New Year, Same Me

Hey all. After setting some goals, I had a big ol' setback. I went up on my Ozempic dose maybe a bit too fast and had major diarrhea. I honestly thought I had a GI bug because it was just so much diarrhea. It took me two doses to put two and two together and realize it was the Ozempic killing me rather than anything else. I'm talking 30+ episodes of explosive diarrhea about 2 days after my 1mg dose and then multiple episodes for several days more. So, I decided to take a break from the Ozempic. During my break, I got whatever nasty respiratory virus that was going around. It was worse than when I had COVID. I took 3 days off work for it. It was impressive. So, with 2+ weeks of diarrhea followed by 1+ week of respiratory garbage, I'm not surprised I had a big ol' setback.

I head back to work on Tuesday (I took a week off for funsies between Christmas and New Year's) and will get back on track. Other than making good food choices, not beating myself up for indulging, and working to get back to the gym, I don't have any other big plans. I've found restricting myself is more harmful than helpful, so that's out. I've found that being kind to myself is also better than beating myself up. And I've found that if I can just get myself to the gym, I'm always happy I went.

Anywho, photo dump and moving on (and blogging more)!

Nana and the babies

Zayd got his first hair cut

Kiddos got spoiled for Christmas

Looking cute by the tree

Catch up!

Sorry for my lack of posts, my millions of fans! I've just been so utterly exhausted with all the call lately. I was on call again on Monday and got very little sleep. Thankfully, I'm not on call again until next Saturday!

I also haven't been to the gym in a while. So, today, after the office, I headed to the gym and did an hour's worth of walking. It felt fine while I was walking, but man oh man, my feet were killing me afterwards. My stomach was also rebelling. So, I laid on my bed in misery until Nasur came home with the kids and taco bell. 

Tonight was also journal club night. I was hosting, so I put out a bunch of cheese and crackers and some wine I picked up. We talked about transgender medicine and how to better serve our transgender patients. After journal club, I cleaned up and am getting ready for bed. I used my plantar fasciitis spiky ball a lot tonight, so I hope my feet recover soon. I need to get some new shoes, but my newish shoes are not super comfortable, so I've been using older shoes that apparently aren't doing the trick. I'm cruising Amazon for other options. We shall see!

Oh, also yesterday was my second visit with my obesity med doc. I've got one more dose of Ozempic at 0.25mg and then will move up to 0.50mg for four weeks. I think it's made a huge difference in my life so far and we discussed that and if I'm having any side effects. We also reviewed my labs and she did say that my fasting insulin was a bit elevated, though it still was documented in the normal range. She said that is contributing a bit to my difficulty in weight loss. Who knew? Makes me feel slightly better that it's not just me failing at losing weight but my basal insulin working against me. 

My baked brie prior to baking

Planning a weigh in tomorrow or Friday. 

Ozempic and food

Oof. Didn't realize I'd taken such a long time between posts. My deepest apologies, millions of fans!

This weekend was busy on call and sleep was hard to come by. Despite that, I have survived. Only to be on call again on Wednesday. Major facepalm on that one. 

Over the weekend, I didn't do much advanced planning in terms of meals, but I can tell the ozempic is definitely helping. Ordered a sandwich on Friday and only ate half and didn't obsess about the other half - I save it for my Sunday night call. I got breakfast for us on my way home on Saturday. I only ate half of that too and had the other half for lunch. And, again, no overly obsessing about it or feeling compelled to finish it. Saturday night, we watched Mulan (again). I made popcorn for the kids and stopped at one small bowl for myself rather than finishing off the bag. These changes are certainly helping with my weight loss. And you know what, at first I kind of felt like a failure in that I needed to be on a medication to lose weight, but now I'm glad I reached out and started the medication. It is really helping me.

In other news, I went to the gym today. I just walked for an hour on the treadmill again. Last time I did an hour on the treadmill was Thursday and I wore my brace because, without it, my knee really gives me trouble. But my brace just would not stay in the right spot and I was adjusting it every 2-5 minutes, which was highly annoying. Today, I pulled my old knee brace out and it was a way better fit. I only had to stope to adjust it at the beginning. Also, despite some advance planning, my Netflix episodes apparently didn't download, so I read my kindle and listened to music and really enjoyed my walk. I know walking isn't much, but I'm really happy with what I'm doing so far.

