Day Twenty-three 08-12-2010

Well, today was definitely a step up from yesterday.  Or maybe even a flight or two up from yesterday.  :)  I sure didn't get enough sleep though.  Livi had trouble getting to sleep because she was missing Ash.  She also woke me up twice.  Hopefully she'll do better tonight.  She got to talk to Ash today and she's pretty resilient.  Unfortunately for me, I don't bounce back from those kinds of nights nearly as well.

Dan's aunt, Cyndie, has really been a godsend for me.  She's shared some great recipes that are making it easier to feel like I have eaten healthy and yummy.  It's so good to feel like I'm not stuck on salad with grilled chicken.  I know that this will continue to get better as I find more yummy and healthy recipes.  It's just a lot harder to find the kinds of recipes I am looking for than I realized.  There are so many different versions of healthy that what's healthy for you may not be healthy for me.  Another thing that Cyndie shared with me was a list of resources that she had found.  One of these resources was Women to Women.  It's a site that's geared towards assisting women through natural solutions.  It's exactly what I was looking for.  I started with a health profile.  They covered three aspects of hormonal health; severity of symptoms, the demands places upon my body, and the amount of support that I am giving myself.

According to my profile, my symptoms are severe, the demands that I place on my body are almost overwhelming and the support that I am giving myself is moderate.  While this is not a great combination, the idea is that it will take up to 90 days to see true change.  They have a regimen of supplements and support that will allow me to help myself both nutritionally and emotionally.  So far, I am very impressed with the site and I did order the program.  The supplements include all of the vitamins and supplements that I am already taking plus others.  I should receive my order in the next 5-10 days.  I am very excited about this and hope that it's great.  If it's not great, it showed me BEFORE I ORDERED how to get my money back for that 90 day program.  It's $75 a month for the first three months to get things back on track.  That's not much more than I'm already spending on supplements and much less than I was spending a month when I had a doctor in town.  They also have phone support for free and nurses available for a fee.  I can't recommend it yet, but you can always check it out for yourself!  :)  www.womentowomen.com

Dan helped me measure myself tonight.  I did this to compare to last night and I'll have Dan help me in the future in order to maintain consistency.  I wasn't as far off as I thought.  I took the 8/11 measures and Dan took the 8/12.

	8/11/2010	8/12/2010
Neck	15.25	15.5
Arm	17	17
Bust	50	47
Waist	46	45
Hips	50.5	51
Thigh	29	29

Food Log

Breakfast:  bowl of Honey Smacks with vanilla almond milk. 1 egg scrambled and a small portion of ham.

Lunch:  seared chicken breast and avocado salad.  I took one avocado and cubed it, chopped about ten grape tomatoes into halves or thirds, chopped half a slice of red onion, mixed it all up and drizzled it with balsamic glaze.  It was creamy and filling.  I felt satisfied when I was finished.

Dinner:  2 hard boiled eggs and Spicy cole slaw.  I used a bag of cole slaw mix, 1/4 cup mayo, 2 tablespoons cider vinegar, six packets of Splenda, a couple squirts of yellow mustard, some Real Salt, fresh ground pepper, celery seed and some cayenne pepper.  I didn't eat that much, that's the entire batch.  :)   I mixed everything but the bag of cabbage in a bowl with a whisk.  Then I used a spoon to mix in the cabbage.  Easy and yummy.

Snack:  I had 1/2 a serving of Chocolove Dark Chocolate with Almonds and Sea Salt.  It's super yummy and lactose free so Dan can get his chocolate fix.  I also had 10 raspberries with smooshed cashews.  I don't know if you can really call it cashew butter because it's literally cashews that are smashed.  Nothing else added.  It's a little dry.  I might add a splash of almond milk next time.  It was good, just dry.

I feel like I made good food choices today and I really enjoyed what I ate.  From a nutritional standpoint, this has been a ground breaking day!  Kudos to Cyndie!