HUGE New Life Chapters

So tomorrow I start a really huge new chapter in my life. Tomorrow, I walk into the hospital as a brand spankin' new doctor. It's about 90% exciting and 10% pure terror. That being said, I'm sure I'll be fine. I finally get to do what I want to do and focus on what I truly love to do, so once I figure things out in fourth year soon, I'm sure I'll be having a lot of fun.

That being said, since tomorrow is a brand new chapter in my professional life, I think it should be a brand new chapter in my personal life - a chapter where I also try to work towards making myself better and happier. 

If you were a reader way back in 2010 when I started this here blog, you'll know that I made some awesome progress in my weight loss and health goals. If you followed my random posts throughout med school, you probably had to read between very wide-spaced lines to know that it wasn't going well. Med school took over my life and so did a bit of fear. I became so scared of failure in school that it slowly found its way into every aspect of my life and I just stopped trying. If I was struggling to do well in school, why did I deserve to feel good? If I couldn't find the time to study, I shouldn't reward myself with a sweaty workout. And one of the reasons I started the blog in the first place was to use it as a very public forum to help shame motivate myself into working hard toward my goals. Well, the guilt and shame for letting down my readers definitely set in and then I stopped being so public.

But here's the thing: I'm going to make mistakes - I'm never going to be perfect. But, damn it, I deserve to be happy and to be healthy. And here's the other thing: people aren't going to stop loving me or looking to me as a role model if I slip up or act like a real human. So, I'm going remember those things while I work towards that by working on my diet and trying to add in some exercise everyday. I'm going to make healthier choices. I'm going to hit the gym - there's one that is literally in the plaza where I work and another one 5 minutes from home. My gym bag is going to live in my car so that I go to the gym before I go home. My water bottle will be handy so I hydrate rather than shove food into my mouth mindlessly. I'll look at desserts as treats rather than necessities. And above all, I'll start over right away if I slip up. 

I'm also going to incorporate some things into my life that helped me lose weight: friends! I sent out an email tonight with the link to my blog to some of my close friends and family that may or may not have known about this little literary treasure so they can help encourage me along the way.

I'm also going to incorporate monthly measurements! Back in the days when I went to Curves, seeing changes in your measurements was a huge reward and motivation to keep going. So, I bought a tape measurer and got my measurements tonight. I also am only going to step on the scale on a weekly basis - no little check-ins here and there - just every Monday (with the exception of tomorrow cuz I want a legit baseline).

These are what I could remember from Curves

I'm also going to try to include some pics of the daily food choices I make so as to keep things interesting for you because pictures are the best. Here are some from the wedding I went to this weekend:

With the groom

The high school group

With my date ;-)

Aaaand, I'm going to set my first goal: I want to lose 6 pounds from tomorrow's weigh-in in a two-week period (that's 3 pounds a week). If I'm able to achieve this goal, I will buy myself a pretty pair of new shoes!

Thanks for reading! 

Have you ever set any fitness or health goals? Any recommendations or words of advices?

Project Runway as Motivation

So, today in my mailbox was a note informing me that the roof had been fixed. Thanks, landlord. Pretty sure I figured that out yesterday after a day's worth of banging. A note a day before the fixing rather than a day after would have been more appreciated. Obnoxious.

In other news, today was mildly productive. I got up, did questions, and then realized it was waaaaay too humid and that I was already sweating. Thus, I really wanted to shower. But I didn't want to shower before the gym. What a waste. But my ankle was giving me some pain, so did I really want to go to the gym? But I wanted to watch Project Runway and it's so much more productive to do some cardio and watch Project Runway. So, in the end, my intense desire to watch Project Runway won out and I headed to the gym. I did the elliptical without any issue and really think the doctor who told me to stay off it was on something. If it's not bothering me, wouldn't increased circulation help it heal faster? I mean I'm not a doctor (yet - 266 days!), but it seems dumb to only allow upper body exercise if things like the elliptical don't cause pain. 

