Preperation!

First thing is first! I suck at keeping up with my blogging. I have two other blogs that just kinda faded into the background of life. However, with what I'm about to do, I'm suppose to be writing EVERYTHING I do down. So why not use this a a medium to do so? I can access it anywhere and I can also gain some emotional support with the comments, and maybe even inspire others if this works for me.

Here's the thing: I have PCOS (Poly Cystitic Ovarian Syndrome). I am 29 years old and have been suffering a lot of the symptoms for about 5 years now. One of the worst on the list is the weight. I am 280 lbs and very unhappy with myself. If you know anything about PCOS, you know that it is next to impossible to lose weight. I've tried everything from starving myself to eating "right", exercise to medication. It's an ever losing battle. I feel bad about myself and hearing "You should be doing this and that!" Makes me feel worse because I've tried everything and it just makes me feel like people just don't believe me that I have a real problem and am just fat because of over eating.

One of the favourite things that people like to tell me is that I over eat. I went to a nutritionist last fall and when I brought her my lists of what I eat and how much I eat, she flipped out and told me that I wasn't consuming enough calories. So, after going through with her what I should be eating and how often I should be eating, I did eventually lose about 20lbs. And then that was it. I continued on my routine with no changes. So, I eventually slipped back into my habits of only eating once a day and not enough.

The next thing that people like to throw in my face is that soda pop is a huge problem and I need to cut it out of my diet. Of course, those people obviously don't know me when they say that because I have never liked pop. I can't stand fizz. I never could, even when I was little, I avoided it like the plague. For the longest time, I drank a lot of Nestea and that has horrible sugar content. In the last few years, though, I only occasionally drink it in a restaurant because they don't have any diet non-carbonated alternatives and sometimes you want a little more flavour than just water. At home I either drink Peach Iced Tea Crystal Light or water. The occasional brewed herbal tea here and there, as well.

I think my biggest weakness is Lindt chocolates. I'm not a big fan of chocolate, but there's an ice cube's chance in hell that I would pass up having an opportunity to have those. However, they are so god damned expensive that I maybe have them 3-4 times a year. I'm not much of a snack-food person, so that's not too much of a problem. However, I love to bake. I usually bake for others, but I always taste my work to make sure it's good quality. When I bake once in a while, it's not a big deal. Christmas time is the worst though. I probably consume way too many calories because of how much I bake, even though I get the majority of it all away.

In the end, I really don't eat that bad. I try to get in lots of fruits and vegetables. I try to make very rounded meals that have the right portion of everything. Every now and then I make something "bad", but not all the time.

So, after all that's been going on, I've decided to take my last bet. I've constantly been reading up on PCOS and what people have tried and tested and I have come to the conclusion that I wish to give Atkins a shot. My husband and mine's best friends started Atkins about a month ago, so that will make it a bit easier on us and them since we spend so much time together. Not to mention, my husband has the weight to lose as well (his problem is working 8-10 hours, 6 days a week and being stuck behind a desk and not wanting to do anything when he gets home - I certainly don't blame him!).

Along with Atkins, I've been going swimming 3 times a week with another good friend of mine. These last few weeks I've been slacking, though because my bathing suit ripped, I've been too cheap to buy a new one, and our house is being worked on so I've been trapped at home anyways. On top of that, I walk with my two dogs a fair amount, or go out on my bike. Once winter shows it's ugly face again, I'd like to go to the gym to take the place of the biking and less walking. I also keep staring at my Wii Fit board that is collecting dust, thinking I should use that again and use it to my benefit of keeping track of my progress. I've also been talking big about getting a pedometer to track my total steps each day to help track what I'm doing. That's still kinda of the back burner to the rest, but the idea is still there.

I think the biggest hurdle I'll have to overcome is actually keeping track of everything. Not only do I have the responsibility of keeping track of these things for myself, but my husband is so busy that I'll have to keep track of his status as well. I'm thinking that I should start now, even though we're not ready to do the switch. It'd be nice to have some comparison between now and then.

We're looking at starting on October 15th because a big paycheque will be coming in and it will make it a lot easier to go shopping to basically restock our cupboards. Right now, I don't really have a goal for myself. I'm afraid to set any goals because it makes me look forward to something and if it doesn't work, I'll just get all depressed over it [again]. I just want to lose weight. If I can actually lose weight, I'll set a goal then. But I want to see progress, first.

So that's my story.

I'd actually love for my friends to bug me to write stuff down. Encouragement always makes things go better than nothing at all. And I mean ENCOURAGEMENT, not "You should be doing this, you should be doing that!" I'm not a "normal" case of weight loss, and I think people need to understand that before they have advice to give me. If you have PCOS, please! Shoot advice at me every chance you get! Or if you have any Atkins friendly recipes and pointers to share, I'd love that too!

If you are curious about PCOS, you can read about it here and here. I'm also open to questions about my experiences and what symptoms I have.