Tomorrow's an OR day. Hoping I get out at a reasonable hour so that I can do another walk tomorrow. 

My panini from the cafeteria that left a lot to be desired on Friday

Reyah excited about wearing a Halloween shirt

Back to the gym

Today was my first day with my new schedule. It was glorious. I got out a little after 3 pm and then headed straight to the gym to get my membership set up. It took a while, but when I asked if I could just be added on to my husband's membership for a discount, the guy helping me (Alex) said yes. Alex then proceeded to pull up Nasur's photo and was like, "Wait. This guy is your husband?" Um, yes. I can't imagine there are a lot of Nasurs at this gym. "I love this guy!" I had heard that Nasur is a social butterfly at the gym and Alex confirmed. He also told me that Nasur was one of his favorite people that comes to the gym. Me too, Alex. Me too.

Given how long it took to get my membership set, I opted to just do 35 minutes on the treadmill walking on an incline. This also seemed like a safe decision given that I forgot my water bottle and couldn't find my lifting gloves. I watched some Netflix on my iPad and then hurried off to the optometrist's office to pick up my new glasses and give them my current ones to have the lenses replaced. I'm digging the new frames. Then I ran to Dick's Sporting Goods to pick up some new lifting gloves so I could do some weights tomorrow. Looking forward to feeling strong again!

Today's eats are coming. Not pictured was the banana and protein drink I quickly consumed after dropping off the kiddos. Completely forgot to factor in time for breakfast. They get breakfast at day care. Me? Not so much. So, I was pretty hungry at lunch.

Lunch! Pesto pasta salad + gyro

Was just going to eat half, but, lol, funny joke

Dinner - I just ate the fish and pesto pasta salad

Reyah wanted a photo of her and her dinner, too, lol

Outsourced putting up the lights, lol

Lights are up! We'll see if they actually light up tomorrow after a day in the Colorado sun. Let's also hope the Colorado winds don't rip them down and break them like they did to our last ones.

Any favorite gym activities?

Vacaaaaaation! Also known as GMSTW

Today was an OR day. Thankfully, my foot didn't kill me. It's been doing better every day, so I'm feeling a little stupid that my first response was that I broke it. But, I broke my foot in college doing the exact same thing, so it seemed somewhat of a reasonable assumption. Anywho. I didn't die. Hooray!

Once home, we opted to get some Indian food for dinner and have a family movie night because it's cold and rainy today. Like cold enough that we turned the heat on. Pathetic, Colorado. Pathetic. But, it won't last long. See?

Thankfully, once I was done in the OR, it was the official start of my vacation or my Get My Shit Together Week. I am off until next Monday and I have a long list of things I want to get done. Mostly, it's establishing care with doctors to start taking care of myself better. Monday, I see the optometrist. Tuesday, I'm seeing an obesity medicine doctor. Wednesday, I see the orthodontist. Thursday, I see an internal medicine doc (to establish as my primary care physician). Friday, I get a massage. Friday sounds like the most fun, obviously, lol. I am also going to get my gym membership reestablished and start trying to establish a routine there again, reminding myself that I deserve the time and space everyone else there deserves. 

A few other things on my to-do list:

• Get a hold of the stupid student loan people
• Do my PSLF forms
• Do my maintenance of certification articles
• Organize journal club for work
• Put up the wind chime ish thing my mom gave the kiddos
• Book my mom's flights to come see us
• Figure out my tax returns
• Look at my meal prep recipe book and try to find some new recipes to try
• Figure out how to meal prep
• Figure out outfits for family photos next weekend

I am glad to have some time off and not being going anywhere or doing anything major that I can't be flexible about. I'm also nervous af to be making some bigger commitments to myself. Here goes nothing!

