Domesticated Bliss

Weigh-in last night revealed that I had lost another 5 pounds this week. This makes 23 since starting the MITLI class 8 weeks ago and 27 total. I feel good. I feel really good. The hard part comes next weekend and through the month of December. I really want to keep up this good progress, so I'm going to do my best to avoid temptation and when I do give in, to only do it in moderation. 

Its done (aside from some minor paint touch ups)! I hung the last shelf last night. It feels amazing to finally have this room back in order and I absolutely LOVE it! I now have one room in my house exactly how I want it. Can't wait to get started on the next. Not sure if it will be the downstairs bathroom or the kitchen that I work on next. I'm sort of thinking the kitchen, since all that needs to be done there is painting the walls a new color. I might even do that over Thanksgiving weekend, since I already have the paint. The have bath is slightly more complicated. I need to pick out a new vanity/sink, then rip out the old one which is attached to the wall. Probably will need to update some plumbing as well... but I've got the wall colors picked out, so thats a start. I'll post pics of the completed bathroom as soon as I find my camera back. Its somewhere in the house, probably up in Rudy's room.

As of this morning I have lost 10% of my body weight. I am down 25.8 pounds, taking me from my all time high of 262 down to 236.2. If I continue at my current rate, I should be under 210 by the time we do IVF in 11 weeks. 

I put the $700 deposit down on our IVF treatment. We are officially scheduled for February. Wow! this makes it feel real. I'm excited and nervous at the same time, but I can do this. I know I can do this. It will be totally worth the money and doctors visits if I can hold my baby in my arms at the end of it all. I am cautiously optimistic. By this time next year, I could be a mom. There is only 2 months and 19 days until the start of February. Less than 3 months and my life could change forever. That time is going to go by so dang fast. We have our initial consultation with the IVF nurse scheduled for December 2nd. After that we meet with the person in billing to go over our payment schedule and the cost of everything. Wow this time is going to go fast, and the fact that we are doing it over the holidays will make it go even faster. I must stay motivated. I think this will help. I'm down 21 pounds. 19 to go to hit my goal. I'm confident I will blow past it before February (as long as I can stay away from the Christmas goodies).

or at least loves to toy with me. I haven't have a period in 3 months, and what happens the day I go out of town to visit friends? Yep, you guessed it. My uterus decides that is the perfect time to shed its lining. And of course the friend I was visiting is on Depo, so she didn't have any pads I could quick grab. I even had that feeling in the back of my head before I left that maybe I should pack some, just in case, but I ended up rushing around and didn't really think I would get it anyway, so that thought go overlooked. Its funny how that sort of thing can come back to bite you. My body is a real joker. It seems that I don't get a period for months and months (sometimes its even over a year from one cycle to the next), but its always when I'm going to be traveling that I seem to get it. I had it when I went to Europe. I had it when I went to Alaska. I even got it when I went to Wyoming last summer. WTF?

I know I should have waited, but I just couldn't help myself. I normally weigh in on Mondays, but yesterday I was able to fit into a size 18 pants from Old Navy (when I started I was in a size 24 and couldn't even get the 18's zipped up), and at class last night one of the girls commented that I looked like I had lost another 5 pounds since she saw me last week Thursday, so I stepped on the scale this morning and got a very happy surprise. On monday I had lost 1.9 pounds and was down to 245.3, but I also knew I was probably retaining water from some of the stuff I had eaten over the weekend. This morning I was down another 3.6 pounds, putting me at 241.7 (down from 262 when I started) and giving me a total of 20.3 since I started on livestrong.com 8 weeks ago. I am halfway to my goal and I still have 12 1/2 weeks left. Yay me! Also, Rudy commented last night about how good I look (and especially how good my boobs look... which I attribute to the many chest presses and push-ups I've been doing since this class started).

So first off, here are my stats after 5 weeks of Move It To Lose It Class (only a few days later than I said I would post them): I lost 2 pounds last week, putting me down 12 pounds since the class started and almost 17 since I started counting calories. I lost 3 3/4" around my waist. 2 3/4 around my hips and and abs, 1 1/2 around my bust, and almost an inch around my neck. I feel pretty darn good about those numbers. 

I am halfway done with my MITLI class today. Tonight we are doing a mini assessment to see what we have achieved. I'm really looking forward to it. On top of that, the diet restriction, including "no alcohol" were lifted on Tuesday (with the stipulation of choosing the best options possible), so of course I went out for a friends birthday and had a glass of wine. I'm not much of a drinker, but man, that glass of riesling was one of the best I've had, and I did not order a burger, or fries, and I only had two small bites of one of Rudy's onion rings. I've decided I'm going to stick to the no sugar/no white flour as much as possible because I do feel a lot better without it, though the hamburger buns I bought for tonight do have enriched flour in them... but they are only 80 calories, low in sodium, and high in fiber, so I figure its ok. Wish me luck on the weigh-in. Will report back tomorrow.

I took my diet first free day yesterday and can I just say, it wasn't worth it. My husbands parents were in town for his birthday, so I planned for going out to dinner with them and having cake afterwards. I worked out extra hard in the morning to burn more calories in anticipation of the evening and I ate a light breakfast and lunch. We went out for family style chinese (my husbands choice), which means that we started with soup, which wasn't too bad in calories, but then they brought out the rest of the meal. I had an egg roll, a crab cheese, half a piece of shrimp toast, and some sweet and sour sauce for an appetizer, then about 3/4 cup of white rice, 3/4 cup of happy family, 1/2 cup of beef and scallops in brown sauce, 3 pieces of sweet and sour chicken, and 2 small pieces of duck for dinner. Flaming fried bananas were brought out for desert and by that time I was so full, but I still ate the banana on the inside. Afterwards I just felt yuk. I haven't felt that way in over 4 weeks and I don't think I want to feel that way again. After totaling up what I ate, I had almost 1500 calories in that one meal. I still stayed within my calories for the day, but barely, and this morning I feel guilty that I ate all the calories I burned with exercise yesterday. I could have made much better choices last night. Instead I'm going to go work my butt off at the gym this afternoon in hopes that I can makeup for what I did yesterday and still get a good drop at the scale this week. Ugh, why did I do this to myself? Oh ya, because I tend to be an all or nothing person. I really need to learn moderation.

It's been 18 week since we decided to put all efforts to become parents on hold for 6 months. That means we are over halfway done with the waiting. In just 15 short weeks we will start fertility meds again. I still can't believe how fast the past 3 months have gone by. I took a look back at the goals I set for myself back in June, and I am well on my way to achieving them.