A Journey Begins

I've been debating since Sunday whether to blog about this or not. I'm torn between keeping my privacy and wanting accountability. In the end, the accountability won out. So here's the story...

Most of my readers know that Aaron and I have struggled with infertility for the last several years. After three miscarriages we stopped "trying" to get pregnant, but we didn't do anything to prevent a pregnancy in hopes that nature would take its course. After two years of that it became obvious that nature was not cooperating, and I went to the doctor. We tried some medication for a few months. No success. So I went to a different doctor who was finally able to put a diagnosis on the problem. Without getting too medical the problem is that my body has too much insulin which has screwed up my body's ability to regulate my ovarian function. So we tried another medication that appeared to be working - I quickly lost about 15 pounds - but it came right back within a couple of months. Last week I noticed that I was out of refills on that prescription, and I was struck by the realization that I don't WANT a refill. I don't want to take any medication or go to any doctors or deal with scheduling lab work. Frankly, it annoys me. And it's expensive. But ultimately I've come to accept two things:

1) If I claim to serve the God of the universe who has the power to heal me of all wounds and provides for me in every season I have to learn to allow him to work in HIS time.
2) Part of serving God means treating my body responsibly which means taking ownership of what I eat and refusing to allow myself to sit on my bum rather than getting exercise.

By now you're probably thinking "Isn't this a food blog? Where is she going with this?". Here's where I'm going...

Somewhere in the last seven or eight years I got fat. It probably has something to do with the cream and the butter and the gummy bears and the Dr Peppers. Let me tell ya, this Texas gal loves her Dr Peppers. Especially when Sonic ice is involved. But it's time to take a step back and say that enough is enough. It's time to learn a new way to cook and eat, and it's time to lose this weight.

Sunday I started on Weight Watchers. I've done it before about three years ago, and it worked for me. But then I went on vacation and I got complacent and fooled myself into thinking that I didn't need to keep paying the monthly fee for something that I could do on my own. But, see, the accountability of logging in the points for everything you eat is what makes it work. There's something about watching my daily points dwindle when I enter the empty calories of my afternoon Dr Pepper that suddenly makes a glass of water look really good.

So this blog just changed slightly. I love to cook and eat good food. It's very relaxing for me to be in the kitchen creating something new. That's never going to change, and I refuse to be that person who decides to lose weight and begins a sudden love affair with tofu and wheatgrass and that lettuce that looks like weeds. I still want to cook delicious mouth-watering foods. My goal is to blog about learning a new style of cooking those foods and to have a forum of celebration and encouragement as I drop the pounds.

I might also whine and complain a little bit. I make no promises to be "Miss Merry Sunshine" when I'm really craving a bowl of Sausage, Tomatoes, and Cream. That craving can get ugly, folks!

I'm not going to put specific numbers here regarding how much I weigh I can't even bring myself to type the number right now. Weight Watchers has you enter goals in phases, so I'll just start and say that Phase I is losing 10 pounds. This girl needs small steps, people!

I'm also going to need lots of encouragement and humor. I don't readily admit that I can't do things on my own. I think my first sentence as a child was "I do by self!". But this is definitely something that I can't do without people prodding me onward.

One final note and then I'll shut up...

(And if you've read this far it means you either really care about me or you're really bored, so either way, thanks for being involved).

Let me make it clear that I understand that losing the weight doesn't mean that my body will immediately re-learn how to regulate itself and I will get pregnant. I may be destined to be Crazy Aunt Sarah who teaches her nephew words like "turd" and "doofus" (sorry about that) and sings Broadway show tunes to him in spite of the pained look on his daddy's face (not really sorry at all about that). Aaron and I are facing an uncertain future as far as parenthood is concerned. But I am supremely confident in this one thing:

My God is bigger than the struggles of this world, and if I walk each day according to His principles things are going to work out as they should.