So did the OB-GYN ask this infertile 42yo about birth control?

Today was my first annual visit since having my daughter, and I'd been wondering. Would my doctor ask the standard (dreaded by me) question, "So are you taking birth control?" I hate this question. I cringe at the thought of the question. First, it assumes wrongly that I would ever want to prevent another pregnancy. Are you crazy? Prevent a FREE pregnancy without injections, and loans, and pain? Ha ha ha ha! And second, it presumes that I could ever get pregnant without massive help (plus incredible luck), which feels like the questioner obviously missed my whole medical reproductive history somewhere.

So I was curious. I know that it's a standard question. Part of the script for the annual visit. Would she ask?

She DID NOT.

Smart woman. Awesome woman.

She DID ask all about my daughter Magpie. All about my work. My life. She DID ask to see pictures and watched some iphone video of my beautiful girl with me.

She had read my test results from my yearly internal medicine visit in October...and cited all of the bloodwork results from memory. (Sharp lady!)

She DID ask about my glucose control and health in general. (Excellent clinician!)

She DID ask open-endedly about our plans and thoughts about having another Magpie. (Excellent human being!)

She recommended I see a cardiologist and get a holter monitor because I've been having an arrhythmia.

She recommended I get a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound soon because she felt a lump in my right breast.

She recommended I see an endocrinologist because despite the significant weight loss, my glucose is still not right.

And so I will do all of these things.

Toward the end of the visit, we had a little chat about the three frozen embryos, and about the hell of depot lupron and IVIG, during which she expressed optimism for another baby for us until I reminded her that my beautiful girl is the result of 110 eggs retrieved across the years (I know she is well aware of the 6 pregnancy losses, so I didn't bring it up).

We ended the appointment with me thanking my OBGYN for helping get my daughter here safely and my OBGYN saying, "She really IS a miracle."

That she is. And I'm the luckiest woman in the world.

Mo

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A year in pictures: Magpie photos month-by-month

OK...so this is overdue, but here are our month by month pics of Ms. Magpie, for the first year. Here she grows! Can't believe she's not so much a baby anymore and more and more is moving toward little girl. The time has gone so fast!

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Quick weight loss update

I was nervous this week about my weight loss progress. I ate out Friday night, and had steak and steamed veggies AND a baked potato with sour cream and butter AND a glass of wine. I was out of town all weekend and staying in a place full of temptations (my mother in law's), and then I capped off the weekend by hosting friends for dinner Sunday night. Oh, and it's also my time of the month (yup, not surprising, but not pregnant again), so I feel bloated. Any one of these seemed like the types of situations that could result in a weight plateau or gain.

I have been faithfully logging my intake using myfitnesspal since the beginning, so I knew that according to my food diary, I should be on track caloriewise overall this week, but I didn't feel on track. I ate a few unplanned items and was eating numerous non-Jenny foods, which had me nervous (it's the goal, of course, to get off of their food and eat on my own, but still...at this point tends to make me a bit anxious, especially when I'm guesstimating portion sizes).

So come Monday evening, my weigh-in time at Jenny Craig, I really didn't know what to expect (I actually covered my eyes during the weigh-in).

But PHEW! Still on track!

Weekly Weight Loss

Starting BMI just after Thanksgiving = 25.2 (officially overweight)
Week 1:     - 4.4 pounds (back into normal BMI territory, less than 25!)
Week 2:     - 0.8 pounds
Week 3:     - 3.6 pounds
Week 4:     out of town so no Jenny food and no weigh-in (Christmas travel madness!)
Week 5:     - 4.4 pounds since last weigh-in
Week 6:     - 2 pounds
Week 7:     - 1.6 pounds
Week 8:     - 1.4 pounds
Grand Total So Far: 18.2 pounds lost! (BMI = 22.2!!!)

Not me, but you get the idea.

How much weight have I lost? I have lost a whole Magpie! I believe 18 pounds is about how much she weighs now, and she is getting heavy! (finally!)

According to yesterday's weigh-in, I am .4 pounds (point four!) away from the original goal weight I listed with the center. Of course, now I am thinking I will set a new lower goal...another 5 pounds at least, perhaps up to 10, depending on how it feels. Aiming for thin but sustainable, with a little buffer zone I can work to stay within. We will see where we land!

Mo

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How does Jenny Craig food taste? How much does it cost? Can it lead to lasting results?

