My Success

Sorry I’ve been MIA this week, but things have been crazy busy and I’ve not been feeling too great so cooking has sort of fallen by the wayside.  However, I couldn’t let the week end without at least one post and I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out what to write about and then, WHAM!! It just came to me.
In December of 2009 I discovered that I had a condition called PCOS (Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome).  The simple definition of this condition is that it is a pre-diabetic condition, but there really is so much more to it. PCOS is a genetic condition that only occurs in woman (in case you couldn’t figure that out from the ‘ovarian’ part of the name); it causes a high level of testosterone and an inability to properly break down sugars in the body.  Some of the symptoms include acne, unexplained weight gain, and excessive hair growth. The greatest concern for me and the symptom that causes most women to discover this syndrome is infertility.   For more information, click here.  This is a much more common condition than women are aware of (1 in 15 women have this).
I have been struggling with my weight ever since I hit puberty and have never understood why it was that no matter what I did, I couldn’t control it.  I was like the many women out there that knew there had to be a greater reason beyond my eating habits which while not the greatest, were not horrendous either.  So I began treatment for my PCOS (which is mainly taking a prescribed dose of metformin) and I could feel my body come into a more balanced state of being.  My skin was glowing, I felt more energetic, and I knew I was on the right path.  However, I only experienced minimal weight loss, and at 167 pounds was really beginning to worry.  I wasn’t just worried about my weight because I wanted to look good, though I won’t lie, it certainly weighed (no pun intended) in on my concerns, but because my father suffers from type two diabetes and had bypass surgery.  Watching my father depend solely on his medication to keep his levels normal and his heart working and not, at all, watching what he ate really scared me and I knew that not only did I not want to end up like that, but when the time came for me to have children, I wanted to be their primary role model for good eating habits.  When September 2010 came around and I was still struggling to figure out just how I needed to eat, I sought out a nutritionist, who has been my angel and savior.  What my nutritionist taught me was that I needed to lower my carb intake to 40-45% (the normal is 60%) and increase my protein.  I also had to make sure that anything I ate, whether meal or snack, had to be a balanced combination of carbs and protein.  This combination keeps the carbs from being absorbed too quickly and me from eating too often.  It seemed so simple, but it was like a switch was turned on and I have lost close to 20 pounds and today I bought a size 6 shirt!!!  And while I know it isn’t about the size, I can’t remember the last I bought that size or the last time I really felt as physically good as I do today.
It is this condition and the journey I’ve been on that intensified my interest in how food affects our bodies and what spurred me to begin my blog; because I truly love food and am constantly amazed by the connections it creates and the healing power it has.
Since this is a visual blog, I’ve included a picture of some of the things that are constants in my journey to health.