Hi! I am a 36 yr old mom of dd 8, and ds 10. I run an at home daycare to support my family, as hubby is a full-time student. (He worked for 12 years at a dead-end job and is going to change careers.) Anyway, I am looking for support pals who are in the same weight/height boat. So far I have lost almost 20 pounds.

My story: I found out the day of the 9-11 terrism that I have insulin resistance and pcos, a hormonal and ovarian disease. I was off- and-on doing atkins and zone dieting... honestly, not very seriously. (I went from 224 to 203. In less than 2 years I gained it almost all back.) Well, I started to feel very unhealthy recently with heart racing and palpitations. I decided to get serious. I purchased a good quality treadmill and weight lifting system and turned the garage into a gym! I started doing the insulin resistance diet since reading the book about 6 months ago. I started again at 219 lbs last Oct. and six months later am only down to 205. I am ready to get serious about this weight loss, and am looking for buddies to go thru the daily rigors together! My weaknesses are pizza, alcohol, eating out at fancy restaurants, and since I quit drinking alcohol altogether a week ago, desserts!

I worry about my kiddos. My kids are very active now, dd is a swimmer for the city swim team, a front runner even! Ds is a baseball player and is always busy playing basketball or something with the neighbor kids. But I worry about what they eat and my part in teaching what them to eat. I want to be a good example for them as much as I want to be healthy and thin again. I was a lovely popular teen, and I wish so much to look and feel like that again! Anyone who wants to talk please write. I am ready this time!
Tera

Oh, I forgot....I LOVE CHEESE! I think it messes with my progress tho! OH NO!
Any thoughts on this? Also, I retain water and I think it is from salt. Is cheese too salty? Because the weight gain I see from eating cheese is always temporary. Thanks is advance for response!

I am kind of the same boat you are in height and weight wise. I am "almost" 5'1"!!! I haven't been officially diagnosed with PCOS but I think I have had the mild symptoms for a while now. That was one of the reasons for beginning the low carb WOE. That and also my father is a very non-compliant diabetic who is starting to have multiple disease related ailments and won't think of any way of eating except the diabetic diet (which he doesn't do!) because that's what all the professionals have told him. I really do not want to end up like him.

Any way I have three boys 12, 10, 2

I have tried all the low fat diets and have obviously failed them all because I am here and this is working for me!! I have lost 8 pounds so far. Tomorrow is my last day of the induction phase. Hope we can keep supporting each other.

P.S. How come all the fat clothes are X-tra long?????

Jill

Thank you for your response Jill! I was happy to see you there this morning!
I agree! I always tease my dh that I am going to start a line of clothes for shorties like us who need room for the abundant boobage. lol! (btw I am 5'3"). That's tall actually, since my parents are only 5'7" and 4'11.5". My little sister is ever an inch taller than me...brat!

Wow, you have your hands full! I know, as I said I run a daycare. I have two right now, they are busy watching tv, but I have to go soon and start preschool projects with them.

About the pcos, I knew something was wrong with me forever, but never could figure it out. I always had weight problems since 19 yrs old, irregular periods and mood swings. I was infertile for 8 years before I started line dancing in the 90's and dieted down to 165 lbs. I guess that got my insulin regular enough to ovulate or something cuz surprise! ds was conceived. My doc told me that if I want more children that I should have one immediately because my body would be more fertile since it just had a baby. Baby # 2, dd was born the next year. They are 15 months apart. I wish I could have spread them out and enjoyed having a baby twice, but I am grateful for them that is for sure! I guess that is why I couldn't leave them and go back to work, hense the daycare.

You should get the testing done to find out for sure if you are a pcos sufferer. There is a good book on it called pcos, a woman's guide to dealing with pcos, by Colette Harris and Dr. Adam Carey. The symptoms are weight problems, usually upper body and middle, extreme moods, facial hair and hair on belly and or breasts, scant and irregular periods, infertility and acne (never had the acne symptom). We are lucky, I used to talk to ladies on a pcos support website and a lot of them are infertile with no children. I used to because they were quite bitter with those of us who do have kids and I got tired of all the cat fights posted. I finally got diagnosed because it had been 3 months since my last period and I felt off. I walked in the door and the nurse practitioner immediately suspected pcos. She said I had the classic build and complaints. Sure enough my blood tests revealed my insulin problems and the ultasound showed ovaries full of cysts. The cysts are eggs that were never released in ovulation and reabsorbed into a little bump like thing. So the ovarties appear, well, bumpy! lol! It sounds like you know the dangers that lie ahead if left untreated because of your dad. I personally do not want to die of heart disease or any of the other. How are you feeling now?

Ok, back to the diet. I did great yesterday, until dinner. I ate only 3 ounces of chicken to have a six pack of corona with lime. Love them! I ate only 1874 cal all day, but I am not supposed to drink beer anymore or carbs, and beers are carbs of course. That was the only alcohol I had in a week tho. I was raised in a drinking family and used to love to party with my friends. I'm no alcoholic rest assured, but I miss corona. Silly heh? (I dropped one pound today tho! Yeah! ) Now of course I am craving carbs like crazy because of my indiscretion (spelling?) last night. I was good a breakfast tho and had only a 6 oz hamburger patty with catsup and mustard and a little mayo. Oh and bunless.

Well, it's time for preschool. Thank you writing and please keep the notes
coming! Tera

Jill,
Forgot to ask, how did the induction phase go/work? I tried the Adkins diet and found it very hard to reach ketosis.

Hello again,

Yeah I know I should probably get tested but I know what and how they would treat me anyways. That's why I am trying to cut my carbs now. I don't seem to have many of the symptoms of PCOS as I do just plain insulin resistance. I also never had fertility problems but carry most of my weight in my midsection as all of my mother's family is. My husband laughs when we go to a family reunion because everybody is the same shape!!!

