Life Keeps Getting in the Way

You know you've been away too long when someone writes to tell you they miss your posts. What sweet message that was too. Thanks Julia! A couple of things have been going on and none of it includes sewing.

The good news is that I'm continuing to lose weight, now down 25 pounds (I don't get to change my tracker until Monday). I've had to buy some new clothes because I couldn't alter patterns and sew them up quick enough to keep my behind covered. It was fun to shop because things were fitting me. I'm now officially an XL instead of a woman's 1X in tops and I am now wearing size 16 jeans. No more shopping in the woman's department. I have to get down another size to shop in the petite department though. That's my next goal. Bob just helped me pin up a couple pair of new pants that need to be shortened. I hope to get them done today. Maybe after that, I can get back to some real sewing.

My partner Stephanie and I were supposed to start our sewing classes through the city parks and recreation department this month but no one signed up. We probably won't get any students until the official brochure of classes is mailed out.

The bad news is that I'm having some health issues. Sorry if this is TMI. Because I had post-menopausal bleeding twice in the last 8 months with the last one being two weeks ago and lots of pelvic pain, the gynecologist wants me to have a D&C. He wants to check to see if I have any cancer cells growing in my uterus. I had an ultrasound in November and my uterus looked normal and all my ovarian cysts were gone which the Dr. said was probably because of my diet. However, endometrial cancer wouldn't have shown up on the ultrasound. Being the HUGE procrastinator that I am, I'm going to wait to worry about this until I've had the test and my Dr. tells me there is something to worry about. I was so hoping that with menopause I would be saved from the hysterectomy my gynecologist and family Dr. wanted me to have 13 years ago. I'm just now waiting for approval from the insurance company for the D&C.

Today I was planning on visiting the 18^th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design exhibition at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles with Stephanie. It was raining pretty hard this morning and I was feeling lazy so I postponed the trip. Instead I dropped my son off at the library and then went across the street to JoAnn's. That's only my second visit this year. They were having a sale on patterns and I picked up a few on sale and managed not to bring anything else home with me.


I think this Rebecca Taylor dress is so pretty and I have some poly jersey that should be perfect for it. Of course, I'll have to make the neckline a bit more modest and I'll make the hemline straight across instead of having a shirt tail shape, which I think looks stupid.

I've had my eye on this pattern for a long time, but I just felt it wouldn't do anything for my big round apple shape. Now that my apple is getting smaller, I decided to go for it. Again, some poly jersey would be great for this one. I plan to make all the pieces from this one.


While I have a TNT pattern similar to this one, I liked the different sleeve options. I would also have to alter my TNT pattern anyway so I thought I 'd start with this new one. I like both the looped neckline and the twist front. I think the twist front would look great as a dress.


Here's another dress that I thought could shrink with me because of the drawstring. I love those tiny puff sleeves on view c. I think it would be perfect in a lightweight cotton knit, I'll need to do a FBA for this one.

As you can tell, I'm getting ready to do some summer sewing. It's going to be hard to guess what size I'll be at the end of May, but I'm going to use a size 16 pattern and do a small FBA and cross my fingers that they fit.

Losing Weight

I didn't get any sewing done this week. That happens when I have to go to work. How do you all with full-time jobs get any sewing done? Since I don't have anything to show for the week I thought I'd tell you how my weight loss journey is coming along.


As you know, I'm following the Metabolism Miracle eating plan. This is a plan I can follow for the rest of my life. I know I said it was a low carb plan, but it's much more than that. It's a plan that will fix people like me whom the conventional wisdom of calories in minus calories expended doesn't equal weight loss. If it did, than all those years on Weight Watchers would have made me thin. I'm not thin, so obviously something different needed to be done. I'm not counting calories or fat grams. I'm not even really counting carbs, just watching them.

This eating plan is done in three stages. During the first stage which lasts 8 weeks (but I did it for 9 weeks) I lost 20 pounds. That's more than 2 pounds a week. I also started sleeping 8 hours a night. Before that, I was sleeping only 4-5 hours a night. I thought my lack of sleep was being caused by menopause. Not so! My hypoglycemia disappeared the very first week on this eating plan. I had it bad too. Whenever my blood sugar levels would drop, I got seriously cranky and if you got in my way I would knock you down to get to some food. I felt like a version of Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde. Carbohydrate food like cookies, potatoes, pasta, ice cream, etc. would be what would fix my "problem." Low carb food wouldn't do. My craving for carbs disappeared with the hypoglycemia. I haven't had sugar in three months. Nothing, nada. Who knew?

During step 2, you are to add back a 11-20 carb every 5 hours. Let's face it, our body needs carbs. But people with metabolism's like mine need them in small, controlled amounts. Luckily eating them like this keeps those cravings away. I don't even want them because I know what they do to my blood sugar levels and I know how lousy I'll feel.

