Susan...Losin'

Me = Lazy!

2008-07-08T22:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in a while, but not for any dire reason. It's just the summertime blahs. I prefer a good old-fashioned routine to trying to keep my daughter and I from driving each other crazy all day. We've got trips to the pool, trips to the rink, and bike rides on our plate. And then there's days like today, where I drag her to doctor's appointments. She sometimes stays with a friend but I felt like she's seeing a lot of this one friend, and they're starting to nip at each other's heels, so I took her along with me today.

At the OB's office, she plugged her ears when the OB was doing the Doppler machine. She had her nose buried in a Highlights magazine, and barely even answered the OB when she asked her friendly questions. I thought she was pretty much tuning us out but one of our discussions was my due date, which is a little in question, and the OB was explaining that she considers the first trimester ultrasound to be very accurate. I had made a comment about this pregnancy being different because the first time we knew exactly when we conceived, but this time was up in the air because of the meds I had been on. Later in the car, my daughter asked me why we knew exactly when she was going to be born but didn't know for this baby - which tells me she was listening. I didn't want to tell her the baby was unplanned, so I gave her an answer that was more like, "Sometimes you know when you're going to have a baby, and sometimes you just get lucky!"

I also had my mid-pregnancy ultrasound today. As a diabetic, they check for certain defects in addition to what they're screening for in every pregnant woman, so I had three separate doctors do an ultrasound - plus the u/s tech. Honestly, my entire abdomen was sore afterwards. I don't remember it hurting last time, but 40 minutes of pressure got to me, especially over the site where I had surgery. Ugh.

But of course, the important thing is that the news is all good. The fetal cardiologist said that although an ultrasound can't detect very minute defects, it can rule out all of serious heart defects they look for in diabetic pregnancy. He said that they never say 100% but everything he saw made him confident in saying that if there is a defect, it would be the kind of thing that is minor and wouldn't require surgery. He added that any of the conditions that would require us to change where we're going to deliver the baby were definitely not present. There were more details about the chambers of the heart, how thick the walls are - mostly, I was amazed at how much they can see when it's pretty much a fuzzy mess to me. I could pick out the bone structures like the spine and fingers pretty easily, but the rest just looked amorphous.

The other doctors conferred and agreed that my size is just where they expected, and that my placenta is low. They pointed it out to me - it's down right to where the cervix starts, but doesn't cover the cervix. This can be a problem in week 40 but this early, they expect it to move. So, gulp. Reading on the internet is kind of alarming but I did come up with a statistic that 9 out 10 women who register low in their mid-pregnancy ultrasound have a placenta that moves up just fine. So there's no point in worrying about it now, but it does apparently require a c-section if it doesn't fix itself.

My blood sugars remain low. This is definitely crazytown to me. I'm at about 2/3 the level of insulin I was taking before pregnancy. The doctor explained it as the baby manufacturing his own insulin, which is supplementing mine. I don't know what's stimulating him to - I rarely seem to get over 100 even after a big plate of pasta! Admittedly, it's Barilla Plus pasta (high protein) but still, carbohydrate-wise, I'm struggling to keep up without reducing my insulin any further, because I do have the odd time when I need it. For example, I usually have peanut butter toast with some cottage cheese for breakfast. Looking at my food journal I'd say I eat that 5 days out of 7. But my blood sugar one day last week was 111 afterwards, and the very next day, the identical breakfast yielded an 89 afterwards. That kind of fluctuation for the exact same meal is just nuts! I am afraid if I take any less that 111 will be 130, so I'm willing to live with the 89.

My daughter and I had a nice visit down in Redondo Beach, where we had fun playing with grandparents and cousins. I took her to the American Girl Place they have there in West Hollywood. Holy cow! 2 stories, filled with dolls and their accessories. We ate very dainty lunches in the cafe where even the dolls were provided with seats and tea cups. The best part was that you could have your doll's hair styled in the Doll Salon. What a treat to have so much girly fun in one afternoon.

Yay for metformin

2008-06-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

Vickie asks: "also - how about whole grains for your carbs? - real oatmeal - quinoa - brown rice - etc."

Yes, these are all great ideas. Oatmeal I've found I just don't tolerate well. Some foods are like that - every diabetic has a food or two that just tends to give them high blood sugar even though it's not supposed to. I do like brown rice, but I'm pretty lazy about cooking it since it takes a long time. I've never had quinoa! I'll have to give that a try.

I met with my endocrinologist today. High on my list of concerns was the oral medication I'm taking, metformin. Metformin is actually prescribed to people with PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) who are trying to conceive, so luckily there are lots of studies with metformin and pregnancy. It's safe, and in fact, they told me off the bat that it can be dangerous to stop taking it because it can lead to miscarriage even this late in the pregnancy. So on the schedule was discussing how to transition off the metformin to 100% insulin, just because insulin has been around for decades, I used insulin by itself in my last pregnancy, and I understand how it works well in my body.

The doctor surprised me, though. Apparently the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association took place last week in San Francisco, and one of the decisions to come out of those meetings was that metformin is now actively encouraged in pregnant diabetics because they found that not only was it not having averse affects on pregnancies, babies were being born healthier, with a lower percentage of problems for both mother and baby.

So that is a great endorsement for sticking with the metformin, and I'm happy to keep it. My blood sugars have been very stable since starting the metformin a few years ago. I just don't go up as high and I have fewer lows. Insulin gives you good control but it takes a lot of micromanagement, and I'm relieved I can stick with this leveled-out-all-the-time method.

I was digging around for results or a report from this meeting last week but couldn't find anything on the internet. If anyone sees anything can you send me a link?

Diabetic details

2008-06-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

Diabetes care team report: I passed the psyche test. Okay, I understand why they do it, because most of their pregnant patients are gestational diabetics facing down a lancet for the first time, and it's overwhelming at first - especially when you've got a baby to worry about. But all the questions just didn't apply to me. Was it stressful to take my blood sugar? Was I worried about needles? I've been a diabetic for 11 years, and taken shots for the past 8 of those years. I'm not worried.

My own worry is mostly about sticking to the meal plan, because I have a few quibbles with their write-up, but I am used to self-medicating/monitoring so my philosophy is to give it a try but if it doesn't work, go back to what I know works. For example, milk. I don't generally drink it. In the past it would raise my blood sugar, and it still does if I drink it alone. It definitely affects my blood sugars more than yogurt or cottage cheese. The dietitian has me drinking 2 glasses a day, and I tried, I really did. It didn't raise my blood sugar (it was always paired with protein and a fruit) but it tends to make me queasy. So no more milk for me. Besides, I like to eat watermelon and oranges for fruit, which doesn't really go with milk. Blech.

