Travel Food

I spent last week on a rather stressful trip to NYC. I knew it would be cycle day 14 the day I got back so I packed as much ovulation food as I could. Apricots, red pepper hummus, etc. I was staying with my cousin who eats a very healthy vegetarian diet so I was able to eat very healthy while there. (My favorite was avocado sushi with flax seed rice from Silver Rice in Brooklyn).

Despite all this healthy eating and walking three to four miles a day, I gained weight while there.

Very discouraging and frustrating. And before you say I gained muscle, I knew I was gaining weight because my bra strap was getting tighter. I don't think I was gaining muscle mass in my rib cage.

My husband thinks that the stress contributed. Hopefully now that I'm home I can relax and some of that stress will drain out of my body and take the weight with it!

I took my thermometer with me and checked for ovulation, but my temperature has not risen as of yet and today is day 15. I was able to get some sex in as soon as I got home in the evening of day 14. So I'm somewhat hopeful this cycle.

It feels like the first time we've been able to actually try since May 2013. I've spent all my time since that time trying to get my cycle back after a psycho-somatic pregnancy.

I wouldn't be surprised if stress delayed ovulation this cycle, which is okay since I needed time to get back to my husband.

I say I'm feeling hopeful but that's not entirely accurate. I feel like I should be feeling hopeful. A week ago I was feeling hopeful. Right now I'm struggling to let go of my anxiety from the trip and as with every transition of my cycle, I feel unreasonable panic that the next step isn't going to happen. I would really like to know if I'm ovulating. I have yet to ever get a positive result on the pee sticks that my friend gave me.

I'm reading a lot of infertility memoirs on my Kindle app. Even though they make me cry, I find them comforting in some way. I also wish I could find more books that I've heard called "Mommy lit." Chick lit style books about women dealing with pregnancy or babies. I've read maybe three of them and I want more but I don't know how to find them!

Here are some I've found on Amazon:

• Babyville: A Novel 
• Three Girls and a Baby 
• Totlandia: Book 1 (Humorous Contemporary Women's Fiction): The Onesies - Fall 
• The Buggy List 
• The Baby Planner 
• Milked: A Modern Mommy Tale with a Retro Twist 

 (some of these are free first books in a series)

I'll also have recommendations on the infertility memoirs soon.

Rough Day Yesterday

I was so down yesterday. It was depression like I expect during PMS but my period just ended. I was hopeless, despairing, and angry. A lot of things I am not at all used to being. It was brutal. And I don't know what caused it.

Perhaps a number of anxieties coming together. Like my husband going away for the weekend (I chose not to go and work extra hours instead), my friend getting into a car accident and me having flashbacks to when I lost my closest friend in a car accident five years ago, stress over a trip to NYC I have to take next week (the city scares the hec out of me and I feel super overwhelmed and in over my head).

It may also have been the melatonin.

I had never heard of it until I met my husband but he has me use it sometimes to help me sleep. I read the other day that melatonin may actually help your eggs so that made me more willing to take it. I took it the night before yesterday and while it did help me fall asleep, I feel like when it leaves my system I wake up. So I woke up at 3:00 am and then me waking up caused both the animals to wake up and they thought is must be breakfast time so they kept me awake for the next two hours until it actually was breakfast time for them.

So then I took my temperature and, not surprisingly, it was way off. And that made me start stressing about my cycle again even though I knew the measurement couldn't be accurate. (And today my temperature is back on track).

I'm also stressing trying to understand what it means that I get really horny right after my period ends. I should be feeling that around ovulation time not the day I stop bleeding!

I want to be hopeful that this month is finally our month but the pressure of trying not to get my hopes up too high is stressful (And yes, believe me, I have heard many times about how stress is preventing me from getting pregnant).

Excess Hair Growth and Measures of Success

One of my most noticeable symptoms of PCOS is hirsutsim, which is excess hair growth. It's one of those signs that should have told me years ago that I had it. But all the women in my family are fairly hairy. We have pale skin and thick black hair. I never really noticed that I was the only one who had it not only on my upper lip and between my eyebrows but also on my chin and neck.

I've struggled with feeling ugly because of this hair for years and years. I've tried every hair removal process known to man (no, seriously. Every single one). These days I just shave it. It's the simplest and quickest.

