just a little blog about diabetes, exercising while pregnant, and lack of obese aliens.

The highlight of my day so far has been a chipmunk running around on my back deck.  I'm not saying that like 'oh wow, look how boring my life is...' I seriously love chipmunks!  I squealed when I saw him (which made him stop and squeal back, and then we had a conversation about the weather, or maybe that's just all in my head...).  I sit at our dining room table on my laptop so I can see our backyard.  I have a perfect view of our bird feeder (our 90 year old hobby, feeding the birds), and I like watching the birds eat, and like watching the cats run into the glass after the birds and smash their face.  Don't feel sorry for them; one of them bites my ankles and the other barfs all over my house.

Anyways...I woke up this morning and could barely move, so I was inspired to write a blog about exercising...while pregnant. 

I have the metabolism of a sloth with mono.  It's basically nonexistant.  And I love food.  This turns out to be a bad combination.  The older I get, the worse it all gets; especially with other medical issues like being 'borderline' diabetic and having 'borderline' thyroid issues.  Basically I interpret 'borderline' as 'just enough to screw you up a bit.'

During college (undergrad) I joined the YMCA and became obsessed with exercise.  I was usually there 6 days a week for 1-2 hours each time.  It's so much fun to go shopping when clothes actually fit correctly!  Then in grad school I had 15 hours each semester plus worked 2 jobs; I barely had time to sleep much less exercise (or eat correctly).  I ended up gaining 70 pounds in 2 years.  7 years later and I'm still working on that weight gain.  Of course having 2 kids doesn't really help...but ya know, that's life.

During my pregnancy with Morgan I gained so much weight.  I didn't feel good at all.  I spent most of my days rotating from one side of the couch to the other.  During pregnancy I retain a lot of water.  I don't have blood pressure issues at all, but I retain water like crazy.  Morgan was 6lb 13oz when she was born and I lost 25 pounds that day...that's how much water I was retaining!!  But then it took me 18 months to lose the other 30 pounds and get back to my pre-pregnancy weight (and once there I needed to lose even more).  It was so hard!!  I was on the treadmill every day.  I joined a zumba class (I LOVE ZUMBA!)  I did yoga (at home).  I dieted.  Weight loss was so slow.  During my pregnancy with Morgan I found out I had gestational diabetes...that never went away after she was born, so my specialist thinks I've actually been borderline for years and it was never detected.  Just because your fasting glucose level is always normal doesn't mean anything!  Get that A1C level checked ya'll! 

And it turns out that being diabetic makes it hard to lose weight, but losing weight helps lower your A1C level (insulin resistance)...which will help you lose weight...but losing weight is hard with a high A1C level...see the problem?

Being 'skinny' is no longer my issue.  I have to be healthy.  I have to keep myself off insulin.  Because I have a horrible fear of needles.

So now I'm 5 months pregnant and I vowed not to let myself gain too much weight.  Before this pregnancy I had actually ended up gaining 30 pounds because a doctor was 'experimenting' with some of my medical issues by giving me Zoloft for fibromyalgia - yes it worked!!  it numbed my senses making all of the aches and pains and headaches go away (and also made me happy all the time...) but I gained 5 pounds each month I was on it, so after 3 months I quit.  Then my doctors realized my thryoid was going wacky, so one of them begged me to try Synthroid.  I hoped for a miracle and what I got in return was more weight gain and a pot belly.  I was working out 4-5 days a week and still gaining weight, so I panicked.  I called my doctor and she told me to stop the Synthroid because apparently my body wasn't ready for a synthetic thryoid hormone replacement.  5 days later I found out I was pregnant.

well snap.

The first few weeks of pregnancy I kept going to the gym as much as possible.  I promised myself I would NOT let myself gain weight during this pregnancy, I would in fact LOSE weight while pregnant.

then my pregnancy slothism set in and I lost all energy to live in addition to becoming extremely queasy all day every day.

at 20 weeks pregnant, it's a LITTLE better.  I try to use my higher energy days to clean house and take a shower.  Michael keeps threatening to cancel our gym membership so I try to drag myself there once a week...mostly because it's so good for Morgan.  She loves going to child care.  She cries when it's time to go home.  I mean seriously, it makes me a little mad, like 'sorry you hate your home so much kid!!'  But she's such a social butterfly and she loves being around other people and kids.  She gets sick of looking at me every single day.  The other day Michael and I stopped by a preschool to find out about registration for fall and I asked Morgan, 'are you ready to leave mommy and go to school?' and she immediately said 'YUP!!' 

hmmm.

