Queen of Nothing.

I never really think too hard about high school these days.  It might be because it's been about 15 years since I was in the throes teenage angst at its finest.  Recently, I was at a friend's house and she showed me pictures of her fiance from High School.  First let me explain her fiance in the present.  He's big, tall, bald, has a bunch of tattoos, and a goatee.  I see this picture of him from High School that was scattered among a bunch of other scrapbooked images, and I kid you not, I couldn't determine which one was him.  Turns out he was the guy that looked like Dawson Leary of Capeside, Massachusetts fame standing in front of a hot rod automobile.  I was floored.  I stared at it for a while and finally started to see the similarities. 

This started what could only be deemed a nostalgic walk down high school lane.  First I saw KT's high school scrap book.  She tried to very quickly pass through a page when MG called her out and screamed "KT, HOMECOMING QUEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!!"  I was confused.  How had I not known that KT was homecoming queen?  How had I not known that she was a cheerleader?  I asked her this incredulously, "Really?  You were a cheerleader and homecoming queen??"  MG quickly replied that every girl from a small town had been a cheerleader at some point in their lives.  Not so.  I'm from a pretty podunk town in MI and I'm pretty sure I was never a legit cheerleader.  I mean, I once choreographed a skit in my basement with a bunch of friends making fun of cheerleaders, but that's as close as it got.  (P.S. I actually videotaped it and it's pretty hilarious.) 

Anyway, thinking back to High School, I didn't particularly like the cheerleaders.  Maybe it was the fact that I was so different from them, it's hard to say.  I was friends with a candidate for homecoming queen but that was a fluke.  She was friends with everyone and she wasn't a cheerleader. 

We move onto MG's yearbook.  Holy crow...this girl was in EVERYTHING!  She had her own column in the newspaper, she was in FFA (No joke, Future Farmers of America!) Come to think of it, so was KT, but, I digress.  She was also the queen of Music Festival.  At this point I'm really starting to feel inadequate.  I wasn't ever queen of anything and here I am surrounded by royalty.

I went home and actually looked at my high school scrapbook.  I found myself smiling a lot.  I may not have been queen of anything and I certainly wasn't a cheerleader, but boy, did I have fun!  It's very clear to me that I lived in a complete and utter bubble.  I had no idea that bad things happened in high school.  If you would have told me that people drank or had sex or did drugs in high school, it would have been like telling a 3 year old there's no Santa.  I wouldn't believe you.  It went against everything I knew.  I think the reason that high school is filled with such great memories for me is that I had some pretty spectacular friends.  We may not have been going to parties or getting drunk or having sex, but we had some pretty great times, nonetheless.  It just goes to show that it doesn't matter where you are, it's all about who you're with and what you make of it. 

But still, I sure would like a crown for something...

Insulin Resistant No Longer!!!!

Prepare yourself, readers.  This is going to be a post that seriously abuses and overuses exclamation points!!!  I mentioned in a previous post that I had fasting labs and would soon know if my fasting insulin rate was finally under control.  When I started on this journey, my goal was to lose 10-15% of my body weight so that it would change the way my system metabolizes insulin.  That's pretty much the only way to get my PCOS under control and have a shot at not being barren in the children department.  Forgive me for getting into boring medical crap, but I'm Indian so it's genetic and I can't help it.

A normal fasting insulin rate is from 0.0-24.9.  I was taking Metformin when I had my original labs taken.  It's a drug that's supposed to regulate your insulin production and therefore, my insulin level should have been pretty decent.  It wasn't.  It was over twice what it should be at 52.6.  At 6 weeks, when I had lost about 8% of my body weight and was off the metformin, it was at 32.8.  Today, I got my 12 week results and my levels were *drumroll, please* 18.1!!!  That's well below the normal range!  At this point, I've lost a grand total of 39.3 pounds and 16.2% of my body weight!!!

Truth be told, this week was riddled with less than optimal food choices for me.  My brother and cousins were in town for 3 days and we ate out every meal.  Not only that, I traveled to Wisconsin and indulged in key lime pie and a dessert in a shot glass.  Not my best week and I still lost 3.6 pounds.  This leads me to believe that maybe my Metabolism is starting to kick in!  I literally need only lose 9.5 more pounds and then I can start eating real food again on the regular without feeling guilty about it!

I promised ya'll that I'd post the before and after pictures once I got digital copies of them.  Sorry they're less than optimal.  I had to take a picture with my phone of the photos in the folder.  They're kind of blurry.  I don't think I look that different but maybe I've just got a warped perception of myself.  Here ya go:

Before: 4/11/10            After: 7/11/10

A fiscal quarter of starvation (and other updates)...

Today I had my three month check in with Dr. Tague.  The funny part about this check in with Dr. Tague is that I've only met him one other time.  At that point, he said "You are a very overweight and unhealthy girl.  Let's take care of this!"  You can imagine that I wanted to punch this dude in the face.  Nothing makes me angrier than a 110 pound midget looking up and me and calling me a fatty-fatty-boombalatty.

Here's the skinny on what went down at this appointment.  I still don't know if my insulin issue is fixed yet. I have fasting labs next week and then I'll know if I need to go back on Metformin or not.  We adjusted my goal from a total weight loss of 77 pounds to 58 pounds.  That seems way more reasonable to me.  Given this, I'm now 59% of the way to my goal (I lost 2.4 lbs this week and 33.7 lbs total)

They took a 12 week picture so we can compare that one to my before picture.  I'll post it when I can get an electronic copy of it.  They also took measurements.  I've lost 18 inches from my body.  a whopping 3 inches from each thigh, 3 inches from my chest, and 3 more from my waist.  It's all very exciting.

When I'm 85% to my goal (an additional 15 lbs) they'll start introducing regular foods back into my diet slowly.  They'll start with fruits, and then whole grains, and then starches.  I'm so excited, I can hardly stand it!!

Another bonus, I built back some of that muscle I had lost.  I'm back up to 120lbs of sheer lean muscle.  I'm kinda proud of that fact.  I'm also proud of the fact that I can now run a half mile without wanting to die.  Yay me!

In other news, we have returned to a one cat household.  Kona was just too sick to deal with and it wasn't helping that he kept infecting Chai with whatever he had.  The shelter insurance may cover Kona, but not Chai!  The money we've spent in the ten days that we had the little guy is more than we pay for rent.  That's not okay.  The shelter gave me attitude until I told them the laundry list of things wrong with Kona.  Then they apologized profusely and promised I can have kittens for life with the fee waived because the vet should have made sure that the kitten was healthy before putting him up for adoption.  Taking him back to the shelter was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but I'm happy to report that it was for the best.  Chai is back to his usual lovable self.  I guess he likes being an only child.

While we went from a two cat household to a one cat household, we moved from a one car household to a two car household.  Trying to live in a city with no real public transportation infrastructure is pretty hard with two people and one car.  I'll admit that for the most part, we've made it work.  However, it gets pretty old being stuck if the other person has a car.  Now that Sudhir wants to go to Baseball games and go golfing, we felt it would be a good idea for us to each have our own cars.  It also gets some of the expense out of the way for if and when we finally decide to buy a house.  Buying a house AND a car at the same time is pretty hard on the wallet. 

That's it for now, I guess.  Stay tuned for further updats.