me luck!

Amanda's gonna try again...

A couple of weeks ago, my employer started a new health initiative to get all of us healthier and happier, and all that jazz... One of the sessions that week was a lunch and learn from a nutritionist. Work paid for us to each have a health assessment done, which included standing on this machine that looked like a scale, but instead of measuring only your weight, you had to stand on it barefoot, and it sent electrical currents through your body to determine your muscle mass, your water weight, fat mass, etc.



This assessment was SUCH an eye opener for me. It confirmed a lot of stuff for me - for example, just because I'm 5'8 does NOT mean that my ideal weight is 150 pounds, which is what standard weight charts tell me. Because I DO have very large bones, and large shoulders (I'm built like a linebacker, lol) and a lot of muscle, I realistically only need to get down to 205 to be considered "Healthy." Now granted, I'll probably try to get down just below 200 just for numbers sake, but that makes my target weight a lot more achievable and doesn’t feel so impossible anymore.



The nutritionist offered other services, such as a metabolism test, which tests your metabolism to see how much your body burns just on it's own, and how many calories per day you need to eat to lose weight, versus what you've been eating to maintain your current weight. So on Monday, i met with her to take the metabolism test (you breathe into this machine for 10 minutes and it's able to calculate everything out for you). What I learned shocked me:



My metabolism is actually fast. It's smack dab in the middle of "normal" and "very fast" This basically means that is I cut back on the amount of calories I'm eating, my metabolism will kick in and help me lose weight quicker than it would if it was only "normal." The downside of that is apparently, I've been eating so much garbage which is why I haven’t been losing, but rather, maintaining.



I also learned that I have 142 pounds of solid muscle, which she said was very good, and will work in my favor.



She's put me on a 1800-1900 calorie per day diet, which may sound like a lot to you guys, but you gotta remember I'm a big girl - and truthfully, I've been eating much more than that. She's helping me work on portion control. She gave me 1 week worth of sample menus that I can use to plan my meals, and what ways I can substitute one item out for another.



She has an 8 or 12 week program that you can sign up for with her, but honestly, I just cannot afford to pay that right now. So my plan is to go back monthly for follow up visits with her. The cost for that is only $35 a session, which I can swing to have accountability for my follow ups.



In addition, I signed up on SparkPeople.com to keep track of my food and exercise. SparkPeople is COOL because you can plug in your nutrition and fitness goals, and it will help keep track of where you did good and what you need to improve on daily. So for me, my nutrition goals are 1800-1900 calories, 200-275 carbs, 25-50 fat (she's got me on a low fat diet), and 125-200 protein. The other AWESOME thing about sparkpeople is that after plugging in these goals, it will offer sample menus to me as well, which also fall within those parameters. If you don’t particularly like the meal they have suggested, you can click on it, and pick out a different one. if you pick a meal out, but there's one or 2 things on there that you don’t have or won’t want to eat, you can click on that individual item, and it will give you a list of appropriate substitutes which have close to the same nutritional value.



Yesterday was my first day following it. I went over my calories - but not by much. I has 1981 calories yesterday, but I feel good about it, because that's a whole lot better than the 2500+ that I had been eating.



If I stick to this plan, I should lose 1.5-2 pounds per week. I might be able to reach my under 200 plan by the end of the year. WOOO HOO! Plus, she stressed that it's important to not deprive myself, and splurge every now and then, in order to avoid completely falling off the wagon. Jonny and I are going camping this weekend, and I'm going to have a fatty lumberjack breakfast with sausage egg, cheese and hash browns over the fire. That's okay, that’s one meal. I'll eat healthy the rest of the weekend, you know?



I'm trying to look at this the same way I am attacking my debt. I'm being intense about paying off the debt, but every now and then, I have to go buy something I don’t necessarily need. If I can treat them equally, I think I can be more successful this time. Weight watchers "worked" for me, but it was too hard to stay on the program. With sparkpeople, and a range of nutritional values, and meal options planned in advance, hopefully I can quit letting food control me, and I'll eat what right not just what happens to be within reach.



I haven’t been as good about getting to the gym as I had hoped for, so she's starting me off slow - I just need to make a commitment to workout at least once a week for now. That should be easy enough because I play softball with the church, but I don’t want to count that - I still need to start making it to the gym...



I'm tried of my weight being a roller coaster, and I'm tired of falling off a plan. Maybe the metabolism test and the AWESOME news that my goal is not THAT far out of reach will be the motivation I need to "getrdun" this time.

Going to the YMCA!

So I think I'm going to join the YMCA here in town. Unlike my unsuccessful attempts at working out and getting healthy in the past, there's no contract to join, so I wont be wasting money. There's a one time registration fee, and a monthly draft. You have to give a 30 day notice to cancel membership, and that's it.

I'll get a discount through work. Right now, I'm just going to sign up as an individual. Jonny has access to the gym facilities at CSU, so there's no reason to buy the family plan if he's going to work out at the school instead. So for an adult, I'll have a $40 registration fee and a $26 monthly draft. The classes are free, and there are 3 YMCAs in the columbus area, so I'll have access to them all with my membership. They open as early as 5 am, and close at 9pm, so there will be plenty of hours of the day that I can go.

I'll have to work these fees into our budget, but I'll be able to make it work. Besides, $26 a month is less than a weeks worth of eating fast food for lunch every day, which I'm not doing anymore. Yay for found money!

Speaking of fast food, I've only eaten fast food once, since January 1st, and that was Zaxby's lunch on Saturday the 2nd. I want to see how long I can go without succumbing to the fast food junk. It'll be a help physically and financially.

My brown bagged lunches arent the healthiest in the world, but I guarantee a can of chef boyardee is alot better than a double cheeseburger and fries. One thing I remember from being on weight watchers is that eating healthy is EXPENSIVE. Buying fresh produce and salads, this that and the other. It was terribly expensive to be eating such a small amount (and having chocolate cravings). It's difficult to make strides financially and healthwise at the same time, so I'm having to learn to balance. Financial is my priority right now, so hopefully I can make the healthiest affordable meal choices possible going forward.

Now, if I could just get off the soda and start drinking more water...ugh.