Friday Weigh In

Hurray! One road trip later and I am still getting smaller! I wish the weight was coming off faster, however I know that this time, its coming off for real. I am working my butt off. I am watching what I eat and I am seeing the results. Its not fun, and its not easy. But its worth it.

Tomorrow I am going to post my newest green shorts picture. I am SUPER excited about it. I am also going to post on how to accurately measure yourself. My trainer taught me how to do this! I will make sure I post pictures.

Road trip to Baltimore - And I LOST weight!!

I have mentioned Noel in bast blog posts. We have ran together a few times, and we even ran a half marathon together not long ago. She got excepted into a masters program back in Baltimore. And she needed someone to drive with her from Utah to Balitmore. I am all about doing crazy, fun, stupid, things.. so I said Heck yes!

Here is an outline of our trip.

I will spare you guys most of the details... so.. down and dirty version of the trip is: 

We left Wednesday night around 4:30 and hit the road. That night we made it into Loveland Co. It was a 9 hour drive ya'll.

The next day (Thursday) we Drove from Loveland to Nauvoo Il. That is a 13 - 14 hour drive. I am pretty sure the seats in her car will forever have my butt imprinted on them.

Friday we walked around Nauvoo and then drove to Chicago to eat some pizza and then hit South Bend. Not a huge driving day... but we squeaked in around 6 hours.

Saturday we drove from south bend to Baltimore. 12 - 13 hours of driving.

And Sunday afternoon I flew back home to Utah. 

Monday I was SO tired. Not sure how I got up and went to work.


Now... the things that you might want to hear about. How I lost weight while I was driving for 14 hours... Brace yourself. Maybe you should sit down...... I watched what I ate. And thats it. No working out happened any of those days. In the slightest. I sat on my butt almost every day, all day. And then I went right to bed.

Noel packed some healthy lunches. Here is one:

This is chicken salad. Rather than using Mayo, we used an AvoMayo. I will include the recipe below. It looks a little green, however its SO yummy!!

 Here is a bowl of fruit that we picked up an a grocery store.

There is nothing better than fresh fruit in the mornings.

I also packed a blender bottle and protein powered. So with my fruit and could have some protein.


Do not get the wrong idea that I went on this awesome road trip and did not have any fun because I was trying too hard to only eat healthy stuff. We stopped in Chicago and I stuffed my face with cheese cake and deep dish pizza. In that order. :)

So Cheeessyyyy.. MMMM

I also had some snacks. However, I can say that I have never had a little bag of skittles last me so long. I bought it on Thursday and we finished it off on Saturday. That my friends is will power.We also bought a package or Twizzlers. And some blue gummy sharks.

In one of the rest stops I ate a hamburger and an Ice cream cone. And another night for dinner I ate a pretzel. And I did have some KFC as well. So.. while I did eat very healthy for the most part. I did not suffer. 

Another HUGE thing I need to mention is what I drank. WATER. WATER and some more WATER! No soda. No Pop. To coffee. No Tea. One morning I did put some orange juice into my protein powder... but thats it.  I know what your thinking... How the Hell did that girl stay awake while driving for 14 hours, and only drinking water. I have no idea.

I had a BLAST on my road trip and I lost half a pound.  No. that is not a huge loss. But the fact that I was on a vacation and I still lost weight makes me want to cry.

I do have more pictures that I want to show you.. however.. they are on my camera and I only have my phone with me. So stay tuned.


And here is the Avo Mayo Recipe.To make the chicken salad, chop up chicken, add in some grapes or apples, celery, maybe some purple onion... what ever you like to eat in Chicken Salad.

Avo Mayo1 ripe avocado
Juice of 1/4 lemon
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
3 Tablespoons light olive oil

Combine all ingredients except oil in the bowl of your food processor and blend until pureed. You will need to scrape down the sides several times to insure all avocado is pureed. 

When the mixture is smooth, drizzle the oil slowly into the processor while blending. Be patient - if you add the oil all at once or too fast, you will not achieve the rich creamy mayo-like texture that you're looking for.

Use immediately, or store in fridge for 3-5 days tightly covered. It may keep longer, but it never stays around my fridge long enough to find out.

