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!

Weigh-in and wanting to eat all the things

So, today I decided to weigh in. It's been a while since I've taken a picture of my weight to share with you guys. Probably because I'm not consistent and it's embarrassing...

But, there you are. My goal for next week is 233.2 pounds. I'm hoping I meet it with my increased exercise, my intermittent fasting, and my challenge to myself to take the stairs more often. Speaking of my intermittent fasting, it was so hard today. This is probably because I wasn't busy enough to keep my mind off my belly. Usually, when I'm fasting, I'm super busy, doing a bunch of C-sections, or running the board, but this morning, I simply had a gynecological surgery that I was waiting to go do. And in the afternoon, it wasn't crazy busy - it was just normal busy. So, I wasn't very distracted. I almost opted to go home to eat first versus going to the gym first because of how hungry I was. I knew that would be a mistake though, because once I'm home, I become one with the couch. So, I made it through my day fasting. When I got home, I was like this: 

Instead, I munched on some pickles, ate a cheese stick, and put together a sandwich with some pretzels. It must have been my lack of eating anything all day, but man oh man, the flavors were legit today. I really savored the tastes of everything I had and it was delicious. The most delicious thing was my dessert glass of Egg Nog. That shit is delicious. I understand that Egg Nog can be a polarizing topic, but if you hate it, you're wrong entitled to your own opinion.

Tomorrow, I have a personal training, which should be good. I am still in lots of pain from the squats over the weekend, so if I die, it's because of too many squats. But, mostly I expect personal training to be good so it will be, damn it!

Anywho, that's all I've got. I'm crazy tired because it took me a while to fall asleep last night and because I woke up stupid early. Peace out, folks.

One-week Challenge and Getting Back on the Train

Since I last blogged, I really didn't make much of an effort to eat any better. I kinda figured I'd wait until after Thanksgiving, which would allow me to eat whatever I wanted without guilt tripping myself. So, I did just that. I also let myself skip the gym more than necessary, telling myself [again] that I'd wait until after Thanksgiving. Now, however, I'm working on getting back on track for two reasons: 1) I can feel the effects of not exercising (I'm waaaaay cranky all the time) and 2) Nasur's fiancé visa was approved (!!!!!) and I want to feel like I look at least a little better when I see him next.

So, I've begun intermittent fasting again and going back to the gym. This week was my first week back to the gym after a two-week hiatus and today was my first appointment with my personal trainer in a month. I don't think we did anything super remarkable, but I felt like death afterwards. It may have been because I've been having diarrhea since yesterday, but when I got home, all I wanted to do was lay in bed forever. However, I only laid in bed for an hour because my friend Adam and I had planned to go to see the Nutcracker at the Detroit Opera House. I've never actually seen that ballet live before and it was a great performance. Afterwards, we braved the cold to go get some sushi, which was worth it. Since getting home, the diarrhea has picked up in frequency and decreased in viscosity. It's pretty miserable. I'm hoping it magically resolves overnight because I have a lot I want to accomplish tomorrow.

In other news, I'm going to do a one-week challenge for the gym to really get myself back on the train. I work every single day from the 7th until the 30th, so I figure I'll work really hard for this first week and taper my gym visits to 3-4 times a week as I get more and more and more exhausted. So, the challenge starts tomorrow! Wish me luck! 

Some recent eats/dog photos:

Cold spaghetti - yum!

Breakfast

Bailey

Bailey, Mayzie (and Katniss in the background)

My go-to sandwich

Great training session

I got out of work late again today, but not nearly as significantly late as I did yesterday. I was also a sweaty mess at the end of the day and was trying to decide if I wanted to go home to change into my gym clothes and sacrifice some elliptical time or if I wanted to just hit up the gym and who gives a shit if I looked disgusting. I opted for the latter. I got in a good 45 minutes on the elliptical before my personal training session. I was having a hard time keeping my heart rate up on the elliptical. Usually, I can get my heart rate up to the 150s-160s, but today I was consistently in the 125-150 range. I thought that by including pumping my arms on the elliptical that I would get my heart rate up, but by getting my legs going faster and holding on the the arm grip things, I found I got my heart rate up a bit higher. But, nonetheless, I still had burned less than 400 calories by the time my session was supposed to start. Fortunately, Jack put together a great full-body workout and I was able to burn another 300ish calories by the end of my session with him. It was challenging, but I felt great by the end. So, kudos to me.

