Day 293/365: Working Woman

In my last post, I mentioned that I tend to fall off the wagon as the week goes on. This week, it was only a little bit true. Thursday I went to work and had kind of a rough day. The attending I was working with seemed to be having a rougher day than I was and that doctor took it out on me. I don't really know how to deal with super unconstructive criticism and usually just internalize it, but I talked to my mom on the way home and opted to increase my gym time to work out my frustration and cuss out that attending in my head while ellipticalling. Friday, I took things easier. I worked in the morning then came home and vegged out while watching Project Runway and waiting for Nasur to come home so we could go apple picking

A while ago, I was told about a really good cider mill/apple orchard and wanted to check it out. I was told their donuts were the bomb.com and that their produce was pretty legit. So, we decided to give it a whirl. Plus, it was a beautiful day! The orchard had TONS of apples and all different kinds, so we munched on a few until we found some we like. Then, while we driving back up to the front to pay, we saw they had some tomatoes. My tomato plants finished a while ago, so I had to get some fresh ones. Mmm, I love tomatoes! We also had to get some cider and donuts, obviously.

Nasur by some apple trees 

Apple picking selfie

When we got home, Nasur wanted to do some cleaning. Once a week, he goes certifiably insane and likes to do a deep clean of our condo/apartment. I usually help for about 30 minutes and then play on facebook. He says I do all the cleaning wrong, and I'm not overly motivated to do it the "right" way, so he does all the work. We headed out to get some Chinese for dinner and then came home to watch some Netflix.

Saturday I worked 24 hours at the hospital and it was pretty crazy, per usual. I went home to sleep Sunday morning/afternoon and now I'm back at the hospital to work again. I'm off around 6:30 and don't have to report to the office until 1pm. I'm planning to hit up the gym after work and then shower and relax/nap before heading in if I'm able to sleep. I'm kind of at the mercy of the nurses. If they call a lot and I don't get good sleep, I'll just head home to sleep. If the floor is quiet and they don't need me, I can probably finagle a gym trip in the AM. We'll see what the night brings.

My goals for this week are to adhere a bit better to my calorie ranges. I'm getting back into the groove of hitting the gym so now I've got to focus a bit more on my eating. I'm planning to tote my food scale around with my this week to help me do that. Wish me luck!

Humbled

Today was an office day. We were at a different office than yesterday, which was much less conducive to teaching and comfort (i.e., no chairs for me to sit in during patient visits). My hips were hurting a bit at the beginning of the day and my foot continues to act up. I have a hard time believing that it's some type of foot sprain given how long the pain has been going on. However, I can't recall any type of injury, so I don't see why I'm having pain in the first place. I'm thinking that if I'm given the opportunity/time, I might head to an urgent care tomorrow night after work. That way I'll have an x-ray that can definitively say either yes, it's a fracture or no, it's all muscular. 

Anywho, on to the next subject. The doctor I'm currently working with specializes in urologic oncology: kidney cancer, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, etc. A lot of our day is spent meeting with patients and following up PSA levels, which is a marker of prostate cancer. Today we met with a patient who was newly diagnosed with prostate cancer and I was extremely honored to be able to be there for that conversation. He was searching for answers and recommendations on what to do. Given that prostate cancer doesn't follow a predictable pattern, the patient could go 20-25 years without any problems, or he could start having urinary and prostate problems within 5 years. It must be an absolutely terrifying to get such a diagnosis and the fact that he was so kind to me (a student who's just trying to learn by observation and listening) meant a lot. The doctor also shared his own experience with prostate cancer to help put the patient at ease and you could see the patient visibly relax knowing that his physician truly understood what he was going through.

I have an OR day tomorrow, which I'm not so excited about. And since I know I'm not going to be in any shape to hit the gym afterwards, I'm going to hit the gym beforehand. Thankfully, that only means a 6 a.m. wake-up rather than a 7:30 a.m. one. I can do that. So, I'll do it. Tomorrow - bright and early gym time. It's been a while since I've done any strength training so it'll probably be a bit rough, but I'll be fine :-)

No photos for today since I'm lazy and only took one, but look for some for tomorrow!