In other news, I took a nap today because around 4:00, I was struggling to stay awake. Ever since I sprained my ankle, my sleep has been crappier and of a shorter duration, so my nap is justified. After my nap, I did some questions and got ready to go to dinner with my friend Christine. In planning our dinner destination, we figured out it was restaurant in GR, which is essentially an excellent way to go to expensive restaurants, try a limited menu, and pay waaaaay less than you would ordinarily. We ended up choosing Charley's Crab, which is right on the river and was beautiful. We had a good time catching up and the food was pretty good (read: not that great, but I blame that on the limited menu). 

Other than that, I've done minimal studying today. I'm going to do a few more questions and read over some ethics pointers and then head to bed. Christine and I are going to hit the gym around 9, so I'm hoping to be up around 7:30 to do some questions, eat a little something and then be super productive!

Gym fuel

Looking good

Post-gym re-fuel

Still swollen

Can totally see my veins in my non-sprained left foot

So swollen

Dressy ankle

Dinner with Christine

Today's positive: going to the gym despite not really wanting to

And so it begins

Tomorrow is my first day of orientation. I'm mostly nervous because I'm expecting a lot from this experience. After all, I quit a perfectly good job, moved across the state, and am accumulating more debt than I've ever accumulated. So, if this sucks, I'm kind of screwed.


Anyway, let's do an update before I completely freak myself out. Sound good? Great!


Today I didn't get out of bed until about 9:45 a.m. and then I decided not to go running like I'd planned last night because it was already gross hot. Instead, I gobbled up some oats and made plans to go to Dick's Sporting Goods and meijer with Matt. 

At Dick's, I got some goodies (like spandex shorts to be worn underneath other shorts), lifting gloves (so my hands don't get torn up), and a reflective vest for evening runs. Then we headed to meijer so I could get some extension cords and such since the few outlets in this apartment are randomly placed. Next, we headed to the YMCA where I officially joined as a member. This gym is waaaay better than the gym I joined on Tuesday. Look how pretty it is!

Somehow Matt and I managed to spend two hours working out (how in the world did that happen?) before heading back to my apartment for food and furniture assembly! The food part worked out just fine. We had an awesome BBQ chicken pizza from Trader Joe's.

It had gouda (gouda!!!) on it. Seriously awesome. It's a shame I only bought one. Definitely should have stocked up on that. Then I made some oats since we needed some more protein after our intense workout. If you don't remember what they look like, don't worry! I'm going to be a doctor and will help you with your memory problem (they're pictured above...)!


While I was cooking up dinner, Matt tried to put my IKEA table together but couldn't as I didn't buy the frame that I needed to go with it. Why didn't I buy the frame? Because the guy I sought out to ask if I needed a frame told me I didn't need one. Um, yeah. Not true. Not happy. But I called IKEA and complained and they will be shipping me one free of charge sometime within the next few days when the manager from the store calls me to apologize for his stupid employee (and ya know, to get a credit card number).


After dinner, Matt headed home, and I decided to do some very important things like watching Project Runway. Also, showering. Since I still hadn't done that by 6:00 p.m. Then I decided to bite the bullet and continue unpacking. After about 1.5 hours of that, I gave up. I hate unpacking. But I also hate having an apartment that's not completely unpacked. Vicious cycle, I know. Then I told myself I'd just take a break. But after looking at all that needed to be done, I got completely overwhelmed and frustrated and decided to just go through all the med school e-mails I'd gotten over the past few days. That was a poor choice as it only stressed me out further. So, now I'm stressed, overwhelmed, and frustrated. This, my friends, is not a trifecta of goodness. Trust me. And my living room still looks like this:

And I look like this:

That's my attempt at being frustrated, overwhelmed, and slightly frightened all at once. Mostly, I think I look as though I'm in pain

So, my friends, I hope my orientation tomorrow is amazing. And I also hope that my nerves/body calms the eff down so I can sleep and be somewhat recharged for my 7:00 a.m. gym rendezvous with Matt. I'm already thinking this was a bad idea...