RE-CAP of Monday Goals

I want to revisit my goals from last week and let you know how I did. :) 

Lift weights at least 5 times  - Like kick my butt, want to pee in my panties work out.  DONE AND DONE! Not only did I hit this one. I beat it. I lifted weights 6 times last week. However, I did not pee in my panties.

Train for my half marathon.
M - Run 3 miles DONE
T - Run 2 miles DONE
W - Run 3 miles  - Not done.
Th - Rest DONE
F - Cross Train DONE
S - Run 4 miles - Not Done. I only went three.

Eat Super healthy
I ate so healthy this week. On Saturday I was able to eat some sugar and some bread. (I made french toast with whole wheat bread and used peach jam rather than syrup) I thought that I was going to be in heaven. However, I got the worst head ache. It was miserable. But since it was my only day to eat sugar, I had a small piece of a cookie and an Ice cream cone later. However, I got headaches from them as well. This makes me sad and happy at the same time. I am not sure if its the sugar or the gluten that is doing this to me, but either way.. depressing.




This week I am going on a road trip with Noel. She is moving back to Baltimore and I am going to drive there with her, then fly home. I am a little worried that I will not be able to keep up my muscle tone without hitting the gym a few times. I might make her stop at a random gym and work out with me. She is a workout a holic just like I am. So it prob wont be a big deal. :)


I will try and post from the road and update you all with fun and fabulous pictures of me and noel. However.. who knows. So don't hold your breath.




I was so sleepy on Saturday that I fell asleep on the couch with my doggy. Tye came home and took this picture without me even knowing.  And now its yours to enjoy. :)

Friday Weigh In

Hey Ya'll. I just realized that the last few weeks, I have not posted my weights. When I looked through my phone to find the pictures.. I don't think I actually weighed in and took pictures. The good news is, this week I did!

HURRAY!!!! This week I have been lifting weights every day. I have been running/ walking most nights. And doing a crazy food plan to find out how my body metabolizes and uses food. Its nice to see a loss on the scale with all of the crazyness going on.

I have been thinking of doing a give a way. What would you guys like??? Money? Movie? Work out gear? Leave me a comment and let me know! :)

And just for fun.. A picture of me. I wanted to take a picture of me and the sun set behind me.. however... you kinda just get a little of both. Muh.. Enjoy it anyways!

Guest Post - This is how Andrea has lost weight while battleing PCOS.

 It seems like every where I go, I run into incredible girls. As we get talking, I find out that they have PCOS just like me. As Andrea is telling me her story I immediately ask her if she will be my next guest post. Her story is incredible and inspiring. I am so glad that she agreed! You are going to love this story, and her!

I’ve never been the tiny girl. I’m tall and big-boned and have always had thick thighs. When I was a child, my mother said that I had “froggy legs.” She wasn’t wrong, and still isn’t. As a teen, I always had a little extra chub (well, little for my frame, anyway). I wore a size 14 and weighed 180ish pounds, and unlike many, I was and still am mostly fine with that. I have biggish breasts and curvy hips, and I look pretty good at that size. But like many teenagers, I battled stress and self-loathing, and so at 15 I developed unhealthy and sporadic eating habits.

At 18 years, size 14.

In my junior year of high school, I got insanely sick – horrific cramps, clammy sweats, and vomiting. Even though we didn’t have health insurance, my father took me to the emergency room. Ugh. It was a horrible experience! I will just say this: the ER is an awful place to experience your first pelvic exam. I had an ultrasound and I was told that my little ovaries were drowning in cysts and that one of them was rupturing. Then I was released and that was that. No other information about treatment or forthcoming related health issues.