Microsoft is not your friend

Well, my plans to go to bed early yesterday were successfully thwarted by Microsoft's shitty customer service. I ended up hanging up after being on hold for 2.5 hours. Let me emphasize that a bit more: TWO AND A HALF HOURS. After I'd spent over 1.5 hours trying to go through a different tech support line. I was infuriated. And none of my problems had been solved. Fortunately, today we had a good almost 3 hours off this morning, so I was able to get my problem solved after an additional hour and 45 minutes on the phone. I will never, ever buy a Windows/Microsoft product in my life (except for Microsoft word given that it's a standard application). If their tech support is that awful, I refuse. I know apple products are infinitely more expensive, but it took less than an hour to have my hard drive replaced versus the almost 6 hours I spent on the phone to activate some software. Ridiculous.

Anywho, I had a good afternoon at the office and saw a good range of patients. After work, I came home for a snack because I was starving and then hit the gym after some digestion time. I did the elliptical for 45 minutes and ramped up the resistance. I burned almost 500 calories during that time, but it wasn't the most satisfying workout because one of the sites of my no-longer-present moles got all irritated. So that was a bummer. Plus I originally thought I was going to run a 5k, but decided against it. I'm sure I would've been more excited had I done a 5k.

Today's dinner was a PB&J sandwich and a crap ton of veggies. I dipped them in a yogurt-based salad dressing, but I bet they would've tasted better if I'd used a different dressing - the pairing was kinda weird - it was like a parmesan caesar dressing. 

Aaaaand for the big news of today: I think I might start doing morning workouts next week. This whole showering twice in a day and working out only a few hours before bed just doesn't seem to be the best schedule. I'm off at 3pm tomorrow, so I'll hit weights tomorrow night and just do an evening workout Thursday and then will probably try changing my sleeping schedule next week.

Dinner

A chance meeting

So I did a weigh-in this morning and was at...

Not bad considering last week I was 236.4. My goal was three pound and I lost a little over four. Next Monday's goal is 229.2 - just another 3 pounds.

For me, weight loss is more about eating right. In fact, I read a paper recently (or rather, a peer reviewed piece of literature published in a legit medical journal...it was required, I think) saying that weight loss is usually more successful with diet changes than with exercise changes. That's not to say that you should do one rather than the other, it just means that food is more important in terms of calories than exercise, which should make sense because you typically eat more in a day than you burn off in a day. 

However, that's hard for me because by the end of the week, I'm totally over logging calories and just want to relax and eat anything I want. I didn't really do that so much this weekend, which was a welcome change. I've just gotta keep it up.

Also, let's just say that morning workouts are just not going to happen. My alarm went off and I immediately snoozed. Then I snoozed again. Then I shoved it back an hour and 15 minutes. I just can't find the motivation, folks. I just can't. I hate, hate, hate waking up in the morning as it is. I'm not even sure if I want to commit to trying again tomorrow because I'd much rather just go after work. Also, it kind of stresses me out to commit to something publicly only to not follow through cuz I don't really like looking like an asshole.

Anywho, today I met a patient who was once ~130 pounds overweight. She did weight watchers and lost a bunch of weight and is now a "normal" weight. However, she's now obsessed with her weight. Gaining weight is absolutely terrifying to her. She's also a diabetic. She discovered that she could eat whatever she wanted without gaining weight if she didn't take her diabetes medicine because essentially she pees like crazy (because it's her body's only way of getting rid of all the excess sugar since it lacks the chemicals to break it down like it's supposed to). Now, I'm 100% not condoning this behavior, but while she was telling me, my heart really went out to her. She was so willing to do whatever it takes to remain thin that she doesn't care how sick she makes herself. And you could tell it was also hurting her because she started crying. She said that she spends a lot of her time fixating on it and was recently started on a new medication to help. But in the mean time, her health suffered quite a bit. I'm really hoping she gets better, but at the same time, I kind of felt as though I didn't do much to help her. As a medical student, there isn't much I can do, but I really wish I could have done more.

To perk up a bit, I "ran" a 5k after work. It was so, so hard. I ran slow and ended up walking about half a mile overall. But, I did it. It sucked and I hated it, but I did it. And hopefully I'll get better at it. Practice makes perfect, right? I also sent an email to some of my friends with memberships to the YMCA to see if anyone would go to Zumba with me on Friday. I'll let you know what we end up doing.

Dinner: turkey taco with cheese, lettuce and pico de gallo

Breakfast from last week, but I basically eat the same thing everyday...