In other news, tomorrow is my last day on gynecology and I'm going out with a bang with five surgeries tomorrow. I think I'll let tomorrow be a fasting day given how busy I'll be. I mean, if I'm not going to have time to eat, it'll be a great day to fast.

Other than that, nothing too exciting today. I had some surgeries in the morning and then had clinic in the afternoon. Tomorrow my only plans are to go to work, work out by doing some cardio, and then study.

Food for today (that I actually took a picture of):

Breakfast 

Dinner

Not pictured is the strawberry protein smoothie I had this morning, the apple I ate between surgery 1 and surgery 2, the salad and chicken I had at lunch, and the two hershey kisses I grabbed in the afternoon.

FitBit emails

So today I didn't end up fasting because I didn't have any surgeries this morning and not eating was really hard cuz I was super hungry and had nothing to take my mind off it. Fortunately tomorrow I'll be a bit busier. So, it'll be a good fasting day. I think I'll also fast on Friday so I can get my two days in.

In other news, I've been taking the stairs a lot at work lately. And I've been wearing my fitbit while doing it, so it records all my steps and the number of flights of stories I've climbed. Today I've climbed 21 flights of stairs. And, I got this email:

I kinda like that FitBit emails when you accomplish something. They also give you a weekly breakdown of your steps, your laziest day, the day with the most steps, etc. So, that's kind of a nice way to keep yourself motivated on top of buying yourself new shoes [next week hopefully].

Today I also had a personal training session. My knee has been bothering me, but I kept at it. I did about 50 minutes of elliptical before my training session. Then we started with squats with weights. I didn't love that, but when he offered to take off the weight, I felt like it wasn't a great idea because it wouldn't be enough of a challenge. Anywho, I'll definitely be taking some ibuprofen tonight.

That's about it for me today. I was terrible about taking food photos today. Oops? Catch you later with some food photos...I promise!

A few bad days doesn't mean failure

I have to admit, I had plenty of time to blog over the weekend, but I didn't want to blog over the weekend because I was eating poorly and I didn't want to admit it. I binged a bit on Saturday and felt bad about myself. And I didn't start to spiral, per se, but I did get into the whole, "Well, you may as well call today a wash," type of feeling. Today, however, I had personal training with my new personal trainer, Jack. And I was a bit nervous because I hadn't been to the gym since last Wednesday given my crazy work schedule - Thursday was late stay (until 6:30), Friday was later stay (until 11pm), and I worked Sunday and Monday (the holiday that most everyone else gets off). Sooo, yes, I could have gone to the gym Saturday, but I was all: I want the afternoon and evening to be with my friends and my morning to catch up with life at home (i.e., cleaning, balancing my budgets, etc).

Anywho, I digress. I met with my personal trainer today and I was nervous because of the lack of working out. I know it hadn't been a full week, but I was all, "Oh, shit. I'm going to be super out of shape and he's going to notice and judge me." And then you know what? I rocked my workout. I got in a good 28 minutes of elliptical before my session and then I rocked my session. Jack had to remind me to take breaks because he told me I was being too much of a machine. But, I wanted to keep the energy up and keep my heart rate up, so I kept on going. We focused on back, triceps, and something else (probably biceps given the way my arms are feeling). I'm probably going to be all jiggly armed tomorrow, which might be a bad thing given the fact that I have 6 surgeries...

Anywho, the eats today were decent. The trough (which is where the residents get free lunch) was legitimately all carbs. I grabbed some veggie lasagna (one scoop) and then one scoop of mac and cheese (which was SO GREASY) and filled the rest of my plate with salad. I ate a pear as well and then was treated to a yogurt by a co-resident when I complained that I was still hungry.