In college, my weight started going crazy. In my freshman year, mostly due to not eating, I lost 15 lb. and went to a size 12, but each consecutive year had me gaining a pant size. I continued my unpleasant weight gain until I was 25, which found me at a size 24/26 and close to 300 lb. While visiting my Primary Care Physician on an unrelated issue, she said that she wanted to talk about my weight and blood test results, including my high cholesterol. I did NOT. I’ve never been a big eater, but I was also never particularly active, and my weight was a matter of extreme shame. The doctor knew my disordered eating history, and so declared that I was binge eating without purging. Since I tended more towards NOT eating than overeating, I freaked out. For the next two weeks I was convinced that every single thing I put in my mouth was a binge, and so barely ate a thing.

pre-diagnosis, size 24ish

Then I shook myself out of it. I’m not stupid. I knew that I wasn’t binging, and that doctor had never even asked me to keep a food journal. I definitely knew more about my eating habits than that dumb, insensitive doctor. Luckily, at this point I had nice insurance, and so I went to see an Endocrinologist. She was a miracle. She looked at the exact same blood tests and said, “You have Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome.” We sat and talked about it. I had actually forgotten about my ER visit and the ultrasound entirely, as I had never been informed that there could be so many complications. This lady was great, and patient. She explained to me that I am Insulin Resistant – that my insulin is poor quality stuff and won’t connect properly with food particles, and so I gain and gain and gain, and that somehow this is connected to my unbalanced hormone levels.

pre-diagnosis, size 24ish

I never got facial hair or lost head hair, but I sure did get big. Anyway, Endocrinologist put me on 2000mg of Metformin (500mg the first month, adding another 500 each following month until I reached the goal dosage) and birth control. It wasn’t a miraculous fat-melting pill for me like it is for others. In the first 3 months, I only lost 16 lb., but it’s been slow and steady. I’m still big, but I’m also still fighting. It’s been 5 years since my diagnosis. I don’t have periods anymore, which honestly makes me feel like one of the Unwomen from Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale. And I’m not back to where I was when I started. I’m a 16/18 and 245lb. I’m much more active now – 18 months ago I completed the Couch-2-5k running plan and have been jogging my 12 minute mile since. I’ve run a couple of 5ks and started taking swimming lessons, which I love. 

I think one of my biggest hurdles is that, when I look at myself, I don’t see the weight loss. Being large, even though it wasn’t my fault, was emotionally traumatic for me, and when I look in the mirror, I am disgusted with myself, still. I don’t know if I’ll ever look at myself kindly, but I hope one day I can. There has been wonderfully tangible evidence of my weight loss – little victories that so many others in the world would never consider, but for me were so meaningful as to move me to tears. I remember when I bought a dress at a normal store. I remember when I fit into an airline seat without the armrest biting into my hip. I remember when I didn’t need the seat belt extender. I remember getting below 270, 260, 250.

Current - at my thesis defense - size 18 pants, 14 jacket

And I’ve had to learn. I’ve had to learn how to eat and how not to eat. I’ve done well with the Paleo/clean eating movements. I don’t do it perfectly – every day feels like a battle against my stupid body, and many days I hate it. I’ve tried to learn not to examine everyone else’s waists and hips and thighs, because it only ever leads to negative self-thoughts, which are NOT productive. I’m trying to learn how to overcome the 16/18 plateau, which I’ve been on for a few years now. One doctor told me that I should work out for 2 hours every day, but honestly, it wasn’t all that effective.

Anyway, there’s my story. My name is Andrea, and I have PCOS. I weigh a lot and battle self-loathing, but I’m not alone, and neither are you. It’s hard, but it’s harder alone than it is with supportive friends. I will not give up the fight for my health. I will never be skinny, and I may never have children, but I will be happy, fit, and healthy, even if it kills me. ;)

If you want to see what Andrea is up to, you can stalk her umm.. follow her blog here. 

Isn't she hott!!! 

http://resnoncon.blogspot.com/

Goals for the week

Hey guys, Sorry that I have been a slacker lately. I feel like life has gotten out of control. But the good news is.. my house is clean. The laundry is done and I have made myself some new goals for this week.

Goals: 

Lift weights at least 5 times  - Like kick my butt, want to pee in my panties work out.

