Posts by coldsteel590

I mainly watch a lot of the animated comedies (South Park, Family Guy, King of the Hill), Bravo TV is my true weakness though (Project Runway, Real Housewives of [anywhere], and I'm especially glad Top Design is back!), but my current favorite show is Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! on Adult Swim. If anyone else watches that on these boards I will be amazed, since the show draws a lot of intense "love it or hate it" reactions. I also admit to loving talk shows on the rare occasions I'm around to watch them, Maury being my favorite one. Cooking shows (especially Good Eats!) are also interesting to me, as I'm a pretty decent cook, but always looking for new ideas. 

Edited to add: Fringe was actually pretty good, it looks promising!

My story is a little bit different, but it worked out for me and my boyfriend at least...

About 3-4 years ago, I met my current boyfriend, and we dated for 3 months right after we first met. It was the beginning of college for us, we had fun but the timing wasn't really right, so we mutually broke up. We were still close friends though, and we moved in together with a mutual friend of ours. We had a few problems with the other roommate, my current boyfriend had problems with someone he was seeing at the time, and I had ended up seeing someone who actually showed many red flags for being potentially abusive, so I think living together really made us see that we were a better fit and had more in common than we first thought. What I think really made us realize it would work this time was the unwavering support we showed each other, even in the worst times imaginable. 

We signed a lease for a two bedroom apartment after that year, and have been living together ever since, but as friends first so I could get my head straight about what I really wanted and what was best for us. I have been with my boyfriend officially now for about a year and a half. I really can't picture living with anyone who understands me more, and I think its a great support system for both of us to have the other there at night. Minor quirks aside (why he needs the A/C on to fall asleep every night I'll never know!) it's been the best decision I've ever made. In our situation, we have discussed marriage, but money is tight, and a likely timeframe for us is in a few years after I start and complete grad school, which he has offered to follow me wherever I may end up for it.

Just a bit of an update here. I had my appointment today, and my blood pressure had been consistently elevated from Oregon to here (129/88 in Oregon (last taken in June when I gave blood, weighing about 215-220.... 135/96 here in Colorado today, weighing 203). The doctor didn't seem to think acid reflux was the culprit here, but her ultimate recommendation was to start me on a low dose of a blood pressure pill (10 mg of Lisinopril), since she was totally positive that the blood pressure pill would take care of the difficulties at night.

I don't know how long these pills take to start working, but I can say that while the pills did make me feel very sleepy, I am still (actually, right at this moment) having the same exact problem. And unfortunately, I just used my mothers home blood pressure cuff and found that my pressure had stayed exactly the same, despite taking the pill some 6 hours ago. I realize these things take time, but seeing as how this pill seems to just be making matters worse, I'll be calling my doctor about this tomorrow. Obviously I won't be taking Lorazepam to fall asleep, so I just imagine I will be up very late. Being a person who doesn't like to take any pills at all if I don't have to (aside from my birth control which has never given me any problems), I find this sort of thing very frustrating, and I can't wait to get back home to Oregon at the end of the month to see if things get any better out there, especially since I'm desperately missing my sleep!

Thank you all again for your helpful replies!

Thank you both for your help, it gives me some different perspectives on what's been going on! After talking to a lot of my relatives, apparently some of them have a great difficultly adjusting to the altitude in Colorado when they visit. My brother and my uncle encountered symptoms similar to mine whenever they visit the higher altitude, and even though the panic type symptoms haven't hit me in my prior visits, I do generally have a tendency to feel less well when I visit, so I will be sure to come prepared with many questions to my appointment in hopes of figuring something out.

Gi Jane- To answer your question, I'm very much overweight, but actually just recently lost enough weight to no longer be considered obese (started this in April at 5'10, 240, and am now at 203) I'm aiming for 170 to start, which will put me at the higher end of a healthy weight. I had an EKG done at the hospital, and I was told that my heart seemed very healthy, so that's what led them to believe that this was a panic attack.

Laura 916- Believe me, I try waiting as long as possible before taking the pill. Oftentimes, I try to do other things at night while the tightness is occurring to try and take my mind off of the discomfort, and that works for a while, but then as soon as my head hits the pillow, it seems like I will be fine for 5 minutes, and then, really before I realize what's happened, I'll jerk up sharply and try to take as deep of breaths as I possibly can, because I feel like a fish out of water. I only get to the point of taking the pills if I encounter a symptom that is particularly troubling (for example, last night I had difficulty swallowing after a few hours of tightness, so I guess that freaked me out to the point of taking the pill, but even then, the pill took much longer to actually calm me than it had before.) But if the same thing happens again, I will be sure to try and figure out a pattern in what happens to me.

