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

Pizza Pizza!

Today was a lovely day. I got to the gym after work and opted to spend an hour just walking because I'm off tomorrow and want to take my time when I start lifting again. Then I went to get the kiddos, but spotted Nasur pulling out of daycare with the kids. So I told him I was craving pizza and we opted to get some Little Caesar's. It didn't hit the spot so great. I wanted something more saucy and more cheesy, so maybe I'll make some pizza myself later on. My brother and mom introduced me to a really excellent Detroit style pizza and I make it when there are special occasions because it's a bit of a time consuming process, but totally delicious. Anyway, I only ate two slices and one crazy bread, which is crazy little pizza for me. Granted, I did have another slice 2.5 hours later, but typically I eat way more than that. 

I also am having some pain in my knee already. I was almost at my hour mark and had to decrease my incline and slow my pace. For our after dinner walk, I wore my brace and will try to start making it a habit to wear at the gym. The extra support really helps. 

Anywho, I'm really looking forward to vegging in front of the TV tonight. Tomorrow I'm off and have a massage planned and a financial planning session planned. That, and my intention to lift and maybe try out a new recipe will keep me pretty busy.

I forgot a lot of food photos today, but I accidentally skipped breakfast and then had a yummy lunch with a cookie. I had a protein drink later in the day on the way to the gym as well.

Today's lunch - I'm really digging this new skinnytaste gyro sandwich

No loss

Yesterday marked my last day in Ann Arbor. I left relatively early (around noon), but don't you worry. I got a picture of the bearded dragon before I left!

Now, wouldn't you be thoroughly creeped out too if you had to feed that thing crickets? I was certain she was plotting how to escape her cage and attack me, but I outsmarted her.


On my way home from Ann Arbor, I stopped in Birch Run and bought two new pairs of shorts and a bathing suit bottoms since I really needed them. When I got home, I headed over to my mom's to enjoy the warm weather in the pool. While she was doing her laps, I stole her kindle and began reading The Hunger Games. Then, because I'm awesome, I loaned myself the book to read later. Also, as a bonus, my mom fed me! We had sloppy joe's, sweet potato fries, and zucchini. Yum!


After losing to her at Skip-Bo, I headed home to unpack. However, instead of unpacking, I finished reading The Hunger Games and loaned myself the second book in the series to read. After getting tired of reading, I tried going to sleep, but I had a lovely headache that kept me up until 1:00 a.m. when I finally gave in and got up to get some advil. I was able to sleep within the hour, but decided against going to the gym in the morning since I wanted to sleep more than 3.5 hours. That, however, probably wasn't a good choice. I had my weigh-in with Mark today and didn't lose any weight since last week. Then as we were working out, I admitted that my knee was bothering me and he got even more frustrated with me because I never wear my knee brace. Why? Because I hate the damn thing. It cuts into my skin right where my pants brush my leg every time I bend regardless of wearing the sleeve to protect my skin and putting all the padding on the brace. It takes forever for the cuts to heal and I'd rather not wear it when my knees are doing well. So, Mark got annoyed with me because he said it's hard enough keeping things low-impact and I'm just disregarding my own health. Blah, blah, blah. My knees have been doing pretty darn well lately so I'm going to keep on doing what I'm doing. If I feel as though I need my brace, I'll wear it.


And to make matters worse, Mark took my kindle since I didn't lose any weight and now I've got nothing to read at the gym in the mornings. So it's going to take twice as much effort to motivate myself to get to the gym. Ughss.


So after the gym, I went to my mom's and started crying about how I'm not losing weight, how I don't have my kindle, and how I've disappointed Mark. Yeah, not fun. She was supportive though and had made an ultra healthy dinner for us: chicken with sauteed veggies. Thank goodness for her. After dinner, I mowed the lawn and then came home to blog to you to tell you that I'm going to redouble my efforts. I'll be the first to admit that I could've been more active this weekend. But since I wasn't, I'll have to be super active tomorrow and the rest of the week. Fortunately, Matt has planned a pretty active weekend for us in Grand Rapids, so I'm sure I'll be fine.


And I'm still eating well. Here's proof!

Breakfast: bagel thin with cream cheese 

Lunch: sushi and English muffin pizzas

Tomorrow morning I am going to head to the gym for heart rate cycling and at lunch, I will be picking up my bike, which is finally fixed! And then after work, I have more training with Mark. Wooo...

My sexcessory (a.k.a. sexy accessory)

Today I woke up super early again, got dressed for the gym, and then, once again, decided against going since my stomach was still a bit unsettled. And because I'm lame. I really need to get back on my game. Because even though it was super difficult to get up every morning last week, I can honestly say that I felt a lot better.


