Clomid and prenatal vitamins

There are pros and cons to trying to get pregnant.

Pro: Prenatal vitamins. (these are my favorite so far.)

These vitamins are like Miracle Grow for your hair and nails. I cut my hair short back in November, and it's already almost the length it was before I cut it! The time before last, it took my hair 2 stinckin' years to get back to it's previous length! So naturally, it makes me want to cut my hair short again. If it's going to grow back this fast, why not?

I think I'm going to take prenatal vitamins for the rest of my life. That's not bad, is it? ;)

Con: Clomid.(Can I have cruddier photos? No. I can not.)

This is the first month that I'm on the right dosage of Clomid. As you can see, I've taken all my little pills ;) So far it hasn't been as bad as some of the horror stories I've heard... but it's not a walk in the park either.

I've gotten quite a few emails asking me how the Clomid is working, and what the symptoms of Clomid have been, so I thought I would list them for you:

• Emotional. If the Pampers, and various different cancer commercials didn't make me cry before, they do now. This has resulted in me being ultra clingy to my honey bunny baby bear (that's the Clomid talking;). I need a hug from him like every 10 minutes.
• Bloated. Since I'm not weighing myself, I count on the way I feel, and how my clothes fit, to tell me how I'm doing. Right now I feel like I've gained 5-10 pounds. I've been good, so that shouldn't be the case.
• Menstrual cramps. I don't think I need to explain how much those suck.
• Small Pimples on my forehead. I need to get some Proactive.
  
• Muscle cramps. Since I was younger, I've been getting muscle cramps in my legs. You know that pain you have when you get on the floor, put your legs out in front of you, and try to touch your toes? (that question is for the non-limber folk;) Well it's that same exact pain, only constant. When I was younger they told me they were growing pains. They never went away, but as I got older, they only came when it was that time of the month. Since I've started the Clomid, I've gotten them every night :/

In a nutshell, taking Clomid is a lot like PMS.
If it works, it will all be worth it.

Moral of the story:
I'm an emotional girl with long hair.

Are you a vitamin taker?

If you would like to share you experience with clomid, you're welcome to leave it in the comments. I have lots of readers who would like to know more :D

What's inside my Easter basket?

Instead of eating a basket full of Peep's, Cadbury eggs, chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, and egg shaped Reese's and snickers bars this Easter, I thought I'd pick just one Easter sweet to enjoy.

I thought about it for a few days. I wanted to be sure I picked the right one. The one that would hit that Easter sweet tooth just right.

In the end, it was the chocolate Easter bunny that stole my heart. I just couldn't resist it's candy eyes, and those hollow milk chocolate bunny ears.I shared it with my hubby. I love him that much ;)
If you had to choose just one Easter treat, which would you choose?

Happy Easter!

I Know that my Redeemer lives.

The truth about artificial sweeteners

I saw this incredibly informative video on FaceBook. Gotta love FB.

What makes this video so awesome, is that it breaks down all the chemicals in sugar substitutes. It explains what those chemicals actually are, and what they do to our bodies. Chemicals like aspartame, acetone, methanol, among others:

What did I get from this video? Oh, just that artificial sweeteners are basically just sugar with chlorine, nail polish remover, gasoline, windshield washer fluid, and formaldehyde in it. Sweet (pun not intended, but welcomed:).

It's amazing to me how many "diet" cook books include these artificial sweeteners.

And I can't believe how much diet Dr. Pepper I used to drink. It's crazy.

Here are Dr. Freedmen's picks for the 3 best sweeteners:

***
A couple weeks ago we decided to put a patio in the backyard. When the patio was finally done, we realized they had made a ton of mistakes. Now they're having to tare it out, and do it again. When it is all said and done, it will have taken them almost 2 weeks from start to finish. That's 2 weeks of not being able to let the dogs out back to do their business. That equals a ton of walking for moi. I've had to take them on a walk 4-6 times a day. sigh.