But now that I know that the hair growth is part of PCOS, it should get better as I use my diet to get my hormones back into sync.

I need to find a way to track how often I'm shaving to see if there is any improvement.

This article has some information about supplements I could take to help with this. It also says that cutting out dairy is the most important thing to do for excess hair growth.

I think I'm going to get the paid version of my fertility tracking app, OvuView, because then I can set custom things to track like whether I shaved and constipation stuff!

A PCOS Miracle & Meal Plan for 5/17 to 5/24

Okay, so the PCOS miracle I'm really looking for is pregnancy, obviously. But today my period started and that's pretty amazing. It is day 30 of my cycle!

A 30 day cycle is just incredible. Absolutely perfect. Just what I need. Once I keep this up I just need to figure out if I'm ovulating. Plus a shorter cycle makes it a lot easier to time sex effectively.

This is great news and I'm excited that the diet is really working. (And you can tell from my last post that I really am going dramatically up and down between hope and despair each day!)

I have been struggling to keep up with my meal plans. I wanted to use up the food I had to not waste but trying to work from leftovers and what I had on hand is tricky when I can't depend on my usual go-to meals (grilled cheese and tuna fish sandwiches). I need some new go-tos! But I also need new go-tos for each cycle phase. That should be a post soon.

But I'm going to try to get back to having a plan for each day so I know what to make for myself and my husband and I'm not struggling to get him enough food.

Sunday (today)
Snack: kale chips
Dinner: yam and black bean soup with orange (afr)

Monday
Breakfast: chocolate peanut butter chia seed parfait
Lunch: wild rice with cranberries and mushrooms
Snack: cranberry DIY larabar
Dinner: black bean soup

Tuesday
Breakfast: parfait
Lunch: stir fry with kale, mushrooms, carrots, onion over brown and wild rice blend
Snack: watermelon pieces
Dinner: miso soup and  almond butter banana popsicles

Wednesday
Breakfast: graham cracker with nut butter and cranberries
Lunch: rajma with brown and wild rice
Snack: lara bar
Dinner: miso soup and sticky rice cakes with red bean paste

Follicular Phase Switch
Thursday
Breakfast: graham crackers with nut butter and clementine
Lunch: sweet potato and avocado onigiri
Snack: avocado wontons
Dinner: Going out with father-in-law

Friday
Breakfast:
Lunch: creamy mushroom fettuccine (afr)
Snack: cashew cookie dough lara bar
Dinner: boca burger with lots of toppings

Saturday (Husband out on boat)
leftovers

Grocery List:
(for monday)
bananas
wild rice
cranberries
mushrooms
dates
almonds

(for rest of week)
miso
peanut butter
clementines or orange
wonton wrappers
avocado
cachews
chocolate chips
whole wheat flour
portabello soup
nori

Asian market:
red bean paste
glutinous/sweet rice flour from long grain

Not So Sure My Temp Is Higher

The trouble with this cycle is I didn't start taking my temperature until quite a ways into it. I thought it was on the high side (which would be good) compared to when I was charting a couple years ago when we first started ttc.

But I went back and looked at those charts and now I'm not so sure that my temp is elevated at all. I don't know what to make of that.

If I'm still in follicular phase and not to luteal yet, then that's a very bad sign for the length of this cycle and the healing of my body.

Feeling pretty discouraged right now. I need more temps and more cycles to really know what's going on.

Meals Last Week

I've been mostly cooking leftovers this week. I made this amazing stir fry and I had forgotten how much I love mushrooms. Sweet carrots, flavorful mushrooms, singed broccoli...it was perfection. I ate it with some brown rice.

This is a pumpkin and coconut cream parfait. Yes, it is as amazing as it looks. I'm not the biggest fan of pumpkin taste but this is good. Would have been better if I had done two things better. One, I didn't freeze the pumpkin ahead of time as the recipe recommends. Two, I didn't realize I had Coconut Milk and not Coconut Cream as the recipe calls for. So I was using my hand mixer on it for about twenty minutes before I realized that it was never going to thicken up and turn into whipped cream. Such a shame! But it was still good as a liquidy mess :)

The graham cracker with toppings has become such a great go-to meal for me whether for breakfast or lunch. I spread peanut butter on it and then add things like applesauce, fruit, granola, and nuts. Delicious!

