How did it get to be 2012?!?!

Everything is moving so fast! How did we get ankle deep in to January already?!

I'm making good things happen in my life. I've been doing lots of new crafty things, started a (phone) photography project, plugging away at hooping, knitting outside my comfort zone, clearing out clutter and planning some redecorating. All of this is helping with the seasonal crap that has been bogging me down a bit.

December contained:
*A sick dog who is now all better after $1,000 of vet bills. That was after the savings I get for having a Pet Insurance Plan.

*An XBox 360 with Kinect as a holiday gift for the household. I'm not a big gamer but this thing is a lot of fun. Also, having my Hulu and Netflix set up through the XBox is super cool.

*A Nook E-Reader. I love it. So far I've been loading it up with knitting patterns and taking advantage of my local library's e-book lending. After a book resell trip to Powell's for credit I'll be loading it up with some books from their e-book offerings. (Nook is from Barnes & Noble but, unlike Kindle, they make it easy to put other format types on your e-reader.)

*A very crazy month of eating whatever I wanted...a bit too much. I'm back on the WW wagon to continue my healthy habit building.

*An Instagram photo challenge where I took a photo every day of December to match each day's theme. I'll be doing a post with a link to those pictures. I loved doing the daily themes but I've moved to weekly themes for 2012 to give me a bit more breathing room. If you are on Instagram and want to follow me I use the name "yeledov" so look me up!

*A lot of physical therapy for a moderate tear in my right rotator cuff. I'm improving slowly and have at few more months of this. It has put a serious cramp in my hooping practice but I work with what I have.

Coming up in January:
*Baseline ultrasound to double check that my reproductive bits are structurally normal. I've had one before but it was 4 years ago.

*Clomid Challenge Test without insemination. Now that I'm in the "elderly" age bracket for infertility my NP wants to check my response to Clomid again. I have another cycle of side effects and blood tests to look forward to. This will tell us if it is still worth the money and stress of doing the last two infertility cycles or if we should just throw in the towel now. Strangely, I'm not too worried about this. I think, whatever my problem is, it isn't my ability to ovulate.

*A landmark birthday for Monkey. He is crossing the 35 year line. I'm not sure why but this seems like a big deal.

*Lots and Lots of new crafting/art/knitting things.

I'm going to try to blog more. I'm still trying to decide if I need to make a creative arts blog as well or if I should keep it all mixed up here. Hmmm.

The Dinner Project - Taco Salad

For this Dinner Project post I'm going back to the meal that started this all. The taco salad that made me think "I need to take a picture of this!"

For our taco salads we have little or no carbie stuff. Author will sometimes have a few light tortilla chips with his but that is about it. Mostly, it is all about the meat and veg for me though we do have beans and rice as well.

We start with extra lean ground beef, no more than 5% fat. We get it from a place that grinds it's own beef and doesn't add any of that disgusting "pink slime" filler that is chemically treated. (If you don't know about this stuff I suggest you look it up. Foul! And in almost every bit of ground beef on the market!) Someday I'd like to grind my own beef but this supplier is fine until then. I cook the beef in salsa. Nom! Since Monkey has an allergy to fresh tomato, the salsa has to be blended smooth and cooked completely. (We have no idea why this works for him but is the only way he can eat tomato products without severe nausea/vomiting and hives.) As a result, I usually add some Anaheim peppers and

onions to give it a little more texture.

For the veg, I saute a bunch of veg, usually red and green peppers, onions and mushrooms. Then the fresh salad fixings. We usually go though whole head of lettuce for the three of us. I like a nice mix of butter and red leaf lettuce. I'm the only one who eats fresh tomatoes but, during the season, I use a ton of them! I also save a little of the salsa before blending it for Monkey so I can add it to my salad. We top off the veg with some olives and, sometimes, roasted green chili.