Train for my half marathon.
M - Run 3 miles
T - Run 2 miles
W - Run 3 miles
Th - Rest
F - Cross Train
S - Run 4 miles

Eat Super healthy
I know that I am going to hit this one. My nutritionist gave me a 5 day meal plan to teach my body to burn fat rather than food. Its not a diet. You are not doing it to lose weight. Its strictly to train your body and get it going in the right direction. The meal plan costs $25 dollars and you can find it here: www.facebook.com/LGNFitnessUtah.   ( I will tell you that most people that finish the 5 day meal plan lose about 11 inches from their body and about 10 lbs... in one week. How awesome is that.. however, its not to be used as a diet. Or a quick fix to lose some inches. The weight loss is a side effect of the knowledge you are gaining)



And those are my goals. Totally doable.  Except for the fact that I only ran two miles yesterday. My hurt ankle from Monday and my sore calves from Tuesday were still more of a hindrance than I thought they would be. But I did run a mile later in the day.. so I did end up going three.. just not all together like I should have done.

As always, if you guys have any questions, red rover, red rover... Send em right over. brown.eyes.allen AT gmail  dot com

Nutrition Expert and Pain Inducer!

Earlier this week I met with an nutrition expert. This guy is also a personal trainer. I spent 4 hours talking to him about nutrition and how your body works and why people have such a hard time losing weight when they eat healthy and work out.

I do not have time to type down all 4 hours of things I learned, so I will give you a few steps. One at a time. Starting with the easiest and best.   DON'T EAT ANYTHING 3 HOURS BEFORE YOU GO TO BED AND EAT SOMETHING WHEN YOU FIRST WAKE UP!

Lets start with eating when you first wake up. Our bodies were not built for this day and age. We were built for the cave man days. Where you either had more food than you could eat and keep fit to eat, or you were starving. Feast and famine. When you go for a long period of time without eating, your body thinks that its a time of famine and it saves ever morsel you eat and stores it as fat. And when you work out while not eating enough food, your body thinks that you spent all day chasing a rabbit for dinner and did not catch it. So it saves even more of your food and stores it as fat. However, if you wake up and eat your body says.. hey.. We have food. When we eat again, we do not need to eat as much. And we do not need to store it as fat. Even if you just have a piece of fruit and some water, it will do the trick. Then, make sure to eat something light in between your meals. I'm talking cheese stick or a handful of almonds. Just something small to tell your body that you are doing ok. There is plenty of food around here. No need to store anything.

Now.. eating at night. We all do this. Ice cream before bed.. Heck.. Ice cream in bed. Cookies in the bedside table. I believe that all junk food tastes better after 9 pm. Its a proven fact! You can have some left overs in the fridge for three days.. and every time you open the fridge.. there is not a chance that you are going to eat them. Then.. its 11 pm. Your restless. Can't sleep. You open the fridge, and BAM! That food is now the most scrumptious thing you have ever laid eyes on. So you cram it down your throat. Happily!! Why is it that we do this?? WHY!!!    Well.. let me tell you. At night, when you have not eating, your body starts to eat your fat. (True story) Sounds to good to be true right! Well we have taught our bodies to not eat our fat. When our cells get hungry we have it tell our brain to feed us, and since our brain is so smart its now a habit to eat food rather than fat So when our body starts to eat our fat, our brain the obedient little creature it is.. says ... whoa whoa whoa.. stop that.. We eat food around here. Not fat. This is when we walk into the kitchen and chow down on KFC that we had for dinner 2 nights ago.    Did you know that you can burn more FAT calories in one night than you can working out at the gym for an hour a day every day. Running the whole time.  (Notice I said fat calories, not just calories, later we will go more in depth on this subject)

By doing the two simple steps above.. you WILL lose weight. Slowly and correctly and the way you are supposed to. Its how your body works. EVERY BODY. Science has proved it. And we all continue to prove it as we shuffle to the kitchen night after night.. eating food we really don't want to eat.