Tomorrow is going to be a fasting day, which should be relatively easy with my back-to-back surgeries. I'm thinking I may also fast on Thursday and Friday because my sweet tooth has been majorly flaring and a nice food reset may be in order. We'll see.

Today's breakfast

Today's dinner

The Memorial Day weekend team

Sunday night reading by the lake

I love being so close to the water!

That's all for now. No weigh-in this week - I'm on my period and I didn't want to face the scale after my overeating this weekend. I'll do a weigh-in next Monday!

What do you do when you've had a bad eating day or meal? How do you convince yourself to hop back on the wagon?

Return to blogging + weight loss

So it's been a while since I blogged for a few reasons. First and foremost is that the ER is ruining my life. I. Hate. It. I can't really go more into it without turning into a majorly Negative Nancy, but second, the hours are also stupid and I get home around 8:30/9:00 every night, so the last thing I really feel like doing is cracking open the laptop to blog. Buuuut, I promised a friend of mine I'd blog and I'll try to start up again, even if it is a bit late by the time I get home.

In other news, I had personal training yesterday and we finally did a weigh-in and some measurements (just BMI and body fat percentage). I'm glad we did that because it majorly adds some motivation. He likes to check every 2 weeks and I feel as though that's nice in case I have a bad week. However, we never really set a weight goal for my next weigh-in. So, I guess I'll just try to lose reasonably? Also, we weighed in after a workout, which is silly, in my opinion, cuz I'm typically covered in sweat. So, here were my measurements:

• Weight: 239
• BMI: 35.3
• Body fat: 38.6%

Also, my weight was way different than my scale on Friday, so let's go with the lower number ;-)

I'm also still fasting twice a week. I've been doing Mondays and Wednesdays rather than Mondays and Thursdays. It's pretty easy to do in the ER because the patients just keep on coming, no matter what the time.

I'm also still going to the chiropractor. Last Friday I threw my back out about a half hour before I saw my chiropractor. It was majorly painful and it felt slightly better after he adjusted me (he said I threw out my sacroiliac joint), but it took another 3-4 hours for the pain to go away. I also had a surgery scheduled with one of my clinic patients and standing throughout that was terrrrrrible. I cried right before we started and cried right after. The pain was overwhelming. So, I learned one thing: labor is going to be the worrrrrst (I'm not pregnant). Fortunately, the pain didn't return. Usually when I throw out my back, the pain lasts for a week. I'm going to go ahead and assume that it's because of going to the chiropractor that things got better so quickly.

That's all I've got right about now. I'm pretty boring since I work all the time. Anything exciting in any of your lives?

Busy life and feeling down on myself

Sorry for the lack of the blogging lately. I've been stupid busy lately, which I'm sure no one saw coming ;-)

Since chatting with you on Tuesday, I've met with my trainer again, seen Trainwreck, gone to bed at 7:30 and worked until 11 p.m.

On Wednesday I had another training appointment with Troy. This time he created a circuit for me that was pretty hard. First, I did plate pushes, followed by step-knees (where I held some weights and stepped up on an aerobic step), followed by plate pushes again, followed by inchworms, followed by push-ups, followed by sit-ups, followed by battle ropes. I did that twice and then did a circuit where I kept doing the activity until he told me to move on to the next one. After that, I did some wall sits and then did some more battle ropes. It was a hard, sweaty workout and I'm glad it was a full body workout - last time we just focused on back and shoulders and I felt as though I didn't get that great of a workout. This time was way better. After training, I rushed home to change and run to Jimmy John's before meeting up with some other residents to go see Trainwreck, the new Amy Schumer movie. I thought it was pretty good. I'm not her biggest fan given that she can be a bit crude, but I laughed a lot and enjoyed myself.

On Thursday, I was really tired. Likely from staying out so late (read: past 10 p.m.) and I ended up really slowing down during the day Thursday. Thursday was also a fasting day, but I didn't do a great job because I went to Trader Joe's after work and ended up eating a whole bag of turkey jerky (which is only about 250 calories), but I also ate a bunch of watermelon and shrimp. So, I went over my calorie goal for a fasting day and felt kinda shitty about it. Shitty enough to weigh myself Friday morning and discover I'd made no weight loss progress.