As much as I'd like to say I was eating healthier before I joined Jenny Craig, I think I wasn't. I was ordering in at work at lunch (picture a couple of tacos, or a burger, or an Indian platter, or Pad Thai, or Chinese something or other or sushi). Then for dinner, we were doing takeout often (picture more of the above, leaning heavily toward Mexican cuisine since Will is gluten-free). And then breakfast was often Starbucks. Sad, right?

All that is embarrassing to write, but it was true, at least some days out of the week. And it means that eating this processed frozen food, while not ideal, is not as bad as it might be if I had been eating organic kale soups previously.  I really never thought I'd go for this pre-packaged thing, like, truly never crossed my radar, but the easiness factor won me over. That and the fact that much of this stuff actually tastes good.

Especially at the beginning, I loved that I would just go once a week, give a list of food to someone else (the JC consultant), and she'd go round up the items and bring them to me in bags. E-A-S-Y. And also non-tempting. So much simpler than trudging through the supermarket and trying to not end up undoing all my efforts with a few poor choices. Facing the many choices in the supermaket has gotten MUCH easier, by the way, but at the beginning, limiting my options really helped me.

I pick my food up at the JC Center in person, but here's what it looks like
when it's shipped to you via UPS (another option).
Image courtesy of http://megduerksen.typepad.com

Cost
So this is a big issue and comes up a lot when people are considering Jenny Craig. How much does all of this stuff cost? Hanging my head sheepishly, I have to make a strange and guilty confession...I think that based on what I was buying and consuming before, that I'm actually saving money on the Jenny Craig diet. It seems I'm probably an outlier in that, based on what I've read online, but in my case, and with Manhattan food prices (especially ordering in dinner!), I think it is true. I'm mixing Jenny food with other stuff more and more - meaning less of the Jenny food, and more other food instead - and therefore now am probably spending between $50-$75 on the Jenny food a week. At the beginning, when I ate all Jenny all the time, I think I spent $100-$125ish a week. Which sounds like a lot!! And yet order in a single lunch or dinner for Will and me in Manhattan and you're talking easily $20ish for lunch and at least $40 for dinner, so...well...this is cheaper. Someday I will get my sleep schedule sorted and my life organized and cook everything ahead for the whole week and we'll live on $150 a week for the whole family. Maybe. Seems doubtful, but it would be good!

But does it taste good?

In case there are any Jenny Craig users reading this, I'll briefly post some of my favorite items:

Breakfast (all JC breakfasts are between 150-240 calories): 
(Note - I'm an egg person. I don't really do cereal or pancakes and gave that bready stuff up entirely when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, so I haven't tried the more carb heavy breakfast items. So the pancakes or French toast might be good, but just not my thing). 

• Florentine Breakfast Pizzas - my favorite - it's basically eggs with spinach and cheese. I could eat this a few times a week
• Ranchero Breakfast Skillet - my second favorite - Mexican-ish. Really good, esp. with added tablespoon of greek plain non-fat yogurt and salsa fresca. Yum!
• Breakfast Scramble - eggs and meatish stuff and potatoes (also better with the salsa + n.f. greek yogurt)
• Sunshine Sandwich - an adequate stand-in for an egg mcmuffin or starbucks sandwich. Not truly the same at all, but convenient and is only 210 calories, so much less than those)

Lunch (all JC lunches are between 200-300 calories):

• Stuffed Shells - in marinara sauce with spinach. Pretty tasty.
• Beef & Cheese Slider - It's basically a small cheese burger. I add dijon mustard and a couple of pieces of boston lettuce. I like how you heat up the meat separate from the bun so it's not a soggy mess.
• Beef Chow Mein - actually well-spiced and has a good amount of fresh veggies in it.
• Broccoli & Cheese Potato - I'm of Irish descent, so this one's a no brainer. If I could have a baked potato several times a week, I probably would (not broccoli and cheddar every time, tho...)
• Pasta Ole - orzo pasta in tomato sauce, with black beans, bell peppers, corn and cheese. I don't usually like orzo, but this is a bit Mexican-ish and pretty good.
• Tuna Salad Kit or chicken salad kit - shelf stable and a bit small, but nice little lunch kit with cut up fruit or apple sauce and crackers. Good when traveling or on the go. 
• Southwestern Chicken with Rice - This one isn't frozen, but also isn't canned...so I'd only recommend if traveling... but it's pretty good, especially given the frightening fact that it can be stored at room temperature ( I do like that they have a few of these types of options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When I was away giving a two-day training and didn't know what type of time/travel/and hotel situation I'd find myself in, I brought all shelf-stable food and didn't stray once. I was pretty glad to be done with the shelf stable stuff by the time I got home, but also grateful it was an option.)

