life is a journey... yada, yada, yada.

alrighty. checking in with you, my loyal readers. you know who you are. :)

so, life is a journey, eh? that it is. my journey apparently includes a medical condition i have ignored, threw out the window, thinking it didn't really pertain to me. i was wrong.

back when i was trying to become pregnant for the first time in 2003 i was told by a specialist that i have Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome. PCOS. the doctor said i would have trouble conceiving. two weeks later, i conceived without any interventions. i thought, 'so what if i have all these cysts on my ovaries?? everything seems to be working just fine...' so, pfffffttt, whatever, Doc. i totally blew that one off. then several years later, i was pregnant again, without a hitch. i never bothered to research this condition. and what it meant. i had a lot of trouble losing weight after these pregnancies. but in 2010 i worked out like a mad person. i ate well. i did it. i lost 50 pounds in about a year. then in the last couple of years, the weight came back. and THEN SOME. but i've still been working out. i run. quite a bit. i wasn't being as careful with the food though. then my new gynecologist said, "hey." yep. PCOS. a 2 hour glucose test would probably pinpoint that i am becoming insulin resistant. i don't want to be put on any pharmaceuticals if i can avoid it. so i read. and READ. and READ SOME MORE. i took inventory on the supplements i've been taking. changed THAT up. added some. took some away. thank you, j, for reading with me, doing research on your own. :) read about "eating primitive," which is basically just Clean Eating. i understand now that yeast is incredibly bad for me. dairy was always a 'duh,' but i ate it anyway. so i've stopped that. sugar, obviously, is a NO. eating all this stuff that wasn't good for my body was making it so that all my exercise wasn't making a damn difference. i haven't been able to make a dent in my weight or physical appearance like before. something wasn't working.

i look back now and i recognize all my symptoms: acne, bloating, a "thick" middle, a round bloaty face, skin tags... and so on. this SYNDROME is making it about impossible for me to look "normal." not impossible though. not really. because i'm going to beat this. i'm going to. i will. i haven't been working this hard for this long to be healthy, to just give up. i will not let myself become diabetic or have heart disease, which is what happens if you are insulin resistant for too long.

so i will keep running. keep doing hand weights. crunches. stretching. dancing. and i will eat so much better. i WILL tell this PCOS to go to hell.