Failure Is Terrifying

I'm feeling a bit better today after being a total Danika Downer yesterday. So, we'll just do a daily recap like usual so you don't stop visiting my blog :-)


This morning, I didn't get up for the gym. My alarm went off and I shoved it back to 7:20 like a champ. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't get me started. We're just going to move on. But, since it's Wednesday, I did weigh in per usual. Last week (which I never posted because I didn't take a pic), I was at 217.2. This week's weight:

That's a two pound loss. Don't ask me how I lost two pounds because I honestly don't know. Maybe my wisdom teeth were really heavy. 


Anyway, as today was Carrie's birthday, I knew we would be going out for lunch to celebrate. So, I had to pack enough snacks for the entire day rather than just the morning like I usually do. So, while my bagel toasted, I collected some fruit.

I had some watermelon, grapes, and raspberries. I also took in my last box of South Beach diet bars. I don't know when they're going to come out with something new, but I hope it's soon! I may switch to Luna bars permanently if I can't find something, but I'm hoping I don't have to because they're kind of expensive.

Morning bagel

Once at work, I got a few last people to sign the birthday card we got Carrie yesterday and then I headed back to the office to procrastinate/waste time since that's what I seem to be doing most of the time now-a-days. Carrie arrived at 8:30 a.m. and loved that so many people had signed her card. What can I say, I had a lot of time yesterday to hunt people down.


The morning was pretty uneventful, per usual and then we headed to lunch at Ruby Tuesday's. The good thing about Ruby Tuesday's is that they have a Fit and Trim menu where they feature meals under 700(!!!!) calories. I got the jumbo shrimp scampi with zucchini. Normally the meal comes with white cheddar mashed potatoes, but I decided to save some calories since I don't care for mashed potatoes much anyway. I'm guesstimating that my whole lunch was about 250-300 calories.


Lunch went a little longer than expected (1.5 hours) and then we headed back to work to do a whole lot of nothing. Then Carrie busted out the brownies that Leslie made for her. I caved and had three. Don't worry - they were small. But I am so sick of feeling as though I'm punishing myself to lose weight. And besides, I'm going to be starting something new that will hopefully help me to reach my goals (and I will tell you about it shortly).


After work, I headed to my leasing center to pick up my packages that contained my med school books! I was pretty pumped for their arrival because I'm a huge nerd that loves learning. The body is fascinating and I can't wait for school to start!

Oh, I know you're jealous of all this knowledge I'm about to have!


And then I headed to personal training with Mark. We did a lot of arm strengthening stuff today (yesterday we did core) and my arms felt like Jell-O afterwards. Since Mark had about half an hour to kill until his next client, we sat talking about his new job (I'm very proud of him - he's going to be the head trainer at another gym!) and some of my goals. I told him about how I've lost a bit of motivation and how I'm really scared of failing at my goals and gaining back the weight. And this is a real fear - one that I've struggled with for a long time.


Though I know this sounds conceited, I'm pretty much good at everything I do. I know that sounds terrible, but let's face it. I'm doing pretty well. High school? No problem. Graduated in the top ten percent, got into all the colleges I applied to and went off to the University of Michigan. College? Yeah, that was hard, but I came out with a pretty good GPA and a chemistry degree of which I'm pretty proud. Job? I'm making quite a bit of money, have great benefits, and mostly like what I do. Friends? Man, I've got some of the best. I love them with all my heart and they love me. Family? Okay, it gets a bit complicated there, but my mom's amazing and loves me a ton. My sister and brother, though not as close to me as my mother, would definitely be there if anything bad happened. So, I'd say I've got it pretty good. But, because I'm so used to everything working itself out, failure terrifies me. Now that there's something I really want (losing more weight and not gaining it back) and a huge possibility that I won't get it, I'm too scared to get invested. I just try to shove it off and not let myself have what it is I'm working toward so that I won't technically be failing if my work doesn't pay off. Make sense? Thought so. 


