Sleepy Jean Is Sleepy. Also, P:OR Progress

This has been one of those weeks where everything just feels off, no doubt because I've had insomnia for about three nights in a row. Funny how sleep deprivation makes you feel off-kilter and like everything is hard, isn't it? Last night I finally got a decent night's sleep, after taking some Benadryl, so I'm feeling much better today, albeit still a bit draggy and like I need one more night of really great sleep to catch up and feel normal again.

This week is making me glad I decided not to totally eliminate coffee from Project: Oven Repair (Take Two).

Speaking of the diet reboot, it's going well. Avoiding bread hasn't been the struggle I thought it would be (although I did break down and have half a bagel and some crackers at various points yesterday, because I was too tired to cook vegetables), and I've been eating more of a variety and actually enjoying my food.

I decided to lay off of the scales for a while, and just gauge my progress by how well I feel and how my clothes are fitting. I was feeling pretty great until the insomnia kicked in (accompanied, of course, by really bad hay fever), and yesterday I reached a new progress benchmark: my size 12 jeans fit for the first time in at least four years. I still need to lose about a half-inch or so before they're really comfortable, but they're definitely wearable.

Unfortunately, the insomnia also raised a speed bump in my daily exercise routine, and for the past couple of days I've been too busy/distracted/tired to bother. I figure two days isn't really a habit-killer, and if I can make myself go for my 45-minute walk today, I'll be fine. Which I'm going to do right after I finish this post.

We're tentatively planning a visit to the nearest state park this weekend, to have a picnic and walk the nature trails. I was really hoping we'd have our new camera by then, but Matt's still trying to decide which fancy lens to invest in, so it doesn't look like we will. But at least this time I'll be sure to take our 5MP point-and-shoot, so we won't be relegated to our cell phone cameras if we see something cool, like we were last time.

All righty. Time to get off this couch and go move.

...And just as I was previewing this post and about to hit Publish, we heard sirens cut off right in front of our house, and shouting and "Put your hands up!" and we looked outside to see two cops with their guns pointed at this guy who was backing slowly toward them with his hands in the air. Now they've got him cuffed and they're out there patting him down and searching his car. I guess my walk's on hold until COPS: Live On Location In Our Front Yard is over and they take the criminal away.

Pale-No! Or, Project: Oven Repair, Take Two

With anniversary celebrations out of the way, today is the day I get Project: Oven Repair back on the rails. When I said a couple of weeks ago that I was taking a break from said project to protect my sanity, I mentioned that I was considering trying the Paleo Diet when I was ready to resume P:OR. If you don't know what the Paleo diet is, it's basically the way humans are believed to have eaten prior to the advent of agriculture, and involves foods that can, in theory, be either hunted or gathered, even though these days most folks do their hunting and gathering at the supermarket. In short, the rules pretty much boil down to, "Eat like a caveman."

And now I have "Captain... CAAAAAVE maaaaaaaaaaaan!" running through my head. If you recognize that then congratulations! You're old like me. And now it's stuck in your head, too.

You're welcome.

But back to the diet. At first glance, the Paleo diet sounds like it might be a good idea for battling PCOS. It's low-glycemic, and gluten-free to boot. There's even a variation called Paleo Zone, a mash-up of the Paleo diet and my current eating plan of choice, the Zone diet, which involves eating Paleo-approved foods in Zone-approved proportions. Sounds good!

Except, did you know that dairy products are considered "agriculture"? Apparently, cave men didn't milk livestock and turn said milk into delicious things like cheese or yogurt. Also, peanuts, along with other legumes, are an agricultural product, since they have to be planted and nurtured and grown and harvested, and can't simply be found on trees like actual nuts, and are hence verboten.

So, let's see: on the Paleo diet, I would not be allowed to eat cheese. Or yogurt. Or peanut butter.

To which I say: Pale-NO!

I could give up yogurt, I suppose, if I had to. I could even see myself conceivably going for a while without cheese if I must. But peanut butter? Only if you pry it from my cold, dead, Smucker's-coated fingers.

