A pretty weekend

Today was really nice! Cap and I woke up, I took my  meds, and then we went yard saling and to a flea market and swap meet. We found some really neat ones, one a couple of old ladies who's antique shop had closed and another that was in an abandoned building in a town near by. I have not felt a single hot flash and I've been able to control my temper when upset. I don't know if its because I'm calmer, weigh less, or it really is the diet and exercise but "so far so good."

We had a little disagreement about where to go for lunch, Cap not being completely on the paleo lifestyle with me, wanted Taco Bell. I can't eat a single thing there. So we settled on Chick Fil A and I got a side salad and a fruit cup. I'd had a smoothie in the morning and a banana so I wasn't famished and that held me until dinner time. Dinner was spectacular! I made eggplant with sausage and baked onions and tomatoes. It was the most delicious thing I'd ever had. I didn't have linked sausage like the recipe calls for but I did have ground. 

Here's the link. Trust me, its completely unreal! I'll make this again and again. It was so good that Cap wants us to grow eggplant in the little garden patch. http://www.thefunctionalfoodie.com/2010/09/paleo-eggplant-parmesan-hold-parmesan.html

I've already got us ready for church in the morning with our clothes ironed and a pan of the breakfast bread in the oven as I type. I hope Cap likes it. I finally picked up some vanilla extract, so my complaint of its saltiness should be gone now with that and the mashed up banana that I add to it. I'm also making ham, asparagus, sweet potatoes, and a meringue for dessert tomorrow. I'll definitely put pictures up for that. 

Found this online as well and it made me giggle... hope this is not a side effect I experience this round!

First Friday update/Organic Gardening

Today was a big day!! I'll go in the order the events happened so as not to overwhelm you. Woke up to take my second dose of Clomid for cycle two and felt pretty good and happy all morning. Then I went out to water my small veggie/herb garden and found full heads of spinach leaves and three tiny tomatoes! I'm making fish and scallops tonight and harvested a bed of the spinach leaves to steam and eat for dinner. Aren't they beautiful? I also have some bell pepper flowers blooming so tiny peppers are on their way as well.

 Spinach leaves

 beefy tomato

 2 roma tomatoes

green bell pepper blossoms!

I also had an early day workout with Emily and we did a weigh in and it was pretty fantastic. According to her scale I was dab on 197 but my scale was 196.5, so we'll say 196.8 and thats a two pound loss in one week. I'd say I'm doing pretty well! I ran 1.6 miles and did some strength training today but man was it miserably hot! I don't know how I'm gonna do this in the summer. I need to find a pool ASAP.

No real breakdowns or flashes yet... gotta see how tomorrow feels. Chart looks pretty normal at this point, my temp goes up and down before ovulation anyway. I'm excited to see what happens next week though, that's BD time!

Dinner was delicious, stole two seafood recipes from http://paleodietlifestyle.com/cooking-whole-fish-grilled-trout-recipe/ but with tilapia instead and then citrus scallops. I also cooked up the spinach in some olive oil and garlic and it was delicious! Tomorrow I'm gonna tackle some eggplant parm, minus the parm. We'll see how that goes. I'm really excited about dessert on Sunday... I will ddefinitely take pictures of that.

Here we go-- Clomid cycle #2

Found this on Pinterest today and I really laughed out loud! What perfect timing...

I decided that since I'm only working for a few hours tonight that I'd take the pills in the morning instead of changing how I did it last time. I'll be done with them Monday morning and the brunt of the side effects starts happening after the second dose.

The paleo seems to be going well. I'm not having the major cravings for sugar like I did yesterday but I'm wondering if my body is responding to it at all. I weighed in today and it seems that I've only lost a pound so far. I'll do the official weigh in tomorrow with Emily so I can't say anything yet and I know I didn't work out yesterday, but I still feel like I ate so healthfully that it shouldn't matter. But I'm only on the fourth day and hey, if I lose another pound by tomorrow that's a half pound a day. I guess I'll do another weigh in on Monday too because that will be a week of the lifestyle.

I had some of my mini egg casseroles and a slice of the breakfast bread for breakfast, a banana for a snack before the gym, then some bites of the shredded chicken. I made a strawberry blackberry smoothie and a pear for dinner. Just wasn't very hungry today I guess. I didn't make a dinner for the hubs because I had a work thing tonight so he made a frozen pizza and ramen for dinner. Maybe its being in the military or his fast metabolism, but sometimes I hate him. Oh well, nothing I can do about that. I only wanted to punch one person at work but I controlled myself.:)

Setbacks

So I hurt myself at work today. I was putting up some new displays and got on a table to straighten a picture and it cracked and I fell right through it. I ended up landing on my knee and felt a jolt go through my back. My knee is swollen and bruised and my back is still sore. My boss had me fill out an incident report and wanted me to go to a doctor right away, but I just came home to rest instead. So I'm not exercising today, but I w1asn't supposed to yesterday (my rest day) so I guess today is my new rest day. At least I ate well today. 