At work, I didn't do much except learn about the industry online again. So, yeah. An eventful morning. Sheli, on the other hand, was having a rough morning dealing with our UK counterparts, so she suggested we go to lunch at Big Apple Bagel's. I got my favorite sandwich ever, the smoked turkey and havarti on an everything bagel. And then we went to the bakery next door and I got this little gift from heaven:

You can see some of the things I learned today in the background (yeah...coolant leaks...super exciting!) It wasn't as delicious as I thought it would be, but I ate the whole thing anyway.


During the afternoon, I picked up my knee braces and talked with Amy (the brace lady) about how to put them on properly. They're not nearly as awesome as I was hoping they would be. They feel really weird, but they're supposed to completely unload my joints when I wear them.

They're also way bigger than I thought they'd be (that's what she said). They extend about 7 inches above my knee and about 8 inches below them. But I know I'm going to have to fight the men off me when I'm wearing them at the gym. Also, they come with a cute bag so I can tote them around with ease.

Anyway, I'm kind of nervous about my weigh-in tomorrow because the numbers aren't looking too good. Guess we'll have to wait and see! Stay tuned for what will probably be my first weight gain since I started the blog. Booooo.

Giving into temptation rids you of temptation...

So, since I talked about portion sizes yesterday, I think it'd be fitting to tell you all about my day today and how I didn't bother with them yet again.

So Sheli brought in Cadbury mini eggs. Now, if you've never had them, let me assure you: they're crack in chocolate form.

crack Cadbury mini eggs

It wouldn't have been so bad if Sheli had just left them in the bag (out of sight, out of mind), but no, she put them in a beaker (the chemist's equivalent of a candy dish). So, basically, the eggs were sitting there screaming at me to put them in my belly. And since I'm not one to say no, I ate them. A lot of them. Mostly I waited until Carrie and Sheli weren't in the office and then ate like 6 at a time. And this didn't happen just once. It happened several times. So, I looked up how many eggs were technically in a serving. Twelve. I'm guessing I had somewhere between 2 and 3 servings. Probably closer to 3.


Now before you jump to comment below about how bad I was, it gets worse. At lunch, there was a "crock off." People brought in crock pot dishes and there was a contest for best dish, etc, etc. Well, I decided to go home for lunch where I could control my calorie intake and so I could get some shorts for my knee brace fitting later.

My lunch!

But when I got back to work, they were just breaking out the dessert. And guess what it was? An assortment of mini cupcakes. Really? Now how could I say no to that? I couldn't. Duh. So, I had two. I mean, they're mini cupcakes, so two's not that big of a deal. And then I made a second trip to get two. After that, I made a third trip. And then a fourth one, though I only got one during my fourth trip. But if you do the math quickly, that's seven mini cupcakes, which is about five too many.

So, by this point you're probably getting ready to write me a comment telling me how disappointed you are, but don't worry. I did something worthy of redemption - kinda. Well, it's going to start out sounding bad, but it's not that bad. So, about a month ago I bought fudge from Carrie (it was a fundraiser for her kids' school). Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was setting myself up for trouble. But it's fudge from Mackinaw Island. And it's been featured on Food Network. And it was only $6. And it was for a good cause: the education of tomorrow's leaders. I had to.

But, because I know myself, I decided I need to do something to make myself accountable for not eating the whole delicious block in one day. Because, not to brag or anything, but that's not even a challenge for me. So, I took the block o' fudge out and decided to trace its outline on a piece of paper and then eat an appropriate serving size.

Outline of block o' fudge

Fudge with a ruler so you can get an idea of its size

Block o' fudge missing a chunk

Also, after eating this chunk o' fudge, I put it in one of the cabinets so as to forget about it for a bit even though I'll probably be obsessing about it for a while. I'll try to post a pic everyday, but there will be some days when I hopefully will have forgotten about it completely so I don't eat it all too quickly.

In other news, my knee brace fitting went well today. I should have them in maybe 2-3 weeks. I'm excited about them because they basically will force my knees to be aligned the proper way and should improve my range of motion. I mean, I can't get too crazy and go running, but I should be able to do some more cardio exercises with Mark. I also checked with the nurse about the synvisc injections and she's supposed to call me back within the week about scheduling that.

For those of you who have reached this point in my daily ramblings blog, I want to thank you. It's hard for me to talk about my downfalls and obsession with food. And it's even harder to put myself out there and admit to eating 7 mini cupcakes. But I know you'll support me. Tomorrow will be better. And instead of beating myself up about some poor decisions, I'll channel that energy into my work out. I've just got to keep at it!