Those plans I've been telling you about...

This week was interesting. It began on Monday with me losing my very first patient and ended on Friday with me meeting a woman who had a benign brain tumor successfully resected, but leaving her unable to blink her left eye while having my computer fixed. It seems you can't really shut the medical thing off. But I'm also the happiest I've been in a long time. I'm not sure if it's because I'm living the family lifestyle with having weekends off and having hours that don't involve me getting up before the sun has even thought about rising or because now I'm doing a rotation that actually allows me to talk to patients, but I'm finally getting into the groove of this soon-to-be doctor thing.

That being said, I've kind of been struggling with getting into the groove of losing weight, but I've been pretty good about gaining it...yikes. Last week, I weighed in at 236.4, so I set my goal for tomorrow to be a 3 pound loss. I was careful with my eating and did exercise a few times, but we'll see.

Right now, my plans to be successful include tracking on a calendar that's in my living room. I get to cross out the day with one slash if I've washed my face and flossed before bed and it gets two slashes for doing that and going to the gym. I've got goals set for every Monday already written on the calendar and I'm hoping it'll help to have both weekly goals that I can see as well as a longer-term end-of-the-month goal. I'm continuing to use SparkPeople to log calories and I'm discouraging myself from eating out unless it's amongst friends - mostly because I shouldn't spend the money, but also because eating out tends to have so many more calories that I can't control. I'm also going to start trying new classes at the Y - maybe one every week or so. We'll see how that goes because my schedule isn't as flexible as it once was.

I'll also start posting some more pictures starting tomorrow as I had left my camera in my purse all last week and was simply too lazy to go get it. I really am that lazy, people.

I'm also flirting with the idea of heading to the gym in the mornings. I technically don't need to be to work until 8:15 starting tomorrow (I'm back to outpatient rather than inpatient, which requires you to be there at 7) and it takes me about 2.5-3 hours to work out, shower, eat, and get dressed in the mornings. Sooo, I could theoretically get out of bed at 5:30 and hit the gym. It's just really hard for me to do that because sleep is such a highly prioritized thing in my life. That being said, I do like getting my work out out of the way right away so I can't make up some excuse as to why I can't do it later. So, I think I'll give it a try this week and see how I like it. If I hate it after a week, I can just commit to working out after work. I've tried doing the 5:30 thing before and have hated it, soooo, we'll see...?

Catch you tomorrow with a weigh-in and hopefully good news.

Maybe I should have been a phlebotomist?

I have an announcement to make. It's very important. Please prepare yourself. I went to the gym this morning! Woo! I think that was literally my first time there in 3 weeks. I didn't feel any more sick than I usually do, so I'm going to keep going and hope for the best.

Other than that, today's most exciting event was learning how to do blood draws. The school brought in a bunch of phlebotomists to teach us. We practiced on fake arms (which had fake blood in them) and then we did it on each other. It was pretty cool. I always wanted to know how to do that. It also makes me wonder why the hell I bruise so often. Two first-time blood drawing students didn't bruise me and yet when I went to the ER a few weeks ago, both the phlebotomist and RN left me with huge bruises. So either there was a lot of first time luck or I just get screwed with people who can't do blood draws.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for the excitement here. I'm waking up in about 6 hours to talk to Nasur since it's the only time we both have for the next few days and then I'll hit the gym to do some strength training. I'm pretty pumped for that...get it!?

Breakfast: eggs with some cheese, ham, and grapes that look a lot like olives...

Lunch: English muffin pizza, orange, and ham 

Post-phlebotomy protein shake

Tacos for dinner - I had some leftover sour cream from a dip I made last week - this was Heaven. I never stock sour cream.

I love my friends

Last night, I set my alarm to start going off at 5:45 a.m. and continue to go off for the next 10 minutes at 2 minute intervals. However, before my alarm could even begin going off, Matt called me. It was 5:40 a.m. Now, I know you're asking yourself who would be up that early, but he's working some conference that requires him to be at work at 5:30 a.m., so don't worry - he's getting paid and isn't willingly getting up that early. If he were doing it willingly, I would stage an intervention and have him committed. Anywho, the point is that it was his nice and early phone call that really pushed my lazy butt to get out of bed and go to the gym even though my knees were really aching. I do remember telling Matt that my knees hurt and he basically told me he didn't care so I got up and got ready anyway. And this is why I love my friends. They don't take my crap and make me do what I should really be doing.