Dinner (all JC dinners are between 200-300 calories): 

• Chicken Fajitas - quite good. I add my own organic orange and red  and yellow peppers and onions to make it a feast + a dollop of nonfat greek yogurt and salsa. Yum!
• Spaghetti with Meatballs  - I don't even like spaghetti, but I like this. The meatballs are surprisingly good.
• Rising Crust Pizza - fairly tasty veggie pizza, if you overlook the fact that the crust on this pizza ain't never gonna rise.
• Homestyle Chicken Casserole - nice comfort food saucy chicken yumminess. Need I say more?
• Sesame Chicken - breaded chicken with veggies and noodles. It's pretty good. I take it for lunch sometimes too.
• Traditional Lasagna - for those times you need lasagna. It happens. I'm starting to get tired of the meatless crumbles but it's yummy overall.

Additional Veggies and Dairy:
From the very start of the Jenny plan, I added, per their recommendation, vegetables, fruits, and dairy. For me, trying to keep things simple, this means that over the weekend, I make sure pick up a big bag or two of organic premixed salad greens like this

and several of those BirdsEye Steamer packages of veggies. Note to Birds Eye - I would gladly pay more if you would make an organic version of these! I usually choose things mostly comprised of non-starchy veggies and that are lighter on the carrots and corn, etc...

So daily, I have a big salad with my lunch (JC has these pre-measured salad dressing packets ranch or balsamic vinegar flavor that are EASY and make it brainless) and a big bowl of steamed veggies with my dinner at night. I also eat an occasional piece of fruit for a snack (I have eaten A LOT of clementines), but probably less fruit than I am supposed to.

Also, I usually start the day with a Venti sized tea from Starbucks  with non-fat milk and splenda, and that + my JC meal or that + the Starbucks egg white turkey bacon breakfast sandwich (with half the english muffin tossed in the garbage, a trick I learned from my gestational diabetes days) gets me tidily to lunch.

Snacks/Desserts:
I don't eat many of the snacks and desserts that are part of the Jenny Craig plan because they just haven't appealed to me much. They have these vitamin "anytime" bars that I eat probably 3 of each week (I like the chocolate peanut butter bar). But generally, I'm full without it and take a multivitamin instead, and I don't tend to be craving additional snacks.

After dinner, I usually have a big mug of decaf PG Tips tea and non-fat milk and splenda as my dessert and I'm a happy camper. When I DO want a real snack/dessert, I'd rather have what I want - air pop some popcorn at home or have a few bites of Will's ice cream (once I had a half a candy bar because I really wanted it.). I don't typically feel that I need a Jenny Craig frozen diet key lime pie or cookies and cream cheesecake or "diet" tortilla chips. For me, starting to eat snacks and dessert every day (not something I did before) would just lead to more bad habits I'd have to change later. And I have enough bad habits as it is! I also think the choice to not do so many JC snacks and desserts has helped keep the cost of things down, and probably has accelerated my weight loss. That said, I tried and liked the lemon cooler cookies and the white cheddar popcorn and the cookies and cream cheese cake. They also have a fake snickers bar type item that was pretty good. I've tried a few other things and didn't love them. I haven't tried so much else, though, and if you're a dessert fiend all of the dessert and snack options might be just what you need to stay with it for the long-haul.

What about non-Jenny food?
When I AM cooking meals, we make a lot of baked fish or shrimp or scallops and veggies or use Will's new slow cooker (Christmas present from Mo!)  to make a healthy chicken or vegetarian recipe (lots of bean-based dishes with veggies, few grains).

Our "new" takeout options are often to hit up Subway for a sandwich (only for me - no bread for Will since he is gluten-free) or Chipotle - both have calorie counts and online tools, not to mention numerous options I can choose to control my intake (yes or no cheese, guac, rice, condiments, etc.) so I can decide what I'm getting into calorie-wise.

When we've been out to eat at nicer restaurants (a few times so far at home...much more when we were traveling), I just ask for things prepared without butter or oil and watch my portions (choosing a lean meat or seafood usually instead of something diet-deadly like risotto or pasta). And when we've had friends over and ordered take out, we've gotten sushi, so I could just have a few pieces of sashimi and make a bunch of steamed kale and broccoli I can eat with abandon.