They also have a rule of no fruit before breakfast. I understand that the general idea is that because of Dawn Phenomenon, blood sugars are higher in the morning because they start out higher, and fruit can mean fast sugar. And they don't want me eating cereal, because it can send your blood sugar up high. So meanwhile, I'm supposed to be eating 2 carbs, 2 proteins, 1-2 fats in the morning but it can't be fruit. That's pretty much 2 pieces of bread, tortillas, etc. This is already more than I like to eat for breakfast - and I use Orowheat's Double Fiber bread, which is great for digestion but frankly, those pieces of bread are pretty big.

So at this review of my sugars, she noted that 75% of my 1-hour after's were under 100. She's right. In general, it's great to have good control but the flip side is that you can go too low. I only have to be under 120 after eating (I think this group even says 130 but I'm going by the standards set by my last pregnancy, when I was seeing a doctor who is a leading researcher in the field of diabetes during pregnancy). My first morning bG's are low, around 70 and below. When you consider that I start feeling symptoms of low blood sugar at about 64, that's pretty close to being too low during the night.

The nutritionist advised me to eat more carbs - like if I test after eating and it's less than another, have a carb serving. Um...how about I reduce my insulin? She said sure, I could do that. I think because she's a nutritionist she doesn't feel empowered to tell me to take less medication like an endocrinologist would. But it makes more sense to me to take less than to try to eat 3 pieces of toast with breakfast! Or eat a carb an hour after dinner. Keep in mind that on a diabetic diet you eat every 2-3 hours, so if I eat 3 pieces of toast at 7:30 at 10:30 I will be eating just as big a "second breakfast". It's a lot of food, and I'm concerned about weight gain.

Coming out of the dieting world, to be told to eat more carbs is completely surreal.

I am on too much insulin; last night we made sugar-free hot fudge sundaes (which has carbs) and I had some cheese with it to have a little protein at the same time, and my blood sugar an hour later was 88. Also, my Girl Scouts had a pizza party on Monday and I did have a few pieces...an hour later my blood sugar was 99. Yes, it's all well and good to keep them under control but I don't need so much control that I feel like I can have pizza every night.

Speaking of pizza, my husband picked up this whole wheat lavosh bread at Trader Joe's and we made pizza out of it. This came out delicious! It's like thin crust pizza although I admit it get a tad soggy, but for fake pizza this one hit the mark. It didn't raise my blood sugar one iota. The whole wheat tag really works for me. Another one is that Barilla Plus pasta, which has added protein. It's not low in calories, but wow. I can eat a huge plateful if I want and my blood sugars don't budge. I don't even want that much pasta (I'm supposed to be eating 3 carbs worth at dinner) so I have been counting it more as a protein and having some corn or fruit at the same time because it won't send up my blood sugars at all. It tastes better than regular whole wheat pasta, too.

Needled

2008-06-07T08:22:00.001-07:00

I had amniocentesis yesterday. I'm still not sure why I went through with it, other than wanting to know everything about the baby ahead of time as possible. I know tons of women who waited until their late 30's to start their family that have normal, healthy kids. This doctor has performed over 3000 amnios with only one ever miscarriage, well above the national average. So I'm not going to stress over the results, which take 2 weeks to arrive.

Overall though, I'm feeling great. The morning sickness is gone, really gone! I spent 7 months with morning sickness when I was pregnant with my daughter, so I just assumed I would be stuck for a while. Ha! I've regained a taste for coffee, so I have to make sure I don't over-do it on the caffeine. I'm restricted against exercise for a few days (post-amnio, which is normal) but other than that, I've been walking fine with no discomfort. I just put on an mp3 player and try to walk at a good pace. Someone told me a long time ago that Madonna's Ray of Light album has all songs that are about at the same pace and it's good for cardio, so that's what I use to keep my feet moving. I'm not a Madonna fan in general, but peppy dance club tunes do the trick.

Gas is $4.44 a gallon around here. For the first time ever, I am seeing people around me take steps to avoid driving. This is amazing to me. I don't mean canceling their grand yearly vacations to that resort in Maui - although I've already seen a few families do that - I had one friend trade in her Acura SUV yesterday for a Prius. More people are walking to school instead of driving. I have a friend who literally lives around the corner from the school, halfway down the block. Ever since I've known her she has driven to pick up her daughter. Even she is walking a couple of times a week. My husband reports that the trains are fuller - as long as he can get a space on the bike car, he's happy with this trend (they will turn you away if they are full and you have a bike - need more bike cars, Caltrans!).

For the friend who traded in her SUV, it's funny. When you sit down and do the math on how many years it would take to equalize the higher cost of a hybrid car with how much money you save on gas, most likely you wouldn't own the car long enough to ever break even. On those SUV hybrids the figure is something ridiculous like 50 years. However, anything that gets people to drive more fuel-efficient cars is awesome, and it probably feels like a lot more cash in the pocket when you're not filling up a 25-gallon tank once a week.

I'm happily walking to school to pick up my daughter these days. It's a mile there, a mile back, just about what I want to handle these days. In the past, once the weather turned warm, I would ride my bike with my daughter's scooter strapped to the back. The doctor doesn't want me riding a bike now, although I think I'd be fine, but I'll comply and just walk. But my daughter's scooter is heavy, and kind of awkward to ride with my center of gravity changing, so I have been trying to convert her to a skateboard. For some reason, she had this notion that "girls don't skateboard." We picked out a skateboard in Big 5 for about $10 that has Spongebob on it, then went to a park to try it out.

Fast forward a few days; I walked to school with the skateboard (which is nice and light, it's "junior-sized") and her helmet. She had forgotten her library book and it was the last library day of the school year, so I had brought the book and arrived a few minutes early, thinking to drop it off in the library. It turns out they were still in the library when I walked in carrying the Spongebob skateboard. Kids swarmed around the skateboard, buzzing. I heard kids telling her, "You're so lucky!"

Is it any surprise that she's now very enthusiastic about the skateboard? It makes a good walk home because it keeps her moving faster than just plain walking would, but not so fast that I have to run to keep up. On her scooter you have to jog to keep up with her. She'll probably be fast enough soon and I won't be able to keep up, but school's almost out anyway.

"Sweet Success"

2008-05-28T12:38:00.000-07:00

I had my first appointment with my diabetes care management team for this pregnancy, even though I've been seeing an endocrinologist & his nurse practitioner for a month. My philosophy has been as long as insurance is paying for it, go to the appointments, it makes the doctors happy, but my diabetes care is really up to me.

I'm starting to regret that philosophy - especially when yesterday's appointment yielded a lab order for 24-hour urine collection that the OB admitted I didn't really need, but she wanted to get a baseline on whether I am spilling protein for later on in the pregnancy. I love data like the rest of the medical world, but do you know what a pain it is to collect 24 hours worth of urine? Grrr.