Fear of failure and a weigh-in

Upon embarking on this weight loss journey [again], I realized I needed to fit in exercise somewhere. Keeping moving is one thing, but upping my strength and my cardiovascular fitness is another. However, I am irrationally getting worried about going back to the gym. With COVID, we canceled our gym memberships. This wasn't a huge deal as I decided I'd just work out on our elliptical in the basement. However, that flared up my knee and then I stopped doing that altogether. I did a few elliptical workouts here and there once my knee felt better, but I haven't been consistent. So, now I want to work on consistency. Enter Mom guilt. 

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out when would be a good time to exercise. I used to do it right after work because once I'm home, it takes a lot of effort to go out again. But, if I go right after work, it takes even more time away from my time with the kids. And working as much as I do, I didn't want to sacrifice more time. So, then I figured I could exercise after the kids were in bed. But, exercising at 8/8:30 doesn't exactly appeal to me. So, what about exercise before the kids wake up? Hard pass. I already feel like I don't get enough sleep, so sacrificing some for exercise? Never going to happen. So, I've changed my work hours. Normally, I'm in the office from 9-4. However, In about 3 weeks, I'm changing my hours to 8-3. This will allow me to use the time from 3-4 to go to the gym and be consistent about it. That being said, I'm still scared to go.

One of the things I have a hard time with is fear of failure/not feeling perfect. When I head back to the gym, I'll be starting from zero. This will be depressing. For several reasons: 

1. I used to be fit and now I'm not
2. Exercising in front of fit people is embarrassing
3. There aren't a ton of machines where I go to the gym and I feel unworthy of using machines when other fit folks are around - it's like I think they deserve it more

I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to tackle that one. I think it'll help that I'm not at the gym during peak hours (before or after traditional work hours) and I think it'll help that I already know how to use most machines. It'll just be hard to remember that no one else is thinking about me as much as I am.

Any thoughts on how to feel more confident once I start heading back to the gym?

Food photos:

Breakfast

Other part of breakfast

Turkey meximelts for lunch: turkey meat, pico, cheese, and low carb tortilla

Watermelon with lunch

Homemade chicken pad thai for dinner

Aaaaand, this week's weigh-in!

Four pounds down from last week!

Day 290/365: Tummy Control Pants

So today I had an oral exam. For those of you who are new to de blog, I am an OB/GYN resident. This means I am a fake doctor a doctor that is still in training. I did 5 years of undergrad, 4 years of med school, followed by 4 years of residency (I'm in my third year) and every so often, they like to test us to see if we do indeed know things. Once a year, we do an oral exam to see if we can articulate what we know rather than check a box/make an educated guess.

Well, because of the oral exam, I had to dress up more than I normally would, i.e., I had to wear a suit. Because I am fatter than I have been previously, I don't have any suits that fit - just some jackets and some pants. Today I opted to wear my tummy control pants. I haven't worn these pants before. I ordered them offline because I had some Lane Bryant money and they were having a BOGO 50% sale. When they say they're tummy control pants, what it means is that when you're standing up your tummy is super cinched in by how effing tight these pants are (and thus your tummy has been controlled) and when you sit down, a whole new Hell is unleashed on your abdomen. The super tight band is now creating an extra roll (which is what I thought it would be controlling), digging into your fat so aggressively that I felt as though I was being stabbed by my pants. I could not get comfortable sitting down, which is kind of problematic in my line of work, or you know, in life. When appropriate (i.e., driving), I undid my pants altogether. In short, what I would like to communicate is that I learned the hard way that tummy control pants are essentially made by the devil. Do not make the same mistake I did, folks.

In other news, my oral exam went well and then I went to the office. They had another sponsored lunch there and I ate only two cookies instead of three. Also, I avoided the chips and only ate one half sandwich. I know that's not impressive to some people, but it is progress for me. So, I'll take it. I also went to the gym after work and did some cardio and lifting. All in all, I'm pretty pleased. 

Now, the second half of my week (i.e., Thursday, Friday, and the weekend) is usually where I fall even further off the wagon than the first half (probably because I'm a re-committer every Sunday night). So, my goal for tomorrow is to continue to work towards eating healthier (I packed a lot of produce tonight in anticipation), to hit the gym, and to do some blogging. I'm also trying to get back into the swing of taking pictures of my food, but I am seriously forgetful until I have one bite left. I'm working on it.