Anyway, I officially have 8.2 pounds to lose to reach my goal of being 207 pounds (one pound below my lowest recorded weight) by the time school starts on August 20. So, Mark told me I need to commit to working out twice a day. And you know what? He's right. Instead of being down on myself for not achieving as much as I want and being scared out of my mind that I'll fail, I need to just get up and do it. So, I'm doing a few things to help myself. But first, here's what I had for dinner:

Sweet potato "fries" and green beans

Oatmeal cookie for dessert

Alright, now what you've all been waiting for: what I'm going to do for myself so that I won't fail. Well, first of all, I'm throwing out this July Challenge. After all, today, I had dessert. Whoops. Also, I haven't really committed myself to it. So, now we're going to try something new. It's going to be my 30 day challenge because, as of tomorrow, I have 30 days until med school starts!


So what does the 30-day challenge entail? Not much.

1. I will work out twice a day and record it on a calendar
2. I will weigh myself and record my weight everyday

That's it. I think I set my sights too high with my July Challenge because this month I felt as though I was really restricting myself and setting myself up for failure. So, it's time to start again with something I feel as though I can actually achieve. 

To hold myself accountable, I made two sets of calendars for recording everything: one for recording my weight (which will be posted in my bathroom):

And one for recording my workouts, which will be posted on the door to my apartment:

So, I will be going to the gym tomorrow. I used italics so you know I really mean it! 30 days. 8.2 pounds. I can do this! I will not fail!

Hope you don't need wisdom to be a doctor cuz then I'm screwed

After staying up late last night just to celebrate the fact that I didn't have to go to work this morning, I woke up at about 9:45. I was not too pumped about going to have my wisdom teeth taken out because a lot of my friends thought it would be awesome to tell me horror stories about it. Note to said friends: not awesome. So, I got ready for the day, didn't eat anything, and met my mom at 10:45 downstairs to go to Sagnasty for my surgery.


Once I was in the room and all hooked up, I asked the doctor to give me as little of any sedative/loopy drug as possible because I didn't like feeling loopy/out of it. Then, as a bonus, he gave me a drug at the end to reverse the effects of the loopy stuff so that I could be competent again. Good. So, here are some pics:

Pre-surgery 

Immediately after - mmm, bloody gauze

My mom took me back to her house after the surgery (after a pit-stop at my apartment to grab a few things) and on the way bought me a large smoothie at my favorite smoothie place. Woot. She also bought me some soft foods to eat for the next few days since my stockpile of yogurt and soup was probably not enough.


When I got home, I decided I would go upstairs and take a nap. I took Arthur (my computer) with me and found an e-mail from MSU telling me that I could switch to the Grand Rapids campus (from the East Lansing campus, the campus to which I was originally assigned). As this was what I originally wanted, I was pumped. But then I realized that I was pretty much already all set to move to East Lansing. As in, I already had the apartment, already made the UHaul reservation, and already became accustomed to hating where I was going to live for the next two years. But, after talking to a few people, I figured screw it. This is what I wanted in the first place and I'm not going to throw away this opportunity. So I began the tedium of calling up places to find apartments and will be seeing 10 apartments in Grand Rapids on Monday. Yikes! I also canceled my lease with the East Lansing place and ended up not napping at all.


For dinner, I had a Lean Cuisine macaroni and cheese my mom got me. I basically swallowed the noodles whole because it's hard to chew, and as I learned in my anatomy class, chewing is pretty unnecessary.


After dinner, we played Skip-Bo (and I won) and then I hung out for a bit until my mom decided I was fit to go home and spend the night by myself. When I got home, I was still hungry (probably because a smoothie, a yogurt, and a Lean Cuisine isn't exactly filling), so I made myself another Lean Cuisine.

It was pretty yummy. I also pretty much swallowed those whole because biting was a struggle. And since I had my camera out, I decided to snap another picture of me in recovery:

You can tell the left side of my mouth is still a bit numb...

I don't have any bruising or swelling. Looks like having your wisdom removed is pretty much a piece of cake after all.


