My first tattoo

Yesterday I got my first tattoo. I wasn’t planning on making a blog post about it but Marzia asked me to link her in a picture and couldn’t figure out how to share one, so I thought why not make a blog post about it haha! 

It a girl holding a bouquet of flowers. The lilies stand for fertility, a thing I’ve struggled with for the past 10 years as you know. I wanted my tattoo to have meaning but I also wanted it to be beautiful. 

I love tattoos on arms but I am a nurse and I didn’t want it to be ‘in your face’ so I chose the backside of my arm. 

The pain was minimal. I didn’t know what to expect but trust me, hairdressers have been more painful haha! 

Thank you for reading! 

A new family member

Last Saturday I picked up my new family member ‘Maya’. She’s an eight weeks old kitten. She was born January third. My colleague at work told me a friend of hers got kittens and showed me a picture. I was sold! I was looking for a playmate for my 10 year old cat and this was the perfect opportunity. 

She’s very sweet and shy. Not dominant at all. That’s good because my older cat ‘Mogwai’ is very shy too. They have been very scared of each other but it’s getting better. Since she was born in the winter she’s very small for her age. 

For now she has been adapting well to her new home and owner. And as we speak she’s chewing on my hair bun. I know it’s not the most interesting post but I haven’t posted in such a long time and I thought it would be nice to share. Thank you for reading! 

Update on life

First of all I want to thank everybody for reading and following my blog even though I’ve been absent for months now. There’s no excuse for abandoning my blog like this. I started it to share my thoughts and activities as a student nurse and a woman with PCOS. In the past months I graduated from nursing school. I am a nurse level 6 right now, which is the highest level in the Netherlands.

In the summer I got my diploma and started to look around for jobs. I got a great one at a homecare organisation about 30 minutes away from home. I am the headnurse of a part of the city I am working at: ‘Drachten’. I’ve never been in ‘Drachten’ before I got the job there. I do have my dentist over there but he’s on the outside of the city. I’ve got the responsibility for about 70 patients and have a team of 15 people to work with. I’ve been loving my job so far. It has been busy yet satisfying to use my skills as a nurse.

Besides graduating and getting my first real job, my boyfriend and I started living together. I moved out of ‘Groningen’, the city I wrote about on my blog before, to ‘Driezum’. It’s a small place in the north of the Netherlands. It has a about 3 streets, a small church, bar and fastfoodbar. Our house is on the edge of the village, we have a beautiful view on the fields and nature around us.

Of course we went on a road trip this summer. This time it was to Scotland. I will try to write a blog post about that as soon as possible. I haven’t been able to take a lot of pictures this summer because my camera broke and besides all the money that had to be spent for our new furniture and roadtrip, I couldn’t afford to buy a new camera… I díd make a personal vlog about it on my youtube channel though. 🙂

A small waterfall in Scotland

The ‘Harry Potter’ Train in Scotland

So that’s the short update about the past few months that I haven’t been posting. I’ve missed writing here and I would love to hear suggestions about what you guys would like to see next. Thank you for reading!

Love, Karin

 

PCOS Proof Smoothie 3

Today I want to share another recipe for a PCOS proof smoothie. This smoothie is filled with vegatables and fruits. This is a easy way to get enough vegatables per day, you can drink it on the go. I love these smoothies because how easy they are to make and to drink. I make them in 5 minutes, put them in my smoothie cup and take it with me to work. I love eating salads instead of bread as lunch but they take a lot of time. You’ll have to cut everything and eating a salad takes more time to eat. I have been working as a nurse in home care for 4 years now and I am always looking for healthy food on the go which can be consumed easily between patients during the car ride.

The smoothie of today has 8 ingredients, one of them is Maca powder. This powder is beneficial for multiple reasons. It should give you more energy and fertility. It has an influince on the part of the brain that controls your hormones. It can bring balance to your hormonal levels when consumed. A second effect is on the libido. It should increase it ánd make the quality of the sperm higher. The powder has a sweet vanilla taste, I like it a lot in smoothies. You should start on a low dosis! So a small teaspoon per day is more than enough.