Cheers! 

P.S. I would like to congratulate myself on using "i.e.," so much this post. So, congratulations to me.

Day 3/365: Freight trains

Today was the first day everyone was officially back from holiday break. Every year, we do what we call the holiday schedule where everyone gets either 5 days off for Christmas or 5 days off for New Year's Eve. Since I'm no longer an intern, the holiday schedule just means more time at work for me rather than more work. The interns have the hardest job and I simply went to clinic, did some surgery, or did some C-sections. And I saw a few random consults. Now that everyone's back, we're back to a normal schedule, which is starting around 6:30 a.m. and ending around 5:30 p.m. During the holiday schedule, it's usually 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. with an occasional 24 hour shift thrown in there. But despite today technically being a shorter day, it was a real doozy. 

The person doing the scheduling put 5 residents on the obstetrics service this month, me included. We've got a few folks from other services and a smattering of medical students, but there is a core of 5. On Tuesday afternoons, 4 of them leave (me excluded), and then all the work that was previously divided into 5 is left just for me. So, that was sucktastic. Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings are going to be just lovely for me this month. Long story short, I was working my butt off.

After work, Nasur picked me up. One of headlights was out, so he had the fun job of taking me to work, getting the car fixed, and picking me up from work. We hit up the gym after work and it was crowded. It took a bit to find a parking spot. Before the New Year, parking was no problemo. I was all pissy in the parking lot about it, worrying that my favorite ellipticals would be taken, but alas, they were not! Phew!

We worked out and then came home. Nasur made dinner tonight - roasted chicken with potatoes and asparagus. I sent him the link for the recipe and he let me study while he prepped and roasted. I'm a bit spoiled in the husband department.

Dinner

The chef was a bit camera shy

After dinner, I immediately had to poop, so I grabbed by computer and figured I'd bloop. So, here we are. 

I didn't have a whole lot of time to read anything particularly useful, but shortly before dinner, a family friend emailed me to say she's reading my blog and is enjoying it. I didn't know she was a reader, but I appreciated the time she took to send me an email. One of the things that struck me was this, "It is amazing to me too when I discover people who I think really have it all together who confess they have some self-love issues." 

First of all, I rarely think I have my life together - that's one of the reasons facebook and I broke up - because I thought everyone else had their life together. Hell, I turn 30 in a few short months and I'm still not done with my education; kids are a mere thought for the future; and owning a home just isn't plausible because I have no idea where I want to practice. Everyone else my age has that shit down.

Second, self-love issues could be my middle name (that'd be fucking weird though, eh?). And I'm working to get better on that. As I once read in a self help book, "No one can stop a freight train of fuck yeah."

Yes, I shall leave you with that quote. Can't really top it. 

My motivational sweatshirt

Personal training fail

Today I was supposed to have an hour long personal training session. I was kind of dreading it because I haven't been to a personal training session in a long time, mostly because my trainer quit and also because I was afraid I was too out of shape to really benefit from anything. But I cancelled my personal training membership on August 29 and was told I had a month to use the last of my sessions. So, I scheduled about 12 of them. And then when I went to see the trainer today, I was told they were cancelled. Um, what? I had just warmed up for my session only to be told it wasn't going to happen. At first, I felt kind of stupid, like I'd made a mistake. And then I explained that I even got the email reminder and the trainer assured me that he didn't have me scheduled. So, I opted to do my own workout instead. I did some strength training and then went to see the guy who helped me cancel my personal training sessions. He realized that he misinformed me. He had his supervisor talk with me. She told me that I was supposed to have a month from the last billing statement thingy-ma-jiggy to finish my session. So, in essence, my month to finish my sessions was up on September 3, rather than September 29, like I originally thought. She appealed to her boss to give me some sessions back. Now, let me just tell you this, I've never loved this gym. I've been to a couple of different gyms - a YMCA, a community center, an independent gym - all of them have treated me better and cared about me. This gym, however, is definitely a business and doesn't seem to actually care about their members, so I'm not surprised that something like this happened. But, I do appreciate that they're trying to give me back some of my sessions. That being said, why the fuck don't I get back all of my sessions? It's not my fault that they told me wrong. I was going to use all of them and now I have to wait a few days to get them back while I could technically be using them. I'm annoyed. I'm also annoyed that, at first, I was made to feel like I deserved this to happen to me - that I was the stupid one. No. I deserve to be healthy and I deserve to have my training sessions for the 30 days after I cancelled if that's what I was told. 