Today I got fussed at for being "above the curve" for weight gain (I weighed in 3 pounds heavier than yesterday's appointment, great) but when they wrote out my specific meal plan, I had to take a step back because it is simply more food than I'm eating now. Take lunch - I usually have a salad, 3-4 protein servings, and 1 carb. Sometimes I have fruit for my carb, sometimes it's something like whole wheat bread. My nutritionist-prescribed lunch for today looked like a chicken salad (3 proteins, 1 fat) sandwich with 2 pieces of whole wheat bread (2 carbs), lettuce & tomatoes, cheese (1 more protein), 1 cup of cantelope (1 fruit). I made everything and just looked at it for a moment. This seems like a mountain of food to me.

At the appointment, I pointed out that I don't usually eat 3 carb servings at lunch, but they are more concerned with ketoacidosis than I expected. I now have to test every morning for ketones to make sure I'm not going too many hours without food, as ketoacidosis can be toxic for the baby. I had thought this was more of a problem for Type 1 diabetics - or people on the Atkins diet - not for going between dinner and breakfast. I was told not to go more than 10 hours between a snack before bedtime and breakfast. This actually will be a bit of an adjustment for me as I have always hated eating breakfast first thing. I tend to drink coffee (even pregnant, I have my 1/2 cup) for an hour before I can face food.

So which is it - eat more food, or don't gain weight? I ate my prescribed lunch and I will see how my blood sugar looks in an hour before I decide. Who knows, maybe I can tolerate 3 carb servings at once. I spent 45 minutes in the gym before lunch and my blood sugar was 80 before eating, so I really did appreciate being able to eat a huge sandwich plus all that juicy cantelope. Yum.

P.S.: "Sweet Success" is the name of the diabetes program I'm attending. It's kind of a taunting title, like naming a diet board the "chub club".

2008-05-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

I'm at that stage where I find myself wearing maternity shirts not because I really, really need them yet but because people react to me differently than if I just put on my husband's XL t-shirts. Yesterday I was in a t-shirt on a crowded streetcar and no one offered a seat - which was fine, I didn't need one, and I do get a little embarrassed when people get all chivalrous to me. But at the same time, I don't like thinking that I just look out of shape because it's a strange shape indeed. I can wear my pre-pregnancy pants with a bella band - these little ingenious bands weren't around 8 years ago for my first pregnancy, but they really work. So I don't think I've gained in my thighs or seat too much at this point. It seems to be all right in my gut. I've completely "popped."

I weighed in at one doctor up a whopping 11 pounds, but at another doctor it was only 7 pounds up from 3 weeks before. I still don't trust any scale but my own, under my own parameters. But I've already gotten the "gaining too much" lecture. The frustrating thing is I already eat pretty healthy. As long as I eat at home, I'm completely within healthy parameters. I get into trouble eating out, but I try to keep it together. Like this weekend - we went to Fenton's Creamery with family that was visiting this weekend. I figured I'd be eating someone's ice cream somehow so I ordered egg/tuna salad on a bed of vegetables. I did split some pie ala mode with my husband with the hopes that he would eat faster than me. Mixed success; my blood sugar was fine afterwards.

I do feel better about my weight gain this week because I've made it into the gym 4 days in a row. The first day, I could do about 15 minutes on a treadmill at a pace that didn't get me even to a mile. By the end of the week I could go longer and faster, and get on an exercise bike afterwards as well. I still don't feel comfortable stretching my abdomen so I'm not going with prenatal yoga just yet (which everyone always recommends) - just simple cardio.

Yesterday, we parked our car a few blocks from the Ferry building in SF and took a streetcar over to the tourist side of town, Pier 39, where my sister and her family were finishing their lunch. We looked at the tourist shops, then headed over to take a ferry to Oakland via Angel Island. It was unbelieveably warm and sunny in SF, especially considering 30 miles to the south it was overcast and cold and we're always freezing up in the city. I had brought my ski jacket, which I can barely zip up, and ended up stuffing it in a backpack. Angel Island looked so tempting, but I guess I'm not up to biking around the island this time. I get a little wistful thinking of how long it will be before I get the chance to do so again. Maybe we can train this baby to sit in a bike seat; we never did that with my daughter. She just might be able to make it around the island in a year.

In Oakland, we mostly just walked to the Bart station, said goodbye to my sis, and headed back to SF. We got off near a restaurant where we knew we could order "healthy" items - it happens to be across from the ice rink, and it's a point of reference for us.

After dinner, having walked around all day, I thought I was doing pretty well until only 2 or 3 blocks from the car I started feeling a cramp in my abdomen so my husband ended up going for the car. I feel pretty stupid for not being able to make the last 3 blocks when we'd walked all day, but I could tell I needed to stop. I fell asleep on the ride home and crawled into bed for an hour once I got home. But after that, I was revived a little.

I remember by the third trimester you get nappy again but it's so uncomfortable to sleep by the end that you just can't nap. I'm appreciating still being able to conk out when I need to.

Whew!

2008-05-22T19:14:00.000-07:00

My blood sugars were high yesterday, from medium high to a 164 after dinner. Too high for pregnancy. I realized the insulin I was using had gone camping with me the weekend before, and even though it was in the cooler the whole time maybe it lost its efficacy. I'm all stocked up on insulin - I realized I have like 6 bottles in my fridge - so I tossed this one and took only 1 more unit than my usual dose last night. If it was pregnancy hormones, I am looking at increasing my dose, but if it was the insulin, I didn't want to take too many units more or I'd be passing out in the middle of the night.

I forgot to take a fasting but it was 84 after breakfast, which tells me it was probably pretty low. After exercise (before which I ate a WHOLE banana, which is technically 2 carb servings, plus a lite Betabel cheese) it was 76 which is definitely low.

So I'm going to conclude it was the insulin. I know I will have to increase my dosage at some point, but it's nice not to have to do it at 15 weeks. I was thinking it would be more like 20 weeks. That's when I remember all heck breaking loose in my last pregnancy.

I've made it to the gym three times this week. The first time I made it about 15 minutes on a treadmill. Today I did 25 minutes on a treadmill and 15 minutes on a recumbent bike. My husband had found my mp3 player which really helps you get a good stride going. Still, every day I have to sit for a bit afterwards so I don't throw up.

It's weird how fast your fitness goes down. I mean, I know I got hit extra hard with the pregnancy AND the surgery, but I realized how far I've gone down when I was scootering on my daughter's scooter and after a while I was too tired to balance on one leg. I think of a scooter as a labor-saving device; I don't ever remember thinking they were hard to push or anything.