I haven't had too much problem with induction but it seems that I will probably have to keep my carbs to a bare minimum because the second I eat a little bit of carbs my weight loss stalls. I have been very disciplined and sugar/carbs aren't even tempting right now.

What exactly is the difference in the insulin resistance diet and SBD/Atkins?

Hi ladies! Just got back from 2 hours of baseball practice with ds and ended up with 2 girls and one boy staying the night. So much for the end of my daycare day! Oh well, I'm weak.

Jill, I have read about this, and it is regulateable (is that a word?) but not correctable. You can regulate insulin with a change of diet and excercise. One of the reasons I am practicing this woe is to avoid a lifetime of drugs they prescribe to us pcos gals. However, I am sure that if I ever went back to my old woe I would have trouble again. It is a disease that you are born with as I understand from my research. It is a genetic strength of sorts that enabled women hundreds or thousands of years ago to go with less food. Now, since our society in general doesn't have this problem, our systems don't know how to deal with the abundance of food we eat. Does that make sense? Maybe us pcos gals had poor relatives? It rears it's ugly little head in your teens usually. I swear I already see it in my dd, 8 1/2! I am already watching her sugar. Anyway, that is all true for pcos, I don't know about just plain ole ins. res.

I have a sad icon face becuz I had a few blubs in my diet success today. Dh thought I deserved a $15 dollar bottle of wine (hmmm...wonder what he wants) and I plan on having a few strawberries dipped in dolci chocolate tonight after dinner. Oh well, that's not too bad. My calories til come in at 1900. How do you gals handle Friday night? It is usually my biggest weakness in diet land. Tera

I am 5’2’’ and I start I R sixteen days ago. I lost 3 pounds .I am very positive with this diet .being on three different pills a day has made it very hard to loose weight with Atkins and CAD .
Years ago, I went on a similar diet and lost 60 pounds in less than 5 months. I think actually it went off during the first four months. I been serious and never cheated, after 2 months I increased my speed on the treadmill and lost everything. I kept it off for 3 years.
I got depressed and gained everything back. This is it this time.
Good luck and Mean It.
You deserve to be healthy; you deserve to be strong, proud, and happy.
Pene

Welcome to our short-gal thread Penelope! You sound like you'll have no problem since you have done it before! I'm sorry about your depression, and hopefully you took something awy from that experience that will help you to cope better in the future. I know better than most that depression and stress can really do a number on you! I am convicted that this it is for me too. I need to stop all the ways I have been harming my bod for the past 20 years or so! Now if I could just stop the 6 cig a day habit! No, not ready to tackle that one! Sugar, pizza, potatoes, and alcohol are hard enough! Man, I don't know if I can do it when I type them all in a row like that! OUCH! Tera

Welcome Penelope! Hi Tera,

It's hard to see everything we're giving up isn't it? With everything you guys have read do you know if once you have insulin resistance do you always have it? I just wondered if after awhile you can enjoy carbs without them affecting you as before or if this is a lifetime "disease". Not that I ever plan to totally abandon this WOE I was just wondering.

Nice to meet you Penelope,

Jill

I am afraid that I am stuck with this diet for life. This was one of the excuses I was depressed about. I quit the diet and start eating handful of chocolate (as the book says low Dopamine level) but I always had a chunk of cheese with it .After a while the chocolate got in without the cheese and 60 pounds later here I am back into Type 2 Diabetes .
I am controlling my Blood Sugar very well with this diet and I lost another pound.
Pene

Hi gals,

Friday night here has always been pizza night But, I did good with only eating the salad and a bite of my son's leftover pizza (only the toppping of course!!). I guess how I feel about this WOE and knowing that I may have to limit carbs forever is ok - at least it's not low fat/low calorie!

It's not fair I wasn't born rich, was it too much to ask for to have been born thin!!!

Congratulations on another pound Penelope!! Later,

Jill

Congats on the weight loss Penelope and Jill (I see your stats changed for the better too!) I had 4 oz of ice cream and a few bites of dessert tonight. Did pretty well actually since I was at a bunko party! Otherwise good day. I'm sleepy after the party, so got to go now. Tera

Hi Tera and Penelope,

I'm back! I didn't even get a chance to sit down to my computer yesterday (sad isn't it). We took our puppy for a walk (MY IDEA!) Wow that never would have been a thought a couple of months ago. It's amazing how my energy level and even just my outlook on life has changed since I began to add more protein and less carbs in my diet.

I am reading the Swartzbein Principle now and she talks alot about serotonin and how if you don't get enough protein your body can't make it's own steady supply of serotonin. Makes a whole bunch of sense to me. I have ordered the book Syndrome X from the library but it's not in yet.

Take Care,

Jill

Jill,

It sounds like you are doing great! I can really see you going far with your positive attitude.

I had brunch out with my parents yesterday and they kept offering me these free bottles of champagne, well glasses from them, and I just smiled and said no thank you. I drank water and split a new york steak and eggs meal with my dd. It was plenty of food, the steak was 12 oz! I ate my 6 and a little bit of potato and a green salad w/ blu chz and 1 egg! Then for dinner I had them stop off at the store and we bought groceries. I steered them in the direction of grilled chicken, grilled port. mushrooms, and grilled asparagus, in the guise of being "easy". We included a loaf of sourdough baguette for those who still carb. It was wonderful. I drank lots of water and calistoga sparkling water while my Ddad drank only 1 beer and 1 glass champagne. I was good and a good influence! Mom never had a sip of any alcohol, after brunch. BBQs have always been a beer party in the past, but we're all getting older too. I have to go journal my details now, talk w/ya gals soon!

Tera