It's the middle of my usual stall-out and I've noticed the last several days that the scale has been dropping weight quite rapidly. I lost my monthly period weight, but seems I haven't started gaining my ovulation weight yet. So, today on the scales I saw a number I haven't seen so far this journey - 187.6 - exactly 68 pounds lost. I'll probably start seeing the ovulation weight gain tomorrow or so, but it's showing good signs for this month's losses at least. I think I will see the second to last piece of pizza pie eaten this month - woo-hoo!
This month is probably going to be a bit unusual if my body follows it's usual pattern. So, last month I ovulated on day 10. Which is way early. And so, if my body does what it usually does when it ovulates a bit early/late, it corrects itself the following month. So, if my pattern holds true, then I won't ovulate until day 18, or so. Of course, my body isn't a computer, and it's aging so who knows if it's going to hold to the same patterns of years past, but it seems to be a bit true at least as I never get to a new low in the middle of the monthly cycle, so to do that, I think that means I can expect ovulation to be late.
So how do I know so much about my body's ovulation pattern? Well, I experienced 2.5 years of infertility while trying for our second son. And, I researched a lot about cycles and how to get pregnant with my first son. And I pay attention to my body's signals.
For my first pregnancy, I charted my morning basal body temperature and discovered then, way back over 16 years ago that I followed this pattern of usually ovulating on day 13, 14, or 15. As was noted with a temp spike the day following ovulation. I also noticed that I averaged 28 day cycles over the year that I charted such things the first time around. But, that was the average. If I ovulated on day 12 one month, the next month I might ovulate on day 16 - balancing out the too early ovulation to too late ovulation. When I charted again 7 years later, the same pattern emerged. Except the second time I had some weird patterns of a short luteal phase for over a year after a miscarriage. Luteal phase? That's the time after ovulation until the start of menstruation. Oh, I should also mention, I really, really, really serious thought of becoming a nurse midwife during these years. I read books on the subject, even textbooks, researched schools and so on. Finally decided against it simply because of the time it would take to start to finish and with all the moving around we were doing those years (Chicago, Philadelphia, Ontario, Canada, Des Moines, Iowa, to Virginia (and now Maryland) the regulations for nurse midwifery and what education/experience was needed varied A LOT and it was too risky to do a program in one state to only find it didn't transfer to another state (or country as it turns out we moved to Canada for a bit too).
Anyway, I became very in tune with my body it's cycles during those years. Not just temperatures either, but other signals the body gives about ovulation. If you are interested, this was the book that was the best information. Ironically, it was made for people trying not to get pregnant, but it's opposite is true too. Then you know exactly when to have sex to get pregnant as well as when not to have sex (or at least unprotected sex) to avoid pregnancy. I've given this book as gifts and recommended it many times, so I'll do so here too: http://www.amazon.com/Taking-Charge-Your-Fertility-Achievement/dp/0060950536
So, all of this to say, I think I'll ovulate later this month and I think I dropped a bit more weight in the middle of the stall out because of ovulation being delayed. Most months I'll see a bit of a drop between my period and ovulation, but not all the way down to a new low. Until this month.
It's raining like mad today, so I'm glad I already go into the gym. Darn tropical storms! Like we need more rain? So, tomorrow it will look like I didn't exercise today, but that's because I'm adding yesterday and today's fitness stuff to today's post.
Stats for 9/7/11:
Beginning weight: 255.6 Now: 187.6 (68 pounds lost)
Exercise total hours in 2011: 260
Total miles walked in 2011: 754/1000
No comments:
Post a Comment