Last vacation day

Tomorrow I head back to real life/work. I'm on call, so 24 hours of fun. My goal is to eat mostly food that I've pack for myself and to try and get my steps in. I joined a FitBit challenge with some other women physicians and am hoping to stay in the front half of the leaderboard for that. 

Today, we hit up the grocery store to grab some things for dinner tonight and some stuff we needed in general. Since it was my last day off, I hauled both the kids with me and Nana came too. I wanted to get in as much family time as possible since I miss out on a lot of family time with my job.

After the grocery store, I made some pesto for tonight and some cake, also for tonight. We got the kiddos fed and down for a nap. Once Nasur was home from work, he and Reyah headed out to shovel the driveway and sidewalk and then we got ready and headed to the rec center to go swimming. I'm trying to do more active stuff with the kiddos when we're able. We were there about 1.5 hours and the kiddos had a great time. 

Once home, I made dinner and then it was the usual: bath time, bed time, and getting ready for work. I'm sad to be going back - there's still plenty of stuff I didn't get to around the house. Wompity womp.

The babies hanging out together

Excuses, updates, photos, and minor steps forward and backward

I know, I know. It's been a long time since I've gotten on this dear old blog and done something. Man oh man, do I have a lot of excuses for you: impending board exams, weddings, fiancé visas, general lack of motivation, etc. Also, I've been gaining weight, so who wants to blog about that? Not me!

But, I am. I've been gaining weight this month for a few reasons. Number one is obvious though: lack of activity and good food choices. I'm on primary care this month and holy moly, it's a cush life. Not only are the hours amazing, but I basically don't move when I'm in the office. I kid you not, I wear my fitbit and am lucky if I log 3,000 steps from leaving my apartment in the morning to coming home. Pathetic. I can easily get all 10,000 steps in on an OB day. So, there's that. Number two reason: I have been stress eating like it's my job and I'm working overtime. I've also been bingeing (which is what I meant by stress eating, duh, so ignore the "also" in that sentence). Number three reason: going to the gym is so hard when overall you're feeling lazy and stressed. So, yeah. That's that.

Today, I took a few minor steps towards getting back in the swing of things. First of all, I made my personal trainer weigh me in and do measurements. I also was very frank with him that I needed him to remember to do bi-weekly weigh-ins and that if the responsibility were to remain with me that I would simply let them go by without doing anything (hence the last month). He was very receptive to that. Second of all, I got rid of most the tempting, not-so-good for me foods in my apartment (by eating them all yesterday...besides the point). Third of all, I printed out a calendar for myself to X the days I go to the gym so I can visually see my awesomeness. That's it. It's a start. I was doing so well until this month and then...blah. So, eff that. October will not be a wash. I will make October very dirty (cuz that's the opposite of a wash...?)

These two got married!

Bride's side

Bride's pretty hair!

So pretty!

Cold couple

Head table

Wish I'd eaten more of this...

This barn didn't really do the heat thing...

In my officiant/bridesmaid get-up

Doctor photo (in a bathroom - I'm classy)

Tomorrow will be a great day cuz I'm going to go to the gym and study up a storm and eat well and all that good stuff. I'm not going to do a weigh-in until Monday cuz I don't wanna so you'll have to wait to see my backwards progress ;-)

FitBit emails

So today I didn't end up fasting because I didn't have any surgeries this morning and not eating was really hard cuz I was super hungry and had nothing to take my mind off it. Fortunately tomorrow I'll be a bit busier. So, it'll be a good fasting day. I think I'll also fast on Friday so I can get my two days in.

In other news, I've been taking the stairs a lot at work lately. And I've been wearing my fitbit while doing it, so it records all my steps and the number of flights of stories I've climbed. Today I've climbed 21 flights of stairs. And, I got this email:

I kinda like that FitBit emails when you accomplish something. They also give you a weekly breakdown of your steps, your laziest day, the day with the most steps, etc. So, that's kind of a nice way to keep yourself motivated on top of buying yourself new shoes [next week hopefully].

Today I also had a personal training session. My knee has been bothering me, but I kept at it. I did about 50 minutes of elliptical before my training session. Then we started with squats with weights. I didn't love that, but when he offered to take off the weight, I felt like it wasn't a great idea because it wouldn't be enough of a challenge. Anywho, I'll definitely be taking some ibuprofen tonight.

That's about it for me today. I was terrible about taking food photos today. Oops? Catch you later with some food photos...I promise!

First day doing it all

So, let's start out with the number that you've all been waiting for - my latest weigh-in (you can see all of my weigh-ins here)!

So, next week, my goal is to hit 240.2 and if I do, new tennis shoes for meeeee!

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, but at the same time eventful because it was my first day trying to juggle life as it will be for the next two weeks with no time off - not even a weekend!

After my weigh-in, I showered and made some breakfast. My breakfasts always tend to be the same, so eventually you'll get bored of seeing it. That being said, if you have any suggestions for yummy, low-cal breakfasts, I'm all ears!

