Teeth!

Throughout my life, I have had problem with my teeth. Health-wise they have been pretty good but started out very crooked, as a result of sucking on my pinkey finger (hey, we all have our things). I also had what are called "peg laterals" which are the teeth next to the front two top teeth that don't become the proper size so they look like pegs. Braces took care of the crookedness but the small teeth were never really fixed correctly (bonded to be bigger but not big enough to look right). So yesterday, my dentist fixed this up for me finally. Insurance covered 80% like they would a filling, which is essentially what they did. I am so completely happy with the results! Here are some before and after pics of my smile.

This is a before picture - as you can see, teeth are nice and straight thanks to braces in high school. But the two teeth lateral to the front two are smaller and look a little crooked due to chipping over the years. The two front teeth are also flatter from being worn down (probably from biting my nails). You can also see the scar on my bottom lip from falling up the stairs when I was 3 and getting stitches.

This is the after picture - the teeth are now taller and more in size with the surrounding teeth. The front two were also rounded a little to take off sharp edges and give a more feminine look. 

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First Weigh-In!!

I went to the doc's office today and did my first official weigh-in with the nurse and the dietitian from Iowa City. I am officially down 12lbs! I am pretty happy with this number, especially since it took a couple of weeks for my body to actually start losing. I was afraid I was in a plateau before I even got started. My next weigh-in will be May 24th with my doctor. Hopefully I can keep up this momentum!

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Exercise

So part of the diet plan is supposed to include exercise, at least 30 minutes a day. I won't lie, I have been slacking. It's hard to do something when you know it's going to hurt like heck during and after. I desperately need a new pair of tennis shoes (this weekend I hope) because the ones I have now cause me great agony. My left heel is especially sore, though I don't know why (beyond the obvious reasons). And I hate walking in the evenings when my shows are on and I have to worry about getting dinner cooked.

So at the store the other day, I had a great epiphany that maybe I could take my lunch to work and walk either before or after I ate, depending on how I felt. So I got myself a cute little lunch bag and have done so for the past two days. I only live about 8 blocks from home so I usually go home for lunch. However, there is a lot of lost time in the going back and forth it seems. So yesterday I ate my lunch and then took a walk as far as I felt capable afterwards. I only made it around two full blocks and 11 minutes worth. My feet and legs were killing me and cramping up. I didn't know if I would be able to do it again today. But I brought my stuff to work (lunch, socks, crappy tennis shoes, deodorant, and body spray) just in case. My whole morning crapped out on me so I took a walk at about 11:15am. The same distance took me 12 minutes today but I was walking a little slower and more carefully due to my feet hurting so badly. But I made it and feel considerably better for having done it. I plan on continuing.

Bad points: my feet are killing me - especially my left heel!

Good points: I feel good otherwise and it seems to have helped the constipation issues occurring due to the diet changes. Good outweighs the bad here I think.

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DUH - AKA PCOS

I was diagnosed in 2004 with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. If you don't know what this is, click on the link at the bottom of my blog and educate yourself. Once I started using birth control (in an attempt to deal with mind crushing cramps), I started gaining weight. I haven't always been overweight, just since college really.

I was having a rough time of it last week because the scale wasn't really moving. Well, duh me, realized that I hadn't started on my new birth control after my last cycle. The PCOS seems to respond well to the hormones in the Nuvaring and doesn't behave itself when I don't have it in. I knew that losing the weight with the PCOS was going to be hard but good golly! So here's hoping that with the Nuvaring back in, everything will start moving in the right direction.

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Scales/One week down!

I realized yesterday that neither the old scale at home or the new one my husband bought is going to weigh me correctly when I have to do the telehealth weigh-in. My guess is that it doesn't have the surface space available for me to stand on correctly to get an accurate weight. What a pain in the butt! So I think my plan is to call my doc's office and see if I can do my telehealth appointment there so I can just weigh-in on their scale. That will give continuity throughout anyways and shouldn't be too difficult to pull off.

I have one week down and lots to go in this process. I guess I should keep track of that so I can know I am getting close to that date. As much as I don't want this year to run away without me, I do want to already be at the end of this! I feel like I did moderately well this week. I had a rough day the first evening trying to figure out what to eat and what to cook etc. I hope I don't get tired of chicken because that is what the next six months is going to look like. We did have thin pork chops one night and those were good in the NewWave oven. Unfortunately, carrots are the only vegetable that I care for so I have had a lot of carrots this past week. I need to try to venture out a little bit in this situation. But it surely does simplify things in that I don't spend much time on meal prep or cooking and I have been feeling better. I have no idea if I have lost much weight since I don't have a decent read on it yet. Perhaps I will drop by the doc's office later this week and see how it is going. I am trying not to set myself up to fail and I am kind of glad my scales suck because it means I have to stay off of them and just rely on eating the proper foods.

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