Hopefully with some regular but fairly gentle exercise I can keep up a good level of fitness for the time being. I'm still restricted from lifting more than 5 pounds for another month or so. It doesn't quite feel comfortable doing extended stretching of my abdomen yet, either. I'm too chicken to try the prenatal yoga because of this. I feel like I'm going to tear something. I'm making my husband put all the dishes away on the top shelf. It doesn't feel quite ready for that extended stretch.

Nothing to report

2008-05-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

Not really.

We had our big Girl Scout camporee weekend. I stayed at a tent-cabin facility near the camp but not with the girls; I felt like I couldn't take being in charge of the girls for 48 hours more than anything else. My co-leader & a parent handled the girls just fine, but seeing how exhausted they were at the end (I drove home) makes me think I made the right choice. 12 2nd graders are just draining, bless 'em.

I was hosting a workshop - we had hired an outside vendor who does drum circles. The theme of this camporee was 60's/hippies and I'm happy to say the drum circle was my idea. When my co-leader and I were looking at workshop possibilities back in January we were mostly concerned with it fitting the hippie theme, being something musical, and costing no more than $500. For a 7 hour day that was tough to find, and the guy we hired seemed okay on the phone but there's always the worry that he wouldn't know how to relate to kids. His bio included a lot of corporate events. If your company is looking for a bonding event, he can do drum circles of like 500 people at once, can you imagine?

But this guy was great. He got the girls drumming and excited and just had a great manner with the kids. So my work was pretty minimal, and I didn't have to walk up and down the camp all day like I normally do as a leader. But I was exhausted at the end of the day. I left before dinner (and the Brownies eat at 4:45 so that tells you how early) and went back to our camp. I slept for an hour before I could get up the strength to go to dinner at a restaurant.

I went to the gym for the first time in a couple of months yesterday. I did 20 minutes on a treadmill and that seems pitiful when I think of even four months ago but I am very grateful to be exercising at all. It's more than I could do a week ago.

I did notice that I had much worse morning sickness the two mornings after Camporee tiredness. I do seem to get it worse when I'm tired.

And my blood sugars are creeping up. They had been a little too low a week ago; typical blood sugars, they just do what they want. My diet hasn't changed appreciably. I actually feel lucky because I remember my blood sugars starting to rise earlier in my first pregnancy than where I am now (14 weeks or so). So I'll take a little more insulin tonight.

Speaking of 14 weeks, I've been feeling the baby move for a couple of days, which seems very early and makes me wonder if I'm farther along than they are guessing. That's a little worrisome just because they are extrapolating the date through measurements.

birthday cake

2008-05-10T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well, at least it's gone now, but temptation in the form of birthday cake was in the house for a day and a half. My daughter's birthday went off without a hitch (although I have a pair of unclaimed socks still). It was in the park, and the kids mostly ran around and played games. I paid a teenager to do face painting and they played with a parachute. It was a little juvenile - that party would have worked for 3 years and these were 8 year olds - but they're not yet so jaded that they didn't enjoy doing younger-type games. They colored cardboard fairy wings with pens and glitter glue, then ran around with them on. At the end of the party they had cake and ube ice cream, then sat in a circle and played a game that involved opening presents. My daughter was wearing her the dress I had made her, and it gave me a boost to hear her telling everyone I made it. Ha! How many years do I have left where she'll appreciate a homemade dress? And will actually brag that her mom made it to her friends?

We took her to Benihana for dinner. I've never been, although I've heard about what it's like for years. I would say the food was respectably good but certainly not overly healthy. But she really enjoyed the spectacle and the chef loved having an enthusiastic audience. When he did the tricks with an egg, ending with flipping it high and landing it in his pocket, my daughter clapped and gushed, "You must have practiced that for a really long time!" He laughed and said most kids said, "That's nothing. I can do that!" He built a volcano out of onions and we all laughed when it exploded. It was a fun night.

This morning, my daughter was ready to hit her presents, but I told her she needed to write her thank you notes for any toy she wanted to play with. She sat down and pumped out 8 thank you notes. I really was expecting a fight, but I think she was just overwhelmed by her friends' generosity. We don't have a party every year, and people really gave thoughtful presents. One friend gave her a Fisher Price sewing machine! We've already started her first project.

(Sorry grandparents, she started writing friends first...and come to think of it, she's already broken the rule because I know she's been playing with those Breyer horses.)

Next week is a big girl scout event - 2 nights camping out with 40-some odd troops. I opted out, sorta. My co-leader and another parent will be with the girls, but I'm still going to drive, help them get set up. I also was involved in planning the event so I coordinated one of the workshops, which involves an outside vendor. So I will be working with the vendor all day Saturday and won't be with my troop - which means I won't have to do the miles of hiking that I normally do at a Camporee. In other words, it's pretty fortunate that I was already planning to be at the workshop considering I wouldn't be up to it physically this time.

I'm not sleeping at the camp overnight; if I'm with the troop, the girls will be coming to me for everything and they need to start getting used to other parents being in charge. I'm looking down the line to when this baby is born and I am hoping to work out a schedule with my two co-leaders so that we take one meeting every 6 weeks, much more doable than me doing all the meetings every 2 weeks.

Today we snuck up to Huddart Park for a late afternoon barbecue. While my husband cooked, I took my daughter and her best friend for a walk. We went up a hill and they found a big meadown where they just wanted to sit and plan their big plan - a Webkinz camp. I was secretly grateful because even though I wasn't out of breath, walking up that hill sapped all my energy. I still don't know if this is from the surgery, first trimester fatigue, or just generally being more sedentary the past few weeks taking its toll. After a short rest I could walk again, but it's 9:00 p.m. and I'm nodding off.

Monday, I have five, count 'em, five interviews: Lester Holt of NBC news, three Survivor finalists, and the Survivor winner. (No hints here!)

Happy Mother's Day!

Pizza anyone?

(Chocolate chip cookie crust, cream cheese frosting with yellow food coloring, and fruit roll-ups.)

2008-05-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

I'm getting out and about. I haven't been exercising much yet. I did skate once but after about 20 minutes had to get off the ice. But I've gone from not being able to get out of bed without pain, to the stage where I could get out maybe once a day, to being able to do a normal amount of errands but having to take an afternoon nap in there.

At the OB's this week, they gave me my first set of freebies: a bunch of formula samples packed in a diaper bag with a changing pad. I love the little freebies even though I plan to breastfeed. I can donate them to a food bank. But I had to laugh at the diaper bag. 8 years ago when my daughter was born, the diaper bags we got were pastel colored, covered with little pictures of Peter Rabbit. In the usual way of the world of pregnancy, that's all changed now. This diaper bag is chic black. Nice! Even the changing pad is black - now I don't know why, but that seems funny to me. Every changing pad we had when my daughter was a baby was pristine white.