(Now some of you might be saying.. whoa.. you told us to eat so we are not in a famine, and then you told us not to eat so we can burn fat. I know.. I know.. Its the time of day that makes all of the difference. And its how fast your heart is beating that is the key. Your heart slows down at night and your body does what it was trained to do before your brain got into a silly habit. During the day when your heart is beating fast and you are in working mode.. you need to eat. If you have more questions, send me an e-mail and I will go into more depth)

As for the pain inducing part of the title. (If your even still reading...) I worked out with the above mentioned trainer and we did a calf work out. Holy shit snacks. I could not walk. I hobbled around work for three days. I hobbled around the gym. I hobbled to baby showers and through furniture stores. I have never been through so much pain in my life. And I have no pride left. However, my trainer did prove to me and himself that I will stick with it. I was still at the gym every day, even though I could not look people in the eye as I gimped along. He proved that I can do hard things, and that if I really want it, I can look like Jessica Beil one day. I choose to look like her in the picture below.

Love you ladies! Be healthy this weekend and NO visiting the fridge in your jammies. Unless you are starting out your day!

Green Shorts for August

Back at the first of July I decided to start something I will call green shorts. I have a pair of green shorts that i love, that are too small for me. Every month I will put them on and take an updated picture. Here is July 1st picture right next to my Aug 1st picture. I can see a little bit of a difference in my lower belly region. :)

I cannot wait to see next month.

Hope you guys have a happy Thursday. Tomorrow I am going to write down some of the things that I have learned from my personal trainer. You will not want to miss that!

GUEST POST!!! This is how Kirstin Loses Weight with PCOS.

I have a facebook page where we everyone who has pcos can join together. You can find it here. Due to this facebook page and some other pages on facebook, I have found an overwhelming amount of girls have PCOS and are fighting to be healthy and happy.

I want to share more than just my experience with PCOS and Kirstin was willing to do a guest post. She is SO cute! And SO inspiring!!  So read on! 

Growing up I was not only raised to eat whatever I wanted, however much I wanted, but I also did not eat healthy foods whatsoever.  I was quite active, played outside (as us children did of the 80’s & 90’s), before the technology world appeared.  I didn’t play a lot of sports but as a freshman in high school, I tried out for X Country (hence the start of my love for running – stay tuned).  However, I wasn’t able to continue after my freshman year due to that magical tree fairy not proving $$$ for gas in my car.

Fast forward to my 20’s… still skinny as a rail, and my lunches consisted of PBJ (all sugar), cookies, chips, soda (yuck just thinking about it), and lots of pasta, or whatever else I wanted.  As I progressed to the ripe age of about 25… I started noticing some changes… gaining around 10 pounds a year and going up a pant size each year thereafter… just thinking I guess this is what happens as you reach closer to your 30’s.  No big deal whatever.  After dealing w/ some major personal stresses, being single again, I had ALL this time to hit the gym, aka keep my mind off other things.  But the scale NEVER CHANGED.  Racking my brain around what am I doing wrong??!!!

Then out of nowhere, that summer, I met my now amazing husband.  Who loved the outdoors, camping, 4 wheeling, campfires = hot dogs, chips, and smores… oh my.  And losing track of where the gym was, and my time.  After a move to another state, the stresses of trying to find a new job, and planning a wedding, eating healthy and working out was not on the radar.  We talked about kids but it wasn’t a priority right away (more info on that in a minute).

After buying our first home that had 3 ripe bedrooms waiting for occupancy… every woman’s motherly instincts kicked in.  Time to start talking about a family.  We tried for about a year… and something just felt off.  I knew my periods were not normal, coming around every 40 days or so, but didn’t think anything of it.  And I also knew it was time for a yearly exam and needed to find a new dr. in my new state anyway.  I expressed my concerns with her, and she suggested I talk to their in-house infertility specialist.  My husband and I met w/ him and he suggested we do some blood work, and conduct an internal ultrasound.  Ok whatever, maybe this is normal??  Then the bombshell came, you have Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome – WHHAAATTT!!!  And what is that??  Explaining to me I hold on to sugar and don’t process it like others, “insulin resistant”.  He said you also have a “ring of pearls” around your ovaries which causes you not to ovulate, and release an egg.  Even more awesome!  And even more, your hormone levels are way off.  Huge blow and extremely crushing.  I came back to work and started researching what it was, and the probabilities of having children??  He then wanted my husband to do some testing as well… results = we both have infertility issues.  Awesome I thought… with a million thoughts running through my head of why us?  He gave us the options of not only treating PCOS but also what our options were to conceive.  We discussed and decided to move forward… not realizing the extent and time involved.  That lasted about a month… and I said no more… this is WAY too expensive… and I can’t go through this roller coaster.