Friday I had the distinct pleasure of working the long shift - 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. My Fridays are usually pretty chill with ultrasound in the morning and clinic in the afternoon. Then I covered consults and C-sections in the evening and there were a lot of them. Go figure. But I liked being able to stay busy until I got to go home.

Today I woke up, showered, and went to see the chiropractor for the first time. Given that I'm an MD, most people in my profession think that chiropractors are not real doctors since they never went to medical school. However, they learned something I never did: how to manipulate people's musculoskeletal system. Anywho, since about May, I've been waking up with really bad low back pain and hip pain. It usually goes away a few hours after I wake up, but it's pretty excruciating when I have it. So, I decided it was time to give something a little less traditional a try. 

The chiropractor explained to me that my SI joint were probably out of whack. He explained that lying still on a misaligned SI joint could lead to the kind of pain I was having in the morning and then he adjusted me. He told me to take the rest of the day easy and the real test would be after I'd taken a nap or gone to sleep for the first time - basically, would I still be in pain after waking up? Well, I'm happy to say that after waking up from my nap today, my low back didn't hurt for the first time in at least a month. So, I'm pretty pumped about that. My hips are a bit sore, but I'm pretty sure that's because things have been so massively adjusted. I'm planning on going 1-2 times a week for adjustments for a while. He's being very kind and working with my schedule to allow me to come after work.

Those are my highlights. My lowlights have been some crummy feelings lately. I think I expect a bit too much of myself personally and professionally. I still feel as though I don't know what I'm doing at work and that I have so much to learn that I'm never going to be a competent physician. I know I have to suck for a while, but I'm having a hard time swallowing that pill. I'm used to putting in a lot of work and seeing some rewards, but no matter how hard I try, I'm still slow, stupid, and not so great. On top of all that jazz, I haven't lost any weight this week. So, I'm just a bit down on myself. That being said, I was told by a nurse this week that I was the star intern, so maybe I shouldn't be so damn hard on myself.

Anyway, I'm headed off to work a night shift (7 p.m. to 7 a.m.). Then tomorrow I'm headed to see a med school friend, who will likely help me ground myself in real expectations.

Three photos for you:

Dinner/breakfast today

Thursday's breakfast

Wednesday's breakfast

What do you like to do when you're feeling down? Depending on how down I'm feeling, I'll either talk to someone, work out, or completely avoid all the things.

Living my life rather than letting it pass on by

One of the things I stopped doing in medical school was living my life. When I wasn't tied to my books, I felt as though I should have been and punished myself by not letting myself do things I really enjoyed, by not being healthy, and by not treating myself with respect. I'm going to try really hard not to do the same thing in residency. Yes, my job is important. Yes, the health of all my patients really matters to me. And yes, I want to do my absolute best all the time. But I don't want to lose myself again. I don't want to stop living life. I don't want to skip the gym because I feel I haven't earned it. I don't want to say no to social times with friends because I should be studying. In all honesty, an hour is not going to make or break me. And that's something I kinda reminded myself in fourth year (when we had a lot more free time). And that's also why I'm hoping I can sustain my blog this year.

Anywho, one of the reasons I didn't blog last night is because some co-workers went out to grab dinner and drinks later in the evening and of course, I had to go. But, I went after I worked out with my new personal trainer. I'm kinda skeptical about this trainer. Having worked out with a personal trainer before, I felt like the intensity was much lower than what I was expecting. That being said, Troy explained that yesterday was kind of a baseline check  for him to see what I can do. He seems like a good guy and I was very honest with him. I told him I would be using him as an additional source of accountability because I will lose weight and work hard if someone's keeping track with me, but I have a harder time/won't do it if I'm just doing it on my own. We're going to do weigh-ins and measurements and all that jazz, but he says he only likes to do that once a month. I personally think that once a week weigh-ins are better because it keeps me better motivated if the scale doesn't change in a week. He says that if I have a bad weigh-in he wouldn't want it to affect me. But we'll see. I might be able to wear him down. When I worked out with Mark, I used to have a 3 pound a week goal. I think that's pretty reasonable, but I think Troy is intending me to go a bit slower. We'll see. I have no problem telling him he needs to push me harder.