Tomorrow I'm going to see the last part of Harry Potter in the morning. I'm told I'm going to be in a lot of pain, but I'm going to stick to tylenol so I can drive and be the self-sufficient 24-year-old I'm meant to be!


Have you had your wisdom teeth out? How was your recovery?

Saving lives and I'm not even a doctor yet!

So I didn't go to Zumba this morning. I got up and started to get ready, but decided that since my knees were really bothering me that I didn't want to push it today. The two hours of extra sleep were just an added bonus. When I finally did get up, I had to rush through everything to be sure I was going to get to work on time. Yeah. That worked so well that I was only 10 minutes late. Whoops. But, I ate breakfast anyway!

Once at work, I had to suffer through more stories about Carrie's kids. Less than 40 days left of that crap. Thank God.


I worked away the whole morning and got my e-mail from MSU saying I'd been placed on the East Lansing campus. Boo. I really wanted to go to Grand Rapids. Oh well. I really feel as though I'm one of those people who can be happy anywhere (maybe minus Midland...) so I'm not too upset about it, it's just that finding a one-bedroom apartment for a reasonable price is ridiculously hard. So, I may have to go ahead and suck it up and pay a lot of money or live really far away.


Anywho, during lunch today, we had a BBQ luncheon. They catered it from Bone Daddy's BBQ which meant really good barbecue for everyone who liked meat. Vegetarians? They were screwed. There was chicken, pulled pork, and ribs. Yum. I had a bit of each. They also had some awesome looking dessert, but I had to abstain. Boo, June Challenge. Boo!


I worked during most of the afternoon, but decided to spend the last hour calling apartment complexes. Yeah, not so fun. I left frustrated and then went to the community center for some CardioMax. I also joined in on the end of Aqua Zumba which was a tad awkward. I don't think it's a really great workout because I definitely wasn't feeling tired at all and there was one point where we had to partner up and I got to be partners with the creepy [and only] guy in the back. Awesome...


But afterwards I did CardioMax and really pushed myself. I kept pace with the instructor the whole time and really had fun so I'm looking forward to Thursday. Unfortunately, I had to leave a bit early because I signed up to donate blood at 6:45 p.m. And for once, I didn't get turned down for having low iron. I think I owe that to the fact that my multi-vitamin is essentially an iron supplement.

Yay for saving 3-4 lives! You should donate, too!


It was about 7:30 when I was finally done and I was starving. So, I ordered a grilled chicken pizza. It cost me more than normal, so I was a tad confused and asked the girl taking my order if she got it right. She insisted she did.


This is what a chicken pizza is supposed to look like:

This is what was delivered:

Yeah, not so right, order lady. But, once I picked off the banana peppers, I really did enjoy the pizza. Now I'm checking on the weather and I'm going to watch yesterday's Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition. Oh, and it definitely doesn't look as though I'll be biking this week. Boo!

And tomorrow morning: heart rate cycling!

A boring day in the life of a doctor-to-be

This morning I had a little bit of a problem. I set my alarm, it went off, and then I pushed "off" instead of "snooze." Not good. So, when I woke up again at 6:34, my gym time was long gone. Boo. But, don't you worry! I'm going to be there tomorrow bright and early whenever I get up.


For breakfast, I had the same thing as yesterday, plus a banana.

Then I headed to work to do absolutely nothing for basically an entire day. It was rough. The good news is I only have 39 more work days. Technically only 31.5 because I have 7.5 vacations days before I leave and you better believe I'm going to use every single one.


The nice thing about work was that Carrie, Sheli, Karie, Leslie, and I went to Genji's for lunch to celebrate me getting into med school. I love Genji's. I got the hibachi shrimp with vegetables. It was awesome! I didn't grab a pic though - sorry about that!