The fatty bits: Ideally we would have fresh guacamole but good avocados are 1) difficult to find in Oregon and 2) difficult to fit into a weight loss plan. Sometimes we find a good one and can't resist adding a tablespoon to our taco salad night. Avocados are the one thing I miss right now. There are no "light" avocados. To make up for the lack of creamy green goodness we do add sour cream. None of that "light" crap. I have yet to find a light sour cream that doesn't taste like paste. I do however use a very good Tillamook reduced-fat cheese. You still can't use much but an ounce of this can go a long way.

So here is the plate that started my interest in documenting my favorite dinners. Look at how beautiful! Look at how much food! While eating my amazing taco salad I don't feel deprived of quantity or taste. I can be a foodie and still lose the extra weight!

The Dinner Project

I am a foodie. I love to eat. I love good food, fancy and simple. I love to cook even though my skills are pretty down-home.

However, I also have a problem with food. Years of out of control Binge Eating Disorder added with a typical American diet/lifestyle made me morbidly obese. I was lucky enough to hit my mid-thirties with no sign of obesity related diseases but I knew it was only a matter of time before my luck would run out. Thankfully, I've managed to get what I needed to deal with my eating disorder and get my weight down before I lose my health. Last January I started both a cognitive behavioral therapy program and Weight Watchers Online. To date I have lost 51lb.

The other night I was sitting down for dinner, looking at this amazing taco salad that I had fixed my family, and thought "Why didn't I realize I could be healthy and still eat this good!" I grew up going on diet after bland diet, wishing I could just eat something that had some kind of taste. In the end, I always broke my diet because I missed the joy in eating good food. I still see images in the media of people on diets eating plain celery sticks and looking longingly at some one else's plate. Or, even worse, dieters chowing down daily on prepared meals filled with salt and chemicals. (Not to say I don't pop in a frozen lunch every once in awhile but it is pretty rare.) We are told that dieting is either suffering or replacing real food with some synthetic food alternative.

The truth is eating healthy and eating well really go hand in hand. Even when you are living this truth it can be easy to forget. I eat better now than I ever have in my life! I still get shocked at the dinner table sometimes when I realize how much I've already lost while still eating great. To remind myself and share it with the interwebs, I have decided to start The Dinner Project on my blog. I will post a picture and the recipe for my favorite meal of the week. (I'd love to do it almost daily but that would be a lot of work!) Mostly I am doing this to remind myself but I hope some one out there stumbles upon one of my dinner posts, gives the recipe a try and enjoys a healthy, tasty meal.

Let's eat!

On a lighter note...

As sad and painful as the subject of my last post was my life goes on. I worked hard for this life so I'm going to enjoy the little happy things when I have them.

So, on a lighter note...

I'm lighter again! I've reached my latest weight loss goal. I have now lost 10% of my starting body weight. Studies have shown that, if you are overweight or obese losing 5%-10% of your body weight results in markedly improved health. Even if I stopped here I will have added years to my life. Of course, I'm not stopping here. I'm on a roll! I'll never be what is considered "optimal" weight for my height/age, I've done too much damage to myself to get that low again, but I can get much closer than I am now.

It is crazy how much my life has changed over the last six months. The proper medication treatment for my depression and anxiety have given me a completely different quality of life than I ever thought possible. My cognitive behavioral therapy program for my disordered eating has worked better than I could imagine. The WW program has been simple to adjust to and given better results that I expected. My family is doing well. My pets are healthy. We have some good potential donors and, if those don't work out, I can still go back to my old donor boy. I keep looking around in awe at how freaking good my life is. Some of it is chance, dumb luck, but some of it I've worked damn hard on to change. I'm proud of myself. ::does a happy little bear dance::

::whispering:: shhhh...i don't want to say this too loud or think about this too much but i also know that, sometimes, losing 10% of your body weight if obese results in increased fertility. there are a lot of studies showing that unexplained infertility in obese women mysteriously resolve when they lose about 10% of the original weight. could i be that lucky? could this actually make the difference that we can't seem to find any other way? this isn't why i chose to lose weight but it would be the best unexpected side effect. ::crossing fingers::

Stranger in the mirror

Sometimes changes happen so fast you can't help but notice them. Sometimes changes happen so slow you barely notice...until suddenly you notice it all at once. I think the slow changes are somehow more shocking.

