Standing Strong

Thanks to all who commented on my last post about abstaining from Halloween candy. I was down .8 lbs at Weight Watchers this week and I attribute it all to following a NO CANDY policy.

I do agree with some of you that abstaining can often be a part of the problem. When something is forbidden, you do seem to want it more. I, however, cannot do that with Halloween candy. I think of it much like an alcoholic would. Why would you stop at 1 or 2 pieces? How can you stop at 1 or 2 pieces? If I started, I don't think I'd be able to stop (and we can go on past history for this as well).

I think that it's become easier now because I can say to myself, "Self - you've gotten through the hard days and you didn't eat any of the candy, you don't want to start now." So, abstaining from the Halloween candy this year is what is working for me.

Next year, when I'm down to where I need to be to have ART and (crossing my fingers) am actually pregnant and (total crossing of fingers) not dealing with gestational diabetes, I will choose to experience the awesomeness of eighty twenty one of each of the following miniature candies:

1. Reese's Peanut Butter Cup
2. Hershey's Miniatures (all varieties)
3. Nestle Crunch
4. Snickers
5. Milky Way

I will not have any of the following:

1. Candy Corn (yuck!)
2. Three Musketeer's
3. Orange Peanut-shaped Doorstops
4. Anything Peep-related

What are your favorite candies? What are the ones that you absolutely cannot stand?

Pain

Depression, sadness, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. The pain that I am experiencing now is due to Halloween. Specifically, Halloween candy.

I did not have any candy yesterday (our building did the trick-or-treat thing last night) and have not had any so far today. Can I tell you that I am in physical pain from not eating the candy right in front of my face?!

I've been eyeing the candy and know that I would not be able to stop at 1, or 10. Maybe if I made myself sick. Nah, I'd probably eat more after I threw up.

Kay, so I haven't eaten any candy and it's killing me! Aaaaahhh!

1995

Aside from reminding myself just how old I feel, 1995 is the year that I graduated from high school. Found this meme over at Jill's and just had to do it.

The Rules:
A.) Go to Music Outfitters.
B.) Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year.
C.) Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you REALLY hate.

1. Gangsta's Paradise, Coolio
2. Waterfalls, TLC
3. Creep, TLC
4. Kiss From A Rose, Seal
5. On Bended Knee, Boyz II Men
6. Another Night, Real McCoy
7. Fantasy, Mariah Carey
8. Take A Bow, Madonna
9. Don't Take It Personal (Just One Of Dem Days), Monica
10. This Is How We Do It, Montell Jordan
11. I Know, Dionne Farris
12. Water Runs Dry, Boyz II Men
13. Freak Like Me, Adina Howard
14. Run-Around, Blues Traveler
15. I Can Love You Like That, All-4-One
16. Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?, Bryan Adams
17. Always, Bon Jovi
18. Boombastic/In The Summertime, Shaggy
19. Total Eclipse Of The Heart, Nicki French
20. You Gotta Be, Des'ree
21. You Are Not Alone, Michael Jackson
22. Hold My Hand, Hootie and The Blowfish
23. One More Chance-Stay With Me, Notorious B.I.G.
24. Here Comes The Hotstepper, Ini Kamoze
25. Candy Rain, Soul For Real
26. Let Her, w Hootie and The Blowfish
27. I Believe, Blessid Union Of Souls
28. Red Light Special, TLC
29. Runaway, Janet Jackson
30. Strong Enough, Sheryl Crow
31. Colors Of The Wind, Vanessa Williams
32. Someone To Love, Jon B.
33. Only Wanna Be With You, Hootie and The Blowfish
34. If You Love Me, Brownstone
35. In The House Of Stone And Light, Martin Page
36. I Got 5 On It, Luniz
37. Baby, Brandy
38. Run Away, Real McCoy
39. As I Lay Me Down, Sophie B. Hawkins
40. He's Mine, Mokenstef
41. December, Collective Soul
42. I'll Be There For You-You're All I Need To Get By, Method Man-Mary J. Blige
43. Shy Guy, Diana King
44. I'm The Only One, Melissa Etheridge
45. Every Little Thing I Do, Soul For Real
46. Before I Let You Go, BLACKstreet
47. Big Poppa/Warning, Notorious B.I.G.
48. Sukiyaki, 4 P.M.
49. I Wanna Be Down, Brandy
50. I'll Make Love To You, Boyz II Men
51. Dear Mama/Old School, 2Pac
52. Hold On, Jamie Walters
53. Keep Their Heads Ringin', Dr. Dre
54. The Rhythm Of The Night, Corona
55. Roll To Me, Del Amitri
56. Scream/Childhood, Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson
57. Freek'n You, Jodeci
58. I Wish, Skee-lo
59. Believe, Elton John
60. Carnival, Natalie Merchant
61. You Don't Know How It Feels, Tom Petty
62. Back For Good, Take That
63. Tootsee Roll, 69 Boyz
64. You Want This-70's Love Groove, Janet Jackson
65. Tell Me, Groove Theory
66. Can't You See, Total
67. All I Wanna Do, Sheryl Crow
68. This Lil' Game We Play, Subway
69. Come And Get Your Love, Real McCoy
70. This Ain't A Love Song, Bon Jovi
71. Secret, Madonna
72. Player's Anthem, Junior M.A.F.I.A.
73. Feel Me Flow, Naughty By Nature
74. Every Day Of The Week, Jade
75. The Sweetest Days, Vanessa Williams
76. Short Dick Man, 20 Fingers Featuring Gillette
77. Brokenhearted, Brandy
78. No More "I Love You's", Annie Lennox
79. You Used To Love Me, Faith Evans
80. Constantly, Immature
81. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me, U2
82. 100% Pure Love, Crystal Waters
83. Ask Of You, Raphael Saadiq
84. Sugar Hill, Az
85. Good, Better Than Ezra
86. Brown Sugar, D'angelo
87. Turn The Beat Around, Gloria Estefan
88. 'Til You Do Me Right, After 7
89. 1st Of Tha Month, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
90. Like The Way I Do If I Wanted To, Melissa Etheridge
91. I Live My Life For You, Firehouse
92. Dream About You-Funky Melody, Stevie B
93. Cotton Eye Joe, Rednex
94. Thank You, Boyz II Men
95. I'll Stand By You, Pretenders
96. I Miss You, N II U
97. Give It 2 You, Da Brat
98. Best Friend, Brandy
99. Misery, Soul Asylum
100. Can't Stop Lovin' You, Van Halen

