The way the diet cookie crumbles

Full Article here: www.webmd.com/diet/features/compulsive-overeating-and-how-to-stop-it

"People who are obese are the ones who have no money, no education, eat cheap sugar and fat, and live in neighborhoods where cheap sugar and fat are the only things available," Drewnowski says. "We say they should choose better. But in our society, they have no choice."

News to me.. I read it twice before I was sure I got it right. I make bad choices cause I like the way it tastes not because I am uneducated and poor. I just can't believe it. My aunt who is a lawyer, definitely not uneducated or poor, is obese. My other aunt is a stay at home, but has a degree and lives in a million dollar home, is obese. I am in my 3rd year of college on my way to a masters and possibly a Doctorate... I am fat...

Anyway, the rest of the article has some good information so it may be worth the read.

I started back tracking my calories on Sparkpeople and eating right. This morning I had an egg and bacon sandwich and for a snack I had some strawberries with Fat Free whip cream. yumm yumm. I may walk on the treadmill later but I am not sure. I want to go swimming but they don't have the pools up out here. At least not at my apartment. I am so sad. All the pools are up all over town, but they are slacking here. A couple of years ago I lost 80 pounds in 6 months by swimming everyday. I am planning to ask my fiancée for a puppy when I make it half way to my goal weight.

Trey and I are getting ready to buy a house soon after the wedding. I am so excited, stressed but excited. School begins again, June 1st I am really excited to get back to work. I am also taking a fitness class so that will help me with my weight loss. I am very excited!

We are also trying to get in shape so that we can start TTC! I am worried what the doctor might say about me getting and being pregnant. I have a heart condition called Supra Ventricular Tachycardia. I did meet another girl that has the exact same condition and she is Pregnant and has said it is going well. I need to get my blood pressure under control. I know right now its a little high, pre hypertension. So here is hoping that I can make some significant changes in my diet and health in the next 6 months.

New news

I found out about a different nursing specialty: Perfusion, I am doing research about it now, and it seems really interesting. I am still mid research but I think it could be something I would be interested in, though I am finding that there is not a lot of information available on it. There is a College in Upstate New York that has a Perfusion program, but that is the only school I have seen that has a real program for it. Even KU (Medical School) doesn't appear to have a Perfusionist program. So right now I am just seeing what I can find out..

Trey (the Fiance) got some extra work at the company his Dad works for, so that is GREAT! We can use all the extra cash we can get right now. I CANNOT wait for the wedding to be over and done with, I love the fact that I am marrying my fiance, but I just want to be married already. I want life to return to normal, no more "What should I be planning right now" thoughts.

Well, I know there was more... but I can't remember so I guess this will be a mini blog.

Beating a dead horse.... and other updates

So once again I have started doing research on what I want to be when I grow up. I am having difficulty figuring out where a nurse fits into Fertility, which I believe is my chosen specialty. I talked to a IVF specialist about what I should do to get into the field. His answer for me was to get a job as a nurse at a fertility clinic. Which is good advice, but its not what I want to do. I want to have patients, I want to do research, I want to run tests, make breakthroughs. I want to finally see my patient get pregnant, or be there for them emotionally when they can't. I know a lot of this I can do as a RN, but not all of it. At the same time I am not sure I can give myself to med school. I also wouldn't ask my family to go through it all with me. Plus I wont even get of school for my RN till I am 30 and I can't change majors now. I know that if I get my NP I can be happy. I would have to let go of the dream of working in Fertility. If I get my CRNA I would probably be even happier because I wouldn't have to choose a specialty.

Wow, I feel better... I should come back and read this post next time I am having doubts. I kinda feel like CRNA is the way to go since I wont have to pick a specialty that I wont love as much as fertility. But I hear that the Mal Practice insurance for a CRNA is outrageous.

Lets move on, school is starting back up, and I am excited to get back to it. I have been so disappointed in my performance as of late. I feel ready to take on my semester and get my act together. The wedding is coming along, Almost all the wedding invites are addressed and ready to be sent out. I need to set up a cake tasting pretty soon. Maybe this Friday, we are always so busy though. It seems like in a matter of moments a months worth of weekends disappear. Lucky for me school is starting soon, I will use it as an excuse "sorry, can't help you walk your dog next weekend. I have to study." Its not that I don't love our family and our friends, I just miss sleep, and relaxing, and hanging with my fiance.

I have been watching house hunters recently, and I think I would love to live in Seattle, WA. Its so pretty there, but expensive.

Well I need to finish our wedding web page and register for the wedding. I will try and blog more often.

More half finished blogs..

We spent last weekend ironing out some wedding plans. We got a lot done. Still a lot to do, but I am feeing much better about the wedding plans. All the girls got their dresses, and we are on the hunt for shoes. Billie (MOH) already found her shoes. I am starting to feel a little discouraged about my shoes, I have tried on so many different pairs of shoes, I have only really found one pair I semi liked, they were very comfortable, but just not right. I have my hair figured out. I want long lush Victoria secret hair.

