Dancing the Weight Away- Taking control of my health and my weight!

[Eeyores Butterfly]

Hello all. This will be my (fourth?) attempt at a weight loss journal here on the DIS. I'm determined to make it work this time.

My story:

I was always a healthy weight growing up, at the very bottom end of what would be considered healthy for my height. I did gain weight in college, but never went above that healthy weight range. I joined Weight Watchers with the intent to get back down to my pre collegiate weight, but that never happened. Still, I wasn't overly concerned as I was a healthy weight.

In 2005 and 2006 I was a performer for Walt Disney World. I danced in their parades and shows. One of my roles was on the second float of the Disney Dreams Come True Parade. My weight continued to creep up until for the first time in my life I was actually over weight. At that point, I was approached by our parade director and told that I was disapproved for one of my roles in that parade as I no longer fit the costume appropriately.

That was my wake up call and I became serious about Weight Watchers. I lost 15 lbs and was able to regain my role. I had intended to go full time with Disney, but at the time there simply was not affordable housing. I returned to Missouri (or as I call it, misery) to obtain my master's in teaching with the expectation of one day returning to Florida to perform part time and teach full time. Of course, I went from performing in up to six parades or shows a day to sitting in a classroom, and the weight piled on. To be continued...

Before gaining weight, a makeover before a night at PI with my roommates:

Performing in Hoe Down shortly before my return to school:

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

After returning to school, I regained all the weight I had lost and then some. Within six months I was at my heaviest a 156 lbs and I started having some troubling symptoms. I was trying to lose the weight on Weight Watchers, and I would do really well until all of a sudden I would get very hot and irritable. I would begin to feel shaky and crave sugar like you wouldn't believe. I knew that if I had sugar the feeling would go away, and I would reach for the nearest sugary source I could find. This of course would be high in points. Frustrated, I would simply give up for the day/week and this vicious cycle continued.

I went to our campus health center to seek help for my symptoms. I was made to feel like an idiot for even thinking something was wrong and even accused of lying about my symptoms. These continued for over a year until one day I came onto the DIS out of desperation and asked if anybody else had similar symptoms. After much encouragement, I sought a second opinion and found out I had prediabetes. At the age of 23, after being a healthy weight my entire life (except for the past year), I was diagnosed with prediabetes. That was a hard pill to swallow. There was a lot of denial involved. I am now tentatively diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic, although my endocrinologist says that my presentation simply doesn't match any type. There's a good possibility I might be a 1.5 or LADA, which is a slow onset of type 1 in adults. Only time will tell.

At this time, I believe that my being overweight was caused in part by my diabetes. Certainly not the only cause. After all, I fully admit that my exercise and eating habits have not been stellar. But I do believe that given the onset of symptoms, my diabetes certainly contributed. There is much research to suggest that the link between obesity and diabetes is not as clear cut as was once believed and some researchers have coined a new term for this phenomenon: diabesity.

I have since lost about 12 lbs. I have recommitted to Weight Watchers and am seeking to get healthy. I was married in December and am teaching my husband about healthy eating habits. I want to start a family one day. I know that diabetes would make any pregnancy high risk. Therefore I am determined to be of a healthy weight when I get pregnant.

So why dancing the weight away? I am a former dancer and would love to dance again, but I simply do not feel comfortable in a leotard. We are currently taking ballroom classes, and I hope to one day become a theme park performer once more. If you've listened this far, thanks!

A mere three months after leaving Disney:

At my heaviest (with my cousin at Worlds of Fun):

Now (with my husband at our wedding):

 

[toystoryduo]

Welcome Back to WISH, Jessi! It's great to see you again!

Congratulations on your marriage!!! Did you get married or honeymoon in Disney?

Congrats on losing 12 pounds so far! You are off to a great start!

Hope you have a nice day today!

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

We honeymooned at Disney. I might post some of those pictures later.

Today was a total bust in terms of schedule. I was on my way to school- stuck on an icy highway going literally 5mph when I recieved a call that school was cancelled. I came home and napped. It was great!

I am organizing a fundraiser called St. Baldrick's in the Kansas City area. So later today I went to Raglan Road to talk to them about being our host venue. You may recognize Raglan Road as the Irish pub in Downtown Disney. There is only one other Raglan Road in the country and it is in KC. They have agreed to be our host venue! St. Baldrick's raises money for childhood cancer research through head shaving events. I shaved my head 4 years ago and wanted to do it again. Since there were no events in the area, I decided to organize one. I am decided out of my depth, but I'm sure it will work out in the end.

We did have our ballroom dancing class tonight which was nice, and then I cleaned our bedroom for a couple of hours. The neat thing is that my health insurance gives us points for any activity that we do. We can then redeem those points for gift certificates. One of our teachers was able to use hers to get a Kindle- free! So I'm going on the site right now to enter my points.

I did really well with eating. I do need to start working more fruit in, what we had was not good anymore. Oh well. I might actually have school tomorrow, but I won't be surprised if we end up with an early release day. We're under a winter storm warning and it is supposed to get pretty nasty by the evening commute.

