Awesome first day!

Well, let me just say that I am super pumped about this month after today. Sure, there were slow points. Sure, there were the I'm-so-tired-an-explosion-in-my-pants-wouldn't-wake-me points. But, mostly, I'm really thrilled with the nurses and doctors I get to learn from. And that's enough about that - work will stay at work!

Waking up at 4:15 was rough today. I got out of bed and my left temple was pounding in protest. I took something for pain and went about the morning. I knew I needed to eat a hearty breakfast because you never know when food'll be an option in the OB world - it really can be feast or famine. Anywho, today's hearty breakfast was two egg whites + 1 egg, cantaloupe, strawberries, and a slice of banana bread I made on Saturday.

We get lunch for free at work - it's in a place affectionately known as "the trough." Do with that what you will. It's mostly decent food, but there's no such thing as fresh fruit (unless you count the overly waxed apples and oranges). There is salad that once upon a time lived in a bag somewhere and there's usually something pretty okay. Today, I heaped half my styrofoam plate high with salad/lettuce and the other half had some kind of lemon pepper fish and a BBQ chicken drumstick. Then I went hungry until a suture representative brought the interns cookies. I definitely had a few as my stomach was causing me physical pain. Then we hung out for a few more hours before my first rep dinner with people trying to sell us equipment. So, I had a pretty awesome teriyaki chicken with some veggies and a little bit of rice.

Given that we were at the dinner until 8, I opted out of the gym because my butt (and the rest of me) needs to be in bed. But, tomorrow night I have no excuse dinners, so don't worry - I'll be going!

I think that this is going to take a bit of getting used to. My bowels weren't sure what to do with all the lettuce today and turning down dessert at dinner was hard, but hey - it's a treat! And I wasn't celebrating anything. Plus, I've got some delicious fruit pizza this weekend to look forward to.

Also, thanks for all the love and support - with comments and emails! I'm going to have an easier time because of all of you! I especially liked the comments about keeping it slow and steady and not going for the all or nothing. Making positive changes should be gradual - I've learned from my own past that going balls to the walls only results in pain. When I focus on all or nothing, I usually just fail and then I really let myself spiral into a pity party that isn't pleasant for anyone.

More photos (I kinda forgot today) and a weigh-in on Monday (forgot that too!) for you to look forward to! In the mean time, have you ever had to talk yourself into being okay with a gray area or imperfection?

Weigh in, beach day, and burns

Today was absolutely wonderful. Though I was a bit late in getting up to get ready for the beach (shaving your legs takes a long time, folks), we eventually got there and it was lovely. I forgot my camera, so you'll have to take my word for it, but it was a beautiful day. There were some clouds in the sky, but that was nice. I was able to lay out without feeling like it was extremely hot. And I only burned in three areas, where I must've missed sunscreen: my upper thighs, the small of my back (I guess my bathing suit rode up a bit - I wear a two-piece tankini deal) and here:

Lovely. I'm not sure how I missed there...

We grilled out at my friend's place. We had hamburgers, some watermelon, some dips, and my fruit pizza. I forgot to take the corn I specifically bought for the grill out. Oops. And as I didn't take my camera, no pics for you. Another oops. I was very forgetful in my rush to get ready. 

But, I didn't forget to weigh in. Here's today's weight:

I'm glad the scale is going down. You can see some of my weigh-ins here. A little over a week and a half ago, I got on the scale after forgetting to weigh-in and having eaten and showered and it was going up to 238 and so I promptly hopped off without allowing it to get an accurate weight. So, I'm glad it's back down. I'd like to shoot for 232 by this time next week. I'm going to get there by spending a lot of time at the gym and being mindful of my meals.

Also, Bailey is getting a bit better with his pills. It only took one try each time I tried to pill him today. Twice, we had to use peanut butter. For his pill that he's supposed to take on an empty stomach, I just had to be super aggressive with him. Nevertheless, I will be calling the vet to see if she can do some compounding for me.

I'll update again tomorrow - hopefully with more pics!

Oh, and today's positive: Having my high school friends live nearby. It's great being able to spend so much time with them.

And today's other positive: Obviously we had some leftover fruit pizza. I left some with Allyson and Chelsea and took some home, which I was going to give my neighbors. But, they were out. So, I think I shall keep it for me and just eat it a little at a time. Typically, if there were a delicious dessert in my apartment, I'd scarf it all down immediately. But tonight I stopped myself reminding myself of how nice it'd be to have a little piece each day. Granted, it doesn't last long, but I could probably keep it another two days. Yay me. Photos tomorrow for you :-)

The Mega Update

Time for a mega update! Last Thursday, I headed to Grand Rapids to spend the weekend with my best friend Matt. So, I shall update you from Thursday onwards. Get ready!