They say technology moves fast, but the world of baby advice moves just as swiftly. 8 years ago I didn't have the internet, and anything I learned about pregnancy came from a book. My favorites were What to Expect When You're Expecting and The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy. Now these books are interactive websites. You can find all your dates online with pregnancy calculators, make cute little tickers, and have inspirational articles mailed to you daily. 8 years ago I didn't know a single other diabetic mother - meaning, someone who was a diabetic before pregnancy. Now you can find them on message boards and online forums. You go to a site like Yahoo Answers and every teenager in there knows about implantation spotting and mucus plugs. The information is so readily available that it's easy to get overloaded with details that probably aren't important in the bigger picture.

Items I ate throughout my first pregnancy are off limits now, such as cold cuts of turkey. I'm not supposed to use nail polish remover. I knew about not dying my hair back then, but I am much more grey now 8 years later so I'm looking into natural henna and wondering if it's worth the trouble to cook up my own batch and leave it on my head for six hours. I'm drinking no diet Coke this time but allowing myself a few sips of my husband's coffee in the morning. I'm allowed to take anti-nausea medication this time when last time it was never offered and I didn't even know it was a possibility - was that because my OB preferred I not take it or was it just not around 8 years ago? I had seven months of morning sickness and it would have been appreciated.

I dropped six pounds from the surgery and I've already gained them back, putting me 2 pounds up from my first OB appointment. I don't want to gain too fast but I am a slave to the morning sickness. If I don't eat, I get queasy, a headache, and short-tempered. Last night I had a banana and a string cheese on my way out the door to the ice rink (for my daughter to skate, not me). That was at about 4:45. We got home at about 7:20 and I was STARVED. I felt like I could gnaw on a table leg.

My favorite recent pregnancy dinner: turkey kielbasa (microwaved and sauteed in cooking spray to an extreme because sausages are off-limits unless you cook the heck out of them), kraut, onions and mushrooms, pickles, grainy mustard with a side of sourdough (low-glycemic) toast. Sour, vinegary pregnancy-craving heaven. My daughter wouldn't touch it.

Today is my daughter's birthday and I am taking treats to her class. We baked a cookie pizza, frosted it with yellow frosting, then added some cut-up fruit roll-ups to look like pepperoni. I admit I don't enforce my eating requirements when it comes to my daughter. At her birthday party, we're having a little more balance: cut up fruit, pretzels, cubes of cheese, little star-shaped sandwiches of jam & cream cheese, then cake and ice cream. The ice cream is bright purple, ube flavored. This is a like a purple yam; we get it from a Filipino ice cream shop near where my husband grew up. It tastes like a less-sweet version of vanilla and it's delicious. It's a "Fairy" party so I thought the color would get the kids to try it. I'm just going to call it "fairy ice cream." My daughter loves it, but I'm betting the other kids have never seen ube ice cream before.

Turning 8!

2008-05-07T13:56:00.000-07:00

Her coach looks at this and says, "Your leg isn't straight. Belly button toward the ice. Arms out even, not behind you."

I look and just can't believe my little baby can fly on the ice like this. She's turning 8 tomorrow. Where did the time go?

Sorry to neglect the blog

2008-05-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I've had an eventful two weeks. Don't read past this if you're squeamish.

I wrote about this somewhere in my blog, but I have an umbilical hernia that has probably been there for some time. I consulted a surgeon about it a year ago but as I was still losing weight, and it wasn't giving me any problems, he suggested I wait until I'd lost 20-30 more pounds and then we could talk about a tummy tuck at the same time as the surgical repair of the hernia. He had done a scan and seen that the hernia was a pocket of fat. There is a cushion of fat between your intestines and skin; this is normal.

I continued to lose weight, then stalled around the turn of the year. Eventually I pieced together that I was pregnant, and I had an appointment (today, actually) to talk to my OB on what to do about the hernia.

As it turns out, two weeks ago my body decided for me as the hernia expanded to include my intestine. It felt like a fist to the gut, and I knew right away it wasn't something that would go away on its own. Still, it was the middle of the night, and I didn't want to drag my daughter to the ER or have her go to a friends or my parents' hotel room in the middle of the night. My parents were visiting because she had been in an ice skating competition on the weekend - what a lucky coincidence for me.

So we waited until morning, took her to school, and went straight to the ER. The pain was no better, and I was in agony. The ER nurses were so nice; they took one look at me and got me on a bed before even asking me what was wrong. I kept telling them, "and I'm nine weeks pregnant" every other sentence because I wanted to make sure that didn't get missed. They gave me morphine for the pain and got a surgeon in.

Because I am pregnant, the surgeon told me he would try to see if it could be pushed back in non-surgically. I already had an IV with morphine flowing, but let me tell you - this was the most pain I have ever felt in my life. I don't know how long he tried but it felt like a long time until I just told him I couldn't take it anymore.

We discussed my options. When possible, they don't like to operate on women in their first trimester because the loss of the baby is a real danger. But I would have had to wait four weeks. I am not good at communicating pain; the more it hurts the quieter I get. I have learned to just tell a doctor, "That hurts quite a bit," because I just don't cry out or scream. So I told him that this was incredibly painful and I was certain that I wouldn't make it four weeks. He took me at my word and told me we would speak to the anesthesiologist because being put out is a risk to the baby, too.

The anesthesiologist said we could try a spinal block, but she didn't think it would go up far enough. I begged her to try; by that point I was obsessed with making sure they didn't put me out. I could tell it wasn't her first choice, but it actually turned out fine. I could feel it at first, she added a local, then I could only feel pressure. She asked if I was feeling anxious - well, duh. So she added some sort of mood reliever...then everything was copacetic. I still get flashes of memory and I know I was chatting with the surgeon, anesthesiologist and nurses about our kids' schools.

Then I was wheeled to recovery, where I spent a couple of days learning how to go to the bathroom again and how to get out of bed without using any abdominal muscles. The surgeon was able to go entirely through my belly button so I won't even have a scar. The bad news is that the hernia will most likely be back by the end of my ninth month, and I'll have to go through all this again (but with a more permanent fix in place, a mesh, which they didn't do this time because of the risk of infection which is highly dangerous for the baby). But the good news is that the baby came through everything just fine. On the ultrasound a week later, we could see him/her kicking around like crazy.

The surgeon told me later that not only could the surgery have not waited four weeks, I was very close to having dead tissue in my intestine that would have had to be cut out -- a mini-gastric bypass, as my husband called it. It turns out the intestine had been crimped and the blood supply had been completely cut off. He said the tissue was compromised, but still living. A few hours would have made the difference. In retrospect, I should have gone to the ER right away instead of waiting for morning, but on the other hand, I am glad that I got a fresh surgeon and nursing staff. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, but I am glad I got the doctors that I did.