This was my smoothie recipe from this morning. I actually made two smoothies and had one when I got home so you can half this for just one.

2 cups coconut milk

1 tbs honey

1 tbs almond butter

1 bag mixed frozen fruit (strawberries, bananas, mango)

It made two 16 oz smoothies that were super tasty. One blog I read said to put a raw egg in it, but I don't think I'm mentally "there" yet. Seems so body builder to me. For lunch I had a garden salad with more of the shredded chicken and homemade dressing on it. I also had a banana and pear for snacks at work. 

Dinner was beef goulash and it was super juicy and tender. The meat just fell apart. I also found the recipe here at http://paleodietlifestyle.com/hungarian-beef-goulash/ .

I start the Clomid tomorrow and I'm really super nervous about it. I don't know what time to take it because I'm not sure how I'll react this time. I took it in the morning last time and would have hot flashes both night and day and I definitely had the crazy mood swings all day long. I've read on some blogs to take it at night so that the majority of the sweating will take place at night, but I had it at night with the last dose anyway. I'm also nervous about how I'm going to act towards Cap. I'm trying to convince him to take us to the beach this weekend for sun and fishing. We did that two Easters ago and had a great time. We don't have any family close at all to have holidays with which is kind of depressing but that's the army life. I don't know how eating would go if we left town though. I mean I know I can always find a salad to eat, but its not like I'll be able to cook. Anyway, one day at a time. Right?

Insights on the journey

So last night I put out on my facebook a link to this blog and I actually got some really nice messages from some friends. Some people didn't know what PCOS was and are now aware of it, but there were a few that shared with me that they too suffered from some of the symptoms of the illness. I've said it before and I'll probably say it a lot while I'm up on here on my milk crate about support for this disease, but one in eight women suffers from it. From the friends I heard about last night, two of them have always been thin since I've known them and they are both already mothers. It shows that this is not a disease of obesity like its been labeled a lot of the time in the media and on the web; and it also shows that there is great hope for those of us out there. 

I hate when I go to the pharmacy to pick up my Metformin and the pharmacist asks me if I have diabetes. Like there is no other reason a person could be on that medication. I am heavy and I'm working on getting as physically fit as I can, but it takes time. When people comment on me starting to  look "skinny" I always shake it off and just say no, I'm just getting closer to average. I'm not putting myself down, but I do know I have a long way to still go. I'm glad I've got the support of these people and my close friends and family, and I wouldn't turn that support down in a second, but I do know that years of bad choices have put me here so I know I still have years to go to be normal.  But I also know this disease pretty well now too. I know it isn't all bad choices, that its the way this disease affects the body. I put weight on easily and when its hard to get it off, I get discouraged and eat for comfort. I'm working on finding new outlets to make myself feel better, but I still get discouraged every month I get my period or get told that I had something negative come back on my blood work. I'm hoping that the rush I get from exercising and the ease of getting acquainted with this new eating habit is enough to stop more backlash.

Well, I did say yesterday that I had off work and that I was going to make a chicken stock from the leftovers from dinner and I did do just that today. I found a few recipes and tips online for how to prepare it and this is how its turned out.

I took the carcass and added celery, carrots, onions, dill, basil, and thyme covered it all in water and brought it to a boil. Then after the boil, I brought it immediately to a simmer and continued for four hours. Then I strained off all the solid pieces and put the remaining stock in the freezer. After it freezes I will scrape off the fat on top and then its soup time!

Dinner tonight was amazing! Found a paleo coconut shrimp recipe and made an arugla and spinach salad with it! Too die for!

Here's the link for the recipe! http://fastpaleo.com/fried-coconut-shrimp/

I also broke down and made the breakfast bread. It's kinda salty from the almond butter and I didn't have any stevia and couldn't find the vanilla extract... I added agave nectar in its place but it didn't give it enough flavor. I will try again next week. 

Here's the real recipe: www.elanaspantry.com/paleo-breakfast-bread/

I was also really proud of myself for going to the movies today with apples and grapes and a bottle of water to snack on during the show. Here's to me! Two more days til I start Clomid and I'm trying to prepare Cap for the crazy by making him clean up his own messes and getting in the habit now before I start screaming at him. Hope he learns soon, for his sake. :)

Paleo day one

So I had a little friend visit me last night! And the cycle has restarted! I love when my cycle day is the first of the month. It's so much easier to track things. So the crazy pills will start on Thursday. I'll show you my chart on Friday.

