Looking back

Lately/the last three days, I've been reading through some of my old blogs. Mostly because I'm narcissistic, but also because I wanted to see what I'd been thinking and eating when I started this blog in 2011. Some things I've noticed is that visiting old med school entries is an invitation to misery. Yikes. My life was studying and gaining weight/hating myself for gaining weight. I was (and still am) scared of failing each exam (though I never did) and always, always, always doubted myself and the work I'd put in. I also let my fear of failure control me a lot - I'd put off studying because I was scared I'd have a hard time; I'd put off practice tests because not doing well was terrifying; I'd put off going to the gym and eating well because I was scared to do something that wasn't studying. Some happier posts were written during my year off when I was just working and going to the gym everyday. I was working out with a personal trainer, learning how to make healthy meals, going out for bike rides, and trying new things. I want to go back to that place. I want to be more confident in me and my abilities. I know that making that change is going to take some time, so I'm hoping that I can make some progress this year.

Also, yesterday, while I was looking over my application (the website was soooo effing slow), I was also watching an older episode of extreme weight loss (Melissa's episode this season). I almost turned it off because she was such a downer. Like she cried all. the. time. And she presented herself as a victim and I was sick of it. No one forced you to eat all the time. No one forced you to drive your lawnmower down your driveway instead of walking down it to get your mail. No one forced you to shove away all your problems. But then as she was losing weight and dealing with her problems, she started turning things around. And then it was all epiphany all the time. And there was one for me: I have totally done what she's done. I've totally made excuses and made myself the victim. Oh sure, med school makes things a million times harder, but I could never tell myself it's going to be okay and taking an hour or two for me is not going to ruin my success.

Anyway, today was a good day 3 of my new one week challenge. Lisa struggled yesterday, but she's still kicking day three's butt, so read about her day three on her blog! For me, if it hadn't been for this challenge, I totally wouldn't have gone to the gym tonight. But holy crap, I'm so glad I did! I got in an awesome workout on the elliptical (while watching another episode of Extreme Weight Loss) and I got to chat with my old neighbors who also go to the Y. So, so glad I went. And when I got home, I made myself a kick ass dinner.

That being said, I was dragging during the day. I didn't exactly pack a legitimate lunch. I packed some fiber plus bars, a banana, grapes, watermelon, pretzels, and blueberries. The fridge is super far away, so I ate the fiber plus bars, banana, and pretzels. And then I really wanted something more substantial, so I grabbed a chicken salad sandwich from the patient food room (the nurses coaxed me into it when I said I was starving and didn't have a proper lunch). And then I was like "Oh shit! Did I just break the challenge?" I'm going with no, but it means I have to do better with packing food for tomorrow. And I also need to take it upon myself to tell the doctor when I'm hungry and thirsty so I can go grab a snack. I tend to wait until I'm extremely hungry or thirsty instead of keeping things level throughout the day.

Anywho, here are some pics from the day:

Breakfast

Snack after work

Pre-gym snack

Snack while I was making dinner

Tomatoes from my mom's garden - I'm almost out!

Dinner!

Dessert!

Today's positive: Owning up to some of my own faults and learning what I need to do to be successful food-wise.

Drooling all over myself

Last night I set two alarms to make sure I got up. And it worked! I got up. For a second to shut the alarms off and go back to bed. Bad, bad, bad. I'm just so tired and I have a bad feeling that I'm getting sick again because my throat and ears are hurting. So, I'm using that as my excuse for staying in bed this morning. But, dang it. I want this. I want to be healthier. I want to lose weight. And I am getting up tomorrow morning and going to the gym tomorrow, even if it kills me and I hate myself the entire time I'm there.


Anywho, I did get up early enough to bike to work today. So, I prepped my snacks, scarfed down breakfast and enjoyed a tiny bit of exercise this morning.

Once at work, I did little bits of work that needed to be done and sat through the Wellness Initiative Kick-off that Lubrizol is having. They're trying to promote healthy activities (mostly to reduce their health care costs) and we're getting pumped up for them to save money our own health!


Then I biked home for lunch where I had this:

After lunch, I drove back to work where I did a tiny amount of work before leaving for my dentist's appointment. I was scheduled to have a filling because I had a deep cavity caused by my teeth being so close together (this is caused by my tiny mouth - that's right, folks. I said tiny). So they numbed me up, did their thing and I was home by 4:40.


Once home, I threw on my gym clothes and headed for another training session with Mark since he canceled on me for tomorrow. Today we did some cardio stuff, but I was mostly worried that I was drooling without knowing it. I don't know if you've ever been numbed up, but your lip feels as though it's a billion sizes too big and your cheek feels puffy. But everything looks normal - which is good and bad because people don't know why you have drool on you that you're not wiping away, but drooling you also doesn't look like some misshapen ogre. So, needless to say, my work out was rough because my mouth was super dry since I struggled with drinking...


