Oven Progress, Week 3

Let's talk about my diet, aka the most positive thing happening in my life right now. This is the end of the third week of Project Oven Repair, and I think I've lost about six or seven pounds so far. I say I think because I forgot to gauge my "Before" weight when I started. But I seem to be averaging about two pounds a week, which makes sense. Doing the Zone diet alone, you can generally expect to lose about a pound a week, and I've been combining it with regular exercise, so two a week sounds about right.

I've increased my workouts from three or four days a week to five or six days. Three of those days, I combine walking and jogging, and I've increased my jogging intervals to 140 paces (I started out at 100). I plan to keep increasing that by 20 paces every week until I'm jogging the entire distance. The other days, I either just walk the whole way, or I do Pilates or some combination of weights and calisthenics.

Well, that is I plan to do Pilates. But right now my house is so cluttered that the only place I can spread out my mat and do them properly is in my back yard, and I don't fancy having my neighbors watch me doing them. So I keep chickening out. I need to get over it, though, because they're about the most effective thing I've ever done for strengthening and toning.

According to my scale, I've got 15 to 20 more to go before I reach the high end of the healthy BMI range for my height. Of course, my scale usually registers about ten pounds lighter than doctor's office scales, which means it's probably more like 25 to 30. So if I keep on at this rate, I'm probably looking at about four more months before I really start to see a reversal in my insulin resistance and PCOS symptoms.

But in the mean time, I'm feeling better and my clothes are already starting to get baggy. Last year, before I realized that my size was causing so many health and plumbing problems and I decided I was perfectly happy being a size 14, I went through my closet and pulled out all of my "skinny" size 12 and 10 clothes to give to charity. Thankfully, I never got around to dropping them off, so they're still bagged up and sitting in my garage. I'll probably need to dig them out in another month or so.

I've also managed to cut my coffee intake back to two cups before switching over to white or green tea for the rest of the day. I think starting Monday I'll go ahead and try reducing the regular to decaf ratio from half to one quarter, and see how that goes. I'm also weening myself off of ginseng, and I've already cut out all sweets and alcohol, except on special occasions.

My secret weapons are taking my fish oil with my supper, and pistachios. I'd read in one of our many Zone books -- pretty sure it was Toxic Fat -- that taking fish oil with your evening meal will reduce late night carb and sugar (and chocolate) cravings, and I'm hear to tell you that doing this pretty much eliminated those pesky cravings for me. When I do get a craving, it's usually for something salty, and that's where the pistachios come in. They're satisfying and they also take work, so a small handful of them also takes care of the whole needing to occupy my mouth and hands while I watch TV thing. Plus they make a pretty healthy snack in small doses, so I have nothing to feel guilty about.

All in all, this is all helping me feel like I'm doing something for any future oven occupants, to prevent said oven from being a death trap instead of a place to grow life. And I keep telling myself that if I'm wrong about the PCOS and it turns out that all of this does nothing to prevent another miscarriage, at least I'll be healthier and I'll feel better, and that will better equip me to deal with whatever our future holds.