It amazes me that my body could go through so much pain and stress and the pregnancy is fine. I am so thankful.

Sorry to be mysterious...

2008-04-18T08:04:00.000-07:00

Time to come clean. I've had to throw the diet by the wayside simply because 1200 calories a day is not enough to sustain a pregnancy...that's right, I'm pregnant. Unexpectedly! I'm 38, I have an almost 8-year-old daughter, and I had kind of a nightmare pregnancy last time. So of course I am happy about a baby, but not looking forward to the next few months.

My body was giving me fits. I would stick to my diet plan all day but at the end of the day I'd find myself eating from a jar of peanut butter. I just felt so compelled; it was always fat, too - like nuts, peanut butter, cheese. Usually if I'm going to crave something compulsively it would be something bad like cookies. I chalked it up to exercise and my body fighting me to lose the next 30 pounds.

I had been working out hard and not progressing in the gym; meaning, I wasn't able to lift more weight when usually it's a pretty solid progression after taking some time off. I remember telling my workout partner that I felt so chunky all the time because my gut was just poofy all the time. I had taken off pretty much the entire month of February because of a respiratory infection for which I took a round of oral steroids, then antibiotics when it couldn't break up the asthma. The OB told me that the steroids can affect your cycle and it's possible I extra-ovulated. Whatever happened, I am worried about what I did when I didn't know I was pregnant - mostly medications. I can't remember if I took any pain killers or anything. My blood sugars are under control in general, but I wasn't testing all day or anything.

So I'm about 9 or 10 weeks along according to ultrasound.

When I realized I needed to eat more, I read the usual advice of adding 300 calories to your day. Since I was on restriction I knew this couldn't be right even though I've got fat stores to spare. Looking at the "Best Odds Diet" recommended by What to Expect When You're Expecting, I was shocked to see their daily menus are in the 2600-2900 calorie range.

That seems like a mountain of food to me. I've been on restricted calories for so long that it seems like an unreal amount of eating. I munch and nibble all day (thanks, morning sickness) but it's all stuff I have on hand, so it's pretty healthy. If I have a cracker, it's whole wheat. If I have something sweet, it's either a yogurt or some fruit. I've had to consciously add more fat to my diet. I have to say I'm enjoying having guacamole, avocado, and peanut butter when I want it.

Enough about food - I'm always obssessed. Getting pregnant throws a wrench in the works for my skating goals. I really hope my feet don't change after having custom skate boots built for me a few months ago. All my favorite activities - ice skating, biking, weight lifting - will be off limits in two weeks. We might sneak one short ski trip in next weekend (my friend who knows about it thinks I'm nuts to attempt it). Not to mention we have a tiny house and I really don't want to move. I guess we have a few months to figure it out.

My daughter is in a skating competition this weekend. I'm so proud of her and once again, feeling parental guilt. Skating is so HARD. You can do all the elements right but it will look wrong if you have your arms in the wrong place. If you tilt your chin down your spins will be off. If you make a fist instead of pretty fingers that counts against you. When you stroke your hands and feet are all supposed to be in a precise position, like ballet - but unlike ballet, you have to look pretty while keeping your balance and making sure you don't fall. She's only 7! She'll be fine, but I'm a nervous wreck.

Still Here

2008-04-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

This time of year gets busy and I neglect to write. I'm working on Girl Scout projects, our first campout coming up, PTA, skating, weight lifting, the works.

I promise to be back soon. :) Vicky, thanks for checking on me - I have been trying to comment on your blog and it times out for me, I don't know why. And it loses the comment whenever I do that so it's very frustrating! If you read this, I thought what you wrote about a chemical reaction rang very true to my own experience. I go from not missing it to wanting to cram sugar down my throat after one bite.

I've long known my best plan of action is avoidance.

2008-03-04T21:57:00.000-08:00

Hooray! I feel better! 24 hours of antibiotics, and I'm already BREATHING. I'm not going to waste time being irritated and it taking so long to be put on antibiotics - okay, maybe a little - I'm just going to enjoy being able to BREATHE. Ahhhhhhhh.

I got some blood drawn today and I get the results online, so I was able to look at them tonight. Holy smokes, my cholesterol went up 50 POINTS! Argh! I was really puzzled by this until I googled around a little and found that Prednisone lists elevated cholesterol as a side affect. I know it raised my blood sugars, but I was able to take more insulin to compensate so it wasn't much of a problem. But WOW. I had no idea it could shoot it up so badly, so fast! I was only on Prednisone for 8 days.

I was reading around to find out if there were foods I didn't expect that have a high content of saturated fat. Pretty much I know my fats. Because I was sick, I was eating things like an orange for breakfast, fat free cottage cheese, butterless popcorn for lunch (lol) - I would make it with kernels and canola oil, not low-fat but not high in saturated fat either - and some sort of simple dinner. And...*drumroll*...more than my fair share of Girl Scout cookies. Damn those Lemon Chalet Cremes! I had a couple of cookie days and then I made sure to get rid of them entirely by serving them out when people or kids were over. I went with kids to Baskin Robbins once and had a kid's scoop of ice cream - definitely that has saturated fat. I know someone had birthday cake in there somewhere. But that's about it.

So I'm wondering. Yes, the Prednisone lists it as a side affect but I was on it a very short time. Could Girl Scout cookies have that dramatic of an effect on my blood chemistry? It's probably a bit of both, but when you consider that when I'm exercising and am in "the zone" I don't eat much saturated fat at all, maybe I had an exaggerated reaction?

This list of foods comparing saturated fats made me chuckle. I just don't eat like this!

* fatty cuts of meat, including meat drippings
* bacon, sausage, and processed meats
* duck, chicken, or turkey with skin
* egg yolks
* butter
* fat or oil that is hard or in stick form, lard, and shortening
* hydrogenated vegetable oil
* coconut, coconut oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil, and cocoa butter
* avocado
* cream, half-and-half, and whole-milk dairy products, such as cheese, ice cream, and sour cream
* processed grain products, such as cookies, cakes, muffins, and pastries

I don't eat cheese, cream, or butter unless they're the fat-free versions. I haven't tasted real bacon in ages. I eat hard boiled eggs sometimes, but keep a carton of egg beaters. My husband roasted a chicken a few weeks ago and I had some skin then. Pretty much though, my regular eating patterns don't include these products.

But those GS cookies have fat - most of them have about a gram of saturated fat per cookie. The peanut butter cookies have more.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.littlebrownie.com/downloads/CookieFlyer_NLI.pdf

Well, at least I'm motivated to lay off the cookies!

