JZ's on the Nuva ring now and she likes it.

I am going to get yelled at by my boss later today. A lot.

Nobody puts Scrappy in the corner gets to yell at Scrappy! Not even a little.

The Nuva ring intrigues me, but I'm so happy with the IUD that I have no need to switch.

I'm not really stress eating the refined sugars all that much. More the potato, bread, and cheese food groups. Mac and cheese, cheese pizza, various cheese-based spreads on crackers. Yummy, if not nutritionally complete. And great with wine. Oh, hey, that's fruit, isn't it?

Hee.

It actually stops ALL my compulsive eating, not just sweets. I think the lack of blood sugar bounce has a lot to do with how I respond to stress.

If I stop eating refined sugar (ha!)* I find that I feel SO. MUCH. BETTER. It makes me sad, because I'm like Homer Simpson in the episode where he finds the sugar truck that crashes and he keeps the pile of sugar in the backyard.

Eating sugary foods doesn't lead to overall compulsive eating; but it's like a cocaine addict (I imagine): I eat something sweet and then I HAVE TO EAT MORE OH MY GOD even if the second (and third, etc.) servings don't taste as good as the first.

*When I say "stop eating refined sugar," I mostly mean candy, cookies, cake/pie/pastry (which is hard when my co-workers brought in a pie AND a cake today) -- stuff with a very high sugar rush. I'm okay with yogurt that has sugar, with things like zucchini bread (although I make it myself and it doesn't have a lot of sugar in the recipe), etc. Basically, if it has fiber or fat with it, I'm pretty much okay, as long as I've had other non-sugar-y things to eat that day. But things that are just Pure! Sugar! Injection! just fuck me up big time. (And give me serious gastrointestinal distress, I've found, which is weird as hell.)

Sugar feeds the yeast and other nasty microorganisms that cause this. Among other possible explanations.

I'm curious about the Nuva ring myself. I've been on various permutations of the pill for close to twenty years, not counting the three years spent trying to/being pregnant and the completely miserable, hateful nine months with an IUD. ::shudders::

I've always been pretty sensitive to the hormones, so every time I've made a pill switch, it's been to a lighter dose and so far, it's worked, but right now, I'm on Loestrin 24, which is supposed to be making the girly time shorter and lighter, but so far, NSM. And frankly, I'm tired of pills. But after the IUD experience, I'm reluctant to try anything in that neighborhood again.

I will report back on the Nuvaring to you guys AND my gyno!

Related to Kristin's post about the student who didn't do her summer reading: an essay in the Washington Post by an English teacher who wonders if required reading and the way that literature is taught is actually turning students off reading literature: [link]

Latest Casper (the kitten) photo: [link] Look at those clear eyes! And in news that will probably surprise no one, we are probably keeping him.

Furry beastie!!

Latest Casper (the kitten)

Momo sez: I beg your pardon, I'm The Kitten! I dunno what he is.

So cute!

After a binge on fudge last month I started to avoid things with refined sugar, because I could feel my heart-rate climb for about an hour after eating it, along with major nausea. And racing heart-rates are already prominent enough in my life right now without deliberately invoking them. Go team dairy fat!

The last time I was on hormonal birth control I packed on 20 pounds inside of one month. (And got dumped by the boyfriend for whom I'd gone on the pill.) The Nuva ring's come out since then. It looks interesting, but after 40 I'm not sure that hormonal birth control is the best bet, especially for someone who intends to never have children. If it ever looks like I'll be having heterosexual sex again, I'm going to get Essure and be done with it (fallopian tube blocks, with no surgery).