So clearly, the Paleo diet is not for me. Moving on, I also considered trying the first phase of South Beach. From what I understood of the South Beach diet, it's basically a rip-off of very similar to the Zone, the primary difference being that South Beach is marketed as a weight-loss diet, while the Zone is touted as more of a nutrition plan for combating chronic illnesses. The other difference is that the South Beach plan involves "phases" -- a super-strict Phase One and a semi-strict Phase Two that lead you to the pretty-much-identical-to-the-Zone Phase Three; the idea being that the first two phases kill your sugar and carb cravings and stimulate weight-loss.

A more strict version of the Zone sounded like exactly what I needed. But after doing a little more research, I realized that Phase One of South Beach is, essentially, the Atkin's diet. And I've had my experiences with the Atkin's diet, and they were not pleasant.

So here's a thought, Jean: why not just stick with the Zone diet, but be more strict with yourself about limiting non-favorable carbs?

Huh. It's so simple, I wonder why I didn't think of that myself.

So starting today I'm back in the Zone, but I'm planning to go at least a week (and to try for two) without any bread or grains (except for steel cut oats, which are low-glycemic and too nutritious to give up completely). And of course I'm also putting the kibosh on sugar (again). I think the reason I kept plateauing last time and couldn't break that 165 lb. barrier was because I was eating way too much bread. Although I had cut down on it and was sticking to whole grain varieties, it's not the best choice for controlling blood sugar, and I was eating a lot of sandwiches and breakfast toast, basically depending too much on bread to round out my daily carb allotment.

Of course, this was partly because bread is so cheap. In preparation for a week of eating sans bread, I stocked up on plenty of fresh produce, and I'll just say that I'm thankful neither Matt's nor my eyes popped out of our heads or permanently froze in the size of saucers once we saw the total at the checkout counter.

Because of this, I'll probably be gradually working sandwiches back into the meal rotation after this initial week to help get all of the bad carbs out of my system. But from now on I'll be opting for lower-glycemic varieties like rye and pumpernickel, and I'll probably be limiting it to the weekends.

So here's the plan:

• 1 to 2 weeks without any bread, sugar or alcohol,
• after which I can have low GI bread on occastion, and one or two glasses of wine or beer on the weekends (until we're actively TTC, at which point it will be verboten).
• After the first month, I can resume the occasional "cheat" night two times a month to keep myself from feeling deprived.

And during all of this I'll be walking (and eventually wogging) 45 minutes every morning, six days a week, and alternating cardio-kickboxing, pilates and yoga in the evenings.

And if that doesn't knock out this last twenty pounds and make my body baby-ready, then I don't know what will.

Tearballs

Tomorrow will mark a full week of Project Oven Repair, a full week during which I've had no sweets and 95% of my meals have consisted mainly of vegetables and lean protein, I've been taking prenatal vitamins and tons of fish oil, and I've been working out consistently; and I have to say that, physically, I'm already feeling about a million times better. I have more energy, I'm sleeping better, and I'm pretty sure I've lost a couple of pounds.

And of course this is having a positive impact on my emotional state. I'm still weepy, but I'm feeling more hopeful about everything, and better able to cope. With everything that's happened lately, I expect that it will take more than a new diet to get past the sad days. There's just so much to be sad about, and it hits us both in waves. Like yesterday, when out of the blue I started crying over Bobo, which led to more crying over Rob, which led to still more crying over Mom. It was a crying snowball. A tearball. Or maybe more like a snot ball. Anyway, I cried. A lot.

And then somebody compliments my song, or tells me that they're praying about the baby situation, and that makes me weepy, too. And next week, of course, is the anniversary that I'm struggling with. I'd make plans to do something nice for myself on that day, but I'm not sure which day to do it on, since it was drawn out over 4 days. On the 29th I started spotting, on the 31st I got the ultrasound that confirmed the miscarriage, and on April 1st I had the D&C. Talk about April Fool's.

So which of those days actually counts as the anniversary? I guess if I have to pick one it would be anniversary of the D&C, since that finalized it. So I'm going to try to do something nice for myself that day, although I don't know what yet, since our funds are still pretty limited. Maybe I'll give myself a home pedicure. Lord knows my feet could use it.

You know, when this post started it was going to be all about my diet and what I'm doing to get healthy, but then it turned left at Albuquerque and headed straight for the sad place. Sigh.