When I got home, I made up another dinner wrap dealio.

Started with some honey ham and cheese on a tortilla

I heated up the tortilla and then added some spinach

Then I added a lot of tomatoes

I added some of my favorite dressing

And voila! Dinner!

I tried to roll it up, but it wouldn't stay

It was a struggle eating dinner and I spilled quite a bit on my plate, but the wrap was pretty good. I think I could have used less or no dressing because that was what pretty much overwhelmed the whole thing. Perhaps I'll try again tomorrow.


After dinner, I finally watched the Bachelorette and Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition. Both were mediocre at best, but it gave me something to do since I didn't feel up to doing much while I was still numb. Oh, and I took pics of my cat and ate a yogurt.

It took about 3.5 hours for the numbness to go away. The dentist told me 1.5-2. Lies! And now my jaw hurts. Great.


Anywho, I'm off to bed so I can get my lazy ass to the gym tomorrow. I kinda don't have a choice since I promised myself 3x this week...


Have you ever had a cavity? I don't even know how many I've had in my life. If I had to guess, I'd say a lot.

Frustration + Lubrication = Poopy Day

Yesterday I told myself that I was going to go to bed early so that getting up wouldn't be so painful. But, I had to watch The Bachelorette and Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition. Mostly I watch The Bachelorette for the eye candy and to judge, but I really like Extreme Makeover. Yesterday's episode was really touching and both of the episodes so far are extremely motivating. So, even though staying up so late made getting up this morning pretty rough, I was pretty motivated to get in my cardio. I went for 35 minutes this morning. Ali didn't end up coming to the gym this morning (I'm assuming she was hurting from yesterday), but I'm glad she didn't tell me because I probably wouldn't have gotten my butt out of bed if I'd known.


When I got home, I made pretty much the same breakfast as yesterday and it was just as awesome:

After breakfast, I headed to work early and ended up sitting and chatting with Karie (a different one than the one that annoys me) for about a half hour before starting work. About a half hour into the day, I ended up getting screwed into helping some of the production guys do something I needed them to do for me last week in the 86° heat. Not fun. And by this point, I was in a sour mood and just wanted to leave. It wasn't even 10:00. Fortunately, I had a consultation with the oral surgeon at 11, and because it was in Saginaw, I got to leave at 10:30. Woot. I definitely needed a break. And I definitely needed some lunch!

Lunch was a sandwich on organic multigrain bread with a bit of chive and onion cream cheese, some turkey, spinach, and tomato paired with a refreshing lemon yogurt. Yum!

After lunch, I got to take a drum with 26 gallons of oil and pail it off into 5 pails with about 5 gallons each. Doesn't sound too bad, but add 90° heat, the fact that I've never pailed off oil before, and the spilling of oil all over myself and the floor and you get one super frustrated Danika. I ended up leaving work to go shower and change. I really didn't want to go back. Fortunately, when I did get back, Dillon was bored out of his mind and came to entertain me/help me with some of the work I needed to get done. God bless that kid. He definitely helped keep me sane today.


After work, I decided to head to the gym again. I was going to rollerblade, but it was 96°, so I opted for the air conditioned gym. I worked out [some of my] aggression, finished the book I was reading (The Snowman - it was kind of a letdown), and started a new book Ken recommended to me yesterday while we got coffee. It's called You're Not Sick, You're Thirsty. It challenges modern medicine and suggests that you drink about half your weight in ounces. So, for example, I'm weighing in at about 225 pounds. I should be drinking 112.5 ounces of water everyday. I'll keep you updated as I continue to read because it's really interesting so far.


After the gym, I headed to meijer again. I needed fajita (fuh-jit-uh) seasoning to make some of my baked chicken quesadillas. And since I was there and there was a buy-one-get-one free sale on these, I bought four:

I figured it'd be good to have after the gym. I only drank about half though because they pack about 190 calories/half bottle. However, it has both whey protein and soy protein.

If you can see in the picture above, whey protein is really important for right after a workout when you're trying to bulk up a bit, but soy protein lasts a bit longer and thus keeps you full a bit longer. Either way, I'm glad I had something because I was pretty hungry while I was making dinner:

After dinner I watched the first half of The Bachelorette since I missed it yesterday. And now I'm blogging so I can go to bed. I'm pooped! This week's challenge is kicking my butt!


Oh...and I'm doing a weigh-in tomorrow...let's keep our fingers crossed!