So-on we went with life.  If it wasn’t going to happen naturally than such is life.  January 2011 I was at my all-time heaviest pushing 170 and wearing a size 12, and feeling disgusting.  Started WW, and lost around 10 pounds or so… the hardest 10 pounds of my life btw.  Then life happened again, my husband was critically injured in a logging accident, August 2011, and I had a home full of guests, and lots of eating.  January 2012… I had, had enough… I hired a personal trainer and worked harder than I ever have before.  The scale not moving much, thinking it must just be b/c I’m gaining muscle.  But also, the inches… not so great either… thinking WHAT is happening.  I’m eating good, 6 small meals a day, ugh.  Maybe this is what happens when you hit those 30’s??!!  This spring, it was time to go back for my yearly again, and I expressed my concerns, with my “shelf” of a gut, and not losing any weight no matter how much I did.  She suggested Metformin; 500mg once a day, and twice a day after about a month.  When I first started taking it, I felt awful, dizzy (worst feeling ever), headache, etc.    Not being a fan of taking prescription drugs, even refusing to take Tylenol or Advil for even a headache, but if Metformin will keep the weight off, and help me feel a little more flattering, I’m going to give this a try, something has to work!

I have now been taking it full time, for a few months, and just within the last few weeks, have successfully gotten past this plateau, and I am almost to my goal weight of 135.  I can fit into a size 8, and also feel amazing.  I still watch what I eat, still work out 5-6x a week, and have been doing more strength straining, on the days I don’t run.  I did my first race, 7.46 miles this spring, thinking I will run and walk when I can’t run anymore, and I ran the whole thing, best feeling ever.  Now no medals were won, but by golly I finished that race in an all out sprint.  I also, ran in the dirty dash in June, a 5k through mud, yes you read it right = so fun.  And why not go all out, and sign up for my first ever ½ marathon in September.  Hence my love for running.

As I look back, I HAD ALL THE TYPICAL SIGNS… oily skin, unwanted facial hair, and in other places it shouldn’t be, that weren’t so flattering… I have done lots of reading, but even w/ having PCOS, everyone is so different.  We are all in this together.  I am by far not perfect, I have my bad days, binge eat, and have days of feeling disgust, but I get back on the weight loss/maintenance train and push forward some more.

A huge thank you to Paige for starting your blog, and facebook page, for all of us to join together as one with PCOS.  It’s great to finally have a resource to go to, to ask for advice, vent, or share what works for you/or doesn’t.  The lucky ones that don’t have to live with PCOS, don’t understand, what we as a group understand together.  Thank you.  

Kirstin Darry

If anyone would like to contact me, they can email me directly at: KirstinDarry@yahoo.com

Personal Trainers and Freak Accidents

Last night I met with a personal trainer and nutrition specialist. This guy is not Joke. He went to school, got multiple degrees, has done studies for university and is writing a book. The most educated man in fitness that I have ever met.

My meeting with him last night was almost 4 hours long. He taught me what to eat and when to eat and how to eat it. He taught me how the body works and why it does that. He taught me so many things, I thought my head was going to explode.

The best thing I learned last night is that I am scared. I am scared to lose weight. To actually try really hard to lose weight. What happens if I try really hard, and I fail. What happens if I eat foods that I don't really like, and I work out super hard and I stay fat. That is SCARY! I do not want to be they way I am now. However, its safe. As I was crying he grabbed my hand and let me know that he does not fail. He knows what to do and when to do it. I just have to listen to him and then do what he tells me. That easy and that hard. And that, I can do.

He also let me know that I am using the gym as a crutch. I go to the gym because I feel like I am doing something and if I don't go to the gym, I feel like a failure. He asked me what I was going to do if I got injured and was not able to go to the gym. After I told him that I would panic, he let me know that it was ok. I did not need to go twice every day. I would be fine.

