One Life, No Second Chances

I managed to wean myself off of caffeine when we first started TTC.  I tend to get headaches and my migraines have gotten worse over the past couple of years, so I am very careful to slowly cut back to avoid the inevitable caffeine headaches that will follow.  When we bought the house in September and started working such long days on it, I got back into the caffeine habit again.  I’ve never really been too bad about it, at most drinking one cup of coffee and having one diet coke a day, but I guess when it’s a regular enough habit, stopping suddenly will have an impact.

I’ve been thinking for a while now that I needed to work on quitting again, but my decision was solidified when I saw the new study which shows the increased risk of miscarriage in women who consume even moderate amounts of caffeine.  I thought to myself, there’s no time like the present, so I didn’t have my coffee this morning.  By early afternoon I knew that was a mistake.  By late afternoon all I wanted to do is have some coffee in the hopes that it would help my headache, go home and go to sleep.  So that’s pretty much what I did.

I stopped by Starbucks on the way home and a potentially shameful moment actually turned into a proud moment.  I was feeling sorry for myself and I wanted comfort, so I ordered my old favorite, a non-fat white chocolate mocha.  I figured it was worth the splurge.  I was looking so forward to that first sip.  Then I took it….and it was gross.  It just tasted sickeningly sweet.  I’ve gotten so used to not using any sugar or sweetener in my coffee that I just couldn’t stand it.  So I paid a little over $4 for a cup of coffee I couldn’t drink.

I wound up just going home and going to sleep.  When I woke up the headache was still there, maybe worse, and I needed to do something for me and DH to have for dinner.  I had him run to KFC and pick something up.  It wasn’t the best choice, but I just couldn’t face cooking, and I figured I wouldn’t do terrible if I ate that.  I had some coffee while he was gone and took some Tylenol.  Then I completely lost control when he came back with the food.

I thought I had done pretty well with choices.  We ordered individual meals instead of family styles, so that there wouldn’t be any excuses for eating more and wouldn’t be any leftovers to worry about.  I had every intention of pulling all of the fried skin off my chicken breast and throwing it directly in the trash and taking my biscuit and giving it to DH.  Instead, I ate every bite of that biscuit and even snuck in a couple of bites of skin.  It was pathetic.

Nonetheless, I tracked the points and moved on.  I decided right then to make sure that I slowly wean myself off of the caffeine instead of going cold turkey.  Maybe that will give me one less excuse to lose control.

This cycle is really getting the best of me. I guess that’s what I get for doing so “well,” by not really thinking about it for the past couple of months. But getting back on track with weight watchers and starting to really pay attention to how I nourish my body has gotten me completely refocused on why I started this in the first place. I keep feeling strange for posting all of these TTC issues on a weight loss blog, but for me the two issues are so intermingled that it’s difficult not to. It’s not like I have some huge list of readers that are disappointed that I don’t talk more about weight loss. I keep trying to remember that this blog is for me, to write about things here that I need to process and maybe don’t feel comfortable sharing with other people. Well, at least not with other people who I know.

I think my obsession has a lot to do with the fact that I am near the end of my two-week wait and am trying my best not to test early. Over the past few months I did away with testing before my period was late, because I just couldn’t stand the disappointment of seeing this blaring negative result. Somehow that was different and worse than just getting my period. Plus, I doubt I would really believe it was a positive until it was time for my period to have come and gone anyway. Despite all of my reasons not to test, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to hold out. Which is silly, because even if I got a negative right now I wouldn’t really know it was negative until it was time for me period anyway.

I think I might have been able to get my mind off of it a little more today if it wasn’t for the birth of another baby. The wife of the psychiatrist I work with went into labor this morning and by the early afternoon, he came back to work beaming and told us that mother and baby were doing well. I’m so happy for him, but it’s bittersweet because it’s really hard on me. That makes me feel so guilty. I feel like the only emotion I should have regarding the birth of someone’s child is pure and unadulterated joy for them. Instead, the joy is clouded by my own disappointment that I’m not there yet. I feel so completely selfish and it just makes me sick.

So I’m afraid it might be baby on the brain for the next few days. At least until I get my period. Then I’ll get back into the normal swing of things (I hope) and start trying for the next cycle. Until then, you’ll have to pardon my obsession.

There are those moments between sleep and wakefulness when you’re not sure what is real and what is not.  I had one of those moments this morning when I felt like I was somewhere in between my dreams and reality.  I would give anything if this dream turns out to be a premonition of some kind.  I had a baby.  Well, the dream wasn’t about actually giving birth, but there was a baby, and he was ours.  I can’t remember details, but they aren’t even important.  I woke up feeling like I was a mom.  It was incredible.

Unfortunately, I’m still not feeling too hopeful about our chances of success this month.  My BBT is doing strange things and seems to be staying kind of low for post-O temps.  I know that’s not necessarily a guarantee that we won’t be successful, but it just doesn’t look like a good sign.