Before and after St. Baldrick's 4 years ago:

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

I haven't updated this in awhile. Things got very crazy and I fell off the wagon last week. I ended up gaining 1.2 in a little over a week, I think some of that is water weight as my IBS has been acting. I am going back on plan today. I had thought about for awhile posting what I eat, but then I was ashamed of what I would be posting- that should have been my first clue! I am going to start posting what I eat, as well as the effects on my blood sugar. This is as much for me because I keep forgetting to test or record properly which is stupid since I now get my test strips for free! My goal is for the one hour reading (which typically but not always correlates with the spike) to be lower than 140 and my 2 hour reading lower than 120. Not everybody tests the spike, but I have reactive hypoglycemia. A lot of times I'm already on my way down by the two hours, so I don't always catch how high I'm spiking which is a good predictor for me of a later blood sugar.

I will also be recording different health checks as they happen (blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.) My current blood pressure is 106/70. I forget my cholesterol numbers other than to know that they are in the healthy range. AT one point they were not. This is a genetic thing I believe because my father who runs five miles a day, eats fish multiple times a week, and has never been overweight recently had to start statins. By putting that info here, it will allow me to see what is working and what is not.

A note on the supplements: I take fish oil to help with cholesterol. I also take a prenatal vitamin, not because we are currently trying, but because it is recommended for women of a child bearing age. Now that Aaron has a job, we are planning on trying for a family in the near future, but we want to make sure that his job will be there next school year. I also want to get down to a healthy weight first as any pregnancy is already high risk due to my diabetes.

Some notes on tracking:

Fasting Blood Sugar: 89

Brunch (I slept in, we have another snow day!)
Pot Roast with broth and carrots. I left the potatoes for Aaron (about 2 carbs for the carrots, there weren't many) 6pp
8 oz skim milk mixed in with my coffee (11 carbs) 2pp
1/2 tbsp. honey with the coffee (8.5 carbs) 1 pp
Total carbs: 21.5. I need to be at or below 45 g per meal. Total PP: 9
Suppplements: prenatal vitamin and 2400mg fish oil

1 hour blood sugar: 113- so far so good!
2 hour blood sugar:

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

I saw a nutritionist today to talk to her about going vegetarian. She was very nice, although a littel consipracy theorist for my tastes. She still gave some great advice. She talked about eating one ingredient foods, which is probably good advice for everybody. She also showed me how to get the right balance of nutrients. We talked about quick ways to prepare meals (frozen fruit in oatmeal, throw frozen veggies in soup, etc.). I'm going to go vegetarian at Lent.

I had a doctor's appointment about an hour away, so I grabbed a salad from Hy Vee. Lunch was about 2 cups of spinach blend with mixed peppers and shredded carrots. All of those are 0 points plus. I added red beans and cheese to it and 2tbsp blue cheese dressing. I will look up the carbs later, but I'm confident I stayed well within the 45. My one hour reading was 108 and my 2 hour was 101.

Dinner was not as good. Aaron and I had our meeting with our Creighton coach. I have a computer class that is getting ready to start, so I grabbed McDonald's drive thru since that wsa the quickest and easiest option. I got a Mushroom Swiss Angus Snack Wrap, small fries, and unsweetened iced tea. Not a great meal. I will need to look up the carb counts later. I will say, I was craving a soda like none other. I wrestled with it all the way there, but the thought of having to post here that I got a soda- and what it would do to my blood sugar stopped me. So that is at least a small victory.

 

[ZweetiePie]

Very good. Looks like you have some great ways to track your health. I read that you have IBS. I have ulcerative colitis. I can't do the fresh fruits and veggies too much because it makes my ulcers act up but I try to get them in since I am pregnant. I have tried to lose weight about 4 times on here too. The first time was 2005. I weighed 275 and through journaling, doing WW (on my own....no meetings), and exercising I lost about 80 pounds. I kind of drifted off the boards since then and did WW meetings and lost an additional 30 to 35 pounds which put me around 160. Since 2005 I have been moderately active. I registered for the Disney Half Marathon in 2006. I did training for a half marathon in spring of 05 and fall of 05 but was unable to do the race because of a knee injury. Since then I did a half marathon in Georgia in 2007, Disney marathon in 2008, Disney Goofy in 2009(DNF.....I got swept at mile 23 of the marathon), Disney Princess Half Marathon 2009, and Disney Half Marathon in 2010......I also did a handful of 5K's and 10K's in there. I was going to do the marathon this year (2011) but my dr advised against it so I didn't. Since I have been pregnant I have been exercising on and off but have been pretty steady since January 1 of this year in my exercise. I just started training for a 10K in my town. I will be 35 weeks when I walk it. Anyways, since late 2007 my weight has been creeping back up. I was up to 191 when I got married May of 2009. When I found out I was pregnant I was 199. Several times in the last couple of years I tried to start a journal but I ended up fizzling out rather quickly. I am trying to start a good one up now so that I can segue into a weight loss journal after the baby boy is born. Good Luck on what you have started and feel free to visit my journal any time!

 

[Amy&Dan]

Jessi, Welcome back to Wish, I have really missed you around here! You looked absolutely beautiful on your wedding day, your dress was gorgeous!

You can do this Jessi, I can't wait to follow you around on your journey.

So in that float picture at the beginning were you one of the characters? I just laugh thinking that most likely I saw you in that parade, dd and I always see the parades and we love the Hoe Down dancers too.

I need to go check out your honeymoon trip report.

Just so excited to see you again!!

 

[toystoryduo]

I'm glad to hear that you had a good meeting with the nutritionist. It sounds like you were able to glean some good information from the meeting.

Hope you are having a great week so far!