The first 3 weeks of step 2 I only lost point 6 (.6) of a pound. However, this last week (week 4) I lost 2 more pounds. That puts me at a total loss of 22.6 pounds which works out to almost 1-3/4 pound a week. I never was able to lose more than half (.5) a pounds on Weight Watchers ever. While my loss is probably going to be slow, not anywhere as slow as WW was and I'm feeling better than I ever did on WW eating pasta and potatoes. Obviously low fat and restricted calories aren't what works for me. If it works for you, then Yea! It just doesn't work for everyone.

Now the good news. I've lost inches, lots of inches! I've lost 5 inches off my hips, 4 inches off my waist, and only 1 1/2 inches off my bust. None of the clothes I made over the summer fits except one top that shrank after I made it. Sadly, all my TNT patterns now need to be altered and aren't TNTs any more. Luckily, I have hundreds of other patterns that I'll be trying out. I plan to start tracing some Burda WOF patterns this week so I'm sure I'll be back to sewing new clothes very soon.

If you want to read more about this eating plan you can go to these links:

January 4, The Daily Mail - The metabolism miracle: The revolutionary diet that can help you stay slim forever.
January 5, The Daily Mail - The metabolism miracle diet part two: Eat carbs and still lose weight!
January 6, The Daily Mail - The metabolism miracle diet part three: How eating five meals a day can burn away your fat!
January 7, The Daily Mail - Chocolate? That's what I call a diet! The final part of our revolutionary scientific weight-loss plan. . .

The above links are from the Daily Mail, a British on-line magazine. You can also find out more info from the Author of The Metabolism Miracle from her website. I'm sorry to sound like such a commercial, but if it will help someone else, than that makes me happy. It was one of my ASG Neighborhood Group members that recommended it to me, and for that I'm grateful.

Thanksgiving's Over, Whew!

I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a husband who loves me and respects the things I want to do. I have a child with a disability who has overcome any problems the disability caused and is a happy child who loves his parents. My mom has been gone from us for three years now, but I'm so proud of my dad and all he's done with his life since losing his wife of 53 years and am thankful I still have him. My twin sis has left her self-destructive husband and is thankfully living happily nearby. I'm thankful for my older sister, her son and his family too. I love them all so much. Notice it's the people in my life I'm thankful for. This includes you, my sewing friends. For you I am thankful.

My blog started out as a sewing blog, and for the most part, I've kept it strictly to sewing. However, now I need to take a slight tangent at times. I toyed with the idea of starting another blog to journal my weight loss. I would have done it too, except the idea of setting up another blog just seemed too daunting. Also, I already have you my friends ready to cheer me on as I do my best to become a stronger, yet smaller, woman. I hope you'll indulge me these tangents on weight loss. But don't worry, I will still blog about all the new pattern alterations I'll be doing to fit the new stronger, smaller me.

As of this morning, I've lost 15 pounds. You'll see that I haven't updated my ticker yet because my official weigh-in is on Mondays. That's more weight gone in five weeks than I've ever been able to lose on Weight Watchers in twice that time and I've done WW several times in my life. The best part is I'm not hungry or craving sweets and carbs. Yesterday was Thanksgiving and I can't believe how easy low-carb was. I ate till I was full on very low-carb salad, green beans, and broccoli with a tiny spoonful of corn and was very satisfied. I had bought meatless chicken drumsticks but forgot to cook them. While everyone else was eating pie, I ate my almonds and diet swiss miss cocoa for dessert. I did have one little cherry from the pie, but found it way too sweet. It feels good not to have any regrets. I enjoyed my entire family so much yesterday, that the food was only a small part of the day. And yes, I was the cook except for the turkey which my dad cooked. I had to have everyone else taste the gravy and dressing for seasonings. That was fun getting other people into the kitchen with me.

I hope you all had an equally enjoyable day. My next blog entry will be about sewing, I promise!

Where Am I?

I'm still alive, in case you were wondering. I've just been preoccupied with life. Really, lots of things have been going on, except no sewing. I think I did so much sewing over the summer that I don't have a need to sew at the moment. That doesn't mean I don't want to sew because I do. In fact, I think I'll sew up a top today that I cut out last spring. It's a pattern that I designed using my TNT t-shirt pattern and copying this Coldwater Creek top.

I hope I can remember how I planned to sew it together. My sewing room is a mess so I'm going to have to clean up first. Since I didn't get any work today and there is a holiday tomorrow, I'm sure I can get it done.

Another thing that has me preoccupied of late is my weight. Remember this post last January about weight loss? Last January I had decided that it was time to finally lose the weight. So what happened? I gained 10 pounds this year. I've been doing some real soul searching and decided that low calorie, low fat diets don't work for me. I've been on them off and on for years and years. And I've been getting fatter and fatter because of it. After running into a friend at an ASG meeting and seeing how much weight she has lost, I decided to try something new.