Even the Christmas holidays with back-to-back food-stuffed family events and holiday parties were relatively ok. I just planned ahead, tried to be sure I wasn't ravenous, and chose wisely and controlled portions (although I DID almost cry on Christmas when the steamed green beans I'd been eyeing as my diet saving grace were then generously dolloped with a half a tub of margarine by one of the hosts. I'd been thinking - Oh awesome! I can have as many green beans as I want! So I'll have a small amount of meat, and a small amount of pre-dressing-covered salad, and then tons of green beans. Yay! As the margarine was scooped generously on, if you'd seen my face..I'm sure you could not have missed my horrified look of OH NO!).

We also spent nearly a week in Florida around Christmas without any Jenny food and ate out two meals almost every day (ugh, I was NOT thrilled about that!!). I handled it by just being very careful about what I ordered. Lots of steamed seafood. Lots of salad (with my own dressing). Careful with potatoes, etc. I usually started the day at home with a big veggie-filled omelet (one whole egg and two or three egg whites + veggies and a bit of parmesean cheese. yum! and very filling!). I lost over 4 pounds the two weeks around Christmas and New Years, so I guess it worked.

Envisioning a future post-Jenny
Of course, I won't be eating Jenny Craig forever (sometimes this is a comforting thought; other times anxiety-provoking). Will I be able to keep going indefinitely in my new habits and keep the weight off? That's a big question, and something I've tried to have in the front of my mind the whole time. How can I use this structured time in the Jenny Craig program to translate to lasting changes? I don't have the full answer at all yet, but here's some thoughts for now. I think that the Jenny food has helped me begin to internalize a new idea of portion sizes. I'm also much much more calorie-conscious, logging everything I eat. It has helped me in planning what to eat to try to stick to close to the counts that the Jenny food has for my entree if it's not a Jenny item (150-240 calories for breakfast and between 250-300 for lunch and dinner). (This is plus the veggies and snacks and dairy, so don't think I'm wasting away). 

It's funny, but the Jenny food serves as sort of a crutch for me. It's a safe choice. I know what's in it (and I know it isn't perfect, but at least it's a known imperfect). Once I passed the halfway point with my weight loss, I've been trying to back off from the Jenny food and replace it with other foods more and more. The hardest part is figuring out how to estimate portions and ingredients in restaurants or when outside the house. Or to exercise control when there is a heaping food in front of me.

More than I would have thought, the Jenny food has begun to re-educate me about portions and calories, I think especially because a lot of the Jenny food is not traditional "diet" food (e.g., chicken carbonara? chicken parm? crazy!). So I've really internalized the lesson at this point that if I'm going to eat something like pasta, I can't have very much of it. Also that non-starchy veggies are awesome in terms of their nutritional values AND for satiety. That last fact is not so novel to me, but I really look forward to my veggies now, which is a shift.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes to begin to internalize some of these new eating behaviors. Right now, when I step away from the packaged food, it feels perilous...delicious but perilous. I imagine that as time passes I will develop a better sense of what and how much I can have, as well as how to occasionally deviate for a special occasion and get right back on track again. I use myfitnesspal.com to track my food and that helps a lot. I'll probably post on that in the future, but it just helps me have a good sense of how much I'm eating and how I'm doing nutritionally. But I look forward to some of this becoming more automatic and "habitual" over time.

Mo

P.S. I added a "Weight Loss" blogroll at the bottom of my list of blogrolls. In case of interest! If there's a weight loss blog you really like that's not there, please tell me about it!

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What passes for pillow talk at Mo and Will's

[Lying side by side, moments before lights-out. Ah, sleep, glorious sleep!]

Mo: I was thinking today about the three frozen embryos.

Will: They've been on my mind too.

Mo: Thoughts?

Will: I guess we need to transfer them.

Mo: Yeah. I agree.

Will:  It won't work, though.

Mo: I know. But still. I suppose it's possible it could.

Will: Yeah.

Mo: At least then we'd know for sure.

Will: Yeah.

[.....silence for awhile.....]

Mo: Any thoughts on when?

Will: I guess soon?

Mo: I guess.....[Sigh.] I'll call Colorado in the next week and schedule the one day work up. From what I've read in blogland, we both have to go out there to get tested for STDs, among other things before an FET.

Will: What? That's crazy! Why do I have to do anything?

Mo: I guess you could transmit something to me if you had it? I dunno.

Will: [snort]

Mo: Goodnight. Love you.

Will: Love you too.

