Great training session

I got out of work late again today, but not nearly as significantly late as I did yesterday. I was also a sweaty mess at the end of the day and was trying to decide if I wanted to go home to change into my gym clothes and sacrifice some elliptical time or if I wanted to just hit up the gym and who gives a shit if I looked disgusting. I opted for the latter. I got in a good 45 minutes on the elliptical before my personal training session. I was having a hard time keeping my heart rate up on the elliptical. Usually, I can get my heart rate up to the 150s-160s, but today I was consistently in the 125-150 range. I thought that by including pumping my arms on the elliptical that I would get my heart rate up, but by getting my legs going faster and holding on the the arm grip things, I found I got my heart rate up a bit higher. But, nonetheless, I still had burned less than 400 calories by the time my session was supposed to start. Fortunately, Jack put together a great full-body workout and I was able to burn another 300ish calories by the end of my session with him. It was challenging, but I felt great by the end. So, kudos to me.

In other news, tomorrow is my last day on gynecology and I'm going out with a bang with five surgeries tomorrow. I think I'll let tomorrow be a fasting day given how busy I'll be. I mean, if I'm not going to have time to eat, it'll be a great day to fast.

Other than that, nothing too exciting today. I had some surgeries in the morning and then had clinic in the afternoon. Tomorrow my only plans are to go to work, work out by doing some cardio, and then study.

Food for today (that I actually took a picture of):

Breakfast 

Dinner

Not pictured is the strawberry protein smoothie I had this morning, the apple I ate between surgery 1 and surgery 2, the salad and chicken I had at lunch, and the two hershey kisses I grabbed in the afternoon.

Such a happy weekend

Friday finally rolled around and for someone who worked both days last weekend, it couldn't have come soon enough. But, I didn't really have any plans for Friday night. So, after work, I ran to Trader Joe's and then came home, hydrated, ate some protein bars, and then hit the gym for about an hour and 45 minutes. Normally, I usually max out at an hour at the gym, but I kinda figured that I wasn't going to be doing anything else if I were at home. So, I started out with a half hour of cardio and then did an hour of weights. Then I decided I still had some energy, so why not run a mile? However, while running my mile, I decided I didn't actually have that much energy. And about 0.10 miles in, I decided running was not my thing. But, I wanted to get a little bit of high intensity cardio in because even if it's only 10 minutes, it's high intensity which makes it last a bit longer.

So, I pulled from my memory something my old trainer liked to do with me - sideways treadmilling. Basically, you walk at about 2.6 to 2.8 miles per hour at an incline - I think I started out at a 6% incline and then after 30 seconds to a minute, you turn sideways and basically have to shuffle or else you'll fall off. And then that meager 2.6 to 2.8 mph is suddenly VERY FAST. I worked up a sweat very quickly and walked away after about 10 minutes of intervals of walking and shuffling and felt very accomplished.

Saturday, some friends and I hit up Eastern Market, which is like a farmer's market on steroids - there's so much produce! It was awesome! They also have some legit food trucks and I tried beignets for the first time ever. One of my friends explained to me that beignets are essentially fried doughnuts with powdered sugar. They were just the right amount of sweetness

Beignets 

Cool roses at the market 

Chips and guac from the taco truck

After hanging out with them, I headed home and tidied up a bit, did some laundry, called in some things I needed and had my landlord over to fix my towel rack which I ripped out of the wall when leaning on it. Whoops.

My bad

Then, one of my friends that I met on my rotation in Malawi (she lives here) came over and we got mani/pedis and then went and hung out by the beach, but didn't get in the water because apparently there's E. coli in the lake, thanks to the Canadian geese (they poop in the water and E. coli can be spread by feces) and excessive rain.

Sparkly green nails for me please!

Pretty lake

After catching up with that friend, I met up with another resident for dinner and a movie. However, we got to chatting and decided just to head back to my place (rather than see a movie) where she looked on as I made brownies to send to Nasur in Uganda.

Brownies in mason jars (to keep them fresh)

Today, I woke up at 7 despite not setting an alarm, got out of bed at 7:15 and started puttering around until I could hit the gym at 8 for some cardio. Then I hit up meijer for a few necessities and went home and was starving, so I grabbed a banana and a protein smoothie.

Spotted bananas = my favorite

Really digging these right now

I ended up making some eggs and toast as breakfast after my shower, but I needed something quick when I got home. Soon after my shower and breakfast, my mom and brother arrived and we got ready to go to see a Tigers' game. I've never been before, so it was an experience.