Thursday
After work, I headed straight to Ann Arbor to meet up with Matt. We drove to Grand Rapids/Dorr, said hi to his parents and neighbors, hopped in the hot tub, and headed to bed pretty early because we were going to have an early day on Friday.


Friday
We woke up at the buttcrack of dawn to go work out at a janky little gym in Dorr. I showed Matt some of my heart rate cycling fun and then we did some weights. I took some awesome photos, but you won't see them. Why? Because I lost my camera. Fortunately, my phone served as a back-up. So, you can see the lovely pictures of our breakfasts after our workout.

My breakfast: egg whites and a tiny slice of fruit pizza

Matt's breakfast: eggs, toast, and fruit pizza

Matt enjoying his breakfast

After breakfast, we headed to the mall to see Transformers with his friends Kristen and Jack. I probably would have enjoyed the movie more had the theater not been cooled to 65°F. I was much too busy shivering to really get into Shia's awesome physique, but I did like the movie and I definitely wouldn't mind seeing it again.


After the movie, we had lunch and I grabbed some Panera. Matt had Subway and Kristen and Jack had what looked like some awesome Chinese.

My lunch: strawberry poppyseed and chicken salad

After lunch, we headed to Dick's Sporting Goods so Matt could get some lifting gloves. While we were there, I found that my favorite shorts were on sale, so I bought a pair of those. Then we headed home to nap. Once we had napped for a bit, we woke up and made dinner: chicken fajitas.

 Matt chopped the chicken while I sauteed the veggies. We used his mom's homemade salsa to add some flavor.

Our Spread

Matt prepping his fajitas

Me getting pumped for my fajita

We had a lovely meal chatting at the dinner table and then headed to bed early because we were going to have another early morning.

Saturday

Matt and I woke up at 6:20 in the morning to get our butts to one of the local YMCAs. We started out with a little bit of heart rate cycling and then I showed him a lot of the exercises that Mark and I do together. We had a pretty intense hour and 45 minute workout and then headed to pick up Ava, Matt's niece.

Once we were home, I made breakfast while Ava and Matt played outside in the pool. Then I watched Ava while Matt showered and we switched so I could de-stinkify. We got ready for the zoo and headed out. Once we got to the zoo, Ava got distracted by the park and then, after playing for some time, we went in and saw the animals. Once we were done at the zoo, we played in the park some more and then headed to the mall to meet up with Heather (Matt's sister). Ava fell asleep in the car and it was freaking adorable.

Tired little baby

Heather gave me a hair cut and then we did a little bit of shopping. Matt headed to Hollister to get some new shirts and a new pair of jeans. Then we headed to Sears for a bit with Heather. After that, Matt and I headed to dinner at a local restaurant, Monelli's. I got some salmon and Matt got a BLT pizza, but first we started out with some bread and oil.

Matt  getting ready for some bread

We chose to dip it in olive oil rather than use the butter 

The huge amount of cheese that I took off my salad to save some calories

My appetizer salad

My salmon with potatoes and asparagus

After dinner, we hit the headed home, hit the hot tub, and went to bed because we had yet another early morning the next day.

Sunday

We woke up at 8:00 in the morning to go meet up with my friend Eric and his wife Laurie in Grand Rapids. Eric and I go way back to elementary school, but once we went away to college, I didn't get to see him nearly as often. The last time I saw him was for his wedding last year (I took Matt as my date) and it was great seeing him again. We had brunch at a local restaurant and then headed back to Eric and Laurie's apartment to see their two new kittens. They were super adorable, as one would expect. After fulfilling our Itty Bitty Kitty Committee quota, we headed back to Ann Arbor.

Once there, Matt had to head to work and I headed to see if Jim was home. Fortunately, he was! So, after catching up a bit, Jim and I headed to Whole Foods to try every single sample they had out and so I could do some grocery shopping. After I was done spending a ridiculous amount of money, we headed to Walgreens so I could see Blake for a bit. Then I dropped Jim back off at home and headed back to Midland.

The drive home was long and had it been dark out, I may have fallen asleep. Matt and I certainly had an exhausting weekend. Once home, I vegged for a few hours and then headed to bed.