After work, I came home, watched a little bit of the Voice and then met up with my mom for dinner at Applebee's to celebrate my med school acceptance. I had the steak and garlic herb shrimp:

The potatoes were disgusting and the zucchini wasn't great, but I pretty much gobbled up the rest of it. Don't you worry though - it was on the under 550 calories portion of the menu. I also looked it up on my phone - it had 500 calories, 21g of fat (that's about half my daily minimum allotment) and 51g of protein (that's 90% of my daily minimum). So, it was a decent choice.


After dinner, we went to the mall so I could help my mom pick out her smartphone. She ended up settling for the iPhone. I think it was a good choice for her. I don't know that she'd be able to figure out an HTC...


After our mall excursion, we headed to my mom's house so I could fill out the FAFSA for med school and talk about how much debt I'm going to be in (again). Then I came home and finished my episode of the Voice. Now, I'm updating you guys quickly and then I'm off to bed because I'm tired and because I want to get up early and put in an awesome effort at the gym tomorrow.

Just Call Me "Doctor"

This morning, I did not get my butt out of bed. My alarm went off and everything, but I could not get myself out of bed. I was tired and kind of figured that I'd already broken my week challenge, so no point in dragging myself out of bed 1.5 hours earlier than necessary. So, oops? But, Ali and I are committing to three mornings a week, so I promise I'll do my minimum three this week!


Anyway, I got up at 6:45 and got ready. I had the same thing for breakfast today as I did yesterday. And it was still yummy:

I also packed some goodies for the day:

At work, I was really pumped because Mike (and Carrie...boo) were back from their business trip and that meant that I would probably have stuff to do again! However, I was very wrong. Mike had nothing for me to do and said once he had something, he would e-mail me. In the mean time, I could read more thermo. Uh, that sucks. I hate going to work and having nothing to do. Again, I didn't study so hard in undergrad to have nothing to do. So, I was feeling pretty defeated. I was bitching to Sheli about how much I hate my job and then I got this e-mail:

I immediately freaked out and started shaking. I wanted to vomit, laugh, cry, do a happy dance, and scream on the top of my lungs...all at once. I texted my close friends and called my  mom (who had to be pulled out of a school assembly) and nearly started crying when my mom got on the phone. I have been so beaten down by boredom, loneliness, and the lack of intellectual stimulation that I didn't know what I was going to do if I had to deal with another year of working at Lubrizol. But now I don't have to. That's right, folks. I'm going to be a doctor!


I pretty much shat away the rest of the morning talking on the phone, texting, and freaking out in general. Then I came home, paid my deposit, and ate an English muffin pizza. And because I was still in schock, I forgot to take a picture of my lunch. Sorry about that!


During the afternoon at work, I still didn't have much to do. Sheli and I went to Ace Hardware to sit around in lawn chairs for 15 minutes get some stuff for the lab and then we got some slurpees. By the time I got back, I had two shipments to finish and then decided it was time to tell Mike that I got into medical school. To be honest, he didn't really care and was more concerned with when I was going to leave than the fact that I had just gotten one step closer to my dream. So, I was a bit let down by him. Oh well. I was probably still excited enough for the both of us!


After work, I came home, changed into my gym clothes and gave my workout my all. I really, really, really don't want to be the fat girl at med school and so, I'm going to make some new goals right here and right now:

1. I will go to the gym three times a week in the mornings
2. I will do some kind of exercise after work everyday, be it going to the gym, rollerblading or riding my bike
3. I will get my eating habits under control. This is going to be hardest the week before my period as I tend to binge during this time
4. I will drink at least four bottles of water everyday

I'm also going to talk to Mark about some diet and cardio tips. But when I saw him at the gym today, we were too busy talking about how awesome we are for me to focus too much on exercise: I got into med school and it looks as though he'll be taking over as the head trainer at the Midland Community Center. He's amazing and totally deserves it, so I hope it works out for him!

Anywho, after the gym, I came home and finished up the last of my quesadilla leftovers. Yum!

Then I spent my night watching more of the Voice, talking on the phone, ghcat, and facebook with friends, and being humbled by all of the support and congratulations I received. And now, I'm going to head to bed early because I need to get my obese butt to the gym in the morning!