The Metabolism Miracle is a book by Diane Kress that extols the virtues of a low carb diet. As a vegetarian I have always shunned these types of diets including Atkins and The South Beach diet. However, this author makes some very valid points about excluding carbs from my diet. The most important being that my body doesn't process sugar well any longer. I'm hypoglycemic which causes me to eat way too often and always high carb foods that cause me to crave more high carb foods. This is a pre-diabetic symptom and that's a place I really don't want to go.

Since I started following the Metabolism Miracle eating plan, the hypoglycemia has totally gone away and more importantly, I'm sleeping again. I haven't had more than five hours of sleep in about five years. After the first three days on this eating plan, I can hardly stay awake after 10 p.m. and I am getting 8 hours of sleep regularly. I'm even dreaming again! What a difference getting a full nights sleep makes in my attitude toward life. I also lost 10 pounds in first two weeks. Who knew that was possible? OK, I'm sure it was all water, but still, it feels great not to be all bloated and puffy.

Because I don't eat dead animals (nor live ones!) I am depending upon soy, wheat protein, and lots of Morningstar Farms and Boca products for my protein source. I'm having to learn how to cook all over again like I did when I stopped eating meat. For now I'm not eating potatoes, rice, legumes, breads of any kind, and all fruit. Some of these high carb foods will be reintroduced back into my meal plans later, after my body gets used to not being flooded with all the sugar they introduce into my body. This meal plan puts the body into ketosis, which according to research, is what burns body fat. And I'm all about burning the body fat at the moment.

As I lose weight, I'm going to be facing a new challenge. Altering my patterns to fit the new smaller, fitter body that I'm expecting. That's a challenge I'm looking forward to.

The New Year

I know I've disappointed you for being gone so long. It's been over a month since I've blogged. I feel like I'm in a confessional and I'm not even Catholic. The reason I've been gone so long is that I've been doing some deep thinking about my life. You can stop reading now if you don't want maybe TMI.

I turned 47 in 2008 and I'm now on the downward slope to 50. I've been trying to lose weight since I was in my early 20's when I only weighed 119. Dieting has become part of my life and I just keep getting larger. I haven't always been fat, just since having my son did my weight spiral out of control. Now I'm starting to fear for my health. I don't have any problems right now, but I can see them in the near future if I don't get this under control.

One of the reasons I gained the weight in the first place was because I was gifted with a special needs child. He has cause me stress that only a mother of a special needs child can understand. Eating was my medication of choice to help me get through the day. Now, I'm happy to say, Son is a healthy, happy, well-adjusted, and a fairly NORMAL child at 14. I don't have to eat to medicate myself to relieve the stress. That stress is gone. I also gained weight because I had an intestinal problem which turned out to be a blockage in my gall bladder that caused me severe pain if my stomach didn't have something in it. Every time I felt pain, I would eat. It worked, until I had a severe gall bladder attack and had it removed. Now I don't have that excuse any more either. So, why am I still so large? I think I gained the last 20 pounds because I'm going through menopause. It's been 11 months since my last period. Just one more month to go before I can officially say I'm in menopause. It's very exciting, but I think the hormone thing has cause the weight gain. I haven't changed my diet at all. In fact, it may have even gotten healthier. My metabolism has slowed down to a snail's pace.

I'm done being fat. Plain and simple. I'm back on Weight Watchers and committed like I've never been before. I have sworn off sodas, high fat dairy, sugar substitutes, and sweets. Now I know all you are thinking that I'm crazy and this will never work. Wrong! I need to do these things for my health. You see, I've been a vegetarian for over 20 years, completely eliminated animal flesh of any kind in my diet, Yep, if it had parents I don't eat it. Now I still eat eggs, but no dad! It's time I take the big step to Veganism. I won't go cold turkey, but I have been gradually adding in substitutes for eggs and dairy into my diet. I've always know it's easier to make big changes than little ones, but I can't. However, to this end, I'm eating very low on the food chain these days and really enjoying every minute of it. Water is the only liquid I drink. If all you are drinking is water than it's easy to get it all in.

Exercise hasn't been as easy to do as changing the food. I hate exercise. It hurts to exercise. I have arthritis and way too many pounds to move comfortably. However, now the treadmill is in the living room right in front of the TV. I can't even see the TV from the couch. My goal is to walk 30 minutes five days a week. If I go a little longer or maybe even run a bit, all the better.

Just to keep me honest, I have to share this with you. I'm starting this journey at 200 pounds. Yep, that's right, 200 pounds! I can hardly believe it myself. At 5'1" tall, that horrible. Worse yet is that I've already lost 5 pounds to get to 200 pounds. So, in case you were wondering if this sewing blog was going to become a weight loss journal, it isn't. I just thought that I could share all this with you, my sewing friends and you would encourage me along the way. After all, if I lose weight I'll have to come up with new alterations for new patterns and sew me some new clothes. I'm hoping you, my sewing friends, will be with me as I move down this new path to a healthy happy new me. Thanks for listening and being there for me.

~Sherril~