Guess I'm just neutral on most of the songs from my graduation year. I just remember listening to a lot of The Beatles back then.

Cut the Cheese

As I wrote previously, I just started seeing a nutritionist connected with my fertility clinic. I'm hoping that her advice will help me lose weight a little bit faster and more effectively when done in conjunction with the Weight Watchers program I'm currently following.

I met with the nutritionist for about 2 hours and she talked to me about my goals, issues, what I was eating and what I thought I could change.

She helped me to lay out several basics:

1. Dairy: reduce the amount I'm eating, eliminate cheese, switch from skim to whole milk.
2. Starches: only whole grain varieties (basically did this already), eat at breakfast or lunch, no starch at dinner.
3. Timing: eat every four hours, make sure that you are actually hungry when you do eat. NO eating after 8 PM.
4. Protein: make sure to have protein with every meal and every snack.
5. Natural Foods: closer to nature is best, so no more artificial sweetener, go back to sugar; choose organic whenever possible.

She told me that I really needed to increase the variety of the foods that I was eating, and that I should only repeat a menu item once every four days. We also worked to come up with several ideas for each meal:

Breakfast
-2 scrambled eggs on whole wheat toast (my usual breakfast, but without the cheese)
-Oatmeal with fruit and whole milk
-Cereal and flax seeds with fruit and whole milk
-Smoothie of fruit, whey protein powder and whole milk

Lunch
-Tuna on whole wheat with veggies (a variation on my usual lunch, a tuna melt)
-Salad with grilled chicken and balsamic vinaigrette
-Salad and soup
-Fage (Greek yogurt) with fruit and nuts

Dinner
-Protein + Veggies

Snack
-Fage with fruit
-Luna Bar
-Apple with nut butter (almond or cashew is preferable to PB)

Today's Hits for the Depressed and Downtrodden

I want to change the world; instead, I sleep.
--Ingrid Michaelson, "Keep Breathing"
What I'm Listening To Now:
"Who Knew?" - Pink
"Hero" - Nickelback
"Song Beneath the Song" - Maria Taylor
"Where Does the Good Go?" - Tegan and Sara
"Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps" - Doris Day
"Fools In Love" - Inara George
"Daughter" - Loudon Wainwright III
"Grey in L.A." - Loudon Wainwright III
"I Let Myself Fall" - Rosie Thomas
"Sunday" - Sia
"You Wouldn't Like Me" - Tegan and Sara
"Edge of the Ocean" - Ivy
"Bound by Love" - Gran Bel Fisher
"Keep Breathing" - Ingrid Michaelson

I Done Been Tagged

The lovely Jill has tagged me, so I'll do this meme while you're waiting for the info on my nutritionist's teachings.