Moral of the story: putting in a patio is the best thing to ever happen to my diet and exercise plan.

Free

It's been a while since I stepped onto the scale.

I was never the kind of person who would step on the scale multiple times a day. When I first started on this weight loss journey, I would only weigh myself once a week. Then that became twice a week, and eventually, I weighed myself every morning. Soon, the scale and I developed a bad relationship. It was so discouraging to see that all my hard work, was only giving me a 1 pound loss each week. Doubt would set in as soon as I stepped on the scale, and last with me until I fell asleep that night. It's always been my goal to be 150 pounds when we get pregnant. Every morning I stepped on the scale, that goal seemed so far out of reach. I would spend the entire day subconsciously trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and what I was doing wrong. I would try to figure out what I could do to get to 150lbs before we got pregnant, and always getting discouraged when the weight didn't come off quickly enough for me to get to my goal. That discouragement would always lead me into a day or two of bad eating, which of course resulted in me gaining back the pound I had lost. Then I finally realized that 1 pound a week is great. It is a heck of a lot better then zero! So, I ditched the scale.

I am starting to realize what a huge burden it was on me, to obsess about the scale everyday. I suddenly feel freer. Happier. Since I'm not spending as much energy thinking about the scale, my weight, and how slow it's coming off, I suddenly have more energy to go to the gym. To go grocery shopping, to cook, to clean... to live life. I simply feel good about myself when I eat deliciously healthy, and stay on track. It's nice to not step on the scale, and have it take those good feelings away from me. I am living a healthy life for me. Not the scale. I choose to eat healthy, workout, take my vitamins, and drink lots of water, because I love myself, and I want to be healthy. Not because I am trying to lose X amount of weight each week.

It feels like a breath of fresh air, and it makes me happy.
P.S. At my doctor appointment this past Wednesday, my doctor looked at my chart, and said "Oh, you've lost weight since your last appointment!" Luckily she didn't say how much, because I don't know how that would have affected me. But at least I know that it's working, and that I can be successful without the scale.

Stupid pharmacy...

The month of March was supposed to be my
first month on Clomid, a fertility drug that will stimulate my ovaries to ovulate. 3 days into my "cycle", I was to start taking the medicine, and continue taking it for 5 days. Remember this photo? Well, there were supposed to be two of these little packets.

Since you take the medicine for 5 days, and there were only 5 pills, I assumed that meant that I was supposed to take one pill a day, which I did. A few weeks later, I was "late". My period was MIA, and I started picking out baby names. After a few days of waiting to make sure it wasn't coming, I took a pregnancy test. I thought for sure I was finally going to see a positive... instead I saw what I always see: A negative pregnancy test. I called my fertility doctor upset, and explained that my period was late, and the pregnancy test came back negative. I told her it must mean that I didn't ovulate this month, which meant the clomid didn't work. She started telling me what our next plan of action was, which is when she asked me what my dosage was. I told her I took one pill a day, for 5 days... and that's when she told me I was supposed to be taking 2 pills a day, for 5 days. She looked up the prescription, and confirmed that I had taken the wrong dosage. She then explained that the pharmacy must have gotten it messed up.

I am now reverting back to my 5 year old ways, and calling the pharmacy a butthead. While I stick my tongue out at it.

Right now I'm taking Provera, a drug that will make me have a period, so that I can start taking the clomid 3 days into the cycle. For real this time.

Normally I would have drowned my sorrows into some kind of unhealthy goodness. Instead, I ate 2 of these deliciously healthy chocolate chip cookies, with a small glass of low-fat milk.
(I can't for the life of me upload pics from my camera, so I had to use my phone)It did just the trick. These cookies are free of white flour, and oh so yummy.

Trials will come. That is life. But I will NOT drown my sorrows in food, and let it get the best of me.
I deserve to be healthy, and it's up to me to make that happen.

I know that I will be a Mommy someday. It just wasn't this month.

