Work

I've been doing a lot of work lately. Professionally, yes. Not for much money, but definitely for satisfaction. In fact, the musical I composed opens on Friday.

Personally, I have committed myself to some serious work that I'm trying to take one day at a time. It all boils down to ultimately getting pregnant. After months of procrastination and constant, underlying panic about NOT getting pregnant, Abby drug me into reality via a donor insemination info series at the Feminist Women's Health Center. Once I sat through the 2 hour meeting that included a panel with a fertility doctor, a nutritionist, an acupuncturist and the clinic representative, we felt really informed. We stayed late to talk personally to all of the panel members and learned even more than I thought possible. After describing my personal fertility struggles (outside of not being married to a male), I found out several changes I can make to my life that may help regulate my cycle and increase my over all fertility. The biggest change is in my diet.

Short version: the "best" fertility diet is South Beach. I am going on that diet. This will be really hard. I'm on day 2.

Long Version: I have PC.OS and it severely impairs my cycles. In fact, I have about one period a year on my own but I'm lucky that I don't have painful cramps. I've done a little research on the effect my former eating habits have had on PC.OS and I think that significantly changing the way I eat will start fixing some of the PC.OS symptoms I'm having.

My former eating habits were VERY sugar/carb heavy and erratic. I've basically eaten this way my entire life and have never felt any effects from it. I'm tall and have pretty great metabolism, so I didn't start gaining any weight from these habits until the last year. I started to notice an additional 10-15 pounds on my body after I came back from working on the cruise, and got annoyed. That annoyance only mildly effected my eating decisions. I cut out Coke almost completely and beefed up water and Hot Yoga for a bit. Hot Yoga started not working into my schedule and so I had no excercise. I also started drinking a lot of lemonade instead of the Coke, which has kept me high in Vitamin C, but still high in sugar.

This is what a day in my former eating life would be like:

- Wake up late (11am or later) since I work late at Dad's Garage (until midnight or later) then come home and read or do work, etc.

- Have a cup of coffee if it's cold enough outside (including a hearty amt of sugar and cream)

- If I was going to a meeting, I would eat a pastry or two for "breakfast"

- Lunch around 2-3pm - toasted pita with peanut butter, cheese with apple

- Sweet snack around 4-5pm

- Dinner around 6-7pm - something carb heavy, good veggie, good protein, sugary drink

- Dessert around 8-9pm - anything goes

- Before bed snack - almost always cereal

(TO BE CONTINUED)