Today didn’t go quite as planned.  I had high hopes of getting out of the house to run errands and to study.  I slept a little later than I had intended, but I did get up and out before too long.  I packed up all my books and my laptop with plans to go to Books-A-Million or Starbucks to study.  But on my way there, I decided that it was more trouble than it was worth.  I always feel weird about hanging out somewhere longer than necessary and I didn’t want it to look bad being there for hours at a time and only buyign one cup of coffee.  I decided that if I went, my guilt would probably make me buy more things and eat more things than were necessary or planned, just to avoid “looking bad.”  There’s some irony for you.

I got a few errands done anyway while I was in town.  I got some stuff at Wal-Mart, including baby gifts for the psychiatrist I work with (his wife is about to have their 2nd boy), dropped off my car payment and went to Publix.  I love knowing what we’re going to have for dinner the rest of the week and knowing that I have the ingredients that I need to make everything.  It takes so much pressure off at the end of the day when I’m tired and hungry.  If I’ve already bought the ingredients for something I’m less apt to pick up something ready-made on my way home, because I already spent money to buy the ingredients.  The only time this strategy doesn’t work so well is the rare occasion that the meal is made mostly from non-perishable or frozen food, because then I can talk myself into “saving” it for another time.  I’ll try not to let that happen this week. : )

I also made another little mistake this afternoon.  Because I was out of the house at lunchtime, I convinced myself that I could stop and get something to treat myself, while not going crazy.  I decided on Wendy’s, which could have been reasonable if I had made better choices.  Instead of choosing items with good nutritional value, I chose the ones that would taste the most like I was cheating with the least impact on my points.  I wound up with a Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe and a small fry.  What a joke.  Sure, I was full afterward, but not good full.  More like gross full.  The first couple of bites were good, but after that I felt like I was eating just to eat, not because I was trying to nourish my body.  My disappointment in myself led me to feel even more dissatisfied with my meal choices, but I’m proud to report I didn’t use it as an excuse to eat more when I got home.

I made something new for dinner tonight and DH loved it, but I wasn’t so crazy about it.  Really I think I just wasn’t in the mood.  I need to write down the recipe before I forget it so DH can cook it sometime.  i may even try to start posting some of my homemade dishes here.  We’ll see….

I really feel like I wasted the day. I’ve been having this problem with my days off lately. There’s so much I want to do, but I feel so compelled to use the time to actually rest, that I wind up not accomplishing even a fraction of what I’d like to. And this realization always seems to hit me when I only have one more day left until I have to go back to work.

The house needs cleaning. We need to get everything cleaned up and priced for the yard sale on Saturday, as well as get signs made up. I need to make our menu for next week and shop for anything I’m missing. I need to get all the laundry done. I need to keep studying for my boards. I really want to start working on getting my recipes written up again. And I want to play online. All these things to do, yet somehow I manage to accomplish nothing.

I want tomorrow to be different, though. I’m thinking about getting up early, when DH leaves for work, instead of sleeping in another precious hour. I’ll have some oatmeal, then head out to study. I get so distracted at home I thought it might be better if I actually went somewhere. I’m thinking Books-A-Million or Starbucks. That way I can stay for a couple hours and drink some coffee while I study. But I always wind up feeling weird if I’m there too long, like people are wondering why the heck I’m still there. Maybe I’ll go to both! I also need to run to the store to pick up a few things while I’m in town. Then I can be home by lunchtime and make something smart, watch Days of Our Lives (I know what you’re thinking, but it’s my weakness on my days off) and maybe get some stuff straightened around the house on the commercials. After that, I can study more, read a novel or play online, then make a healthy, OP dinner.

Damn. For a day off when I just want to sleep in and watch movies on Lifetime, that’s a pretty ambitious plan. I’ll check in tomorrow and fess up to how the day went.

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Wow. I am such a wimp. It’s somewhere in the low thirties outside and I am FREEZING. It so rarely gets this cold here that I am completely stunned when it gets like this. It’s already the middle of January and this is maybe the fourth time we’ve bothered to turn on the heat. It’s Florida, so we’re always much more used to turning on that AC. But the weather does have some benefits. I love snuggling with DH when it’s cold. We jump into bed and are both shivering because the sheets are so cold and the warmest thing near both of us is each other!

Today was pretty productive. I spent the morning and early afternoon studying for my boards and then we moved some furniture over to my parents house. Afterward, DH took me to dinner and I made some choices at Olive Garden that will mean I’ll need to be a little more strict on myself in the coming week. That’s the beauty of WW, though, being able to splurge once in a while without having to feel like you sabotaged all of your efforts.

In other news, TTC has really started to take a toll on me. For the first few months I reasoned with myself that it was early and I had nothing to worry about. After that we were so busy with buying the house and remodeling, that I chalked up our lack of success to stress and poor timing. On top of that, 2 months were pretty much lost because I happened to get a UTI right around the time I was ovulating. But now that we’re at month 7–past the halfway mark–I’m starting to worry. I hate to think that my weight is causing our difficulties. I asked my GYN if she thought that my weight would impede our success and she said that she was not terribly concerned about it because my cycles were regular and I was ovulating. But I can’t help but think that it plays a part and that makes me so mad. And sad. And ashamed.