2 egg whites + 1 whole egg, sourdough toast, watermelon

On my way out the door, I grab a yogurt protein shake - it's my way of trying to avoid snacking too much before lunch. But, when breakfast is about 7 hours before lunch, that's hard to do ;-)

This is an old photo I have so you can see the protein shake

At work, I made it until like 8/8:30 before my stomach started audibly growling. I had some new belVita breakfast bars in my bag and I had 2/4 of them, but gobbled down the other 2 like an hour later. I also ate an apple that I had from last week.

I got lunch around 12:45, which was pretty decent - I managed to take a picture of it today as I walked down the hall. About half my plate is bagged salad (beggars can't be choosers), there's some curry chicken which was pretty moist, and then some fish casserole thing...? I don't always know what I'm eating, but I appreciate not having to cook. There's a pretty decent selection and I try to fill at least half my plate with salad. That being said, they only have two options for salad dressing: ranch and italian. So, tomorrow I'm taking my own salad dressing - it's healthier and yummier :-)

After lunch, I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off. I think about 10 women delivered this afternoon. But it was so great! I hate sitting around idle, so, to me, being busy is awesome. I learned a lot today and got in a lot of steps! My fitbit (like most fitbits, I think) is set to 10,000 steps a day and I definitely made it today.

Once I headed out around 5:45, I ate a fiber bar, rehydrated, and headed straight to the gym - not the one near work, the one near where I live. I like the feel of that L.A. Fitness better. Plus, I kinda like the anonymity. I majorly sweated it out during an elliptical session and then headed home where I ate some watermelon and drank insta-urine raspberry green tea crystal light.

It looks like urine, but it's not

ALL THE MELON IN MY MOUTH

I had to wait a half hour to cook my quesadilla dinner and I needed a little something to munch on until it was done given that it was already past 7. 

Trader Joe's got my back

Half an hour to bake this thing

Dinner + fat-free sour cream

I did some reading for work, restocked my gym bag and am getting ready to hit the hay. One of the things I'm trying to think about is how to pack healthy snacks. At work, I usually need something super portable, but I don't love the idea of eating packaged food all day - I'd like to get some fresh fruit in there. Any ideas? What's your go-to healthy snack?

Staying on Track[ing]

So, one of the things that has worked really well for me in the past is tracking - tracking my calories, tracking my workouts, and tracking my weight. Now, I have a FitBit and will be tracking my steps too. So, I'll tell you what has worked for me and if you have any recommendations, you can share with me too!

Calorie tracking: I use a food scale and SparkPeople to track my calories. I weigh out most of my food and then log it online (with my computer or using the SP app on my phone). It was recommended to me to get a food scale because you'd be shocked at how off the measured foods are compared to the weighed out food - try it on cereal - that's the most alarming difference. And, if you're a cereal person (I'm not), you'll be sad at how little one serving size of cereal really is.

I recently tried the FitBit Dashboard to track my calories because their food library seemed larger. However, I found that a lot of the fruit wouldn't let you track by weight. And since I'd been using SparkPeople for so long, a lot of the food that wasn't already in the food library was already in my SparkPeople personalized library. I think the FitBit app for tracking is a little more user friendly and prettier to look at, but I'll be sticking with Spark People - it lets you put food in by weight.

Workout tracking: I also will be sticking with my heart rate monitor for calorie tracking during workouts instead of my FitBit - I have the Charge HR, which can supposedly take your heart rate. I have been using the same heart rate monitor since 2010. Unfortunately, they don't make that heart rate monitor anymore and I kinda sorta killed it by wearing it when snorkeling in Lake Malawi. Every time I try putting in a new battery, it dies again within a day. So, I forked over another $60 and bought a new one, which is better because it's green ;-)

When you first get the heart rate monitor, you input all your settings: age, weight, height, and sex. Then it calculates a target HR zone for you and you turn it on during your workout. Otherwise, it functions as a watch when you're not using it. You also have to wear a heart rate strap thingy ma jiggy. It's a chest strap and mine goes right under my tatas. Unlike my previous strap, this one is very thin and allows you to take the heart rate monitor part off to throw the strap in the wash. I couldn't do that with my last heart rate monitor, so I'm a big fan of this one.

The FitBit Charge HR claims that it tracks your heart rate so when my first heart rate monitor died, I almost didn't replace it. However, after wearing the FitBit to the gym a few times and putting my hands on the heart rate monitor hand grips, I found that my FitBit was anywhere from 20-40 beats per minute off. So, the heart rate monitor was a must - I really rely on it to make sure the intensity of my workouts are high enough.

Weight tracking: I have a Taylor brand scale to track my weight. I've had it for about 5 years and it's usually pretty close to the weights I get at the gym or the doctor's office. I weigh myself in the morning right after my morning pee to get myself at my lowest weight and will be doing so tomorrow so I can start my 2 week, 6 pound/get new shoes challenge! Starting tomorrow, I'm going to to try to lose 6 pounds. If I do, I'm going to order some brand new shoes - something I haven't done in a loooong time! Stay tuned!

Do you use anything to track? Or does getting caught up in the details stress you out?