All the little things..

I've been working on my lifestyle changes a lot lately. Things are slow going, but any progress is moving forward… and I am making progress.

My first step to tackle getting myself back on track was rejoining Weight Watcher's. I don't know what it is about tracking my meals that holds me accountable, but it does. I unjoined Weight Watcher's when the Mr. lost his job. For financial reasons I chose to stop paying that bill especially since I wasn’t following the plan to begin with. I decided this week since we are in a more stable financial situation right now- that I needed to rejoin Weight Watcher's and track and work on small goals starting now. Not continue to put it off because I'm preparing for a mediated cycle. Following that logic things have been a downward spiral...

I also need to cut back on my coffee intake. Both my acupuncturist and my RE advised me that I should not be drinking as much coffee as I do. This is really difficult for me because I truly do enjoy my cups of coffee daily. I usually have two 16oz cups. This week I have started to have two 8oz cups and my continued plan is to cut that back to two 4oz cups and so on and so forth until I don't "need" coffee- I just enjoy it on a rare occasion. I don’t plan to go decaffeinated. It doesn’t make sense to me. If I’m going to enjoy a cup of coffee I want to enjoy the real deal.

My acupuncturist asked me to cut my usual daily glass of wine out to occasional. I made Pineapple Sangria last week-I enjoyed every sip I had- and haven't had anything since. This is easier for me now that I am back to tracking on Weight Watcher’s as well. A daily glass of wine is equivalent to breakfast- and I would much rather have breakfast. Also- when discussing finances I can’t say I can’t "afford" Weight Watcher’s when the monthly fee is comparable to a bottle of wine. If I can afford a bottle of wine then I can afford Weight Watcher's.

My gluten freeness has been going pretty well. I do feel better. I'm not super strict with being gluten free, I just try to not have gluten as the main part of my diet anymore- lets face it I am super Italian and am married to a super Italian- there is no way I could ever be completely gluten free unless I absolutely had to be. Since I do feel better I plan to stick with the minimal gluten free diet I have been doing and enjoying my wine and pasta on rare occasions.

I have been religious about getting enough water in. Right now I am on a water with lime kick. It always helps my weight loss when I am drinking enough water so that has been my focus lately. I have better mentally clarity, clearer skin and have shinier hair when I am hydrating enough. All things that you can notice right away and helped me to kick the diet root beer addiction. I’ll still enjoy a random diet root beer, but I don’t have anymore in my home so it will have to be when we go out and when I can find it while we are out- super rare!

I have a small weight loss goal set of 10lbs and a an intermediate goal of 20lbs. My ultimate goal is 42lbs which is very doable. About two years ago I lost 60lbs and over the stress of TTC and IF I gained almost 40lbs back. So basically I was 2lbs away from my long term goal before I totally lost my way. All these little changes are going to help me stay on the right track now. No more excuses- no more stress eating and feeding my IF junk food. If my IF and stress are hungry I’ll feed them water.

I have been walking a lot lately too. I'm not supposed to run during this upcoming cycle so I have been focusing on nice long relaxing walks. I've been taking Swish our mini doxie with me on the bike trail and he has been loving it. Normally we just walk him around our development and he basically terrorizes our neighborhood. He is a completely different dog when we walk the bike path. He doesn’t bark at every passing bike or runner. He doesn’t shy away from other dogs. He seems happier on the trail and so I have been trying to get him out there almost every day.

My upcoming stay-cation starts on Friday.(Why does Friday feel so far way!!) I have 17 day off and I plan on working on everything listed about and hopefully start this next cycle. My stay-cation was planned around cycling and upcoming doctors appointments galore. I wanted to minimize my stress and this is one of the best ways I can think of. Hopefully AF arrives any moment now so it all goes as planned. Today I didn’t pack any panty liners or Tampax- surely that will bring AF on right?

I have one more thing I need to work on and I was gently reminded by this Psalm passage –thank you Caroline for your passages they are always so relatable-

"The Lord is compassionate and gracious,

slow to anger, abounding in love.

He will not always accuse,

nor will he harbor his anger forever;

he does not treat us as our sins deserve

or repay us according to our iniquities."

So what I plan on working on during my stay-cation is letting go. I have a serious "letting go" issue. I have some pent up anger that I have been harboring that needs to just go away. I also have some people in my life that are constantly negative and its time to let them go as well. No more negative junk clouding up my life. If you can't live your life without destroying others than I need to let you go. So good riddens drama and anger. I’m using a mental image of my anger floating away like a helium balloon- up, up, up – until it is unrecognizable. My plan for the negative people in my life is to not feed into it. Walk away from the back stabbing, don’t reply to the hurtful words, and don’t feed into anything that feels remotely like drama.

The Mr and I also have some pretty intense things to work on during my stay-cation. The main thing being the possibility of us having to move somewhere for him to find work. Surely he could change his career, but like he says he is a Paramedic and its a part of him. It is what he wants to do. I'm pretty open to the idea of moving and if its something that is going to be a part of our future we truly need to map out the logistics- benefits and downsides to moving. Included in this is finding new doctors and treatments if this one doesn't work and moving away from both our families.

So I have a lot of little things that are all working together for one common goal- our future. I think much of life is piecing all these little things together to make your future better, or brighter or happier. Hopefully things will come together easier and hopefully this upcoming cycle will lead to the future we are looking for.

Hopefully answers reveal themselves the way they often do.

Hopefully.