I also made some nacho spinach chips for my lunchbox here. They didn't stay crispy in with the other stuff so next time I need to put a lid on their compartment, I think.

I tried the vegan crepes with asparagus and mushrooms but my asparagus had gone bad so it was just mushrooms. And I tried to substitute Urad flour for the all purpose white and it tasted kind of weird. The crepes were easy to make, though, and I think with normal flour they would taste great.

Today is day 28 of my cycle. My temperature is still high. I'm waiting anxiously to see what news the next week or so might bring me.

My weight is down another couple of pounds. I'm at 144.5 now, which is 28.5 lbs below my heaviest weight.

Cycle Day 27

Well, here we are at last. Poised on the day before the end of a two week wait. Tomorrow will be day 28 of the cycle that started when I began this diet.

Of course not all women have a normal cycle of 28 days, so it could still be fine if I don't get my period for another week.

I'm trying so hard not to get my hopes up, but it's not working. I'm super anxious and hopeful that I'll see my period tomorrow. (Or that if I don't it means I'm pregnant!)

My temperatures have remained high (for me) and I've never seen that before. Every other time I've tracked my temp would go up about the right time and then a few days later crash back down. This is a good sign. Although now I'm worried about the batteries in the thermometer and if it is giving me an accurate reading. I guess it's just another example of me being afraid to be too hopeful.

In terms of eating I've been saving money this week and mostly making things from what I have on hand. I thought I had asparagus because it was in the freezer but when I went to make my asparagus meals I discovered that it had gone bad (I'd probably had those bags for a couple of years!)

So I haven't been eating the proper foods for this cycle, though I have still been eating healthy. I do have a pile of sweet potatoes in the pantry and that is a food for this cycle so I think I'll see what I can make with those for today.

Healthy-ish Desserts

I have a raging sweet tooth. Melty ice cream is one of my favorite things in the world. And I've been really craving the sweets lately. So I've experimented with some Pinterest recipes.

At first I just wanted to pick up some So Delicious Coconut ice cream from the grocery store but I went to two stores and could not find it! :(

Eventually I tried this recipe at home and it tastes a whole lot like it. Thumbs up to this one. The only issue is that I did get some ice crystals even though I bought and used xanthan gum just as the recipe called for (I did some research and despite its weird name and process, it sounds like it's actually good for people with insulin-resistant conditions). I didn't put the brownies in it either since I had such a bad experience with black bean brownies.

I'd like to get an ice cream maker since that would make it a lot easier than opening the freezer every half hour and stirring, which I did for about five or six hours last night!

Today I went for a "Blizzard" knock off. This recipe got the texture exactly right. I wasn't crazy about the amount of banana taste in it, though. Still, I ate the whole thing because that creamy, melty texture was so exactly what I love.

(For sweetener in these I've been using agave nectar, which rates 15 GI (as opposed to 65 for regular white sugar).

Instead of the cookie dough bites, because I was down to my last few dates, I made this Samoa Girl Scout Cookie bar instead and put that in the Blizzard.

The taste got pretty drowned out, though, and I discovered that they are incredibly delicious by themselves. They taste a whole lot like samoas, which were always my favorite cookies!

Now I just have to be careful not to fall into the pattern that I've had most of my life of choosing these sweet and dessert foods over real meals. Even though I ate that Blizzard knock off, I made sure to saute myself some carrots, broccoli, and mushrooms for lunch.

Ovulation Tests

I am so frustrated that I can't figure out if I'm ovulating!

Chances are if I get a period regularly then I am. But not necessarily. I could still be having anovulatory periods (meaning without an ovulation).

I've been trying to get back to taking my temperature each morning. The dog has a diaper on over night so I don't have to leap out of bed the instant she wakes me up. I'm tracking them on an app called OvuView. It is super slick and nice! Much better than the old app I was using. It lets you track a whole lot of different symptoms too. But anyway, I'll have to see if my temperatures are more steady now that I'm on this diet. So far so good. I've been high (for me) for the last four days which is what it should be if we're in luteal phase.

