The new goals

Given that I now have 8-10 weeks before either the next fresh IVF or the transfer, I've decided to focus on a couple of different areas between now and then.

The first one is that hoary old chestnut, weight. I'm at my heaviest ever, and now have 50 lbs to lose before I'm at my ideal weight. Which is about a third of the way through the healthy weight for my height, so it's not like I'm trying for super-skinny. I'd decided not to diet this year, because I end up feeling deprived and then find myself bingeing, thus putting on more weight than I took off, and yo-yoing. Which we all know is not healthy. But not dieting didn't work either as I used it as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted. So now I am going to focus on tracking calories, but instead of trying to drop to 1200 calories a day, I'm going to aim at 1500-1700 calories a day. I found a handy web calculator which tells you how many calories you need to take in to maintain your weight at your ideal, which for me is about 1700. So even if I just tried to stick to that amount, I'd eventually drop down and wouldn't face the prospect of hard dieting and then trying to switch to a "new normal" way of eating. I'd eat the same way all along. [And if I did manage to get pregnant, I'd add 300 calories a day to that]. I'm going to give myself two years to get to my ideal weight (or 3 if I get pregnant), rather than the usual "I want to lose at least 2 lbs a week" mentality. That's the plan, anyway.

The second one is to have lovely clear skin. And not in the sense of acne and blocked pores, but rather in the sense of getting rid of hyperpigmentation. I have some hormonally induced dark splotches (which have NOT been helped by repeated IF treatment) and this year got my first "brown spot". And I've always had freckles. So I'm going to try out different brightening treatments to try to get that fixed. If anyone has any recommendations, I'd love to hear them. I've been trying to be all organic, but I figure that this is worth a chemical or two. I bought some new products while in Vegas, and think I'm already seeing an improvement, but that could be partly wishful thinking. I've been told several times today that I look rested from my vacation (even though I think I look crap because I didn't sleep well last night), so maybe the skin thing is helping.

The third one is exercise. I have been happiest when I've been able to run regularly but these days have knee and back issues (not helped by the weight of course). So instead of launching into too much jogging, and hurting myself and pulling out after two weeks, I am really going to follow the slow-and-steady training plans, and try to run three times a week.

The fourth one is to try to not get fired! I have been slacking at my job because I'm desperate to change careers, and am just not motivated. But I'm going to try to accept that until I get my g/reen car.d and I am able to move, this is my lot in life. So I need to suck it up and focus more on my job, knowing that it is going to be temporary. She says while typing a blog post during working hours...