I was wearing a pair of last year's shorts for the first time since losing weight. I had smaller jeans in my wardrobe that I've started wearing as they fit again so I haven't noticed really baggy jeans. My shorts are replaced each summer so I only have the size I wore last spring. (I'm very hard on my shorts and they aren't exactly made to last.) The size I have is a couple sizes too big now. The two pairs I have left from last summer just happened to be slightly smaller in the waist than most of my old shorts and so barely stay on without a belt and hang off my hips.

I was rushing passed a mirror in a grocery store bathroom when I saw myself out of the corner of my eye. I did a double-take. The fabric at my butt was sagging so much I checked my button and fly to see if it had come undone. I knew they were loose. I knew that shorts shopping this year would involve smaller sizes but I didn't really know it. I'm not sure how else to describe it. Seeing my ass, or more precisely not seeing my ass, in that mirror really brought it home to me. My body is changing. I'm smaller now than I've been in years and I've barely started. It makes me wonder what it will be like when, in October, I pull out my winter clothes that I'm packing away now. Will I be just as shocked as I slip into a sweater and find it sagging off me?

Of course, maybe I'll be lucky and next October I'll be searching for the biggest items I have to accommodated a growing baby belly. One way or another, my winter clothes will be fitting differently. Though I am enjoying being a smaller size, I really hope that winter finds me shopping for maternity pants rather than smaller jeans.

25lb smaller

I have lost 25lb in the last 10 weeks. This amazes me. I'm in awe that this is actually working.

::Background note: I'm obese, with no related diseases, and have almost always been fat to some degree. I have binge eating disorder. Back in 2005 I recognized and accepted that I had a severe eating disorder. I started to address it. Back in January of this year I found a cognitive behavioral therapy program that is, obviously, working really well for me. I also joined WW to help with the portion control and general lifestyle changes.::

I'm still losing a little fast, even though I'm constantly evaluating my food and exercise to make sure I'm not doing some sort of eating disorder flip side behavior. Monkey (who is a medical professional) is also keeping an eye on me. He is comfortable as long as I'm eating a balanced diet (I am) and not losing muscle (I'm not.)

As for ttc, my doctor and my women's health NP both agree that I can continue trying while losing weight as long as I'm being very careful about my nutrition. Also, as soon as I get a positive pregnancy test I'm suppose to stop following WW but I can keep up with the CB therapy because that isn't about food. It is about emotional relationships with food. (WW has a way to put it on hold for pregnancy and return when you are 6+ weeks post-partum. They adjust your plan to allow for extra calories for nursing parents.)

It has been a long time since I've lost weight. I don't think I've ever done it in such a healthy way. I feel like it may actually be possible to live without being constantly overwhelmed by my eating disorder. That is my ultimate goal. I will likely never be in my ideal BMI and I certainly will never be considered thin but I feel like I'm getting healthier every day. I feel like I may actually get out of the "obese" range someday. It is a very hopeful feeling.

Hey? Where'd you go?

Okay, so a small plea made me stick around the dreaded LJ for the rest of 2010. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a plea from a pregnant boy who was only going to post about his baby's birth locked to friends on LJ. I had to follow up with that. But now the dear boy's little one is passed the squishy 4th trimester part, where they look a little like bubble gum and act a bit like luggage that can eat, poop and cry. That is where I step off. So I'm back to the blog I intended to start so long (okay only about 8 months) ago.

Getting up to speed:

1)Donor boy proves too busy and non-communicative to accommodate a four day fertile window. Last cycle was last straw.

2)Taking a break from current donor boy to look for new sperm guy.

3)Started dealing seriously with food issues. Doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for disordered eating and joined WW to deal with weight. (Lost 20lb so far.)

4)My depression is finally well-controlled, revealing a problematic anxiety disorder. I'm like a mental illness parfait! Dealing with that now...slowly.

Still not pregnant. Still angry about that. Still fat but getting less so. Still a housequeer and boy wonder for my household. Still here.