While I was on the phone with Matt, I did my daily weigh-in. Last week, the scale read this:

That says 214.8 if you can't read it

This week, the scale reads this:

That's a 2.4 pound loss which is awesome. It also means that I only have 5.4 pounds to go until my goal. I'm going to have to start taking my morning workouts a bit more seriously if I want to get there. Boo - that means more early mornings. This is how I feel about that:

I took this at 5:55 a.m. I'm pretty sure happiness isn't allowed that early in the morning

When I got back from the gym (I did a half hour on the elliptical since my knees were bothering me), I chowed down some overnight oats because I was starving.

I didn't realize this was so blurry

After my oats, I hopped in the shower and then made some more breakfast since the oats aren't an actual meal for me (for some other bloggers, this is super filling - perhaps they were blessed with tiny stomachs).

Note the ibuprofen in the background

After breakfast, I headed to work and actually had stuff to do for the majority of the morning. Shocking, I know. I prepped some samples, re-did Dillon's résumé with him, and spent some time searching Craigslist for tables and bookshelves.

Then I came home for lunch and had the typical English muffin pizza. Yum!

I also made some oats for dessert because I wanted some protein to fill me up a bit more.

I snuck out of work a bit early today (and by snuck, I mean I left at 4:45 p.m. and told my boss I'd see him tomorrow. He didn't care - he knows I'm not doing anything. How does he know this? He won't give me any work since I'm leaving soon). Anyway, I snuck out early because I had training with Mark at 5:00 p.m. We did some push-ups (I was still hurting from yesterday with Emily), some chest presses, some leg extensions, and some quad work. Perhaps I was still in my disheartened mood from yesterday, but I feel like I'm sucking at my workout lately. So I stuck around and put in an intense 32 minute session on the elliptical. I upped my resistance from the morning and made sure to keep my pace up.

When I got home, I immediately started working on making turkey tacos. I was really in the mood for them and so I was pretty happy how quickly I made them happen.

They really hit the spot. I also had more oats, but I didn't snap a picture because I figured you'd seen enough oats for the day. I think I'm going to need to cut down on those...maybe just one serving a day. They're not too bad for you - they're under 200 calories, but that can add up!

Now I'm just sitting on the couch with Bailey cuddled up right next to me. I'm going to wash up for bed shortly and call it an early night so I can be up early for a kick butt early morning workout. I'm going to lose this 5.4 pounds in no time!

Back on Track

Well, the italics proved their worth. I did indeed go to the gym this morning. It was tough though. I woke up at 5:17 a.m. and felt as though my bladder was going to burst if I didn't go to the bathroom immediately. Awesome. That meant I was going to miss out on 18 precious minutes of sleep (my alarm was set for 5:35). So, I set my alarm back 10 minutes to 5:45 a.m. Then when that went off, I pushed snooze and slept another 10 minutes. So, at 5:55 a.m., I was debating whether I really wanted to get out of bed. But it's the 30 Day Challenge, so I had to get up and go to the gym.


I didn't do a whole lot at the gym this morning. My knees were really, really bothering me so I did heart rate cycling on the stationary bike and elliptical and skipped out on my treadmill time. I was still sweating like a pig (which don't actually sweat, I know) by the time I was done. My workout was only 27 minutes and I only burned 259 calories, but hey. I got out of bed and that's the big thing.


When I got home, I showered and was done by the time I would normally wake up (7:20), so I made myself a protein-rich breakfast.

Everything bagel with egg whites, turkey, and chive and onion cream cheese. Watermelon for some fruit

I took some ibuprofen and my multivitamin at the end of the meal too so that I wouldn't be too achy throughout the day. Then I was off to my favorite place ever: work! 


Work was pathetic. I'm trying to remember if I did anything of any real value. Ha. Nope. However, I did use my time wisely. In fact, I spent most my morning reading this:

We have to read up to page 80 by Sept. 6, so I thought I'd go ahead and get it out of the way so that I can focus on other stuff during orientation and the beginning of classes. I only got to page 20 since I read all three forewords. Then, I went home and had some yummy lunch.

Yum!