So maybe eventually the temperature will tell me if I'm ovulating.

I have a stack of pee test strips that a friend gave me when she started going to drugs to induce ovulation. I have yet to ever see a positive on one of those things!

They are so hard to read too. You're only ovulating if the second pink line is the same shade or darker than the test line. I've never had that happen but I've seen it get pretty close. It doesn't say whether it is supposed to get progressively darker as you head towards your ovulation. But message boards online suggest that for some people it does. I may need to start testing multiple times a day when it starts to look darker.

I also didn't realize until I downloaded the OvuView app that I'm supposed to be testing in the afternoon and definitely not with the first urine of the day. I was definitely messing that up.

There are easier to use and read ovulation testers out there. But I'm reluctant to buy one because I keep hearing that they aren't all that accurate with people with PCOS. Then again what I hear is that people with PCOS get a lot of false positives because we have a lot of the hormone in our systems already and I have never had any kind of positive, false or otherwise! So maybe they would work for me.

I'll give it a few months and then I might buy the ClearBlue predictor kit. You have to buy sticks to go with it too. Pretty expensive but still less expensive than evasive procedures or shots of drugs!

Sweeteners and Glycemic Index

Because PCOS is a condition that is related to/similar to Diabetes, the diet is similar to that for people with Diabetes. This means you're looking for foods that have a low "GI" (gylcemic index), that is foods that burn fuel slowly in your body rather than giving you a spike in blood sugar.

That's why we steer clear of simple carbs and white sugar. But I was looking at all the various alternative sweeteners out there and wondering where are they on the GI scale compared to white sugar?

I found this helpful chart that lists all the sweeteners out there by their gylcemic index.

After that it has a discussion of the zero GI sweeteners like Stevia. The conclusion seems to be that Stevia is probably a good choice for us (although it always seems to come mixed with other sweeteners that are higher GI, which makes it average out fairly high too. I did see a Stevia plant for sale at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I wonder if one could create their own sweetener?)

Truvia may be the best as it is mixed with erythriol and that has a GI of only 1.

I was disappointed to see that my favorite sweeteners like Maple Syrup, Honey, and Molasses were still pretty high on the list.

Where in the Grocery Store Can I Find Nutritional Yeast?

I needed a weird sounding product for some of my vegan meals: Nutritional Yeast.

Even though that sounds pretty unappetizing what it actually is is a cheesy tasting flake that is fortified with B-12 (a difficult vitamin for vegans to get naturally). I used it in the amazing roasted red pepper sauce and also as a coating for kale chips. I look forward to using it on popcorn.

The trouble is, though, it can be tough to find.

My grocery store doesn't carry it (even though they have been expanding their health food options a ton). Amazon has it for $8-something. But I did some research and found out that Wegman's has it for $5-something.

So I headed out to Wegman's.

Finding it was a whole other matter. I wandered around that store for a while. Then I googled where in the grocery store can I find nutritional yeast and got a yahoo answer that grocery stores don't have it. Sigh. Yahoo answers, when have you ever been helpful?

Finally I found something that said it would be in the nutritional section of the pharmacy area near protein shakes. I went there and still didn't find it. Someone there directed me to someone else who took me to the baking aisle and I finally saw it on the top shelf in a little canister. Red Star nutritional yeast.

It is my hope that others who are trying to find this product will be able to see my answer when they are standing in Wegman's Googling!

Meal Plan & Progress

So we ended up not even getting to the meals Wednesday to Friday of last week. Even though I should be doing Luteal phase meals now I'm going to still do those plans from last week.

I think that I might have a totally normal cycle this time! I'm on day 22 and yesterday I felt deeply sad for no reason plus I have a little tiny bit of acne developing. These things suggest to me that I'm in PMS, which would be just about right for a "normal" 28 day cycle!

This cycle I tried to use ovulation sticks but I can never seem to get a clear understanding of what's happening with those things. I really need to go back to taking my temperature. I did it this morning so that's a start. I just feel frustrated that I can't instantly have the temperature history to know what this morning's number means but that's entirely my own fault.