Downtown Detroit

Outside the stadium

Our view

Usually, I think baseball is pretty boring, especially on TV. However, in person, it wasn't as bad. I can't say I was into it as much as my brother and my mom, but I didn't hate it. I think if it weren't 90°F, I might've enjoyed myself a bit more. But basically, I was just dripping in sweat watching the Tigers lose.

Sweating with my family :-)

After the game, we came back to my place, cooled down, and went to grab dinner at a nearby restaurant that was decent. Now that they're gone, I'm blogging.

Tomorrow will be a fasting day for me. We're going out to dinner tomorrow night, so I was thinking about delaying it to Tuesday, but Monday is such a busy day for me, it's usually a great day to fast. I'll just be picky with dinner options so I stay in my 300ish calorie budget.

Tomorrow is also a weigh-in for me. I'm going to be honest, I weighed in on Saturday just to see and I was right at my goal of losing 6 pounds. However, Saturday and Sunday, I ate out a lot. I tried not to eat everything on my plate and was somewhat picky, but I'm a tad concerned that I won't be getting new shoes. We'll see!

How was your weekend? Have you ever been to a baseball game? Who do you root for?

Fastest mile on the treadmill

Today I ran my fastest ever mile on a treadmill. Now don't get too excited - it was only 5.4mph, but it was awesome. I liked that I could start and finish my mile in only 3 songs and that I was really working hard. Sure, it wasn't a long run, but it felt good - it was definitely a challenge and there was a lot of sweat involved. And then I hopped on the elliptical and did a solid 16 minutes on there. Then I got kicked out of the gym. So, the timing worked out well. 


No other major updates here. I've been studying like crazy and can't wait for this semester to be over. Then, it's on to Africa! So weird. I remember deciding to go in January and it's almost here!

Working out in style

Sorry for the lack of posts this weekend. I was very busy watching 16 episodes of 30 Rock with my little sister doing important things. Haha, but really, I was kinda busy? I did lots of laundry and went to see Paul. Turned out to be pretty good. I recommend it, but not if you're stingy. If you are, I'd just wait until it comes out because it's not like cinematic brilliance or anything.

Paul

Anyway, if you didn't notice (because I'm sneaky and didn't really mention it), I didn't go to the gym in the morning at all last week because either knee stuff or laziness got in the way. So, I told myself I'd do better this week. But when my alarm went off this morning, I really didn't want to go. In fact, I got my butt out of bed and set my alarm back two hours. But then when I got back in bed and thought of how I would justify this decision to my thousands of readers few loyal followers, I couldn't think of one good excuse. So I got my butt out of bed and went to the gym.


Now, since you're probably wondering, I wanted to share with you what I wear to the gym because I always wonder what/why people wear what they wear to the gym.


When I first started being healthy again, I wore men's gym shorts and larger t-shirts to the gym. However, I sweat pretty profusely when I'm at the gym. So my shirts would typically be soaked through by the end of my workout. So, after reading some articles on SparkPeople about good gym clothes, I decided to look into finding "quick dry" clothes. However, being in plus sizes, this is kind of difficult (mostly because it is assumed that fat people don't work out and thus no one makes workout clothes for them). But as luck would have it, I found some great shirts at JCPenney - and they were on sale! So, I bought a lot of them.

My favorite one is the pink one. But, I also have purple and black. In addition to having quick dry shirts, I decided that I needed quick dry shorts. So, after asking people for advice on SparkPeople's message boards about good women's shorts, I went to Dick's and bought about 8 pair of Reebok shorts. I really like them because they don't bunch when I'm doing a lot of walking on the treadmill. And the XL fit just fine, so I don't have to worry about hunting through plus size fitness stuff elsewhere.


However, one of the things that you can't really see that I'm wearing is a heart rate monitor. This small albeit expensive accessory has made a huge difference in my workouts. I am able to track how many calories I've burned and how hard I'm working out. You can kind of see it on my wrist in the above picture, but here's a close-up.

It comes with a chest strap that you wear right underneath your heart. It has electrodes in it that communicate with the watch so you know when to increase your intensity and so on.


Also, I also always wear my hair up when I work out and I typically have a headband to keep my hair off my neck and face. However, it's not the most flattering look, so I didn't take my picture with it on.


Anyway, I have to go work on a presentation for my medical terminology class, but I wanted to give you guys a quick update. I also wanted to let you know that I'm going to a new gym every morning this week. I'll update you on this decision tomorrow. Yes, I know. You will be waiting with bated breath.


Any updates on your life that I've missed thanks to my laziness?