Tuesday, November 24, 2009

That Was Odd

Tuesday night is a crazy night for me. It's the night I lead my Weight Watchers meeting. This means that I rush from the office to my meeting, then home. I don't get home until at least 7pm.

Getting home late is a disaster for many reasons, mainly because I don't eat for a very long time before running into the house. And when I run into the house, I just want to eat ANYTHING. Disaster. Couple this with the fact that I'm taking a cake decorating course on Wednesday. This means that I bake either a cake or cupcakes on Sunday, and have to make fresh buttercream icing on Tuesday night when I get home from my meeting. All of this just leads to disaster.

But tonight, tonight was different. I was driving home and I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner. Steve and I just do what we want on our own for dinner on Tuesdays, which makes it easier, allows him to eat earlier, and also allows him to eat what he wants, which is usually hamburger helper or kraft dinner (tonight's choice was KD with lots of veggies in it - YAY Steve!).

Back to what I was saying... I was driving home trying to figure out what I would eat for dinner. I needed a protein, a starch, some veggies, and an oil. My first thought was pasta, since you can easily get all of those things in a pasta dish of some sort. But I just didn't feel like getting into a big mess in the kitchen. Then I thought... edamame!

I came home, counted out half a serving of baked tostitos, covered them in yves veggie ground chicken, some leftover sweet potato burrito filling, some BBQ sauce a la BBQ chicken nachos, some edamame, and a teaspoon of chili olive oil. Under the broiler. Served with tofu sour cream. Sooo delicious! And filling.

Luckily I only ate about a tablespoon of buttercream. That stuff's just hard to resist. Thank goodness there's only one more week of the course after tomorrow night.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Health Report

I'm not sure if you've all been following my boring health issues, but for anyone who has been following, I wanted to send you the latest report.

I think I mentioned that my allergy tests came back and they indicated that I have a severe allergy to dairy. This is extremely sad news. I can live without milk and yogurt, but having to limit cheese and ice cream will be a serious challenge.

But there's a bit of a silver lining. I've decided to make compromises. This means that I will be splurging on coconut milk and soy ice cream, as well as really REALLY great cheese. The stinkiest I can find. I figure there's no more excuse to eat less-than-stellar cheese. Eating cheese won't kill me, it may just cause me acne, or it might not once the majority of the dairy is out of my system for a while. I figure a pimple now and again is a small price to pay for delicious cheese.

I've also gotten my hormone test results back. It turns out they're a bit wonky too, but not too too bad. I have a low level of progesterone and a slightly higher than normal level of testosterone. This means that I was heading down the road to PCOS. Thank goodness we caught it early! This means that what I have going on right now is completely reversible! Whew! I really consider myself lucky with this one, since PCOS means it may be difficult to conceive and carry a child to term, along with all kinds of other side effects like insulin-resistance, and the inability to lose weight.

The slightly higher than normal level of testosterone hasn't had many ill effects on my body yet, although it almost definitely played some part in my skin issues as well. And luckily again, it's not a high level, only very slightly above the normal range. I am now taking saw palmetto (an herb usually given to men to control prostate issues) to level out my testosterone production. My naturopath seems to think that taking the saw palmetto, along with zinc daily will get me back to normal in no time, probably by spring.

Thank goodness I decided to see a naturopath! I couldn't thank her enough at my last appointment. She really has changed my life. She did more for me in 3 months than my family doctor has done for me in 10 years. Phenomenal.