[Mo lies awake dreading the depot lupron and the $3,000 IVIG infusion she'll likely get prior to the transfer that she doesn't even believe in....all for three embryos that probably have almost no chance of implanting....Except that there is that unfathomable but very real little girl sleeping peacefully in the next room.....so maybe...just maybe.....]




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Gratitudes

So many things - big and small - to be grateful for these days. It is good to take time out regularly and be mindful of these things. To be aware and thankful.

To name a few:

1. My health - having had cancer in my twenties, this is something I don't take for granted. While that diagnosis was a seismic shock at the time, it has led to the awareness that our health, our very lives, cannot just be taken for granted. I feel so lucky I got a second chance - the chance to be well again and strong.

2. My rambunctious, ever active, ever exploring little girl. She snuck into Moxie's crate this morning. She loves it in there because we now keep Moxie's food and water inside. Magpie seems to see it as her own personal water play station. She loves to run her hands through Moxie's dry food. To take the dog food into her hands and drop it - one glorious piece at a time - into the water. I think she loves the satisfying "plunk" sound it makes.  

3. Will and I have been working to carve out moments together, which is wonderful. He's been working very long hours of late, sometimes 12 hours a day, and I miss him. Magpie misses him. She runs around saying "Dadda" "Dadda" and signing it (thumb against her head with fingers outstretched) again and again. She is so thrilled to see him when he's home, as am I. One way we've been getting some time is in taking long walks together, sometimes as I'm on the way to work. It is nice to "hang out" with my husband when we can. 

4. The city in the snow. It's messy and a pain to get around, but it's almost as though it's a different place altogether than the city we live in day to day. Here's a stretch of Broadway last night. Lots of snow already at that time. Lots more that has fallen since this picture was taken.

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Getting my skinny back on (or how a skeptic infertile found Jenny Craig)

This past 8 months or so, I've been thinking (unhappily) about my weight but feeling overwhelmed with parenting and, until recently, breast milk pumping and being a working professional mom. I have also reflected on the fact that I was never overweight before infertility. And even for the first few years of infertility, weight wasn't really an issue. But over time, with the multiple pregnancies, and the subsequent miscarriages (not to mention the dreaded prednisone those many times), and all those IVF cycles where I was told no aerobic exercise during the cycle....the weight crept on (click here for a detailed description of how infertility, IVF, and recurrent miscarriage conspired to totally mess with my weight over time).

For a brief time after Magpie was born, I thought I'd be golden. I'm one of the only people I've ever heard of who found pregnancy to be a slimming experience. I was gaining moderately in the first and second trimesters, about 15 pounds in total, I think. And then WHAMMO, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes at 27 weeks. After that, and per my doctor's and nutritionist's orders, I became fastidious about my diet. I was so careful that I only gained 17 or 18 pounds the whole pregnancy (but STILL had to go on ever-increasing doses of insulin to keep my fasting glucose down. Ugh!). Once Magpie was born, I lost 35 pounds almost immediately (Magpie + retained fluid + placenta). And presto! I was thin-ish! Like in BMI = 22ish land.

Except that it didn't last. The being awake every 3 hours pumping + a baby who couldn't feed well from the breast or bottle and took an hour to be nourished resulted in me being a thoroughly sleep-deprived mess who was snacking to try to function. And the weight crept back up, up enough to reach a BMI of 25, which is considered officially overweight, and which is not good, especially for someone who was now at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes. (I believe the stat is that up to 60% of women with gestational diabetes will go on to develop Type 2 diabetes in the next 20 years - and holy yikes! I didn't want that to be me!)

This past Spring, I also learned that my father (in his 70s) had been recently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, after years of high fasting blood sugar. Hmmm, sounded awfully familiar. And so in the months following that, I had started checking my fasting blood glucose numbers again periodically. And guess what? My fasting numbers were consistently over 100 (normal would be 70-90 or so)...um, NOT OK. Somehow this potential health issue seemed to be more motivating than any appearance-related reasons to lose weight. I started to think that perhaps I am one of those people who needed to be on the slimmer side of things to keep this glucose issue under control. But how to get there seemed undoable. I mean, on the one hand, it's fairly obvious and we all "know" how to do it. Just eat less and move more...and yet, it's one of those things that seems harder to put into practice than you would think.

