I did it!

I actually went to my ballet class tonight. AND I didn't collapse at the end of it. Sure it was an easier class than my usual one with the crazy/super good teacher who is a complete tyrant, but at least I got some exercise. Maybe I'll even make it to the gym tomorrow. I've been trying to keep it together for the past couple of months. Mostly failing miserably. So I've been playing some video games and reading some more and catching up on bad tv. Teaching Liam to read. I've been really turned off of food lately. I think I lost some weight last week not by exercising but the sheer nausea of migraines and everything sounding completely disgusting. However one day I was making pbjs for the kids when the smell of the peanut butter was very tempting. So I made and ate a pbj for the first time in probably years and damn it, it was the best thing I'd ever eaten. Yay for the simple things in life. I got to the LAST DAY of being on my prednisone when the pain of Murgatroyd (love the name, Stephanie!) growing finally got to be to much and I had to call the APRN I'd been seeing. Lo and behold, she re-upped the steroids and now I have an appointment on Wednesday with the rheumatologist. I'm not sure what she's going to prescribe, but it made be anything dietary restrictions, methotraxate, or a recommendation for a bi-lateral mastectomy. I've been doing some research into the last option because I can't live with the pain but I can't be on immunosuppressants forever because they make me CrAzY. But do yourself a favour and NEVER EVER GOOGLE images for mastectomies. Yikes. But the rate of re-occurrence is nearly zero. Still can happen. But the rate for prednisone is 75%, doing nothing is 50% and partial mastectomies is 25%. Yikes. The problem with dietary restrictions is the likely one is gluten. Which is fine, I can live without bread and baked good for the most part. The problem is the other stuff that gluten gets sneaked into. Like does anyone know a good soy sauce that doesn't contain gluten? Chicken broth is another. And goodbye to ever eating out because I can't be sure what ingredients the restaurants use. I've had a terrible taste in my mouth for the past month. I finally looked up it and it's most likely being caused by the metformin. Apparently metformin can cause the body to go into a state known as ketosis, which is when the blood runs out of sugar (glucose) and so the body starts burning fat for fuel. Mostly a good thing. There are times that this is bad (anorexics and heavy athletes for example) but I'm hoping that it's a sign the metformin is working and I'll start being able to drop some pounds. Sorry for the randomness of the this post, but I thought that I'd do an update.

The previous post

The previous post is password protected because it's something that's very personal to me. I know not everyone is mature enough to read it and there are some people who read this blog that I'd rather didn't (screw you Josie if you're reading this; why don't don't go mess up someone else's life). So if you'd like the password, email me at baeksonghwa at gmail dot com. Comments are not password protected as far as I know.

This post is password protected

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Why this won't become a weight loss blog

Alternate title: My body is trying to kill me

I woke up with a MASSIVE migraine this morning. Seriously, body? Isn't it bad enough that other sensitive parts are hurting, now you have add in a headache? It'd been coming on for days, but I was still floored by how awful I felt (almost literally, I had a hard time standing up). My head would have felt better if actually had exploded. Add in lots of nausea and you get the idea. Justin kindly gave me some migraine medication before swiftly escaping for work, probably because he really didn't want to clean up the mess if the nausea corporealized. Of course this was the day I was determined to get back to the gym. After the drugs kicked in and Liam waking up necessitated me getting out of bed, I dragged myself into clothes and headed to the gym. Because my body isn't the boss of me, damn it. I survived the gym and then spent the rest of the day lounging in bed and watching Dirk Gently episodes. Because British tv rules. I also undid all the good of going to the gym in two mini Snickers bars. Crap.

So I was tempted to do the whole weight tracking stuff on this blog, but then I realized that 1) no one cares (seriously, even I don't care about the numbers) and 2) I hate weight loss blogs. Mostly because they're all the same. But I did find a couple blogs that I enjoy. The first is Can You Stay For Dinner? This is more of a food blog than a weight loss one, but she has chronicled about losing 135 (!) lbs. The difference is that she started this blog after she'd lose the weight. But her recipes are realistic and look really yummy. The second blog is called Jack Sh*t, Gettin' Fit. This is the most irreverent weight loss blog that I've read. He's blogged everyday for 3 1/2 years. There is hardly anything on this blog to motivate you to lose weight, but there are plenty of song parodies, conversations with Snape, and helpful healthy tips, such as:

• Turn a regular desk into a treadmill by flipping it upside-down, then figuring out some way to make a tread go round-and-round. 

• Switch to low-fat, organic, whole wheat cigarettes. 

• Can’t afford a fancy heart-rate monitor? You can make your own with a digital watch and a wire connected directly to your heart. 

• Don’t go to the grocery store when you’re hungry or have a lot of money. 

• You can make your diet more low-fat by eating less fat, dumbass.

 

• Enjoy the benefits of probiotic drinks, or, at the very least, don't drink a bunch of anti-biotic drinks.

 

• Can't sleep? Try a warm cup of Ambien tea right before bed.

 

• Some folks actually have trouble gaining weight; to those people I offer this simple-to-follow advice: why not try shutting the hell up, please?

Definitely worth a look since this blog isn't going to become a weight loss blog anytime soon.

Today I:

Went to the gym

Nothing else. Seriously.

2012

2012 was a lousy year. I tried to remain optimistic to the very end, but let's face it, I had kind of a crappy year. I don't remember the first part, mostly because I was trying to wake up from the hibernation of a very long, dark winter. Then I struggled through the summer with a major depressive episode. Then when things started to look up and I started to feel more like a human being, I got sick. Very sick. And then things came crashing down again and I've barely been functioning the last month.