The Asthma Continues

2008-03-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

My chest is still roaring like a campfire. It's not enough to go to the ER but I'm going to have to squeeze in an appointment to the doctor's tomorrow. Just walking around the block with my daughter to mail a letter brought out more asthma. This is so frustrating. I have to ride my bike a little later because my husband will have the car and I have to be somewhere, but I'm going to allow myself enough time that I can go slowly. The latest symptom I'm going through is that I've completely lost my voice. It's such a pain to not be able to bellow across the house when I need to - something I didn't even realize I did much.

Turning the corner

2008-02-26T13:56:00.000-08:00

I feel much better today; in fact, since yesterday I've felt mostly like myself again. I still have a racking cough but my energy level is so much better that I feel like I've turned a corner. Yay!

A little bit about the skates - I got them! And they weren't exactly perfect. The boots felt great, but when he went to mount the blades, they were falling to the inside. What is wrong with my feet? A simple blade move wasn't enough; he built a custom insole to account for the shift as well - and it was still falling to the inside.

I took them to a rink on Sunday. Yes, the edges were not where I want them yet but after an hour of skating I could see that my foot was already fitting into the skates a little differently than they had in the first few minutes, and it was improving my position over the blade. I took them back to the boot fitter on Monday and had him adjust them a little further. Again, they didn't look quite right. He had me lace them all the way to the top to see if that helped; if it was a "support issue." Great, I'm thinking, I spend all this money on skates and I'm too FAT to wear them! But lacing them up did improve how my weight is over the blade.

Mr. Bootfitter will be out of town for a couple of weeks, so my plan is to skate on them and see where they settle. If they're still out of whack, his plan is to build up something more in the boot - rebuild them like the bionic woman. I feel a little like a freak of nature about this. My daughter gets new skates and bam! She's out jumping and spinning without even a blister. But at that point, even with all the adjusting/custom designing, I didn't feel right in them. I had already decided I wasn't going to sign up for lessons in the upcoming session because if you don't feel comfortable on your edges, you're just not going to be able to do the maneuvers in class, so there's no point.

This morning I tried them out after the latest adjustment. In the first few minutes I was panicking again. Did I make a mistake with these expensive skates? They are stiff, stiff, stiff even though I got basically the softest boot beyond a beginner level. But slowly, I got a little more comfortable on my feet and I could feel that they're going to be okay. There is only one place on my left foot where it sometimes feels a little loud as if the blade is dragging when it should be on a clean edge. In other words, pretty damn close. I think the two weeks on the skates should be a good amount of time to really test them out and settle into them.

These are the first skates I've had where my heel does not move at all! Already I can feel what a difference that makes. Looking at them, I look like a duck-footed skater - but who cares? I'll have to take a picture when I have them on.

We had our GS event and as usual, it's worth it despite the chaos of getting permission slips and money and all that. For our next one, I spent extra time making it clear that if they didn't get the money to me by such-and-such a date they could not go - no exceptions!

Diet-wise, since I've been on freaking steroids for the past few days I swear I've gained 10 pounds. Well, I haven't actually gotten on the scale but it's been so hard to control my eating because they make you hungry. I'm still wheezing and this morning's ice skating left me completely exhausted, so I'm not quite 100% yet, but I'm planning to get back to the weight training today or tomorrow. Scratch tomorrow - daughter has a field trip and I'm going along. Today it is.

blech.

2008-02-20T16:06:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling okay, but coughing up so much junk that I'm getting tired from all the coughing. I felt good enough to walk on a treadmill but when it came time to go I was coughing so much that I decided not to do it. My lungs just aren't ready for an exercise-triggered asthma attack right now.

I'm trying to pull together our booth for World Thinking Day, which is this Saturday. I've already decided we're not going to do this next year. I sound like an sourpuss, but this is one of those activities where too much gets dumped on the leader because it's unrealistic to ask the girls to go home and craft up a booth, activity, two crafts, and a food. I can barely get parents to bring snack to meetings, much less pull together something complicated. I told them that they would have to arrange their own transportation because so many of the girls have basketball games and other activities, and today one of them stopped me to ask who is going with whom. I had told them I will be available to bring girls up at such-and-such a time and out of the whole troop, I had two takers. I told them that if they don't go up with me they have to arrange their own ride, but with even this simple instruction they come to me and ask how their kid is going to get up there as if I'm going to be shuttling up and down all morning taking kids as they get through with their respective activities. Gah! I had better quit talking about it before I get all worked up. It's just so irritating because the driving is the least of my worries, I have a million different errands to do and things to finish to set it all up, I've got a monster of a cold, and the topper is that the person who was asking me this is supposed to be the transportation coordinator for the troop! At the beginning of the year she volunteered to be the person who calls around, finds drivers, and collect permission slips. She hasn't done this even once, and we've taken, oh, four or five trips since September.

Diet-wise, I'm a mess. I do better as the whole package: gym + diet. When I can't make it in the gym, I fluctuate between under eating and over eating.

Ugh

2008-02-18T23:08:00.000-08:00

I'm still here. I haven't got all the results back from my doctors' tests but the initial bloodwork all came out normal. Which is what you want, but I wasn't imagining the pain, so it's frustrating. The pain knocked me out of commission for a few days, then faded away. The doctor speculated it could be ovulatory pain - something I've never had, and it's hard to believe because it was so intense.

Somehow, in those doctor visits I must have picked up some bad germs because for the past week or so I've been going through a chest cold, which is kicking my asthma into high gear. Having a chest & head cold coupled with the asthma is making me walk around lightheaded everywhere.

I wish February weren't so darn busy. I had signed up to help out at a Girl Scout recruitment event Friday and I was feeling crummy, but I didn't have a fever or anything (and it's really rough on them to find adults) so I went. It was fun, but while I was there the council rep hit me up for a couple of other jobs that need filling. I'm so tired of getting pressured to take on more volunteer work just because I helped out! I ended up agreeing to order cakes for 250 people from Costco, but told her I couldn't take on the association registrar position, which is probably all she was aiming for anyway. But they wonder why people hesitate to jump in...it's like you're marked once you do.

If I can just make it through past this weekend I'll be through a couple of big projects and I can relax a little. Time to down a little more vitamin C.

Thanks for checking in on me, Vickie. I've just been too tired to blog and for a while I couldn't get comfortable anywhere, so it was hard to get on the computer.

Hanging in there

2008-02-11T13:50:00.000-08:00

I've been having a lot of pain and I suspect it's my gall bladder. I was waiting for Monday so that I wouldn't have to go to the ER - I have a doctor's appointment a little later today and hopefully I'll get some help.

Snow day

2008-02-05T10:46:00.001-08:00

With all the snow dumping on the Sierra Nevada, we took a day trip, figuring we would stop wherever the snow started and just sled a little.

