Study day and multi-tasking

So today is the first day in a looooong time where I've had a day off and haven't had to do something on that day off. Like technically last week I had Thursday-Sunday off, but I had a wedding of a close friend, so that doesn't count. But today, I got to have a whole day to study, go to the gym, do laundry, eat when I wanted, and so on. It was luxurious. I can't even tell you how much I needed a day like today.

Anywho, one of the things I've noticed today is my compulsion to do more than one thing at a time. For example, when I'm eating, I'm always watching something or reading something. Or when I'm at the gym and I'm on the elliptical, I'm always reading a book for fun (that's mostly to help pass the time). Or when I'm on the toilet, I've always got my phone with me. 

Source

Anywho, I think my absence of really paying attention to eating makes me eat faster and eat more without really noticing it. I'm sure I also don't get to enjoy eating as much - like observing the taste, texture, and smells of my food. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do to be more thoughtful about this. I thought about nixing eating while doing other things, but it saves me so much time in the morning if I'm looking over my patients' charts while I'm eating breakfast. So, I'll have to think about it.

In other news, I got to have a whole day of eats at home today and that almost never happens!

Lunch

Afternoon snack

Indian food dinner, thanks to Trader Joe's

TJ's naan

TJ's butter chicken

Evening snack, courtesy of Lisa's kindness last weekend

Not pictured is the apple I had for breakfast and the Luna bar I had mid-afternoon as a pre-gym snack. I also tracked my calories all day, which I never get to do and that was good too.

In other news, I hit up the gym for an hour's worth of elliptical today because my hips and low back were being assholes. I thought really getting them going in a low-impact way would be helpful, but I'm still sore. I took some ibuprofen twice today. I might really switch things up tomorrow and swim at the gym to be a little more low-impact. We'll see. I shaved during my post-gym shower just in case ;-)

Cheers!

Birthday Post!

First of all, Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there and Happy Birthday to me! Now on to business as usual.

Hey friends. Sorry about not posting yesterday. It was moving day for my sister which turned into a very long day for me. Let's do a quick recap and then we'll move on.

I got picked up at 8:00 a.m., we drove from Grand Rapids to East Lansing (during which time I discovered that I'd forgotten my cell phone), picked up a UHaul, which I drove to my sister's apartment. Then we moved all of her shit from the second floor into the UHaul. My mom arrived to help with the last bit and then we drove an hour and a half to Kalamazoo, spent forever getting her lease signed, and then moved all of her shit up to the third floor. It was the worst. After A BAJILLION stairs and tons of sweat, my mom and I headed to Grand Rapids at 5:15. We arrived shortly after 6, I showered, we headed to get her a new phone for Mother's Day (which didn't pan out), then grabbed dinner and started our journey back to Midland (a twoish hour drive). After 40 minutes of driving, my mom realized the garage door opener was in her car, so we turned around to go back to Grand Rapids and finally made it home at 12:15 a.m. Then we drove back to Grand Rapids nice and early so she could pick up her van and drive back to Midland. If we had timed things a little better so my mom could leave before dark (she doesn't like driving alone nor does she like driving in the dark), the day could have been considerably shorter. But man, oh man, did I get a workout yesterday.

Today, some of my med school friends who were still in town (most fled for Mother's day) had a nice breakfast brunch for me!

Breakfast brunch homemade with love

There pancakes in the center were egg nog pancakes that they made with this amazing egg nog from the holidays that they saved and froze. SO GOOD. Here's the recipe that they let me steal:

Egg nog pancakes - SO GOOD

There was also cake afterwards. It was a vanilla cake with caramel frosting that was pretty delish. I was a big fan. Plus, it was nice just hanging out.

Afterwards, I caught up on phone calls and messages, watched Jimmy Fallon from Friday (I watch him every day on Hulu), and then my friends from middle school, Jenna and Allyson, made their way over to Grand Rapids to go to dinner with me. I didn't snap photos of the appetizers we got, but we went to Kitchen 67, a restaurant that was new to me and pretty awesome. I got the chicken avocado bacon burger.

Noms

I would have liked a cheese slice rather than the cheese sauce (made with beer), but I liked the rest of the burger and the fries were well seasoned.