A little bit of me feels like he jinxed me. Because this morning at 5:30 AM, I injured myself. I was walking out to my jeep to meet a friend and go for a run. As I stepped off of my porch I stepped on a pine cone and twisted my ankle causing me to fall. Hard. I started to panic. I cannot hurt myself, then I will not be able to run.... Then I remembered what I learned the night before. Immediately I felt calm and relaxed and I knew it was going to be ok. I now had the knowledge that I needed to fix this.

I am still hoping and praying that its just a strained muscle and not a broken bone. I do know that it is not a sprained ankle. All of the pain is in my foot.

I hope you guys all have a great night, and a better morning tomorrow than I had today. When I have more time, I will let you all know more about what the trainer said.

 Here is my foot all wrapped up with ice.

 

And here is the bruise/cut on the shin on my other leg. I really did land hard. 

5k Race with Ashley

A while back my friend asked me if I would run a 5k with her. We found one that donated all of the money to a good cause, and we signed up. That race was today! And we ROCKED it. We finished in 32 minutes and 47 seconds. Not too shabby. We even ran up some hills. The raced started at 8 am and I was worried it was going to be killer hot. It was about 80 degrees.. so warm, but not as bad as I expected. Over all, I LOVED this race.


Here we are... So cute.

After the race they did a big giveaway. As we were waiting to see if we won anything, we saw this.  NASTY! You could even see the hair poking through his mesh shirt. It was so bad that I just had to share with everyone.

Hope you all are having a great day!! Make sure to eat healthy!! You can do it!!

Friday Weigh in

Its super busy here at work today.. So this is going to be short and sweet! I am down from last week!! :) Waa Hoo.

Here is to NEVER seeing the 190's again.

Stay strong everyone!! :) And have a great weekend!

My fight with PCOS and how I have started to lose weight

This post is all about Poly cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and a lot of what I have learned having it, and how to be healthy. I want to give you my back story. Most people I have talked to have similar stories and it might help us to relate to each other.

My story starts when I was about 13 years old. During that year I gained almost 50 lbs. (And none of it in my boobs!) Can you imagine being 13 years old and going from skinny to fat and still not needing to wear a bra! I was a wreck!

When I was 15 years old I was diagnosed with PCOS. My Dr was a 70 year old male. He told me that my body was fuel efficient and if the world was ending, I would outlive most people. He never explained to me why or told me what was going on with my body. He told me the only way I would lose the weight would be to work out and eat less. My Dr even made me memorize how many calories are in a pound so I would know how hard I had to work.  Then he put me on a birth control pill and told me to stay on it. And that's just what I did. I was on birth control until I was 19 years old.

Age 19 is when I stopped taking birth control. I was done watching my weight sky rocket. (Age 19 is also when I got my first zit... So I will admit that birth control did have its advantages)  As you know, one of the major sides of birth control is weight gain. At this time I gained another 40lbs.

I am now 19 years old, going to college and I weighed 200 plus pounds. I never weighed myself during this time so I don't know what I weighed, however I do have some of the clothing I wore then, and it’s too big on me now. All of my life I have hated exercise and 19 year old me hated it as well. So I forced myself to take a step class and a circuit training class. They were great, but I only took the classes for a semester. Once the class was over, I was done. I did not keep up on it.

Around age 22 I moved in with a girl who had PCOS and her Dr was putting her on a medication called Metformin that was causing her to lose weight. So I went to my Dr (the same old guy I saw before) and he told me that he had never heard of doing this, and was not going to help me out. If I wanted to lose weight I had to just eat less and work out.

So I got a new dr. They said the same thing. But he wrote me the prescription any way. This prescription was for Metformin. However he said, its not going to change anything. So take it if you want, or don’t take it. No difference. I started to take it and I got really sick. So I stopped taking it.  I was exasperated. I have a genetic disorder that makes me fuel efficient, makes me store fat, makes me chunky and feel ugly, and the one medicine that might help makes me sick.  I gave up and realized that I was going to be the chunky girl my whole life.

Around this time I got married and my husband’s sister is a runner. She got me hooked.  Over the last three years I have ran 4 half marathons, countless 5k’s, a few 5 miles runs, and much more. And did I lose weight. Yes. But not much. Did I tone up? Oh yeah. I lost a few pant sizes, but I am still a bigger girl, and I still want to be smaller.