In an unrelated note today, some really buff guy at the gym came up to me today to tell me he'd been watching me and told me to keep up the good work because he could tell I was really working hard. My first thought was that that was awkward, mostly because I was of course doing the hip adduction machine and was seated with my legs spread nice and wide...classy. But don't worry, I made it more awkward by saying, "Thanks, dude." Dude? Really? I chose to say "dude?" Also, how did he know I was working hard? Was it because I was sweating out of every orifice of my body. Yeah, that's probably it.

Hip adduction pose I was found in

Also, today I ate three pieces of pizza for lunch. We had a lunch and learn at work and some rep came in and brought Jet's Pizza. I don't particularly care for Jet's Pizza when it's deep dish, but when free food is put in front of me, it doesn't have to be delicious - it being free makes it super delicious. Well, I definitely wish I'd chosen something else because those three pieces of pizza were pretty hefty on the calorie and fat scale. (You can click on the picture to see the actual numbers.) 

Lunch nutrition: Calories, carbs, fat, protein, and fiber (I didn't know the fiber content)

Otherwise, I had a pretty healthy dinner. Nasur grilled burgers in the rain because he starts work tomorrow and it was our last fun dinner together. 

My grillmaster

He typically has a beef burger while I have a turkey burger just because it's a bit healthier. While he was grilling, I got my plate ready. I thought I took a picture of it, but I guess not. Bummer for you guys.

Welp, that's about it for me. Tomorrow is my long day: I have lectures starting at 7:15 a.m. (which is considered late as they usually start at 6:30) and then I've got my clinic, primary care clinic, and home call, which, despite its name, is not actually call taken at home - it's managing our obstetrics triage until the night team has its feet underneath them. It's not super fun, but we get paid for it, so I try to pick up as many shifts as I can. The bad thing about it is that you're at working until anywhere from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

See you guys tomorrow!

Breakfast (minus the other half of the bagel thin I'd already eaten) 

I ate half of these for a morning snack

Afternoon hydration 

Studying with my feet up and some goldfish in my belly

Evening protein shake: orange cream - yum!

Napping, selfies, and snacking

Oh man, guys. Yesterday I made the mistake of napping in the afternoon when I had 6 a.m. lecture today. My nap was awesome, but I could not fall asleep until like 2:30 a.m. and then had to wake up by 5:00 a.m. to get to work by 6. Not cool. I was very le tired this morning. Like couldn't even think about putting in my contacts tired because I would likely scratch the hell out of my cornea or miss my eye or poke my eye out - you know, real world problems ;-)

So, anywho, I had a lovely day at work and then came home and napped hard. My intention was two hours - turned into 4+. Oops. And then I hit up the gym and had a pretty legit workout. I easily beat the elliptical and then came home and studied a bit. Now I'm freezing my butt off in my apartment thanks to the ridiculous Michigan weather and even more ridiculous wind, pushing the cold in through all the cracks. My apartment was a chilly 61° when I got home. And even though I turned the heat on to 68°F, the heat is primarily working in the living room, so I'm camping out here while I blog and watch the Arrow. I'm hoping my office/bedroom while be warm enough once I go back to bed.

In other news, I hit up the grocery store yesterday while I was hungry, which was a rookie mistake. I bought some of my favorite pretzels as well as some chocolate, which I really didn't need. I basically turned the chocolate and pretzels into meals the last two days, which was a mistake. Buuuut, I've already turned it around. Go me! Hitting up the gym, hydrating, and not snacking just to snack. Tomorrow I'll log calories and take photos of all my food just for you/mostly for me. 