But anyway, last night is the first time in 2 weeks I've been to the gym.  I usually walk the indoor track and then get on an exercise bike.  10 minutes into my walk, not only did I already have to pee, but my hip joints were aching and my stomach muscles were cramping.  I slowed down to a waddle and forced myself to walk for 30 minutes.  I realized I had become invisible to everybody, especially men.  I was just the fat pregnant chick in an oversized homemade tie-dye shirt waddling around the track with thin young girls in perfectly matching tank tops and sneakers trotting by me.  Every time I had to cough or sneeze I had to stop and cross my legs so I wouldn't pee my pants.  Then I checked on Morgan who screamed at me to GO AWAY so I waddled my way to the 'wellness center' and settled down on a bike.  I had to adjust the seat so that my knees wouldn't hit my belly as I pedaled, but then it was adjusted too from the pedals for me to reach them, so I had to settle for this awkward sort of pedaling with my knees out to the sides out of the way of my belly.  25 minutes of this and my butt went numb.  So I quit.  After dragging a screaming kid out of child care (she cried all the way home 'I miss my friends' like she had ever seen any of those kids in her life before, but then she ate an entire pizza so I figure she had low blood sugar and really didn't hate me after all), my butt was numb, my hip joints were on fire, and my stomach muscles were all tight and uncomfortable.  When I got up this morning I almost gasped because I was so sore.  I was hunched over and had to scoot my feet like a I was 109 years old.  I'm honestly not THAT out of shape already, it's just this whole pregnancy thing makes my body scream at me.  My hip joints loosen up (apparently they haven't gotten the memo that it's going to be a c-section birth), my lower back hurts, I'm all puffy with water retention (even my normally skinny fingers have fat rolls)...  honestly, if whining burned calories I would weigh 100 pounds. 

I need a Hoveround. 

I need to keep moving....I take diabetic medication twice a day already and it's totally under control thanks to my medication and diet (1 cupcake instead of 2), but I still have 4 months to go and I don't want my insulin level to suddenly go all crazy and end up with needles and a little vial of Humulin in my fridge.  Michael has already told me he's NOT giving me injections as an incentive to keep up the diet and exercise and stay away from the idea of inserting a needle into myself (personally I think he's secretly terrified of needles too) and the idea of Morgan giving me an injection...well I guess that's not the best idea.  She's only 3.  Maybe if she was 4. 

Dieting hasn't been too hard during this pregnancy because basically this baby hates all food.  I'll be starving, stomach growling, blood sugar dropping, but NOTHING sounds good, and I know if I put something in my mouth that baby doesn't approve of, I will end up throwing up.  Yesterday I had Cheerios for breakfast, grilled cheese with tomato for lunch, and Great Grains cereal and a banana for dinner.  That's way too many carbs in a day but that's all that I could eat.  I need a big turkey leg in one hand and a hunk of deer in the other.  But I don't like to eat anything that used to have a face.  It just grosses me out.  At Applebees the other day I tried a bite of chicken and it just felt all wrong in my mouth so I spit it out in a napkin and shoved it all into my soup bowl. 

I'll get through this pregnancy and then really focus on weight loss and being healthy.  It will be hard trying to fit exercise into a life with a 3 year old and a newborn.  Our gym won't take kids in child care until they are 2 so I'll have to check and see if I can walk with Deuce strapped to my chest.  And I'll be hitting my treadmill hard again, whenever Michael is home from his 12 hour shifts to help with the kids. 

And I WILL find the best diet pill in the world.

But then again...the Mayan calendar ends this year on 12-21 and the black hole in the Milky Way lines up with Earth and I'm sure the aliens are going to return, so shouldn't I just eat, drink, and be merry until they come back?  Because honestly, with all that technology, they should have an amazing diet pill.

Best diet pill in the universe.

You never see pictures of obese aliens do you?