After dinner, we came back here, ate some more cake from this morning (which I then pawned off on my neighbors so I wouldn't gobble the rest up myself), and they headed home while I headed to meijer to do a super fast trip for the things I would need for the rest of the week (mainly, eggs - I've been out since Thursday). Now I'm updating you and then I'm going to pass out - I'm exhausted.

Positive thing for the day: Getting to talk to all of my friends who called or sent texts - I really loved being able to reconnect with some folks that I haven't talked to in a while.

Other photos from the last two days:

Birthday dinner from last night with my Mom: green beans, garlic mashed potatoes, and steak and shrimp with saffron cream sauce - SO GOOD

Probably my favorite birthday card I've ever received - I'm kinda the potty mouthed one of all my friends ;-)

First layer of fruit for Saturday = blueberries

Second layer of fruit for Saturday = grapes

Carb loading for moving (one of those slices of banana bread was for my sister)

Lunch at 3 p.m. - I ate the whole damn thing - I was starving

My ride for the day and my sister's new apartment complex

This morning's breakfast at home in Midland

Thanks for not berating me for missing a post yesterday. Catch you tomorrow!

X-rays, EKGs, and hospitals - oh my!

So, I told you yesterday that I wasn't sure whether I was going to go to the gym in the morning or hope that tomorrow would be a short day and thus, going to the gym would be nicer in the afternoon so I could sleep more. Well, here's a real shocker for you: I opted for sleep. So, I ended up getting up at 7:20 and just making breakfast and getting ready:

I love being able to get ready and have the sun up already as I'm getting ready. It makes going to work so much better when I don't have to get there before the sun has even made an appearance. 

Lecture about chest x-rays and interpreting EKGs was okay. Here's a few things about both for you.

This is a good x-ray.

Why? Because it's taken while someone is taking a breath, which allows you to see 8-10 ribs. In this one, you can see 10 (hence the 10). When someone is breathing out, the lungs get all squashed (that's definitely a medical term) Also, this is a good x-ray because you can see the spine through the heart and because you can easily tell this is a woman (I made up that last reason, but you really can see the outer contours of breasts in x-rays - and you can tell if someone has had a mastectomy). But other than pointing out obvious things, I'm probably going to continue to struggle with reading x-rays.

For EKGs, I re-learned how to determine someone's heart rate (which is done by counting boxes...ish) and determine pretty easy things by comparing things to bunny ears and batman signs. That is medicine at its finest, folks.

Anywho. Then it was off to do our hospital tours. Mine was short and sweet and then I came home, changed, and went to the gym around 3:30, which is prime gym time - it's right before the rush but not entirely elderly people (which is usually between 9 and 11 a.m.). I did weights, ran home to drink some protein (photo of pineapple, protein, milk, and crystal light mango smoothie) and waste some time before going to meijer to get walnuts to make banana bread (I wanted to avoid the 5pm "rush" on the highway).

I had some bananas that were super ready to be made into banana bread, but I prefer my banana bread with walnuts, but didn't have any. In addition to walnuts, I picked up some french fries (after reading labels!) for dinner, some lettuce, some watermelon, some chocolate almond milk (for a treat on occasion) and a new water bottle since I only have one and I often forget to switch it back and forth from my backpack to my gym bag. I also got some deli meat since it was buy one get one free. I think that's it...so much for just getting walnuts.

Then I came home and set to work on dinner and banana bread. After dinner, I studied for a bit. Mostly heart stuff since we start tomorrow officially and I guarantee there will be lots of heart stuff.

That's it. Tomorrow I'm not sure what I'm going to do exercise-wise. I may take the day off or may go to zumba. We'll see. I'm thinking I'll definitely do zumba on Monday and Friday. I want to add in a yoga day once a week (I'm thinking Saturdays for that), and weights twice a week, but I don't like to do them back-to-back because you're supposed to give your muscles a day to recover.

Weigh in on Friday, folks! Here's the rest of today's pics:

Snack at school between lectures

Lunch!

Creepy piano that plays itself in the hospital lobby

Dinner prepped while fries were cooking

The layers: chicken, lettuce, tomato, onion, avocado. No cheese or mayo made this pretty darn healthy - and good!

Dinner - might've overdone it with the fries, but now I know how many to make for next time

Banana bread!

Today's positive: I have gone out of my way to be more kind to a colleague of mine that is well, not my favorite. I'm working on giving people the benefit of the doubt rather than judging right away...judgment free zone, right?