Some photos for you to hold you over until tomorrow:

Breakfast for my day of surgery

Scrub selfie (they really do nothing for your shape)

This upgrade took foreverrrrr

But look at the new colorful thinking thing!

I think that's about all I've got for now. Tomorrow I have clinic in the morning. I intend to hit up the gym after clinic, get some good studying in, and then head back to work (I have a 4:45 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift). I'll cut myself off from eating around 8 p.m. so that once I get home I am able to hit the hay and get some good sleep so I can study like a maniac all weekend. My test is on Monday (and Tuesday)!

An echocardiogram and a catch-up with friends

So the only reason I went to the gym today was my self-imposed two-week challenge. I told myself on Sunday that I would go to the gym 5 out of 7 days of the week. I chose 5 days so as not to stress myself out with saying that I needed to go everyday. On Monday, I was forced to stay at work a bit late and had a dinner planned with a friend already, so that was day number 1 that I had to miss and Saturday's gym hours don't mesh well with my work schedule, so I knew that would be no gym day number 2 this week. Thus, despite not wanting to go to the gym today, I went anyway to fulfill my two week challenge goal. It wasn't that bad since I just did cardio, but man, cardio is kicking my butt lately.

Anywho, today was my first day on primary care. I had my lectures for my program today (OB/GYN) nice and early - from 6-8 a.m. and then I didn't have to work until 9 a.m. I spent some time checking up on emails and then I drove over to the office and talked to Nasur for a bit. In the morning, I worked with a doctor and because I don't have the ability to document or see their schedules, I'm basically a medical student. This is good because I don't have to do much work, but bad because I feel pretty useless. Anywho, we had a patient with a bicuspid aortic valve. This just means that there are two parts to the valve when there are supposed to be three. This leads to some heart problems later in life on occasion and usually requires a valve replacement. My dad had a bicuspid aortic valve and he had his valve replaced. This condition is somewhat hereditary - if your parents or siblings have it, your chances of having it are slightly increased - not super substantially, but somewhat. Anywho, upon telling the doctor this, he asked if he could listen to my heart. I said sure and he told me he heard a grade I systolic murmur, which is like the quietest murmur ever. There are lots of causes for it - could be a valve problem such as my dad's - it could be anemia or it could be a trick of the ears ;-) In medical school, you're pretty much told that unless you're a cardiologist really listening for heart problems, it's usually missed because it's that quiet. But, the doctor said he could hear it and then scheduled me for an echocardiogram. So, I had the afternoon off to go have an ultrasound of my heart.

Now, ultrasound techs aren't doctors, so they're not technically allowed to say what they think or what they see. But, when she got to that part of the ultrasound, she showed me my aortic valve and it had the Mercedes Benz sign, meaning my aortic valve is normal, thank you very much. 

When I got home, I took a lovely nap until 6:30 p.m., got up, and then went to the gym with my perfectly healthy heart and came home and made a sandwich while video chatting with my two roommates from college. It was really lovely being able to catch up with them. We usually have a video chat every 1-2 months to catch up on each other's lives. It's always great hearing from them and knowing that I've got some friends in warmer climates if/when I need to get out of Michigan. The temperatures have majorly dropped this week - like 50s to 60s during the day and I am super jealous of their continued summer weather. I can't wait to move out of this cold state!

Lunch: leftover chicken parmesan

Breakfast today

Tomorrow I have clinic in the morning and then have the afternoon off, so I think I'll do a good hard workout at the gym tomorrow afternoon. Then I'm going to have dinner with one of the other interns at the Original Pancake House. They have chocolate chip pancakes that are to die for. I'll keep it chill by just getting them as a side item because the portion is smaller.

Also, yesterday, we went out to dinner as a program for fun and I took the bacon off my sandwich and didn't eat it. That's a HUGE thing for me because a) bacon = meat candy and b) see reason a.  But, it looked like it was really cheap bacon that had been waaaay overcooked and I didn't want to waste the calories on something so mediocre. I also didn't eat my coleslaw because that's all mayo anyway. Good for me!