Maca powder

But now! The recipe of today:

• 5 cubes of spinach (frozen, will give it a fresh/cold taste)
• 1/2 cucumber
• 1/2 avocado
• 1/2 mango
• 1 tsp coconut
• 1 tsp maca powder
• 400ml water
• optional: 1 tbsp linseed

Coconut shavings

Put everything together in the blender and let it spin for about 1 minute. The taste is sweet and fresh. The cucumber makes it really fresh and light but the mango and maca makes it a little sweet. I love putting avocado in a smoothie. This gives the smoothie a soft and creamy tast and texture. Good luck trying it out and let me know if you like it!

Enjoy

Bootea, my favorite teatox

In the summer of 2014 was the first time I tried Bootea. It was recommended by my sister. Not only was promised that I should loose weight but: having a better skin condition, more energy and would my digestive system get better a better condition. I was sold because all of these things were problems I was having.

First of all the package is so cute and appealing. But besides that the tast is amazing. Of course this is only my opinion but I drink a lot of different kinds of tea. The day tea is a grean tea with a complex taste of different herbs. The night tea has a peppermint flavour to it. The smell is awful at first but the taste is fresh and smooth. There’s a diet plan on the site of Bootea which is low in chemicals and at the end of the teatox most of the toxins should be removed out of your body.

The results I experienced  on my weight have been different but my weight was lower every time I started it. The most I lost was 6.3 kg which is about 14 pounds in 28 days. Also I experienced having more energy and feeling less bloated as usual. I must say I have a history of bad digestion and normally had to use laxatives. The bootea night tea has a laxative effect! This effect caused that I didn’t have to use normal (chemical) laxative any longer.

I don’t recommend Bootea to everyone but if you’re trying to loose weight and eat healthier you should try it out for yourself. Every body is different and will react to it differently. For me it’s my favourite and perfect after a period of eating unhealthy.

My experience with PCOS solutions (so far)

A few weeks ago I blogged about the DCI I bought online. It should help with a lot of the negative effects of PCOS. The past two weeks were very hectic for me. I finished my thesis and started my last semester of nursing school. This last semester will be a internship at a home care company. One of the effects of DCI should be having more energy. And wow, even though the full effect will be after 8 weeks, I already experienced so much! I’ve got more energy, my skin is way better. I have had difficulties with acne on my back which is almost gone right now. I will continue till the bottle is empty and will decide if I’ll buy a new pack then.

Besides the more energy and better skin condition I haven’t noticed anything about hair, weight or my cyclus but I think it’s to early to say something about this. So I will update about that part later!

If you’re thinking about buying this supplement to have more energy I definitely recommend it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section.

PCOS Solutions(?)

A few weeks ago I ordered a book filled with recipes for PCOS-proof food. Beside the book I decided to take my chances with the supplement D-chiro-inositol. For people who have never heard of the Polycystic Ovary Syndrome this all might sound totally unknown and probably for a lot of people who have PCOS it might also be an unknown supplement. So I will try to explain a bit more about it and will post my experiences later on.

Like every other syndrome is the PCO Syndrome a name for a collection of symptoms. The symptoms are: high level of testosterone, unregular menstruation and the cysts in the ovaries. These symptoms will bring other symptoms with them. The high production of testosterone can cause hairloss on your head and too much hair on the rest of your body, acne, weight gain, bingeing, mood swings and low energy. These symptoms can be very difficult to cope with. Like I said in my previous post the bingeing is something that is badly controlled but also overweight will make the symptoms worse.

The DCI supplement should help with these symptoms. DCI is a natural found substance in the body for people without PCOS. I will be taking this supplement for the upcoming 60 days and should feel more energetic, have better skin and it should make it easier to stop bingeing.

Having PCOS for several years now and learning more about it, makes me hopeful that I will have it under control some time in the future. When I first found out about my syndrome I felt lived by my body. I felt abandoned by it. After some years and listining to my body I try to work together and feed it like it should be fed.