Cheers!

16 Miles - Who knew I had it in me?

Yesterday was a lovely day. I got up around 8:30 and hopped on the scale. I was up 0.4 pounds from Wednesday. What? I've been going to the gym twice a day... So, I decided I'd better hit the gym hard. I did a ton of cardio and was pretty exhausted by the end. I came home and made a huge protein smoothie with blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries.

Yes, I did drink all of that. I also had my favorite bagel sammich.

Then, my sister and I headed off to Birch Run for some serious shopping. We went to Lane Byrant, Old Navy, Fossil, Coach, and Hanes. At Lane Bryant, they were having a bra sale, Buy 2, Get 2 Free. So, I now have 4 new bras. Woot. I also got a swimsuit cover up. Aaaand, I've definitely gotten smaller - I'm in their smallest size! Partay!


Then I ran into Fossil to have them take a link out of my watch because that's a bit big now, too. And after that quick stop, we headed to Old Navy so I could use my Groupon. I got a pair of shorts and some size 14 (yay!) bermudas. And I only spent about $13. Win.


After Old Navy, we stopped in Coach to oogle at purses and then I stopped in the Hanes store quickly to see if they had any thinner bathrobes since the one I have is super thick and not really great for summer. They didn't. So, we ran to Saginaw to try their JCPenney. There, I got 3 new workout shirts, 2 new workout tank tops, (I'll probably just wear them when blading or biking), a thin bathrobe, and a new bathing suit top that is super cute.


We got home around 4. I found Bailey sleeping by the window like the little baby he is, and then I decided to suit up and hit the gym again. 

I did the elliptical interval session for 30 minutes with my high at 14 and my low at 12. The guy next to me was really pushing himself, which motivated me to keep pushing myself. When I was done, I told him I was really glad he was next to me because I'm pretty sure my speed would've been much slower if he hadn't been there. He told me he keeps his resistance low so he can go so fast (he was at 4) and that he goes for 45 minutes. That's pretty solid.


After the gym, I headed to my mom's house to see if I could find any more one-piece swimsuits that I can wear to my CardioMax class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I found three, but they're a tad worn in the bum, so I'm probably going to wear shorts over them. While there, she fed me! We had shish-ka-bobs, some veggies, and my sister made Cheddar Bay biscuits like the ones at Red Lobster. She found the recipe online. They were amazing, but I only let myself have one. I probably could easily have gobbled up a dozen.

Cheddar Bay Biscuits. DELICIOUS!

Shish-ka-bobs

My plate

After dinner, I headed to meijer and bought a bike rack for my car and I was going to test it out, but instead, I went to Allyson's house to visit with her a bit since she was home for Father's Day. We caught up for a bit and then I headed out because I was tired. It was 10:15 p.m. I'm pathetic.


This morning, I got up around 9:30 a.m. and decided to try out my bike rack and go biking on the rail trail rather than going to the gym. It took me a while to load up my bike and then I drove down to the tridge. It was a beautiful day for a bike ride!

Pretty, but very, very dirty river 

Rail trail 

My beautiful bike

I biked 16 miles, so 8 miles out and 8 miles back. Here's the mile marker for proof!

Mid 8 - 8 miles from Midland

Me sporting one of my new tank tops and the mile marker in the background

The ride out was awesome and I was loving it. The ride back was a tad more rough. I was going against the wind and my knee was really acting up. Also, I only brought one water bottle and didn't eat beforehand, so I was dehydrate and hungry - an awesome duo. Thus, it took me way longer to get back than it did to get out there, but I'm glad I did it. It was way more fun than going to the gym, that's for sure.


After my bike ride, I made a strawberry banana protein smoothie and it was huge again.

While I drank this down, I video chatted with Lisa and made lunch.

Chicken Pizza

I was starving after that bike ride as I hadn't eaten yet and so I gobbled these down in about 5 minutes. Yum! Then I gathered up my laundry to head to my mom's. And that's where I am right now. As soon as I'm able to switch my laundry, I'm going to head outside and splash around swim in the pool, but right now my mom and Malena are vacuuming it so I figured I'd take this opportunity to catch you up!


Also, check out my About Me page. I updated it a little bit. I also redid my banner (if you didn't already notice). I'll be making some more small changes soon, so keep your eyes peeled!