That worked for a while, but we figured we'd head up 80 a little farther to a rest area where we could snowshoe. But so much snow had dumped overnight (80 had been closed for hours) that they hadn't plowed any of the exits until we were all the way to Truckee - a bit farther than we had planned on going.

Truckee was well-snowed under. Amtrak had a couple of trains stuck up there, and nothing was running. This is the train station.

We picked up some cheap snowshoes at the hardware store and walked around in Donner Memorial State Park. I wish we'd had x-country skis because it would have been perfect for it, but it's part of the spontaneous day trip experience - no rented equipment ahead of time.

The snow was so fresh and powdery..and delicious!

Even on the groomed trails I don't think we could have done it without snowshoes. It was so powdering you sank about hip-deep.

Still, we could have stuck with the sledding hill and had a great time.

In other news, I checked up on the status of my skates. They are being molded today, and I have an appointment for a final fitting on the 19th. Only two more weeks!

Spinifred

2008-01-29T19:23:00.000-08:00

Just as she was just getting going on this spin, the memory card filled up!

K.I.S.S.

2008-01-29T16:37:00.000-08:00

Keep it simple, stupid. I've been inspired by Vail, who is getting away from animal proteins and discovering lots of delicious vegetarian recipes. Okay, I'm not giving up my precious animal protein just yet, but it has led me to re-examine my eating.

A typical nutrisystem lunch looks like an NS entree, a salad, a protein serving. NS entrees break down into 1 carb + 2 protein servings. (I think in diabetic exchanges: carb = 15g carbs; protein = 7g protein; fat = 5g fat). So a turkey sandwich on 15g of bread - I have a diet bread for which that equals two slices - plus a salad is a typical sort of lunch for me. A Luna bar fits right in as 1 carb + 2 proteins, around 180 calories. I used to eat those all the time for my lunch plus a salad with a hard-boiled egg. Even though I've never been a lunch bar person, I did well on this lunch.

I've been eating more NS lunches that are more like real food, like mashed potatoes, beef soups, etc. Then I add a salad and some sort of protein. Somehow, even though these are bigger meals than a lunch bar I have been having trouble avoiding snacks afterwards. I feel like I need something sweet to finish off lunch, so I've been eating apples. It's a "healthy choice" but it's still an extra 60 calories of sweetness that I hadn't budgeted for.

Today and yesterday I went back to eating a Luna bar plus a salad with protein, and finding that I'm not getting antsy for that extra apple or other snacks. Hmm.

It reminds me of something that the girl who sat next to me in Chorale said: "You'd be surprised at how little you need to eat at lunch." Now, with a little more life experience under my belt I know this girl was anorexic, but at the time I was struck by the thought...and how I wasn't willing to eat the way she did. She was explaining to me that her lunch was an apple, and only an apple.

But the principle is sound. I don't need to have a 120 calorie fish filet (my "protein", barely under the NS stats) plus a container of NS mashed potatoes and a salad for lunch. It feels like a dinner, and it triggers the feeling that I need a dessert.

For me, it's not the best solution to feel like I'm eating as much food as possible for every meal. It's pretty common on the Nutrisystem site to maximize your eating plan this way - and there's nothing wrong with that from a "calories in calories out" standpoint. But if it's triggering me to eat more, THAT is a problem.

2008-01-28T09:48:00.000-08:00

I was linked to a blog entry from 2006 to Jack Sprat, someone who lost a significant amount of weight but who struggled with plateaus at times. He eventually realized that his desire to lose all the weight was equal to his desire to stay the same.

If I sit down and look at it, I feel like I do want change. I do want to lose the rest of my excess weight badly. And yet, this describes me well:

At the same time, when we’re at a plateau, the desire to stay the same flies under the radar...Eating even just a little extra and exercising even just a little bit less are not as noticeable as the reverse!

Hello, popcorn at 11:00 p.m.! I've been nickel and diming my diet for a while, now - not every day, but certainly every week. Furthermore, this is the clincher:

But you might want to think of it this way. Imagine for a moment that you decide to throw in the towel. That is, imagine that you simply stop every single behavior you’re engaging in for the purpose of losing. What would be left?

Yep, the desire to stay the same.

I've been plenty worried about gaining the weight all back. It's time to put that behind me and focus on getting past where I am now because no matter what, I'm not going to re-gain. In the back of my head I've had a little voice saying, "It's okay as long as you don't gain it back." That's not good enough.

Weight loss surgery

2008-01-24T12:20:00.000-08:00

This is supposedly a current picture of Carnie Wilson. I couldn't find the source of the picture, but she is on a new reality show called "Gone Country" airing on CMT, and this seems to be a picture related to the show. I saw it on Obesity Help.com.

Most of the time I can stay in my "to each his own" zone, but when I see a picture like this, I wonder: why go through the pain and struggle of major surgery to re-arrange your insides, give up certain foods forever, commit to taking supplements without fail for the rest of your life - in short, give up normal digestion - unless you are going to get completely kick-ass results?

I figure that a person with the resources of minor celebrityhood would have a better shot at maintaining their weight loss than the average shmuck in the 'burbs such as myself. I don't blame Carnie for gaining weight back. I see this as credible evidence that weight loss surgery is not worth the pain and suffering. If a person who can afford to hire a personal trainer and chef can't make the weight loss permanent, then what chance does someone like me have cooking and exercising on their own? It's a bad bargain if it only works for a short while.

I hear people who have had the surgery say it is a tool in weight loss, and that you have to use it to make it work, etc. The flip side of that comment is that if you re-gain weight, YOU did not use your TOOL correctly. What I don't understand is that if you have enough willpower to use the tool perfectly, why would you need the surgery in the first place? I think the TOOL IS AT FAULT. It's like putting on a hard hat, jumping out of a plane, then faulting the hard hat for not protecting you from the crash. It may be a tool, but it isn't necessarily the most helpful one for the problem of obesity.

I have my off days, and I pay for them on the scale, but at the end of the day I know where the fault lies. I know how my body absorbs nutrients and how to burn off calories. When you add in the complexities of a rearranged digestive system, it becomes more mysterious than it needs to be - otherwise, we wouldn't have people regaining like Carnie or losing too much, which also happens.

Then there's the complications. Not everyone has them, but those who do...wow. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I wish health on everyone.

Oh yeah, and I'm editing this to say that I know Carnie had a baby. But it had to have been a while ago because she had a baby before she went on Celebrity Fit club. Her stint there was to lose the baby weight. I still say there is more to the equation than simply putting on weight during pregnancy, because she was smaller in CFC than she is in this picture, and with all the help at her disposal, if she can't keep it off, then her surgery is not helping her.