Okay, that's it for me, folks. I'll catch you tomorrow.

Such a happy weekend

Friday finally rolled around and for someone who worked both days last weekend, it couldn't have come soon enough. But, I didn't really have any plans for Friday night. So, after work, I ran to Trader Joe's and then came home, hydrated, ate some protein bars, and then hit the gym for about an hour and 45 minutes. Normally, I usually max out at an hour at the gym, but I kinda figured that I wasn't going to be doing anything else if I were at home. So, I started out with a half hour of cardio and then did an hour of weights. Then I decided I still had some energy, so why not run a mile? However, while running my mile, I decided I didn't actually have that much energy. And about 0.10 miles in, I decided running was not my thing. But, I wanted to get a little bit of high intensity cardio in because even if it's only 10 minutes, it's high intensity which makes it last a bit longer.

So, I pulled from my memory something my old trainer liked to do with me - sideways treadmilling. Basically, you walk at about 2.6 to 2.8 miles per hour at an incline - I think I started out at a 6% incline and then after 30 seconds to a minute, you turn sideways and basically have to shuffle or else you'll fall off. And then that meager 2.6 to 2.8 mph is suddenly VERY FAST. I worked up a sweat very quickly and walked away after about 10 minutes of intervals of walking and shuffling and felt very accomplished.

Saturday, some friends and I hit up Eastern Market, which is like a farmer's market on steroids - there's so much produce! It was awesome! They also have some legit food trucks and I tried beignets for the first time ever. One of my friends explained to me that beignets are essentially fried doughnuts with powdered sugar. They were just the right amount of sweetness

Beignets 

Cool roses at the market 

Chips and guac from the taco truck

After hanging out with them, I headed home and tidied up a bit, did some laundry, called in some things I needed and had my landlord over to fix my towel rack which I ripped out of the wall when leaning on it. Whoops.

My bad

Then, one of my friends that I met on my rotation in Malawi (she lives here) came over and we got mani/pedis and then went and hung out by the beach, but didn't get in the water because apparently there's E. coli in the lake, thanks to the Canadian geese (they poop in the water and E. coli can be spread by feces) and excessive rain.

Sparkly green nails for me please!

Pretty lake

After catching up with that friend, I met up with another resident for dinner and a movie. However, we got to chatting and decided just to head back to my place (rather than see a movie) where she looked on as I made brownies to send to Nasur in Uganda.

Brownies in mason jars (to keep them fresh)

Today, I woke up at 7 despite not setting an alarm, got out of bed at 7:15 and started puttering around until I could hit the gym at 8 for some cardio. Then I hit up meijer for a few necessities and went home and was starving, so I grabbed a banana and a protein smoothie.

Spotted bananas = my favorite

Really digging these right now

I ended up making some eggs and toast as breakfast after my shower, but I needed something quick when I got home. Soon after my shower and breakfast, my mom and brother arrived and we got ready to go to see a Tigers' game. I've never been before, so it was an experience.

Downtown Detroit

Outside the stadium

Our view

Usually, I think baseball is pretty boring, especially on TV. However, in person, it wasn't as bad. I can't say I was into it as much as my brother and my mom, but I didn't hate it. I think if it weren't 90°F, I might've enjoyed myself a bit more. But basically, I was just dripping in sweat watching the Tigers lose.

Sweating with my family :-)

After the game, we came back to my place, cooled down, and went to grab dinner at a nearby restaurant that was decent. Now that they're gone, I'm blogging.

Tomorrow will be a fasting day for me. We're going out to dinner tomorrow night, so I was thinking about delaying it to Tuesday, but Monday is such a busy day for me, it's usually a great day to fast. I'll just be picky with dinner options so I stay in my 300ish calorie budget.

Tomorrow is also a weigh-in for me. I'm going to be honest, I weighed in on Saturday just to see and I was right at my goal of losing 6 pounds. However, Saturday and Sunday, I ate out a lot. I tried not to eat everything on my plate and was somewhat picky, but I'm a tad concerned that I won't be getting new shoes. We'll see!

How was your weekend? Have you ever been to a baseball game? Who do you root for?