 

My street in Groningen

Streetsign

It seems like no time has past in my street since it was build. I have been living here nearly two years and every time it strikes me with it’s beauty. It feels like you go back in time. When the weather is nice I like to take a moment to appreciate it.

View from the bridge

This street was the first harbor of the city Groningen. The street name is ‘Lage der A'(low side of the A), the other side is the ‘Hoge der A'(high side of the A). The water in between is the ‘A’. One side is higher than the other which they got their names from.When the water was high, supplies would be delivered at the high side and when the tides were low on the lower side. There’re a lot of monumental building in this street: 28 national and 11 of the region. Some of the buildings are from the medieval times others are from the early 20th century. Big boats still lay here and tourist vessels go through the canals.  Rowing is a very popular sport among the students in Groningen. In the summer period you’ll find a lot of rowers going through these canals, enjoying the view and waving to people who are enjoying a beer at a terrace.

Lage der A 12-13

This building is build in 1885. It was used to stores supplies but now it’s an building full with condo’s. Some of them are used by students like mine but some are owned by one person. It makes a funny mixture of people in one street. There’re a vew bars like café ‘the sigar’ and restaurants like ‘the pipe’ but most of the buildings are used for living. All though it’s a street at the edge of the centre, it’s always very peacefull and quiet. If you ever happen to visit the city Groningen in the Netherlands,  I would recommend to look for this street and see the beauty for yourself.

 

Cheap healthy lunch idea(PCOS)

The end of the month is here. Here in the Netherlands student loans get paid around the 20th of the month. I don’t know about you but I always spend way more money at the beginning than at the end of it. So today I had the challenge to make a lunch under 2 euro but wanted it to be healthy and tasteful. I wanted to share what I got up with for today. I decided to make some rice cakes with quacamole on top.

Simple fresh ingrediënts

The base

The ingrediënts I used are: half a avocado, some lemonjuice, half a tomato, garlic, pepper, salt and coriander and a quarter of a red onion.

Put the avocado in the bowl and mash it with a fork. Slice the tomato and onion in small pieces and add it to the bowl. Put the herbs in as many as you like. I just taste in between if it’s right. As the finishing touch add the lemon juice!

Mixing

When everything is mixed devide the quacamole on the rice cakes. The taste is great and low in sugar. It’s a PCOS proof lunch you can enjoy and keep your blood sugar level steady. This is always beneficial, also without PCOS. I definitely recommend trying it out yourself!

Enjoy!

PCOS Proof Smoothie Challenge 2

For the month February I took the challenge to drink one PCOS proof smoothie a day. So far the smoothies have been delicious! I was pretty scared that, because they are filled with vegatables, the taste wouldn’t be great. So that was a big relief. But on the other side has been drinking one a day very difficult. Out of the 7 days I have only succeeded to drink one at 4 of them. The days I didn’t accomplish to drink them, were the days I had to leave house very early and was gone for the whole day or I stayed at someone else their house.

Last post I talked about the benefits of drinking these PCOS proof smoothies. I have been diagnosed with PCOS in 2012 and luckily don’t have all the negative effects of it. But the ones I do have, I wanted to be minimalized. It is so difficult for woman with PCOS to lose weight because of so many reasons. Try to imagine being hungry all day, I mean really hungry. So shaking of it, feeling faint and craving sweet. PCOS is a hormonal disease and because of this disbalans of the hormones, the insulin levels in the blood get disrupted too. This causes this extreme hunger because the bloodsugar levels get to low and the insulin level too high.

This hunger is one of the reasons it makes it very difficult to stay on track with a diet which includes sugar. A second reason is because of the high level of insulin in the blood, fat is more difficult to burn for the body. As you can see, it’s a negative spiral that has to be broken. Beginning the day with a PCOS smoothie can help keep the bloodsugar level stable.

For today I wanted to share a recipe of this week. The taste is simple, smooth and soft. The ingrediënts are simple: 2 hands of andive lettuce, half a banana, half an avocado and 400 ml of water. If it is still to thick, you can just add some more water.

Thank you for reading and questions can be asked in the comment section below!