P.S. I think the reason I broke down so much before was because I was being weened off one of my medications and it was pretty rough on me. So I went back to the Dr. today and I'm going to hold off on stopping my medications just yet and get estrogen and progestrone levels checked and tomorrow I'll start on a progestrone cream my Doc suggested. I'm crossing my fingers!

My new regimen is 30-40 min of rowing machine, elliptical, rowing machine, elliptical. It feels really great, I love it. I want to be doing it everyday though. What do you think about that? I also want to start weekly lifting or something. Especially since my stomach looks like my post pregnancy gut. I also think I'm going to start sprouting seeds and eating more romaine and the canned salmon you mentioned. I prefer this slow build a lot more because I think about it daily but I'm not consumed by it.

Did first day of Comm. Service today. No time on the elliptical but I didn't sit for 5 hours, walked around on cement all day and cleaned some really gross bathrooms. I'm exhausted and everything hurts. I need to drink more water tomorrow.

Today I got on the elliptical twice and tried to be more active around the house. It was so nice that on my second time around on the elliptical, I took the last 5 minutes and doubled my speed and it felt good. It was so nice, I felt like my old self a little bit and it's been a long long time. I didn't "focus" on my food but still ate considerably better and I felt in control but not stressed out. A good balance. I also found my stash of vitimins and I'm going to start taking some of those again. Super green food, vitamin D-3, capryl, Mind Set, colon ease, and that with my prenatal is pretty good for now. I have my echocardiogram tomorrow morning so that'll be interesting. Can't wait to feel even better. :)

I'm in the middle of something I'm hoping to figure out. Just give me a couple of days. I'll probably need help on this one...

1 cup oatmeal = 160
1/2 cup cottage cheese = 100
1/8 cup walnuts = 50
1 string cheese = 70
1 apple = 120
1 orange = 60
1 cup honey nut cheerios = 143
tortilla chips

Wow, I lost track of a few days there. In a nut shell here's what I ate, did and indulged in over those 3 days.

ATE INDULGED DID
Cottage cheese 2 brownies over 2 days Walked mall for 3 hrs
grape tomatoes raisin bran elliptical 10 min
delicious fajitas Whit's ice cream danced with Ben 1hr
oatmeal almond m&m's normal everyday stuff
organic granola bars 3/4 almond honey sandwich
string cheese

So as part of working this all in long run, I realized that I don't want it to seem "normal" as of yet. Which I figured would happen but I just had to see. I CAN say that I appreciated what I learned. The night I ate that brownie-holy cow my heart went crazy! You can know in theory that it's likely to happen but after four days of almost no processed sugar, it was like a messy jolt. My anxiety went through the roof and my brain felt like mud. It was just what I needed for an effective lesson. All as expected and it sucked. BUT I didn't feel that horrible craving, pull my hair out feeling so while I'm going to go back to counting calories, I need to SOMEHOW find a happy medium. "Balance" right? ugh...so here we go.