You always wonder if the one thing you want most in the world will be the one thing you never have, simply because you want it so badly. I worked hard to get through school, got a scholarship, went to college, went to graduate school and work very hard every day in my career, but all I’ve ever wanted to be is a wife and a mom. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to have kids, but when I fell in love with DH, somehow that feeling changed. I want to have his kids. I want to look into the faces of my children and see his eyes staring back at me. More than anything I want to be able to give him the opportunity to be a dad, something that I feel like he was born to do. The fact that I haven’t been able to yet just breaks my heart.

This afternoon we were picking up the last of our things from the place we were renting and loading them up to bring to my parents house. DH had cleaned and painted and got the house looking nicer than when we moved into it three years ago. Seeing it bare and empty, with no trace of the life we lived there, was so strange. But it brought back such a flood of memories. It was almost like we were standing there again seeing the house for the first time and imagining the possibilities that awaited us there. Then as we walked from room to room together, making sure we had gotten the last of our things, it was as if we were both seeing the same scenes from our lives playing themselves out in those rooms. I saw the wall in the living room against which he leaned flowers and a card that said welcome home the first time I walked into the house after it was ours. I saw the bedroom where slept together our first years as husband and wife and where, for the first time, we tried to conceive. So many memories…it was kind of hard to just walk away. But DH, in his usual quite and strong way, took my hand as we were leaving and simply said to me, “chapter two.” I’m ready to turn the page.

What a schmuck.  (Is that even how you spell it?)  While I have been sticking to eating well, following WW principals, I have yet to incorporate exercise in my daily routine and, obviously, have not blogged in quite a while.  I happened to check the site this morning and saw that my blog was listed as one that might need a little encouragement.  Oh no!  That’s like getting you name written on the chalkboard by the teacher for being bad!  Nothing like a little accountability to get you going.  Plus, when I went to my site, I saw my first comment.  Just knowing that even a stranger is in my corner gave me the push I needed to be more active here and get back on track with blogging.

I’ve done my WI twice since my last post.  My 2nd WI didn’t go so well…up 0.4 lbs, but didn’t go so bad either.  Considering the big loss the first week, I wasn’t expecting another big loss.  And really, 0.4 isn’t awful.  I figured that maybe I would have a nice WI to look forward to the next week.  Just as a large loss can be inspiring, so too can a gain because it makes you want to try even harder. 

My 3rd WI was this morning and I am down 1.6 from last week.  Yay!  I’m always so amazed that this program actually works, even when you’re not doing everything to get the most out of it.  I was horrible at tracking what I ate this week.  I kind of kept a running tally in my head everyday and guessed at a lot of point values.  I had a couple of meals where I just told myself that I didn’t care how many points I was eating–I’ve been sick this week, so there were some ugly moments between me and food.  I ate too much salt.  I ate too many sweets.  I didn’t get in much dairy.  I didn’t exercise.  Yet I still loss.  I think the only explanation for that is that despite all the things I did “wrong,” I still did a lot right.  What didn’t change this week was that I was still aware of everything that I put in my mouth and what the consequences might be.  Even if it was subconscious, I think that recognition helped me cut back in other areas after I indulged a little too much.

Mindless eating is probably why I got so fat in the first place.  It’s so bizarre because I’m not a stupid woman.  I knew good and well when I was eating poorly and eating too much, but somehow I rationalized it over and over to somehow make it okay.  Well it most certainly was NOT okay, yet my mind allowed itself to be convinced otherwise.  Definition of denial?

Although I’m committing again today to be more active on this blog and to try to maintain my eating while starting to exercise, I’m also not going to beat myself up too hard for my mistakes.  Beating myself up has done nothing for my self-esteem in the past and I don’t expect that that’s changed any.  Isn’t this whole process supposed to be as much about loving yourself as it is about losing weight?

WI this morning……-5.6 lbs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I have to be fair about this.  Last Sunday when I did my WI it was in the middle of the day, with clothes on, which is not how I typically weigh in.  I tend to WI after my shower in the morning, so I know that this will account for some of the difference, but there’s no way that it accounts for all of it!

This success is exactly what I needed to inspire me to continue trying even harder this week.  I’m really going to try to incorporate exercise into my routine this week.  I’ve even thought about getting up early and doing a work out before I go to work.  That will be quite a test for me, since I have to get up at 5 as it is.  I know that it will give me tons of energy during the day, force me to go to bed earlier at night, and give me a more relaxing evening to spend doing whatever I want, rather than having it hanging over me all day that I STILL have to go home and work out.

We’ll see how it goes.  I’m not convinced that I can make myself get up earlier, but I’ll at least give it a try this week.