Anyway, today also starts my paleo lifestyle. Last night in anticipation of going through the sugar withdrawals, I decided to make breakfast for the week. I found some cute pictures of mini casseroles on Pinterest but none that actually linked to ingredients and times for cooking, so I took it upon myself to make one as tasty as possible. Now, a lot of people are torn on the role of dairy in the paleo lifestyle but I'm gonna at least keep it in this week as I'm transitioning and then see if I can take it out.

So here is what I made!

6 brown cage free organic eggs

1 splash of organic heavy cream

4 strips of nitrate free bacon chopped up

1 cup of organic white cheddar cheese

2 tbs organic butter

The first thing I did was heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and I pan fried the bacon pieces. I also saved the rendered bacon fat for later use. You need to let the bacon cool before you add it to the other ingredients in a large bowl or it will start to curdle. I also lined a muffin pan with cups but you can just use butter to grease the pan. I then cooked the egg mixture for 25 minutes and then a minute on broil to get a nice brown top. Then I stuck them in a Tupperware bowl and will eat 2 or 3 each morning. That amount of ingredients only made 10 cups so I think one more egg would have givens an even dozen. They were really delicious the next day!

For lunch I had a prepared salad that I added shredded chicken and homemade olive oil and lemon juice dressing to. I also loaded up on fruits cause of an insane workout today; a banana, pear, and almonds to keep my energy up.

My workout today was a mile and a half run and some arms and abs toning. It was boiling hot outside today so I'm thinking of moving all my outdoor workouts til before 8am.

For dinner I made one of the recipes from Paleo Diet Lifestyle whose recipe can be found here:

http://paleodietlifestyle.com/ginger-citrus-roast-chicken/

Instead of making homemade sweet potato fries, I did some hunting and found out that the Ore Ida crinkle fries have the least additives and preservatives and extra sugars, so I had one serving of that. This meal was so moist!!

Here's mine! I had a lot of leftovers as well and will eat that all day tomorrow as well as making a stock from the carcass. I need to run to the store and get veggies to throw in with it. I'll let you know how that goes.

All in all it was a pretty good day with no sugar cravings. Tomorrow might be harder because I don't have work and will try to stay out of the house as much as I can. My husband did eat some Popsicles  in front of me and that was really mean, but I'm also thinking of making some paleo breakfast bread tomorrow with the almond flour that I got at the super market to be a sweeter treat. But then again, maybe I should wait til next week and just eat fruit when I have a craving... we shall see.

Charting and all its mumbo jumbo

I'm a member of fertilityfriend.com and with this tool, I can monitor a whole mess of things each month to see how I'm doing ovulation/fertility wise. I can also track my medication intake, BBT, how often we've babydanced, when I have mood swings and so much more.

I took Clomid in February of this year and knew that I ovulated from progesterone tests at the doctor's office and this is what my chart looked like. You can see that I got a positive LH surge on day 18 of my cycle and my temperature stayed up until I got my period after day 31 of this period cycle. I could also track what days I took my medications (I'm also on Metformin which is supposed to help ovulation as well and keep my insulin resistance in check) and when we had sex: which all the sites like to call the babydance or BD. I'm a little less shy about it so I don't care.

Now take a look at March's chart. It says I got a positive LH surge on day 13 of my cycle and a temperature jump at day 14. I was thrilled with this because I haven't had a normal cycle since I got off the pill. But then things get hairy. We did it at what I thought was the right time, but then the temperature dips start to happen. And you can also see I am going beyond when I was supposed to have ovulated because I'm already at day 30 without a period. It's a waiting game at this point but man do my boobs hurt and yesterday at the flea market I was nauseous and a little crampy. I even took another pregnancy test this morning just to make sure my doctor wasn't mistaken. Of course she's right, it was negative. But there's always the hope at the back of the head.

So now we play the waiting game, but in the meantime, I've shopped for my Paleo adventure and will start sharing my recipes and foods with you and let you know how that's going. I have a workout with Emily tomorrow and she promised a nice long run for me. I was supposed to have done my fourth 5k (this being the first to be completely jogged with little to no waking breaks) on St Patty's day but it got rained out and postponed for a day I had a big work event and after I'd gotten no sleep because I saw the midnight HUNGER GAMES premier. Did I mention I'm a huge dork? So I'm now training for one in April. I've got 3 weeks.

Not gonna lie, I love PEETA. haha.