Stupid pharmacy.
It's going to take me a couple days to stop saying that ;)

Living without the scale, and an NSV

For the past week and a half, I haven't been weighing myself.

My weight loss has been slow. slash non-existent. slash very frustrating over the past 6 months.
Yes, 6 whole months.

After losing 40 pounds, my weight loss went form a nice steady walk, where I would lose 2 pounds a week, to a painfully slow crawl, where I would only lose .5 to maybe 1 pound a week. I tried cutting down on my sugar intake, which didn't seem to help. Then I started the low glycemic index diet and ate cleaner, but that still didn't help the scale move any faster.

A vicious cycle followed:
I would do great on my diet for 3-4 days, step on the scale and see that I had only lost 1 pound after 4 days of perfect eating. Then I would get frustrated, and eat poorly for the next 2 days. I would of course gain a pound from my recent eating tantrum... so I would go back on my diet, do great for 3-4 days, lose only one pound, get frustrated, eat, gain back a pound, and so on and so forth. 1 step forward, 1 step back. 1 step forward, one step back. This went on for way too many months, which is why I am still 165 pounds. This was all caused by my frustration with the scale moving slowly. That frustration would cause me to go on and off my diet, losing a pound, and gaining it back, for the past 6 months. Where as if I had just come to terms with my new (slow) pace of weight loss, at losing .5 to 1 pound a week, I would have lost 12-24 pounds by now. That is a heck of a lot better then 0.

My solution: Stop weighing myself.

There are so many reasons why I need to live this healthy lifestyle:

• I need to be :Deliciously Healthy, so I can have a baby.
• I am borderline diabetic, and refuse to ever be diabetic.
• My PCOS puts me at a higher risk of having heart disease, and of course, diabetes.
• I need to be as healthy as I can be to combat my Lupus.
• Because of my RA, I need knee replacements. Being the healthiest I can be, will no doubt help me to hold off on replacements for as long as possible, as it already has.

So, whether I am trying to lose weight or not, I need to live and eat healthy. This is my new lifestyle. I don't know why I have been forgetting that.

My new focus is on eating healthy (low glycemic diet), drinking lots of water, and exercising. To be healthy. I've been doing those things already, of course, but the focus has changed.
It is no longer on the scale. Losing weight will naturally follow my healthy lifestyle. I don't need to keep checking in on it, and risk letting frustration with the scale, drive me to donuts.

I have been doing this for about a week and a half now. I have been doing better then I have in a long time. I haven't been going on and off my diet anymore. I am finally consistent again. Living one healthy day, after the next, and loving it. I am now doing this to simply be healthy, and that stupid scale doesn't mess up my progress.

We have two scales in our house (one in each of the upstairs bathrooms). I haven't moved them, or hid them. They are both still on the bathroom floor, right next to the toilet. I walk past them everyday, and don't give them a second thought.

I can feel that I've lost weight in the past week and a half, but I don't know how much, and I like that.

With all that said, it's the perfect time for a NSV (non-scale victory), wouldn't you say?

My husband left for a couple days on a business trip, and left half a pizza sitting in our fridge. I had a decision to make:
To eat the pizza, or not to eat the pizza?
I chose not to.
And to make sure I stuck with my decision, I threw the rest of the pizza in the trash.We can do this. One healthy decision at a time.

After almost 6 years of marriage...

...We finally got ourselves a toaster.
I have no idea what took us so long. I think it somehow got turned into a game- let's see how long we can make it without a toaster.
Answer: 5 years, 7 months, 11 days, 18 hours and 35 minutes.

My husband was excited to have a toaster strudel.I took one bite of his, and that was enough for me. Reading the ingredients and nutrition facts on these things, will help you do just that.

And I couldn't wait to get my hands on a nice and toasty
BLT, with turkey bacon.I like mine lightly toasted.
My husband likes his burnt.
Who knew? :)

Can you live without your toaster, or do you use it everyday?