Project Oven Repair

I spent the better part of Friday afternoon researching natural and homeopathic remedies for PCOS. I made a shopping list of vitamins and minerals and healthy foods and things I would need to get started down this path to a healthier, PCOS-free, me, and then on Saturday I went to Akin's and the grocery store and stocked up on supplements and vegetables and sea food. The sea food's more for my ADD, since I can't really afford the 10 grams per day of purified pharma-grade fish oil I'll need to take to keep it under control.

I guess I should back up and explain why I'm so sure that PCOS is the source of all my baby woes. I've had symptoms for years, but none of my doctors--GPs, OBs, gynecologists, internal medicine specialists--have ever suggested that these symptoms might add up to PCOS.

Until my follow-up appointment at the women's clinic after my D&C, with an OB/GYN I'd never seen before, who looked at my history and my symptoms and asked me, "Have you ever been treated for PCOS?" When I said no, she went on to describe the symptoms, and it felt like a light bulb went on, shining its light on exactly what the problem is.

She wanted to do a hysteroscopy to verify the diagnosis, but we couldn't get it scheduled before my insurance ran out. We DID get my thrombophilia workup done before it ran out, though, and it ruled out any blood-clotting disorders. And since she was almost sure enough to make the diagnosis without the hysteroscopy, and since my symptoms line up with PCOS like dominoes, I'm operating under the assumption that this is what my problem is. And if I'm wrong, it can't really hurt anything, other than giving me a sense of misplaced hope.

For the curious, the skeptical, and those who just like to read TMI, these are my symptoms and co-indicators:

• I'm overweight.
• I have middle-age acne.
• I have hypothyroidism.
• I have mild hirsutism (i.e. unsightly, whisker-like chin, neck and chest hairs; I've always just tweezed them, told myself they were probably normal and then got on with my life, but now I know better).
• My periods have only ever been regular when I'm on BC, and even then there's occasional variance, and they're always, ALWAYS painful.
• I have classic symptoms of insulin resistance (overweight, foggy brain, chronic fatigue and sleepiness, irritability and nausea if my blood sugar gets low, etc.), which is a root cause of PCOS.

Clearly, these aren't factors that tend to make for a healthy pregnancy. Fortunately, most, if not all, of them can be remedied with a healthy lifestyle. So if I want to have a healthy pregnancy that ends in birthing a healthy baby, I'm going to have to become a health nut and completely overhaul my lifestyle.

Here's my plan of attack:

• Stick to the Zone diet, and be strict about it. This means getting most of my carbs from low-glycemic fruits and veggies instead of, y'know, just having some protein with a yummy slice of pumpkin bread and calling that a "Zone-balanced meal."
• Increase my sea-food intake, and take as much pharma-quality fish oil as I can afford on top of that.
• Work out at least 4 times a week.
• Transition from the ADD-focused multi-vitamins I've been taking (e.g. Mega Mind, Higher Mind and/or Mental Edge, all from Source Naturals) to a quality pre-natal multi with high doses of Chromium, Magnesium, Zinc, and B-vitamins.
• Add in a Co-Q10 supplement.
• Ween myself off of caffeine, ginseng and sugar (including all processed and high-glycemic carbs).

There are also some herbal remedies that I'll add to the mix eventually, but it's not a good idea to take those while I'm still on BC. If you're interested, I got most of the supplement and natural remedy info here and here.

Whether or not I actually have PCOS, if I can stick to this plan I'm sure it will probably fix at least 90% of what's wrong with me, including the ADD, low energy and depressive tendencies. Not to mention the insulin resistance and all of the problems that stem from that.

So basically, I just have to start treating myself like I'm diabetic, and all of my hormones and body chemicals and brain chemicals and what-not should fall in line, balance out, and start behaving properly. I guess if my acne clears up and I stop having to tweeze those weird hairs, then I'll know I'm on the right track.

At any rate, this is the one area of my life I actually have control over, and I'm ready to grasp it by the horns and show it who's boss. Hopefully, the success of Project Oven Repair will coincide with the success of Project Make Some Money, Dammit, and then we'll truly be ready for another round of TTC.