It Draws Near

My husband and I chose August 1st to be our TTC (trying to conceive) date. As its get closer and closer I'm both excited and nervous. Excited because it's not that far off . Nervous because I want to lose at least 40 pounds by that time so I have a better shot at an easier time hitting baby jackpot, a safer pregnancy and getting to stay with the practitioner I currently have, a wonderful Nurse Midwife named Sameerah.

I have never been successful at losing weight since I realized it was something I should do. And by that I mean I stopped listening to my obese father who was convinced there was nothing wrong with me being around 100 pound overweight. The idea of taking it seriously is scary to me. I know what I look like now and am pretty happy with it most of the time. The idea of losing a significant amount of weight is daunting to me.

It doesn't help that I'm a homemaker and artist. While there are some very physical tasks to being a homemaker, most of my work is not consistent enough to offer decent cardio. Art is by nature sedentary unless you're a very active performance artist. I'm a comic artist to I spend most of my time one my butt. These things are the opposite of active and so even when I decided that weight loss is a good thing, its also a fantastic challenge.

I've done my research on this, and the "easiest" way to lose this 40-maybe-100-someday is simply watching what I eat and burning more calories than I take in. The only hitch in that is I don't want to be one of those obsessive calorie counters and I'm a carnivore. Don't get me wrong, I love my veggies but they better have something meat with them. I do love my carbs too. And fruit. Honestly I love all food groups equally, I'm just far less likely to share my meat.

So as I said, I'm nervous about this. My goal has me hopefully losing a pound a week, which seems to be reasonable according to most sources. But in all my years of trying to lose weight, I've never lasted long enough to lose even one pound. The most success I had was when my 15 pound ovarian cyst was removed and that didn't last long once I wasn't being watched like a hawk. My hospital stay left me wanting to eat everything in sight. Combine that with birth control pills that encourage weight gain and I'm heavier than I've ever been.

To combat the bulge, I've been power walking in my living room. Sounds ridiculous but I'm not a particularly social creature so being able to do this at home is very appealing. I've been doing two or three 12-minute "miles", at first with a Leslie Sansone DVD until I understood the pace and additional moves. Now I walk to episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Youtube. I found its easier to keep myself going when I love what's keeping the time for me.

Hopefully the next time I post, there will be slightly less of me! Good luck to anyone out there whose  battling the bulge for a baby!