I have to get hair extensions put in to get the style I like. There are extensions that I can get put in that only last for a day. It will cost anywhere from 120 to 240 for just the extensions. It’s a lot of money, I am kind of wondering if it would be a better use of my money to actually get the extensions that are longer lasting. But meh, we will see.

We decided on our caterer, we are going for pizza! I know, I know, it might seem totally tacky but after much much MUCH debate we decided to plan a wedding that we actually wanted to attend. So our party is totally laid back, we are even have a video game station set up.

I am almost finished purchasing the girls gifts a few more things to buy off ebay and we will be done. I am also going to have tote bags made for my MOH, Bridesmaids, Mom and FMIL.

The rest will have to wait for another night

House off the table

So it looks like the house is no longer on the table, which is ok.I had been having reservations about doing it right now, I continued through those reservations for two reasons. The first I really really really wanted and house and this is where buying a house fits into my "life plan", and the second, I wanted to prove the nay sayers wrong. But after a lot of discussion and a lot of trying we decided that its too much. We really need to focus on the wedding right now.

House back on the table?

So, the house wasn't really off the table for long. We are not yet sure how we are going to swing it or if we can swing it at all, but we are certainly going to try. We have 7 houses to look at this weekend, and another 5 next weekend. We are trying to find something we like and get the ball rolling by the end of the month. It's crazy terrifying to think we have a deadline that is that close. We can manage to extend our deadline by 2 or 3 weeks, but we would rather not.

I turned in my financial aid appeal today. They said I should hear back in a week. I am so nervous, but I am hoping that I get back good news. We will see...

Less Money, Mo Problems

The car has been having some problems, the steering column has been shaking at higher speeds, and there is a rattling in the door, and pressure in the breaks. Thankfully all this is covered in my warranty, the problem is that we needed to get all 4 tires replaced. Bye bye savings.. At this point I am not sure what we are going to do about the wedding. I am sure we will figure out a way to pay for it, but it just seems like any time we get ahead life comes around and knocks us on our ass. Is this just how life as a young adult couple with only one income is? I really can't wait to finish school and start working. I am going to get my CNA next semester, and then I hope to start working full time in the hospital. In 2012 I will graduate with my RN and a BSN. Then the fun really begins. I will be working full time, making good money. I long for those days. I long for the days when we won’t have to worry so much about money. I hate it; I hate the sacrifices Trey has to make while I am in school. I feel so guilty, I feel like it would have been better had I not enrolled in school. I want so badly to be a nurse, but I hate that I can't have a real job. My school hours change every 4 months. It's hard to find a company that will deal with that. Right now I work for a company called Comfort Keepers. I really like it there; I pretty much get to set my own hours. So maybe this will be something that I will be able to hold on to once I start school again.

I have been considering working towards a CRNA, or NP degree. NP’s aren't as recognized in my state as in others. So that’s a little discouraging, I can't work on my own and it seems like most people out here would rather see a MD than an NP. I have read that CRNA is the best job in the hospital. I plan to shadow one sometime soon and see what it’s really all about. It was actually the first specialty I wanted to go in to. NP sounds amazing because I can go any where from there.

Finishing a post

I have started the same post 3 times and each time I never finish it. So I vow to finish this post.

Let’s see, life has been pretty busy. I am working with about 6 clients which is not a whole lot, but a few of them are about 30 minutes away, so drive time can be an issue. I lost a client last week, she passed away. I hadn't known her very long, and I was kind of expecting it due to her behavior going down hill. I was still pretty sad, she was a very nice lady and it was sad to see her suffering. I also had to drop a client this week due to her treatment of me. I don't mean to sound entitled and I understand that I am not going to encounter pleasant people in my career field, but this lady took it to a whole new level. She would yell at me non stop, commented on all aspects of my personal life and told me that I needed to go to church or I would go to hell.

I have been trying to get ready for school again. I have to do a FA appeal since I did so poorly last semester. It's hard for me to understand why I am not doing well in College. I had a 3.75 in high school and I am not even close to pulling that right now. I wonder if its because I haven't been in school for 9 years. This semester I really want to do better, dedicate more time to my homework, and keep up with my classes.

I have been spending a lot of my time painting lately. I love it, sometimes it comes out looking like crap, but I love it. Of course my artistic ability is nill, so I am doing abstract art which is a nice way of saying painting with no skill. A few of my paintings have come out really nice. I will take some pictures and try and get them online.

Anyway, tonight is a pretty relaxed evening for me. I am catching up on my shows and waiting for the crazy storm we are supposed to get tonight. I love the rain, there is something about a wicked storm that gets me excited. Though, now that I live in Kansas wicked storms can be pretty scary as well.

Trey and i have been looking for a house, we have seen about 12. We have found 2 that we really like. We were hoping to be done with the house hunting last weekend but it doesn't look like that is going to happen, especially since I have found quiet a few houses that I want to look at.

Where has my time gone?

So my first week of work is down, I have 5 clients and I am doing pretty well I think. I love hanging out with all my clients, sometimes we just sit together and watch tv, but I know it is comforting to know someone cares. Sometimes I get paid to watch TV. lol.

