Fertility Part 11

Today, Monday, is the beginning of another two-week cleanse (our fourth cycle). Two weeks ago we attended my aunt's wedding in Stinson Beach (Bay Area, Northern California), which I have written about in Fertility Part 10. One week ago, I attended my grandmother's funeral in Lincoln, Nebraska. 

For fitness, I've been trying to walk, bike and swim more than usual. At Stinson Beach, I tried boogie boarding for the first time. It was totally fun! I attended the Ride of Silence, honoring those who lost their lives due to cycling in the past year. I also participated in Bike to Work Day, even though I live really close to where I work. Normally, we participate in watching a stage of the Amgen Tour de California, but we just have too many other things going on right now. I haven't been doing much rollerskating, but maybe I'll go to Skateland for Adult Skate Practice tomorrow (10:30am).

It was a joy to be a part of these two important family events (wedding & funeral). I had not even unpacked from the wedding so it was no problem to pack very quickly and hop a flight to Nebraska for the funeral. It was tempting to eat in the airport restaurants, but I brought lots of food with me. On the way there, I had chicken and zucchini pesto and hard-boiled eggs. The hungover party animals in the Las Vegas airport were mystified when I pulled those out of my bag. On the way back, I had lentils and roasted root vegetables. I also had some dried peas and beef jerky.

It was hard to keep to the diet in the times of joy and sorrow, but we managed to celebrate Mother's Day with the most diverse and delicious buffet. My sister, Karly, made pulled pork and brought cocktail shrimp. My mom made a pear salad, Brussels sprouts and a celery salad. I brought a green arugula salad, lentils, roasted root vegetables. We had cole slaw and buns for people to eat the pulled pork as sandwiches and there were potato chips that nobody ate. For dessert, we ate sliced strawberries and yogurt with protein powder (for me) or Cool Whip (for everyone else) My sister, Steph, had just moved into a new house so it was good for her to just be there and enjoy the food and company. Cooking and baking are things we all learned from our mother and grandmother. 💓

Every day I was in Nebraska I had a smoothie, since my family was at one time on a NutriBullet kick, they each have one. I even thumbed through the NutriBullet recipe book for future reference. Lots of the smoothies on The IVF Diet follow the formula outlined in the NutriBullet nutrition plan. That's 50% greens, 50% fruit, some water, and a boost. The boosts include nuts, seeds and dried berries (superfood). I am so grateful to my family for taking this IVF diet seriously and making sure I had access to grocery stores and the tools and time to make what I needed to eat.

My parents even tried a high-protein pasta made with edamame. I thought it was good. It was definitely relaxing to be back in Nebraska. It was so much quieter than out here in California. I got lots of sleep (even though my FitBit died). I tried not to worry so much about losing weight and instead focused on spending quality time with family. In this time of hopefulness about the "AA" embryo, it is so wonderful to know that my family is 110% behind me and ready to help and support this fertility journey.

It also felt good to get back to California. It did take a few days to re-adjust. I got back on Wednesday. Immediately I went out for lunch with some of my female colleagues. It was nice to have some time to decompress and gossip a bit. Thursday I pretty much binge-watched Pose on Netflix. In the evening, we attended the candidate forum for LA city council district 12 at CSUN. Friday, we helped with the Chemistry & Biochemistry department graduation party. Saturday, my sister, Steph, came into town so we spent the day cooking and cleaning. I tried to finish my grading before she arrived so that I could go on some hiking and camping adventures with her and her boyfriend, Jeff. Unfortunately, it was not possible.

After sending Steph & Jeff on their hiking and camping adventure, we went to the Farmer's Market on Sunday morning. We found lots of great things including a European Sea Bass (Branzino). I had a bit of trouble removing the fins, but once baked it was pretty tasty. This morning I made another batch of Tumeric Seeded Bread. I decided that the one appliance we're missing (See Fertility Part 7 for the list) is a food dehydrator. I've been making kale chips and sweet potato chips in the oven, but they end up getting burned.

In conclusion, the IVF diet is working for me. My weight this morning was 195.5 pounds. I know that is still heavy, but sometimes when you get heavy, you start to think that there's no hope and nothing will work. I was tracking my calories with MyFitnessPal and attending HIIT workouts for a year and not losing weight. It was discouraging. But I am having success now that I've been following the IVF diet (loosely). I will admit I modify the diet plan to ensure that I am not getting more than 40% of my calories from carbohydrates and that I am getting more than 25% of my calories from protein.

Dear husband has come up with a system for pre-cutting the fruits and veggies. He finds this modular arrangement in the fridge to be less overwhelming. Another thing we have started doing is saving the containers from the commercial produce and refilling them with the loose items we get at the Farmer's Market. Hello Life Hack! And now, we wait for the next menstrual cycle to begin another round of hormones! As I stated in a previous post, my goal is to lose another 4 pounds before the embryo transfer (about 2 weeks from now).