1.Do you have the same friends since childhood? Nope, BFF is from college and most of my current friends are from law school or fellow stirrup queens.

2. What do you value most about your friends? Their ability to calm me down from my craziness and to make me laugh.

3. Are your friends sounding boards? Definitely.

4. What is your favorite activity to share with friends? Talking, eating, laughing.

I tag anyone who wants to do this meme.

Bulleted

--Just feeling meh. Who knows why.

--The Saturday before last, John Dear, BFF, my mom and I went out raspberry picking and got pumpkins too! We met up with my sister, her friend, and her friend's parents at Chicken Out. A lot of fun, but JD was not well-behaved most of the trip. Lots of whining and a tantrum near the end. Not fun.

--Wanted to freeze the raspberries so we could use them over the winter, but I didn't get to them and JD didn't do anything with them but leave them on the counter. He went to move them this past Thursday and they had melted and spilled all over the counter and floor. He did not clean this up.

--Our jack o'lanterns looked great, but I wasn't able to get a pic of them before they rotted. Oh well. Mine said, "Go Caps".

--Am learning how to knit. Doing pretty good now that I'm working with a beginner's yarn as opposed to the fancy threaded yarn I was trying to start with. Have learned the knit stitch, and will soon move on to start purling.

--My fertility clinic opened up an integrative medicine center. They have acupuncture, yoga, massage and a nutritionist. I went to see the nutritionist last week. It went really well and I promise a post on the specifics this week.

--After a session with his therapist, JD said that he needed visual cues to tell him what to do, i.e., a chore chart. This coincided with my expressing my feelings that I don't give a good G-D D-N that he can't* fold or put things away, if he's home all day, he's responsible for all laundry tasks when he does laundry.

--I made charts and diagrams over the last two days detailing my plan to conquer Europe where Jimmy Hoffa is buried where I put away different kinds of clothes and assigning different chores to JD and myself.

--JD saw his orthopedic surgeon on Friday. The doc doesn't know why JD would be in so much pain and has now prescribed a narcotic to be used every other day to try and break the pain cycle. My diagnosis: JD is in pain because he hasn't exercised in 2 months and all of the good he did this summer is gone. His knees and back hurt because he walks crookedly to accommodate his hurting ankles. Didn't even go to medical school - I'm awesome.

--On Saturday, JD and I attended a RESOLVE panel discussion on Donor Issues. I really wish that the person hosting the event had specified that ONLY egg donation would be covered, as we could have skipped the whole thing. When we saw the sign in back of the panelists read, "Egg Donation, Questions & Answers," JD went to talk to the host soon after we had sat down to make sure that she asked the panelists questions on sperm donation. So, she did, but they clearly weren't familiar with the intricacies of sperm donation and weren't prepared to answer any questions about it. I was a little annoyed. Did learn some good stuff though, I'll share when I fish my notes out of my car.

--JD and I talked more extensively about sperm donation and finding out if that is the right path.

--On Sunday, we went to JD's nephew's 6th birthday party. It was at a mini-golf course. I beat the pants off JD!!!! I won! I won! I won! Two holes-in-one, baby!! My cheer involved the following quote from Friends, "I win! You lose! Holland loves Chandler! Good night!" I'm a tad competitive. (hee).

--After the party, we went back to SIL's house, where MIL was going through some old family photos of JD as a little kid. It was amazing to me how much his nephews look like him as a kid. It made me sad to think that I've sort of been pushing sperm donation and the fact that if we go that route, our children won't have that link. Sure, we'll look for a donor who looks like JD, but we probably won't be able to say, "Oh look, Baby has Nephew 1's face."

If you got this far, CONGRATULATIONS!! You win a gold star!!

*Yeah, he actually thinks that he can't fold or put away clothes. Like he's genetically impaired. I think it's just that his mother is a perfectionist. Also, he's lazy.