Monday

Due to a lack of sleep over the weekend, I decided to sleep in Monday morning and make up for it by going to the gym Tuesday morning. Work was more boring than even I could anticipate and it was rough getting through the day. Fortunately, I had the end of the day to look forward to when I decided to go buy a new camera. However, I haven't had a chance to use it just yet as my super cheap 8GB memory card will be arriving in the mail tomorrow.

I spent my evening cleaning up my kitchen, prepping food for the week, and cutting up fruit. And because I was exhausted still, I went to bed early. That's right, folks, no gym time on Monday...

Tuesday

When my alarm went off for a 5:30 wake-up, I shoved it back to 7:00 and went back to sleep. So, guess I'll be going to the gym tomorrow morning, Thursday morning, and Friday morning this week. Gah.

Work was super boring again. I literally had nothing to do. But, I had an optometrist's appointment at 3:30 so I was able to leave super early. Woot!

At the optometrist's, I had an eye exam, tried some new contacts, and looked at some new glasses. I'll be heading back in a few days to try a new frame in a different color and see how I like it.

After the optometrist's, I headed to the gym where Mark tortured me made me do some intense cardio for a half hour. I was pretty gross by the end and was happy it was over. The bad thing is that we meet again tomorrow. Not good.

Oh, and here is what I ate today:

Okay - this post has taken me a bit longer than I anticipated, so I'm going to cut it short and I will catch you guys tomorrow!

Hail to the victor!

Last week, the scale looked like this:

This week, it looks like this:

Yup, same exact thing. Except my toes were prettier a week ago. I already knew this was going to be the case because of my crappy weigh-in yesterday, but boooooo. I really want this scale to move! So, I'm working on it. I went to the gym to do some heart rate cycling this morning and burned off 400 calories in 40 minutes. Not too shabby.


Work was super boring today. I didn't have much to do, so I sat at my desk and read the third book in The Hunger Games series on my computer via my kindle app. I also read it at the gym on my phone. Mark was not too thrilled that I found a way around my punishment. I told him that it must suck to lose, but that I wouldn't know because I always win. He pushed me pretty hard today to seek his revenge, but I performed beautifully despite him rocking the Bosu ball when I was standing on it, purposely counting wrong to make me do more reps, and winning the 100 ab/oblique challenge. Suck it, Mark. Not only do I still have access to my books, but I achieved every task you set for me and then some. Hail to the victor/me!


Anywho, backing up a tad. After the gym this morning, I made my favorite breakfast bagel.

It had two egg whites, turkey, and chive and onion cream cheese on an everything bagel.


During lunch, I went and picked up my bike since it was finally fixed. I am happy to report that it no longer looks like this. Thank goodness! I was in a hurry, so I didn't go on a test ride, but I did give the handlebars and seat a good tug to make sure they actually stayed put. We'll see for sure tomorrow morning when I take it out again!


Also during lunch, I made the first part of the fruit pizza I'm taking to Matt's house this weekend.

This is the sugar cookie crust. Now, normally when I make fruit pizza, a lot of the cookie dough finds it's way into my mouth and then my jaw seizes and I have no choice but to swallow the dough. Yup, that's exactly what happens. However, none of the dough found its way into my mouth this time because cookie dough clearly qualifies as dessert and I couldn't ruin my July Challenge. But man, was I ever wishing that it were August! Especially at work when some terrible person coworker of mine brought in a lot of cupcakes left over from their Fourth of July party. Gah. They looked awesome. But none for me. Booo.


Anywho, while the fruit pizza crust was baking, I made my lunch.

I had two pieces of sushi, but I forgot to take a picture before I ate one. Whoops. You can just look at yesterday's lunch if you want to know what two pieces of sushi look like...


So work after lunch was boring and then I came home early because my boss left early and with nothing to do, I wasn't about to stay there and hang out. Mark texted me to say he was going to be late, so I decided to make the rest of my fruit pizza.

This is going to be so freaking delicious! I can't wait to have a few small slices. Wooooot! Unfortunately, while I was peeling the kiwi, the peeler won that fight and I took a chunk out of my index finger which made finishing the fruit pizza a bit difficult. Then I got a text from Mark saying he was going to be on time after all so I had to scurry to finish the pizza without bleeding on it and get dressed for the gym. I still made it on time. I think that's why I won every little argument Mark and I had - because I had already started my awesome streak.


After my workout, I came home, cleaned my kitchen from the fruit pizza making and made dinner: garlic shrimp and sweet potato fries. Yum!

And now I'm updating you before I go read for a bit on my phone and then pack for my weekend in GR with Matt and his lovely family!


Has the scale ever stopped moving for you? What do you do to get it to start again?