I still feel my hope and my fear swinging wildly back and forth. One moment I feel full of hope that we're are finally close to getting pregnant and I'm fixing all our issues. Another moment I feel the familiar despair that it's never going to happen and it's too late for me. (It's not. I'm 33, which is old but not too old).

It's Mother's Day tomorrow and it feels like a punch in the gut. My customers want to wish me a happy Mother's Day and so are more likely to ask if I have children.

But anyway, if I do get a period next week that will be pretty amazing and a great sign that I am probably ovulating.

From last week:
Wednesday  Sunday
Breakfast: graham cracker
Lunch: rajma and brown rice
Snack: lara bar
Dinner: grilled asparagus

Thursday Monday
Breakfast: graham cracker with nut butter, applesauce, and strawberries
Lunch: quinoa kale bowl with mushroom and asparagus
Snack: trail mix
Dinner: asparagus leek and green onion soup

Friday Tuesday
Breakfast: graham cracker
Lunch: breakfast for lunch: sweet potato hash browns and coconut "bacon" flakes, vegan pancakes topped with strawberries
Snack: lara bar
Dinner: Savory Asparagus Crepes with Easy Vegan Hollandaise Sauce

New meals (Luteal)

Wednesday

Breakfast: pumpkin pie parfait

Lunch: orange cauliflower and brown rice

Snack: oven baked onion rings with chia seed breading 

Dinner: Sanctuary Salad (ranch style) (afr book)

Thursday

Breakfast:

Lunch: lettuce wrap tacos with fake beef crumbles

Snack: girl scout cookie lara bar

Dinner: carrot soup

Friday 

Breakfast:

Lunch: stir fry with whatever veggies are left and brown rice

Snack: vegan cookie dough blizzard

Dinner: yam and blackbean soup with orange (afr book)

Grocery List:

pumpkin puree

walnuts

molasses?

romaine lettuce

boca crumbles

peanuts

vegan chocolate chips?

cauliflower

radishes

sunflower sprouts

cherry tomatoes

extra firm silken tofu

dill

vegetable broth powder

onion flakes

orange juice

A nice short grocery list means I have the chance to buy some extras that I have good deals for. Like claritin and nature valley bars. Maybe I can even buy that raspberry bush this week!

Also with a few more pet purchases I should get the $7 back coupon that's advertised at Weis this month.

I'm calling BS on Weird Dessert Ingredients

I tried the avocado chocolate mousse recipe twice this week. Both times it just did not turn out sweet enough. And you could still taste the avocado a little bit even though people always say you can't. I added extra sweetener the second time and it still did not taste like a dessert.

I was similarly disappointed by black bean brownies.

Even though it isn't the healthiest, I'm going back to my usual dessert of the simple mug cake. Or a bar of dark chocolate.

The mug cake is sometimes called the "zero point cake" for weight watchers but it actually is about 3 points as one blogger did the math on it.

You mix a box of any flavor cake mix with a box of angel food cake mix. Then take three tablespoons in a mug, mix with two tablespoons of water, and microwave for one minute.

Perfect little cupcake.

There's sugar in there that I shouldn't be having in the evening but it's only a little bit so hopefully it's okay.

Meals 5/5/15

The eggplant "bacon" was...okay. It was flavorful. But it didn't get crispy like you want in a blt. It was my first time trying eggplant and I wasn't thrilled with it but I did think that I'd be willing to try it in other applications. 

For the sandwich I decided to do half with the eggplant bacon and half with the coconut bacon flakes and see which I liked better. I thought the bacon flakes would get a better crunch but I didn't end up liking either side. I didn't eat very much of this sandwich.

I added "shaved brussle sprouts" from the Appetite for Reduction book. I've made four recipes from it so far this week and they've all been good. No surprise I liked these. I don't know if they were meant to get quite this black but that's how I like my veggies: pan fried until blackened!

I want to start keeping an eye on whether I'm getting enough fruits and veggies every day. With eating reduced carbs and sugars plus no meat or dairy you would think the only thing left to eat would be fruits and veggies yet I still seem to manage to avoid getting enough. I've been eating a lot of nuts.

Did I get five servings of fruits and veggies?