After lunch, work was pretty boring. I did a lot of viscosity stuff and then got to leave early for my wisdom teeth check-up in Sagnasty/Saginaw. I got to my appointment a bit early but they called me in right away to ask me how my recovery was going. I told her I was having a little bit of pain on my lower left jaw if I did a lot of chewing or smiling and she wasn't too concerned. She was, however, surprised that I didn't have any pain right after the procedure. What can I say? I'm a bamf. Then she showed me how to use this strange syringe to flush out any food that could get stuck in the holes created by the absence of my wisdom teeth. It was weird. And even more weird when I got to look at all the stuff I spat out. Gross. And now I get to do this to myself twice a day for 2-3 weeks. Woo hoo! Don't worry, I won't take any pictures. But, here's a picture of the syringe!

Once I was done at the surgery clinic, I headed to Dick's Sporting Goods in Saginaw because they were having a sale on all their Reebok apparel: buy one, get one 50% off. So, I bought two pair of my favorite shorts for less than $20. Woot. Then, since gas is about 10 cents cheaper in Saginaw than it is in Midland, I decided to fill up my tank. And because I still had ample time before needing to be back in Midland for training with Mark, I hit up the Saginaw meijer and bought some cat food because Bailey was nearly out and he isn't trying to lose weight, like me.


During training today, Mark and I did some more arm stuff. Being that my arms were still feeling it from yesterday, it was a bit of a struggle today. I think he meant it that way. What a bully. Also, I hopped on the scale at Smitty's (the gym I go to) and I [miraculously] have lost 5 pounds since last Monday. So, Mark finally gave me back my kindle. I had actually reverted back to real books with pages that required me to turn the page (rather than pushing a button). So, I'm glad to have it back! In fact, I celebrated having it back by doing 25 minutes on the elliptical and reading The Hunger Games again.


On my way home from the gym, I decided to stop at the coffee shop and get one of my favorite smoothies. But, they were closed! I have no idea why. I was really looking forward to having something to help me cool off in this heat. So, I drove through Dairy Queen. Now, before you freak out, I got a kid's size banana cream pie blizzard. Usually I would get a small chocolate chip cookie dough one, but I figured the banana would make it somewhat healthy and downgrading to the kid's size would keep the portion under control. I didn't realize there'd be a huge dollop of whipped cream on top though.

It was just okay. I don't think I'd get it ever again, but I'm glad I tried something new and a bit healthier. Once I was home, I decided to check my mail, something I rarely do as I don't get much mail. But today, I got two exciting things: my biking shorts and my new leasing form!


I ordered biking shorts about two weeks ago after Mark decided we would start doing some cycling during our workouts. He recommended that I order them from performancebike.com as it was probably the cheapest I'd find them. So, I spent about $35 on some highly-reviewed shorts. I got them in XXL because that's what I matched on their sizing chart. However, they looked a bit small:

But, they fit just fine once they were on. Beware: I am in spandex in the below pictures:

After enjoying my ass in spandex, I whipped up some Trader Joe's gnocchi and shoveled it in my mouth while reading some blogs.

Yesterday on Caitlin's Blog, she talked about how to go green with your period. The main points she made that really interested me were about the environmental impact pads and tampons have, about how there are no long-term studies about how the use of feminine hygiene products affect women's health, and about how dangerous the chemicals are that are applied to the cotton used to make these products. After reading up more about the Diva Cup on my own, I decided to go for it and bought a kit with the sanitizer. Though it cost me about $84, I can only imagine how much money I'm going to save not buying pads and tampons - those things are so freaking expensive! Of course, I will use up the rest of the stuff I have now until I'm comfortable using it. And if you're interested in how they work, just watch this video here. 


Anywho, I spent the rest of the night blogging, talking with friends (like Jenna) on gchat and the phone (Jenna, look, I mentioned you!) and getting super excited to see Lisa and Anna tomorrow! Now I'm going to head off to bed so I can get up semi-early tomorrow to work out and then pick Lisa up at the airport!


But before I go, I wanted to post a picture of my calendars in use. For my workout calendar, I am going to put one slash per each workout during the day so that hopefully all the days have a big 'X' on them.

And for my weigh-in calendar, I'm simply recording my weights like so (double-click to maximize, if you please):

Okay, now I can head to bed!


After reading up on the Diva Cup, are you convinced? Let me know if you're going to give it a try too!