Both of these are amazing, though I don't know if anyone else has gotten the crazy look that I have when I order them with nonfat milk. One guy was joking around with me that I had already made customizations to a drink that was like 2 days old, haha. But I have no idea how much milk they use, I just assumed it was a cup and so I took off about 40 cals or so for using skim milk... I'm probably way off but oh well =)

My BF and I ended up getting a Wii Fit at midnight the night it came out. It's a lot of fun! If you don't have a scale right now, I would actually recommend the Wii Fit over a stand alone scale. I like being able to see the subtle changes in not only my weight (which, unlike most scales, is accurate to a .1 rather than a .2), but my BMI as well. So instead of just giving you a BMI of, say, 29 or something, it will give you something like 29.40, which I think is really motivating because it makes me feel like I'm that much closer to getting to a healthy weight. Plus the game will prod you if you haven't been on in a day or two, which is really funny to see and may even keep you on track.

Like others have said, try calling the mass market stores to see if they have any. Also, if you have any gaming stores by you (EB, gamestop, or even some used video game places), I would try them too. Good luck in the hunt!

I ended up going to the local Wal-Mart at midnight to grab my copy, and so far it's been a blast! My boyfriend seems to really enjoy it too, which is a plus.  So far I've really enjoyed doing some of the yoga stuff and the strength training. Though I did have to laugh at the wii virtual jog, haha. I kept wanting to outrun the trainer =) As others have said though, I wish it had a mode where you could choose a string of exercises and just go through them instead of having to go back to the menu. But, its a minor complaint. And for the record, my weight with the balance board on the carpet was pretty accurate as compared to my scale on hard flooring, so I was pretty impressed by that.

mcemom- Unfortunately, it doesn't give an estimate burned on calories.

Very cool! I'm thinking I should have reserved a copy, because now I'm seeing all of the product demand warnings when I go out. But at least it looks like it can be somewhat effective. And I really need to be more flexible =)

This actually just happened to me last week. I was out at a concert/comedy show (Sidenote: Tim and Eric = amazing, though many people don't think so...) I was waiting in line with my current boyfriend while he was getting some beer, and sure enough, there was my ex coming down the stairs. I'm pretty sure he saw me, and gave me some sort of odd look, but all in all it was creepy at first, but not that big of a deal. Thankfully the ex was someone I was not with long, because I saw a lot of signs of someone who was controlling and very passive aggressive, so I jumped ship after about 2-3 months. But my boyfriend was definitely all over me that night at the show, so that was a plus from a bad situation =)

After hearing about it from this site, I bought some of the Better'n Peanut Butter Low Sodium from Trader Joe's, and it will take some getting used to for me, but all in all for the calories and fat you save it's absolutely worth it, for me at least. The drawback is that the stuff is pretty hard to find, and I still haven't seen all of the variations of it by me (They also have a non low sodium type, and a chocolate peanut butter mix that I'm eager to get my hands on =) )

In most situations, I could really care less what other people are eating. However, the only time when I do notice this is with a gym buddy of mine. When I go to the gym with this person, I can't help but notice that he never really seems to exert himself at all, mainly just walking at a slow pace for about an hour. Then, as soon as we get done with the gym, he'll typically mention that he's starving, and then go to our local 24 hour burrito joint and get a huge burrito with a quesadilla and some tater tots.
Again, this normally wouldn't bother me in the slightest, but the only thing that makes me take notice is the fact that he always tries to butt in with his own dieting advice for me. I had set a fairly reasonable goal for myself to achieve over the next few months (To lose 40 lbs by my birthday in November, of which I've lost almost 12 so far), and once I told him what it was, he told me that he would recommend me setting goals a different way because, in his own words "You'll probably just give up before then anyway." I shouldn't give it much thought, but just the idea of someone who isn't doing all they can to help themselves and then critiquing me for actually trying my hardest is a little hard to ignore for me. He's also one of those people who are always trying to fish for compliments and always expect pity from others. This person also happens to be a very close friend of mine, so I think I notice the faults a bit more since we see each other all of the time. It's not something I'm particularly proud of admitting to, but there it is.

Wow, that must be really difficult with 2 girls born so close together! While I can't exactly relate to that, I definetly know what its like to "share" meals and snacks with my boyfriend! It's been tough for me to turn him down and find better alternatives to snacks than a huge chocolate cookie (which he was trying to get me to share with him last night!), but it gets a little easier everyday. Hang in there, and I know we'll do great!