1. My skin did look more supple. While the redness did not completely go away, it did somewhat diminish. See my pictures at the bottom of the blog.
2. This has a bit of caffeine in the morning pills and it gave me way more energy than my usual coffee ever did.
3. I monitor my sleep on my Fitbit and it keeps track of how much I am awake or have fitful sleep at night. Day one of using SeroVital cut the awake time nearly in half! I noticed that my sleep was much more restful, again, from day one.
4. I don’t remember reading if this was also part of the advertisement for it, but my hair got thicker and grew faster. This is major as my hair never recovered after my post pregnancy shed.
5. The packaging for this makes it simple to keep track of what you need to take. I found the gel caps very easy to swallow even if they kind of tasted dusty.

1. For me the biggest issue was the absolute energy crash that happened every afternoon. The morning energy is fantastic but not worth the absolutely debilitating tiredness that kicked in right around 2:30 p.m. each day. It killed my productivity at home.
2. Part of my weight-loss efforts is intermittent fasting. I usually eat from 3:30 pm to maybe 10:30 p.m.. The first dose of SeroVital must be taken with food so I had to eat breakfast. That woke up my appetite and I ended up snacking all day and into the evening- and I ate three large meals every day. This formula is supposed to help with weight loss and I have to say that even with all the extra food, I gained maybe half a pound over the 30 days. 
3. The evening pills must be taken two hours after you’ve eaten dinner and you can’t eat for two hours after you take them. It was a huge pain in the butt to carve out four hours, especially on weekends trying to go out to dinner with friends. It doesn’t seem like it would be a big deal, but if you want to have a cocktail at 10 PM then you literally had to wait until midnight to take these things. And I was so hungry all the time on this that stopping eating four hours before I went to bed was challenging. 
4. A 30 day supply of these is $120. It’s not cheap, but it does have a very high-quality ingredients, so one would expect to pay a little bit more than a normal supplement. Still, that’s a very decent chunk out of my budget.

When I wrapped up the 30 days, I really thought about my experience the last 30 days. While this is a pricey item, if it made noticeable improvements to my appearance and my daily life, I could conceivably see cutting back on other things to afford it. Today was my first weekday off it so I paid attention to my energy levels and how I felt being back on my intermittent fasting regiment. I quickly arrived at the conclusion that, while I am grateful I was able to try this product, I much prefer life without a complete afternoon energy crash and I preferred to plan my eating around what works for me and not what taking pills requires. This is a good product and I could see how it could help some women, but it’s just not a good fit for me. Let me know what you think about my before and after pictures though!

This blog entry has been a long time in coming. In September 2013, I made this post titled "Fatty Fat Fat" where I tracked some of my weight issues and swore to do better. And I did, somewhat, losing about 20 lbs from that September until January 2015. It was slow going and I wasn't exercising much. Still, it was progress and I really made some improvements in my eating habits. With my particular thyroid issue, if I lose weight too quickly, I start to retain water, so slow is how it's going to be whether I want to or not. Knowing that has stopped me from jumping on many fad diets and "fixes" and programs so in a way, it's a blessing.

In January of this year, I got super sick with the flu, an intestinal infection, gallbladder issue, and extremely elevated blood sugars. I ended up in the ER and then, shortly afterwards, my doctor who analyzed my blood work and diagnosed me as pre-diabetic. I knew I was prone to that as I'd had horrible gestational diabetes and there's family history on my dad's side, which I tend to physically favor. My doctor spoke very firmly to me about this being a defining moment in my life and that I had two choices- deal with this now and develop a healthier lifestyle or ignore it and have ongoing illness and shorten my life span. The man does not mince words and it totally got my attention.

I wasn't eating horribly, but I started eating more blood sugar balancing foods and paying better attention to that. I also got back to the gym- regularly. I think that has made the biggest difference for me. I dabbled in Zumba in years past, but something about it this time really appealed to me. Since February, I'm at the gym 5-6 days a week. I never, ever thought I could love exercising, but now I can't wait to get to the gym. I mostly do Zumba, but I also do weights and throw in a little treadmill and elliptical action.

My Zumba peeps, this has made all the difference in the world!

Where to start... about 6 months after I had Julian, I revamped things. I was working out daily and doing yoga, body sculpting, step class, zumba, running, etc. I was eating well and had my thyroid medication pretty balanced. I lost about 40 lbs. It was great. I felt good and was even doing 5k runs (big deal for this top heavy, heat sensitive, asthmatic!). 

It's not hard to trace where I fell off the wagon. Enter miscarriage one, two, three, four... I stopped all exercise but walking out of fear that it might be contributing to the issue. I was on and off my thyroid meds with each pregnancy. I felt depressed and couldn't even get my head to a place where I could prepare ahead and plan healthy food choices. The weight crept back on. 

When I did have a successful pregnancy with our baby Jane, it was far from an easy one. I had gestational diabetes that was just out of control no matter what diet they put me on. I couldn't gain weight so that was a concern too. I had to eat all the time and stuff that I felt I had no choice in. There wasn't a single craving that I was able to fulfill. It was awful.

So now Jane is here and the diabetes is gone. I'm not even in the pre-diabetic range. And I'm making up for all the things I couldn't have during my pregnancy! This is not a good thing, but I've allowed it because I am breastfeeding. I like to use that as an excuse. My gym scholarship is active so I have no reason why I haven't been as active there. It's just been hard to get myself together and actually go.

I did lose all my pregnancy weight in the 8 weeks after Jane was born. I hadn't been able to gain that much anyway so what I did gain came off easily. However, this morning I weighed at the gym and I've gained back a couple of the pounds I'd lost. That was a wake up call. Apparently I can't eat pizza every weekend and lose weight. =p 

So now what? One of the things that really helped me before is tracking my food and exercise. It forces me to come face to face with the calories in what I eat. I need that. It also provides some accountability. I've reactivated my Daily Plate account on Livestrong. I'm not waiting until Monday to start, so, starting tomorrow, I will be posting on there. If you'd like to join me, the part of the site I use is free. I'd like as many friends as possible to come alongside me in this journey. I'll be following pre-diabetic menu recommendations (as I'm predisposed to it genetically and having had it gestationally).

As much as I hate it, I guess we need a before picture. =e This one is pretty unflattering and really that's why I've chosen it.

July 30

Etsy sales have slowed this month, so I'm grateful for the ones I got this week!

My healthy breast-fed baby! It's such a relief that things are going well in that respect.

This is an "Ironman" costume that Julian pulled together. Yes, those are hats on his feet. I wish I had his limitless imagination still!