Then I saw on Jennifer Knepper's blog Why Don't You Just Relax that she lost more than 17 pounds with Nutrisystem....which got me thinking... I'd never considered a structured program. In the past, pre-infertility, if I was up a few pounds, I'd always just lost (and I suppose ultimately regained) weight on my own, at one point (at least) chronicled on this very blog. So I mulled the novel concept of actually signing up for a program. The simplicity of something structured was appealing. The idea of someone just telling me what to eat, and even providing the food. As a working mom, it seemed like it might fit. I need simple.

Just after Thanksgiving, I decided to call Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig. And I ultimately decided to try Jenny Craig instead of Nutrisystem. Reasons included: (1) that online reviews consistently seemed to rate the Jenny food as tasting better than Nutrisystem food, (2) there's a Jenny Craig center near my home, and (3) the Jenny Craig plan came with weekly personal coaching and an in-person weigh-in. Given that I'm a pleaser/achiever kind of person, this accountability factor seemed potentially pivotal. When I learned that Jenny Craig had a Black Friday sale waiving their enrollment fee (which is sometimes as much as $400, I think...ouch!), meaning that I could join for just $20/month + the cost of food and cancel at any time, I signed on. I figured, worst case, I'd hate it and be out $20 and have a freezer full of diet food.

I have to say, wow. It has so far been pretty easy. There have been moments where it's difficult, but really...it's been just moments. The majority of the time, not so rough. Up until this week when I decided to crank it up on the activity front, I have also really not been exercising in any devoted way because I don't have time. And I'm pretty tired a lot of the time. So really have been doing nothing beyond just choosing to take the stairs instead of the elevator kind of thing. Nothing drastic, probably little that is even officially "aerobic" for sustained periods. Have I lost a good amount of weight without really exercising? Amazingly, yes. Do I need to figure out a way to fit exercise in going forward? Of course I do.

The prepackaged food is exactly what I needed as a newish mom/crazy busy professional, because I have never had so little free time in my life. I think the first week or two I ate all Jenny Craig "cuisine," because the consultant told me to...but since then, I've eaten several meals a week on my own (fortunately my consultant/coach has been cool about this the whole time, even though I suspect it means she earns less). When I was traveling out of town over the holidays, I even went a whole week without any of the Jenny food, which was remarkably harder, but doable. Now that I've progressed well, I am phasing out even more of the pre-prepared food.

I have to say that although I didn't expect it, the pre-packaged food has been great. Shockingly, it tastes pretty good (most of it...), and more than that, it's easy - which is KEY for me right now. Most things that require a lot of extra effort beyond parenting and working and my marriage are just not currently in the cards.

So it's been seven weeks now since I started. I planned my start time specifically to begin between Thanksgiving and Christmas with several weeks before New Years, a time I might be prone to "taking stock" thoughts about things like my weight that might lead me to feel discouraged.

And so...seven weeks in...here's how things have been going:

Weekly Weight Loss

Starting BMI just after Thanksgiving = 25.2 (officially overweight)
Week 1:     - 4.4 pounds (back into normal BMI territory, less than 25!)
Week 2:     - 0.8 pounds
Week 3:     - 3.6 pounds
Week 4:     out of town so no Jenny food and no weigh-in (Christmas travel madness!)
Week 5:     - 4.4 pounds since last weigh-in
Week 6:     - 2 pounds
Week 7:     - 1.6 pounds 
Grand Total So Far: 16.8 pounds lost! (BMI = 22.4!!!)

It's nice that the weight has come off pretty easily and quickly - that is not what I was expecting and that fact has been very motivating. I plan to go "shopping" in my own closet once I drop a few more pounds to try on many clothes that haven't fit me in several years now....I'm thinking some of my stuff hasn't been worn since 2008. Yikes! And Yay!!

Will is enjoying the not-seen-in-a-long-time-smaller-version-of-Mo, too. And he's also lost a few pounds in the past 7-ish weeks (mostly because we've curbed the nighttime takeout, I think), not that he needed to. He's been a skinny minnie since he cut out all bread products and gluten back when I went gluten free for the first trimester of my pregnancy with Magpie in February 2012.

I hope you can stand it, but expect some future posts on Jenny food, weight maintenance (where I'm thinking the real work will need to be done - after all, I want to keep the weight off for the long-term, right?), blood glucose control and weight, and sample menus (not JC food - regular food!). And don't worry, I'll also be posting about Magpie and other life stuff too.

Anybody else been working on whittling down their waist size? How's it going? And if anyone else has done Jenny Craig, I'd love to hear your thoughts, particularly on maintaining after the weight loss.

Mo

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