The same time that I started running, I found a new Dr. She was young and she did her thesis on PCOS. I asked her “Why is it that I can work out two times a day and eat healthy and not lose weight.” Something has to be going on. And she explained to me exactly what the problem is.  I am insulin resistant.

Insulin resistant... Wha??   I had her explain it to me in kindergarten terms what it means. When you eat food, your body breaks it down turns it into sugar in your blood and then the insulin come in and turns it into energy. Diabetics cannot control their insulin, so some times their blood sugar gets really high, or really low. My body makes insulin, but it just does not care. My body will not let the insulin make that blood sugar into energy. Instead my body stores it, and you gain weight. I can eat the same things as a normal person and I will gain weight while they lose or stay the same.   (Remember.. this is in kindergarten terms...)

My Dr let me know that if we took a blood test right now, it would be normal because my body is resisting the insulin. I am making the right amount of insulin, just not using it. So do not even worry about taking a blood test. Just start taking Metformin. This will make my body use the insulin that I am making.

Metformin is not a magic weight loss pill, it’s not going to solve all of my weight loss woes.. However, it will help me to perform better. I should be able to have more energy and not store so much food as fat.  With this drug I have the chance to lose weight like a normal person.

This prescription however is going to make me pretty sick for a little while. But, its going to be worth it. I just have to stick it out. You usually take Metformin in waves. You start out with 500 mg. And it might make you sick. When I started taking it, I got headaches and super upset tummy and diarrhea…  but I found out if I ate healthy the symptoms were far less. After you start feeling better, usually just a few days, you up your dose.  My goal dose is 1500 mg a day. Lots of people are at 2000 mg a day. It just depends on your size.

When I started taking Metformin I weighed in at 197. That was on June 11^th. Since then I have lost almost 10 lbs. During that time I have also been going to the gym at least once a day (Many times twice a day) and I have ran a half marathon. I lift weights three times a week and I do the 30 day shred on my lunch breaks. So I am not going to credit my weight loss all to Metformin. I did not start taking this drug and eat whatever I wanted, never work out and lose weight. However, I have worked out like that for years and never lost weight. And now I have. With Metformin all of my hard work has started paying off.

I am not a professional. I am not a dr. But I have been dealing with PCOS for the last 12 years. And I do know a thing or two about working out. And I do know what it feels like to be the chubby girl. I know what it feels like to have everyone around you say how fat they are now that they have had kids, and you don’t have any kids, and you are heavier than them. I know how it feels to eat 1200 calories and work out for an hour a day and not lose a pound all week. Yet your friend loses 4 pounds that week.  

I also know how it feels to finally lose weight. To FINALLY find something that will work. To have hope. To be NORMAL! And to have my hard work finally start working for me.

If you have any questions, please comment below and let me know. I want to make sure we are all in this together. It’s a struggle. And it’s heart breaking. But together, we can be strong. And we can become the person we wanted to be, living in the body that we love and are proud of!

I have also started a facebook page we can all get together on and help each other out. Here is a link: https://www.facebook.com/SayingNoToCookies  ( I am new to this, so let me know if I need to start a different type of page) 

My three year anniversary!!

So.. this blog post is not about losing weight at all. Its all about my amazing husband and I. Today is our three year anniversary! We made it, and its been the best three years of my life. Without this man, I would not be the person I am today.

And now.. a bunch of pictures of us.

This picture was taken before we even started dating. We were best friends and went for a snowshoeing trip with a bunch of friends. Little did I know, he was super upset that we invited friends, because he was planning on busting a move that night. Muh.. it all worked out later.

This picture was right after we got engaged.

Pictures from our wedding.. It was beautiful!

And a bunch of other pictures of us over the last three years. 

Family Pictures

Us in Hawaii.

This was one of our engagements.

Um.. Yeah.. I am spanking him with a frying pan.. Not sure what to tell ya. :)

Summer time hike

 

Another one of our engagements.

Awe.. How cute are we.