Other than that, things are pretty okay. Today was my second fasting day. It was a lot harder than it was on Monday because I sat idle during a lot of the day given that I was on triage when we had our PA (physician's assistant) who handles a majority of triage. I worked on my knot tying and chatted with the med students and other residents. I also did some circumcisions and made some calls I'd been meaning to make that I hadn't had the time to make up until this point. I did as much as possible to stay busy because you definitely feel the hunger more when you're not doing anything. I know it'll get easier because I used to fast in Uganda all the time - going home for lunch was too much of a pain in the ass. So, it was breakfast around 8 a.m. and dinner around 9:30 a.m. with some mango juice for lunch (which doesn't exactly count). Today, however, I had my typical breakfast and then had a buttload of shrimp for dinner since I was really hungry. I also opted out of the gym since we didn't get out until a little after 6 and I wanted to eat ASAP. I also wanted a chill night at home since I haven't had one of those in a while. I watched America's Got Talent and I'm going to head to bed soon, I think.

Two photos for you:

Breakfast (not pictured: yogurt protein smoothie)

Dinner

Thanks for the yummy dessert recipes! I'm thinking I'll try baking something this weekend after I hit up Eastern Market (a massive farmer's market in Detroit). Now, does anyone have a low cal dinner recipe they'd recommend? It would majorly help with my fasting dinners that should be about 300 calories max.

Personally Trained

So today I had my free fitness consultation at L.A. Fitness. I got up early enough to shower (I needed to shave - I know showering before working out is stupid) and eat some breakfast. I grabbed a towel and water bottle and then headed to the gym where I met with Brandon. 

We started out the session setting some basic goals. I said I wanted to lose weight, increase my energy, and feel more confident. We went more in depth of previous work out experiences I've had and talked about what made me successful and what barriers I had to overcome. Then we set some number goals and established our starting point. I already did all my weights and measurements this week, so we just did the body fat percentage thingy that looks like this:

If you've never used one of these, it's not rocket science. You input your age, weight, and height and then hold this thing straight out from your body. I couldn't tell you the exact science of it without googling and regurgitating, but when I saw my body fat percentage, i was bummed: 40.8%. I knew it wasn't great, but I was hoping I had a bit more muscle tucked in that fat. 

We headed to do a work out after the numbers game and let me tell you - I remember why I like personal trainers so much. Back in the day, I had a personal trainer (Mark for readers of old), and it was great! I had some accountability, was able to learn how to exercise properly, and I had someone rooting for me in my corner. Plus, it's nice to just go and do something instead of having to figure things out for yourself.

Anywho, the workout was great, though it was only about 20 minutes. We kinda did a few things to see where I was at. We started with push ups. Yikes. I could do 20 girl push ups, but I plopped down at the end of every push up, so I wouldn't really count that. Then we did planks and I was able to hold it for about 30 seconds. Next up was the wall squat. I could've held that longer, but he told me that obviously my legs were strong and I was pretty well set in that area. Then we did a few exercises just for funsies: medicine ball throws, sit ups, things where I hopped on and off a step, a bunch of arm and back exercises, and some other goodies I'm probably forgetting. By the end, I'd sweat quite a bit, but I was glad. Brandon was super encouraging.

Then we went back to this desk where he tried to sell me some personal training packages. I signed up for the 3x/month package. I would've loved to sign up for more, but it was pretty expensive. They promised that even if you only saw your trainer once a week or so that they would write up personalized work outs for you throughout the week if you wanted them. So, let's say I met with the trainer Monday and I said to him, "Give me 3 strength training workouts until I see you again." Between sets and reps, the trainer would write up something for me and then I'd just follow that on my own. Additionally, the trainer I'll be working with is a registered dietician, so hopefully he'll be able to help me on that part too.

I signed up for a year of training and hope to really make some positive changes. I can't wait to get going, feel stronger, and feel more confident!

Have any of you ever had a personal trainer? What are your thoughts?