New Project

I’m the type of person that is a bit obsessive. OK, let’s face it, a LOT obsessive. For the last year plus, I’ve been obsessing about TTC. And before that was my wedding. I always have some kind of major project going on in my life, and in particular, my head. It used to be my job. This made me go a bit (lot) insane, and so I realized this wasn’t healthy. Now I do a pretty good job at work, but not fabulous. I could be better. But I really don’t care, I’m sorry, I just don’t. Anyway, I’ve come up with a new project to obsess about while I’m on a TTC break. I’m losing weight!!!

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a skinny girl – I’ve never been a skinny girl! Right now I’m about 40+ pounds overweight. It’s amazing at how slowly all this weight has collected on my body. Every year, I weigh more. I had some stability for a few years there – I was around 165 for about 3 years. I got down to around 160 at my wedding last year. And then I gained 25 pounds in the last year. Last week, I topped the scale at 185. Granted, I think a few of those pounds related to excess fluid in my body, as I was very swollen last week, but still.

So in the last week, I’ve taken back control of my body and my life. I’ve downloaded a free app on my iPhone called Lose it! I love it – I can track all the food and exercise in my day. It calculated my ideal net calorie intake based on my current weight and goals, and it has calculated around 1,200 calories. I realize this is way low, so I usually come in a little high each day, which is perfectly fine. And it’s net calories, so any exercise I do allows you to eat more! This is one of the biggest motivators for me – every 30 minutes of walking, for example, gives me 100 additional calories to eat!

This is so hard for me – exercise. I have never had a good exercise routine, well at least since dropping out of cross country and track my sophomore year in high school. I started walking last week, just around the neighborhood, with one of my dogs. Last Sunday, it was so hard to complete a 20 minute walk. It’s amazing how bad I felt. Every step hurt. This weekend, I downloaded another app for my iPhone – it’s the Couch to 5K program. Apparently, this program will take me from not running at all to being able to complete a 5K in 9 weeks! And I only have to do it 3 times per week! So I started yesterday, I did a 5 minute walking warmup, then for 20 minutes, I alternated between 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds of walking, then a cool down for 5 minutes. Or maybe about 12 – I was at the park when it was time for the cool down, and I walked very slowly home… And I made it – I ran every time it told me to, and I didn’t stop until I was instructed to walk! This is amazing for me, so I’m very proud of myself. I will give a day between doing these runs, so this morning I woke up early and walked one of the dogs for 30 minutes – this was Jackson, the good walker, so it was a pretty decent walk. I really want to keep doing this – I would love to say I can run a 5K! Plus I think it will only help my weight loss.

And speaking of weight loss? Guess how many pounds I’ve lost in the last week… Again, I know some of this is fluid loss, but I lost 6 pounds already! I’m down to 179! So the first step is complete – I’m on my way to a healthy and skinnier me!

On the TTC front, I think our break may be a little quicker than I had planned. The more I thought about it, I don’t want to keep waiting to start trying again – every month that goes by is another month lost. I’m 35 now! Can’t believe how loud that clock is yelling at me… And so, I think we’ll be medically cleared to start TTC again at the end of July. We go to Europe in September. So the hubs and I talked about it, and we’re going to try naturally in August and September, and then get back on the treatment wagon, and go for another IUI in October. Ugh – just the thought of another IUI makes me a little ill. But it seems to work for me I guess. I officially have a 100% record in getting pregnant with an IUI (2 for 2 – one ectopic and one miscarriage) and a 0% record in getting pregnant naturally, but I’d love to try again naturally for a couple months at least. You know, we haven’t had sex with the goal of getting pregnant since 2009! Weird to think about it like that…

I have a question for you ladies – what has your doctor said, or what have you read from a reputable source, about exercise while TTC? I know there shouldn’t be extreme exercise, but I’m not exactly going for a marathon here. The most I’ll ever do is 30 minutes of cardio at a time. And probably no more than 30-60 minutes per day. I know I’ll need to cut out the running while doing treatments, as my ovaries get too big, but what about while trying naturally? No matter what, I’m excited about doing this Couch to 5K program, and I’ll work on that this summer, but what about after that?