1. Apricot in breakfast and snack
2. Eggplant in "b"lt
3. Brussle Sprouts in lunch side
4. Red Bell Pepper in soup at dinner
5. Spinach in "b"lt
6. Tomatoes in "b"lt
7. Spinach and strawberries in dinner salad

I didn't exactly eat much of my lunch but I did well in serving myself enough varieties of fruits and veggies!

Medication

I am currently not on any medication for my PCOS.

Nor am I on any medication for my close-to-pre-diabetes symptoms.

I'm kind of a natural hippy chick type and I absolutely hate being on medication for anything. I try to avoid it as much as possible and accomplish health with food and lifestyle. However, I am on one medication right now.

I am taking medicine for my thyroid. I'm on a small dose. It took about six months of blood tests and experimenting to get the right dose but now my thyroid levels are normal and I'm capable of losing weight for the first time in about five years.

A lot of people with PCOS and/or Diabetes are on Metformin. I may eventually get on it too. But I'm trying to heal myself with diet first and see how far I can get.

If diet is not enough to get me ovulating then I will look into hormone injections and fertility procedures like IUI and maybe the new one IVM that is supposed to be particularly good for people with PCOS.

So I'm not opposed to getting onto medication eventually for PCOS but I'm not there right now.

(Another complication to that is that we lost our health insurance and so I'm not seeing the fertility doctor right now and the endocrinologist was only for getting my thryoid functioning correctly. He was not a reproductive endro).

Meals this Weekend and Mood Changes

My Sunday meals did not get done at all since I didn't get all my grocery shopping done in time and we had a friend in town visiting. I ended up making the sweet potato hash browns with coconut bacon and vegan pancakes. I threw in an egg because we still have some to use up.

The pancakes were phenomenal. Very light and fluffy. Super easy to cook. I like them better than my standard pancake recipe.

The coconut bacon also turned out great. My husband says they taste like a mixture of coconut and bacon and he likes both those things.

The hashbrowns were not as much of a success. The idea of cooking them in a waffle iron sounded so awesome. But it did not work at all for me. Despite using up all the rest of my paper towels (I usually use cloth paper towels), I couldn't get enough moisture out.

This morning I woke up at 5:00 am to get lunch finished before my husband left at 7:15. I just barely made it! I'm really glad I got a new food processor because I used it for four different things this morning: bread dough, pesto, mousse, and diy lara bar.

This is portabello mushroom burger (marinated in balsamic) on whole wheat bun (actually mixed flours because I ran out part way through!) with a home roasted red pepper and homemade pesto. Avocado chocolate mousse (I forgot to add the strawberries for hubby's lunch!). And a homemade version of an apricot almond Lara bar.

I'm on day 17 of my cycle and my mood has been really bad. It feels like nothing is going right the last couple of days. I feel like sleeping until it's over. It's PMSy feelings but it's far too early to be getting PMS, I think. 

I'm recording it on my fertility tracking app and waiting to see what it might mean.

In the 140s!

For most of my adult life I was between 120 and 130 lbs. I am 5'4". In graduate school I lived in Los Angeles and the pressure there to be thin had me between 110 and 115.

But then a few years ago my weight suddenly began to skyrocket and nothing I did would stop it. I was determined to figure out what was going on and stop it before I hit 200. 

When I was diagnosed with an under active thyroid I was 173 lbs.

I've been fighting my way back down and this week I made it into the 140s at last. I haven't been this weight since before my wedding. I might even be lighter than when my husband met me! At least I'm close to that.

So that puts me about half way to my goal of 125!

Advice on Planting Thyme as Ground Cover

I hope that someone out there reading this will have some insight for me on my dilemma...

My husband and I both hate mowing. Since before we got a house I have always planned to switch grass out for something else. Like moss or clover.

Our yard is in a lot of full sun so I don't think moss will work that well. Clover attracts bees and my husband is afraid of bees.

I considered mint but people rant and rave about how invasive it is and while that is a plus to me (let it do the work of killing off the grass that's there), I'm concerned about my neighbors.

I want to switch our lawn for a non-grass ground cover but I don't want that to cause headaches for our neighbors. The lawns are separated by concrete (but I keep hearing that isn't enough to stop mint).

What about thyme? People say it's good for a ground cover and it sounds like it will work well for our zone 5 lawn but will the seeds spread and cause our neighbors trouble?