What do I want to be when I grow up

How can it be that I am 26 years old and still can't figure it out? I used to laugh at my sister who changed her major 4 times while in college. I have switched mine at least twice as many times. I started off in Pre-Veterinary Medicine; do you know that an Earth Worm has like 300 parts? Yeah, true. When will I ever need to know that? I got frustrated with my Zoology class and bailed. Then it was Business, I was going to be high powered and rich and famous, then I realized I hate business. I am not underhanded enough for it, no offense. So then it was on to computer programming, which I LOVED until I actually had to program. There is a reason those guys get paid well. So then I considered Graphic Arts, but I can't draw. So after a lot of time and A LOT of research I decided to pursue nursing. I took Human Anatomy and Physiology last semester and I LOVED IT! It was the most interesting and exciting thing I have ever learned. I find myself in conversations being a total kill joy, someone complains about something going on with their body and I go into a way too in depth explanation of how that body part works. lol.

Well, the problem is the more research I do into what specialty I want to go into the more restricted I feel. I feel like nursing is only half of what I want. The fields I am interested in are Oncology, Neurology, and Fertility. I am now interested in Fertility, Neurology comes easy to me, and all my family has died of Cancer. Now I can go for a WHNP or WHCNP but I feel like those don't really give me the freedom to do what I want. I want to help people have babies, I want to be there when they finally conceive, I want to do the ultrasounds and I want to be there when they deliver, and neither of those paths allows me to do that. I could be a CNM but I don't feel like I would be the right person for that. I don't want to do home births, or holistic births, and I have nothing against pain killers.

So.. I have been spending the last few days on the student doctor forums. This has only served to depress me more. I have my Fiancé; we are going to be trying to conceive before the end of the year. I feel like going to med school and having a family is not going to work. I keep reading about how you can have a family and go through Med School. You can get Average grades and still have a couple hours on the weekend and maybe an hour a night with your family. I just can't come to terms with that.

Can I be happy with half a career? I know I could not be happy with half a family.

Missing old friends, new job, and Sister troubles.

The other day I was looking through my facebook friends, I recently got in touch with my best friend from high school. I was looking through her facebook friends and she is still friends with everyone from high school. It kinda made me miss all my old friends. When I grew up, left high school, and got married, I grew apart from all my old friends. When my husband and I separated I moved back home, and when I saw all my old friends their lives seemed so simple. I had nothing in common with them. It seemed like they were still in high school and I was far from being in high school. But still I miss the friendships I had, and I haven't been able to get that close to my new friends. I have trust issues since my marriage feel apart. I am going to try and open up to my friends more in an attempt to get closer to my new friends.

So I got a new job today, I had applied a while back at a company called Comfort Keepers, they called me the other day and today I went in for a interview and orientation today. I am so excited; we can really use the extra money. Wedding's aint cheap! So, once I start making some money we will need to make sure our spending doesn't increase.

Anyway, I talked to my Mom today and she said that my younger sister who has been battling drug addiction for some time is not doing so well. She recently went to rehab and supposedly got off drugs, but it turns out she started doing heroine with her boyfriend. She took too much and tells my mom that she almost died, her boyfriend did cpr to bring her back. She checked into a detox program and said that detoxing off of Heroine was the hardest thing she had ever done, she says she is no longer doing Heroine but is doing other drugs instead; he old drug of choice was Meth, so I figure she is doing that again. For a while I thought I was going to get my sister back, I thought she was going to be the sister I remember from when we were young, staying up all night talking. She gets my hopes up and then she crushes them

Introduction

I have a weight loss blog already, but I thought I should make a normal blog to talk about everything. So I thought I would start off with a little introduction to me. My name is Jenn and I am 26 years old, I am engaged to a wonderful man, we are planning our wedding for 8/8/09. It's coming up so fast, I get so stressed thinking about all the stuff that’s still left to do.

I am a full time nursing student, though I am still in my prereq's. My college career has been crazy to say the least. I enrolled 2 years ago with the intent of getting a Vet Tech Certification, after 2 months in my Zoology class I decided that it wasn't what I wanted. So I started on a new path, Computer Programming. Programming was so much fun.. I thought I had found my path. Apparently the first half of the semester was programming light, and that’s the part I loved! When we started actually programming, I realized how hard programming really is. So I quit. This seems to be a theme of mine (We will get to that later). So finally I decided on Nursing, and I really love it, yeah, I get burnt out and it’s by no means easy, but I still really love it and don't mind working towards it.

So as far as the quitting thing goes, I am doing some remodeling in my life. I am trying to persevere. I used to be a stronger person, but at some point I kind of lost that person. I can't beat myself up over it, now that I know; I just have to change things. So, I guess I am trying to find half of myself lol.

So now on to weight loss. I have been struggling with my weight for a while now. I am hoping to lose a bit, more like a lot, of weight before the wedding. Ultimately I want to get back to the weight I was in high school. Don't we all? I just really want to be proud of myself; I don't want to be afraid to go places because I am worried about what people will think.

So I guess that’s all for my introduction, and these topics will probably be key features in my blog.