Admittedly, it has been quite a while since I’ve blogged. However, I have a very good reason. I’ve been busy getting engaged! I also took some heavy biochemistry summer classes (A- & B)….but it is a lot more fun to think about being engaged.

Anyhow, my approximate wedding date will be in December 2010. I hate to put a wedding so close to another big holiday, but it is the only chance my fiancee and I will have since we are both students.  He’s even busy with school and working as a research assistant during the summer, so we can’t get away then. Of course, regardless of the date of the wedding, I’m very happy to be getting married. I’m thrilled to have found such a great guy.

Now, what effect has this had on my weight, you may ask. I’m still down from the last time I blogged. My weight right now is 301 pounds. So, I haven’t lost nearly as much as I would have liked, but I haven’t gained all my weight back, either. I’m actually pretty happy that my body has adapted to hanging around its new weight. Certainly, being busy with school, family visits over the summer, and making time for my fiancee has been difficult and taken a lot of time.

I’ve mostly countered gaining weight by continuing my aim of cooking at home. I have made a limit for myself of eating out no more than twice per week. That is a huge step for me. It means I am cooking a LOT! It is a big change, but simply doing that has really helped keep the weight off. I went most of this summer without much exercise since I was out of town and then came back to find the school gym closed. The only thing that kept my weight off was home cooking. Assuming your cooking isn’t dripping in grease or other high calorie flavorings, you can practically eat twice the bulk of food that you cook at home compared to fast food and still be consuming fewer calories.

The school gym did reopen on the 8th, however, and I finally got back to it yesterday. It felt good to be back in the gym and burning off more calories. Between my cooking at home that puts me at a maintenance level of calories and going back to the gym, I am very confident that I will once again start losing weight. I expect a slow and steady decline in my weight. In addition, even though I haven’t lost that much weight the last few months, the quality of my health has greatly improved.

With the exercise I was doing up until the summer and the change in eating (I assume mostly due to cooking at home and working to avoid salt in every form), I got a surprising analysis that my pseudotumor issue will not require any form of surgery! According to the field of vision tests and new MRIs, the pressure on my eyes (and danger of going blind) has actually decreased enough that they feel safe in not having me do the optic nerve sheath fenestration procedure. That was a HUGE relief! My grandma cried after the doctors told us that.

Beyond my improvement in health, I also got the good news that my scholarship funding has been extended for this next year. After a year being sick from autoimmune issues and the next year plagued with this psuedotumor disorder, I really needed an extra year to finish up my degree. As my family doesn’t have the money to pay for my education, I have always relied on the scholarships I’ve received. The Ford Family Foundation was kind enough to review my medical issues and award me an extra year of funding. I am so thankful to the Ford Family Foundation for their support. I have worked so hard to stay in school throughout my ailments, but being so sick can have a horrible result on your grades and ability to finish classes. I am so glad that they were willing to support me through this and help me to finish my Bachelor’s Degree.

So, right now my life is going pretty well. My body adapted to the pseudotumor medicine, which is great. Between the medicine and watching my sodium intake, I generally feel pretty healthy. Once in a while I have a day where the pressure builds up for unknown reasons (possibly excess vitamin A or sudden weather changes, etc.) or I forget to take a dose of my medicine, and that really sucks. However, for the majority, I am feeling sooooo much better. I really believe that every pound I lose will continue to improve my health and my life.

I am really looking forward to this next year. I am looking forward to losing weight, improving my health, hitting my tough science classes hard, and marrying the man that I love. I am very excited that my life has finally taken such a great turn. I intend to take full advantage of this year and all the life I can live now that I am getting better! Hopefully, I won’t take so long to write next time. See you!