I've decided that after being on the prednisone 6 weeks longer than intended and suffering through the side effects, I was done. I'm 10 days away from being completely weaned off it. Unfortunately, the mastitis is back in full force. So I'm basically living in pain right now. Today was especially bad as my left arm ached all day in addition to the lump. I'm hoping that once it stops growing, maybe it won't hurt (I think the pain is from inflamed tissue, not the lump) and maybe I'll just learn to live with it. Maybe I'll give it a name. Otherwise, it's off to the rheumatologist I go.

The house is a huge wreck. I'm reminded in the book Cold Sassy Tree when Miss Love tells Will Tweedy that when a woman gets sick, her house get sick too. Sexism aside (it is supposed to be 1906), it became true in our house too. When I got depressed and started to hurt physically too, I stopped doing the housework. I spent most of today trying to fix a little of that, doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen, but it was very much doing a task and rewarding myself by reading a few more chapters of the new JK Rowling book. And I petered out around early afternoon. I suck.

I met only one of my goals this year. I got more of the house decorated, but it's far from done. I didn't lose weight, but at least I didn't gain a ton either. I found out that I'm insulin resistant, meaning that losing weight is going to be difficult even if I exercised all the time. Being on medication for a quarter of the year that left me hungry and energy-less really didn't help. Hopefully the metformin will help with the insulin resistant. But I did start a garden and did pretty well until the aphids set in.

I'm hoping that 2013 will be a good year. I'm trying to plan a trip to visit my bff in Vietnam and Singapore, and this year we're taking the kids to Disneyland. Yay! 

My goals for the next few months:

Lose as much weight as I can

Go through my clothes and get rid of stuff

Start building a functioning wardrobe (you know that I don't even own a pair of jeans right now?)

Sew some new stuff for me

Today

Today I sat in my bed for four hours, starting at the clock on my phone, trying to will myself to get up. Four hours. The hardest thing I had to do was walk out my door. It's been a very bad week.

Damn You Pinterest - Multiculturalism Fail

One of the reasons we wanted to move up here was to expose our kids to more diversity. Since Hanukkah started on Saturday, I figured we'd have a brisket on Sunday with a bunch of traditionally fried foods finished off with some sufganiyot (Israeli jelly donuts). We'd be bad Jews because we like our latkas with sour cream and there was milk in the sufganiyot. I felt better about trying to incorporate diversity into our kids's lives when Justin, obviously a product of the Utah school system, mentioned that we weren't fasting, at which point I had to remind him that not only was that not Hanukkah, that wasn't even Judaism. There was also a little bit of a fail when I tried to get brisket at the grocery store and 3 out of 4 grocery stores around here were having ham and seafood sales for Christmas. Oops. So I had to settle for chuck roast over rump roast (which isn't kosher). Plus it was on sale.

The real fail started when I tried to actually cook. The latkas wouldn't stick together, under cooked, and then when I put them into the oven to crisp back up, they burned a little. I mismeasured the mushroom batter, overcompensated by trying to double batter them, which meant they were very crunchy on the outside but  the mushrooms didn't cook inside. And then the sufganiyot. Sigh. I don't know if it was a bad recipe, or if my yeast was dead, or my kitchen was too cold, or they were too thick, but it was a big fat FAIL. At least the pot roast turned out okay.

Recipe here.

The Pin: World's fastest latkas made with hash browns

The Verdict: I've made this before, so I have NO idea why they didn't turn out. I tried to squeezed out all the water, but maybe my hash browns weren't thawed all the way and that's why they under cooked? I've found that the recipe calls for waaaay too much salt (a tablespoon) which I've cut down to a teaspoon and a half. But it is pretty quick and when they turned out before, were very tasty.

Recipe here.

The Pin: Panko fried mushrooms

The Verdict: We tried a hamburger joint near our house that had fried mushrooms on their menu that were DIVINE. They seemed really easy, so I figured we'd give them a try in the deep fryer. However, I misread the size of mushroom container I got, doubled the batter recipe, and used half panko and half bread crumbs because I didn't have enough panko. When I realized my mistake, I double battered the mushrooms to try not to waste any, but it then made the coating too thick and the mushrooms didn't cook. They were still good though, but next time I'll follow the recipe exactly.

Recipe here.

The Pin: Sufganiyot, Israeli jelly donuts

The Verdict: These did not turn out well. I looked up another recipe afterwards which used way more flour in ratio to the liquids. My yeast is also probably past it's prime, because when I made the dough, it refused to come together and still acted like a batter. After an hour of rising, nothing. I kneaded in more flour and rolled it out.  I guess I rolled them out too thick because when Justin fried them, they turned out RAW in the middle. Ugh. So the next day, I tried the Pillsbury biscuit donuts, which worked out fine, but they taste exactly like fried Pillsbury biscuits, not donuts.

Recipe here.

The Pin: Spice Rub for chicken, pork or beef.

The Verdict: This is the same spice rub I used last year for Hanukkah. It's got a lot of flavour but it's super easy. I like to cook pot roast with this method. The beef stock makes for a nice juice that can been thickened into a gravy or used as is.

So that was Hanuakkah, as pathetic as it was. I think that we might have a Danish Christmas Eve which will involve risalamande. They also traditionally serve cabbage with goose, duck or pork roast, but I don't really like goose or duck, so pulled pork sandwiches and coleslaw might have to suffice.