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Happy New Year & 2012 Recap

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Did you stay up? I actually fell asleep watching 30 Rock around 11:30 but luckily I have the best husband ever and he woke me up in time to share the strike of midnight and a new year’s kiss 🙂 I’m trying to cut back on coffee thus I was very tired yesterday night.

2012 was a big year for our house – here’s a recap.

  1. I taught my first (and probably last) yoga class at my old job – turns out I like taking yoga much more than teaching yoga, at least for now. People seemed to like my classes but teaching is just not for me! (January)
    maggie-yoga
  2. I went back to my old job (I had left it for ~5 months, but missed it almost as soon as I’d gone). (March)
  3. My hubby and I bought an apartment in NYC. And then we renovated it (still renovating it…). (Closed in May; began renovations in November)
    reno-framing-floor
  4. I joined a CSA and discovered a farmers’ market on the corner of my street. (June)
  5. I joined Pure Yoga back at the end of June (and Bobby just joined in late November so now we can go to yoga together). (June)
  6. I fixed my PCOS. (Basically by eating more carbs, and more in general, more food more regularly.) I also ate a lot of PCOS bread. (July)
    pcos-bread
  7. Bobby and I went on a yoga retreat with Raghunath (August), and I tried Mysore Ashtanga yoga (July).
  8. Bobby and I went to Japan for 2 weeks for fun (and so I could finally – after 7 years of being together – meet his family!). (October)
    maggie-japanese-grocery
  9. I went to India for 9 days for work. (December)
    ACTION
  10. NYC got hit by Hurricane Sandy – our home was unaffected, but my work lost power for a week and many of my friends and family members, including my parents, were also without power. Sandy Workout & Sandy Link Love.

What were the important things in your life for 2012?

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Eating For Your Hormones [Fixing PCOS]

Several weeks ago I posted about a new eating plan. Here were the key points:

  1. Ditch the scale
  2. Give away clothes that don’t look good or don’t fit
  3. Eat consistently, real meals, every day. Make time for true sit-down meals.
  4. Eat whatever you want to eat. Nothing is off limits. 🙂
  5. Mantra: “I will have good days and bad days but my value is not determined by my weight and I intend to nourish myself at the start of each day.”

So – i have to say – it has been so good! I’ve had lingering hormone issues (PCOS) from some nutritional deficiencies in the past (several years ago) and this plan has really helped my health improve.

Here are some resources that I found helpful. They are articles about thin PCOS-ers (women who have PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome but are not overweight), about restrictive eating habits, and recovery from disordered eating / eating disorders.

*I had trouble getting in this much food each day at first but I got used to it and my body has adjusted. I did not gain weight (actually lost 1-2 pounds).

**This article raises a few good points such as – 1) thin PCOS-ers should not fast and 2) they should eat higher carb. To be honest I don’t know how much I buy into the rest of her recommendations (such as cutting out entire food groups) but I do think that it’s important to be eating regularly and enough carbohydrates so your body knows it can rely on you to give it fuel.

One more note is that eating this way seems to have helped my stomach calm down. My IBS is having a period of remission and I couldn’t be happier.

What are your thoughts? Do you have PCOS or IBS and how have you dealt with either?

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PCOS Muffins / PCOS Bread Recipe

**UPDATE: My PCOS did resolve itself naturally. I think that this PCOS bread helped but honestly I can’t be sure what the final fix was! I was also following this eating plan when my PCOS cleared up. I went on to get pregnant in the summer of 2013 and have a son who was born in April of 2014.**

I think I have mentioned this before, but I have PCOS (PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome). There are a lot of different opinions and research floating around regarding treatment and causes. One of the possible treatments is adding DCI, or D-Chiro-Inositol, to your diet. I actually got the idea for this recipe from a coworker at a previous job, but there are also many variations online if you google for PCOS muffins. This buckwheat farinetta has a lot of DCI in it, and so does soy lecithin which is also in the recipe. I modified this recipe from a bunch that I found online, but it came out really well. I will be making it again because i’m almost out.

pcos-bread

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl:

  • 3 cups farinetta (order online HERE)
  • 1/2 cup soy lecithin granules (amazon has it)
  • 1 tablespoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2-4 tsp of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves or other “pumpkin pie” type spices – I used cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup ground flaxseed/flaxmeal (optional, but good for Omega 3s) – I did not use this
  • 2 tablespoons ground black sesame seeds (optional – I did add this, and I used this grinder)

Combine (separately) the wet ingredients + sweetener in a medium or small bowl:

  • 2 mashed bananas (alternately, try pumpkin or applesauce?)
  • 1 cup baking stevia (do not use sugar here – PCOS people are particularly sensitive to sugar – our insulin response is usually messed up)
  • 3 medium organic eggs
  • 1 cup of whole milk (could sub a non-dairy milk, or even water)
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla or other extract

Method

  1. Preheat your oven to 350F.
  2. Combine the wet and dry ingredients by pouring the wet into the dry. You may add extra goodies like chocolate chips, nuts, etc… but I did not.
  3. Spoon the batter either into muffin tins or a loaf pan (mine are circular and have ~1.5 inch high sides). My batter fit into 2 of the circular ones. The batter may or may not rise – mine did, but I read online that others didn’t – so fill accordingly.
  4. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 – 35 mins (check after 25).

This makes approximately 16 servings (each tin cut into 8 pieces). If you have 2-3 servings per day, that should be enough DCI to be effective. There are about 5200 grams of DCI in the whole batch. That means 325 grams in each 1/16th piece. Depending on your weight, have 2-3 per day (I think the study with DCI used 600 grams per day for smaller women).

***

I hope this helps someone! I really liked the muffins/bread. They definitely have an odd, “healthy” taste to them, but I like stuff like that. Try topping them with butter or cream cheese. Yum.