Goodbye 10 Pounds! Don't Come Back!

Before 2.0 was conceived, I weighed in at 320 pounds.  I promised myself I would never go back to that weight or ever be over 300 again, so I started working very hard to lose weight.  I measured all my food, stopped eating sugar, took supplements, and worked out twice a week (Zumba!).  It was hard and I hated parts of it (measuring food really stinks), but I wanted to lose weight and fit into nice clothes.  Sometimes you have to give up things you like to get to a place you'll like more.  By June of 2010, I was 277 pounds.  I'd lost 43 pounds in four months.

Prior to my weight loss journey, I had been diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), which means my ovaries have microscopic cysts in them that mess with my hormones and make it very hard to ovulate, which means I have a hard time getting pregnant.  I don't have regular cycles and it's hard for me to lose weight.  But the scariest part of PCOS is the insulin resistance that leads to type II diabetes.  Because of the PCOS, I have a harder time losing weight than most people do.  I knew this when I started losing the weight and didn't expect it to come off.  I didn't think that weight loss would lead to pregnancy, so it wasn't something I was even paying attention to.

Then at the end of June I started to feel really tired.  After that I started to feel sick to my stomach.  I was told to take a pregnancy test and much to my surprise, it was positive.  2.0 was born in February of 2011.  I'm now excited at the prospect of having baby #2 after my IUD was removed at the end of March 2012.

I've run into a slight snag with my plans to have a second child though.  See, after the IUD was put in at my 6 week post partum appointment in April of 2011, I started gaining weight.  A lot of weight.  I gained it rather quickly too.  That wasn't supposed to happen.  Breastfeeding helps burn lots of calories.  I shouldn't be as heavy as I am.  But what I didn't know about the IUD was that some women gain weight with it.  Some of them gain 20-30 pounds and don't have a good reaction to the IUD.  I am one of them.

So last month, when I went for my check up with my new general practitioner, you can probably imagine my horror and surprise when the scale said 325.  I wanted the ground to swallow me whole right then and there.  The word obese was written on my chart.  I was being checked for type II diabetes.  This was not supposed to be happening.

I made up my mind right then and there that this needed to turn around and this time, I wouldn't be able to use the supplements I was used to because I needed to learn how to do this on my own.  So I waved goodbye to fast food, goodbye to regular pop, goodbye to empty carbs and high fat.  I bid some of my favorite foods adieu.  I then said hello to a pedometer and water and Splenda and started walking miles upon miles.

I weighed myself this morning and saw 315.  After one month (almost to the day), I've lost ten pounds.  I'm walking as many days as I can, taking 1000 mg of metformin a day (metformin is a drug used for diabetes, but in women with PCOS it causes hormones to regulate, which makes cycles more regular and helps the body use food more productively and enables more successful weight loss), drinking water every chance I get, reading books about food and getting control of your diet.  I'm trying to be more active and think more about what I'm putting in my mouth (because 2.0 is now putting that food in his mouth too).  I'm in love with Eat This, Not That because it's honest about what's really in your food.

Hopefully I'll lose another ten pounds next month.  And again the month after that.  Then maybe 2.0 will have a sibling soon.