Sweets and parenting

I've been craving sweets lately. I have a pretty significant sweet tooth and then I looked at my Garmin period tracker and everything makes sense now. During the few days before my menstrual cycle, I want all the sweets. ALL OF THEM. In my belly. RIGHT THIS INSTANT. This is also the time where it's REALLY hard for me to keep my portion sizes in check because I'm constantly hungry. My mom and I went to Costco tonight and I had a food court hot dog and then I opened the popcorn we bought and snacked at the table. Then we got home and I ate crackers with dip. And I just finished another popcorn snack. Now, what I was more aware of was stopping with serving sizes that were far more reasonable than what I could have eaten. I counted out my crackers. I used a smaller bowl for my popcorn than I maybe would have historically and I didn't go back for seconds. So, winning?

Today I had my back pain resolving massage and did a walk with a friend and then another treadmill walk to watch the new episode of Only Murders in the Building. So, I moved my body today! I also had my first parent-teacher conference and cried almost immediately at the start of the meeting. Reyah's teacher literally started the conference with, "To start, do you have any questions for me?" And I just started crying and was like is she okay? Is our divorce harming her? I just want to know that that little girl is going to be alright. Raising kids is stressful! I'm constantly worried about how I might screw it up. I also had my first volunteer experience today, which further cemented the fact in my mind that teachers are fucking angels who are severely underpaid. I didn't manage to significantly embarrass Reyah, but will have another opportunity to do so next week, so we'll see!

Another old photo since I can't be bothered to photograph anything lately. aa

Fourth of July with the kiddos

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?

So many questions - please help!

Well, it's been a while yet again since I've blogged. The good news is that once it becomes the magical month of September, I'll be able to blog some more. The bad news is that I'm still one ER shift away from said magic. I cannot continue to stress how much I hate the ER. I am so, so, so glad that there are nurses and techs and doctors who want to do that for a living because I will never, ever, no matter how much someone was willing to pay me, want to be an ER physician ever again. 

Okay, now that we've covered that, we can move on. The weight loss thing is still going pretty well. I really did enjoy being able to go to the gym before work this month because I think that's a great thing for your metabolism, but there's no way I'm going to be able to keep that up with 6:00 a.m. report times. To be honest, this is mostly to do with the gym hours. The gym doesn't open until 5:00 a.m. and there's no way I can fit my workout, shower, breakfast, and commute into an hour. However, I was thinking about signing up for a free 30-month subscription to Daily Burn and trying some at-home workouts before starting my day. Has anyone tried it? If you have, please give me your thoughts!

I'm still fasting twice a week. In fact, I fasted today since my stomach was a bit off before I went in to work and not eating may have been a good thing. It was slow as fuck at work today, which makes fasting harder than when work is just passing you right on by. However, I was able to stay in my calorie goal for my fasting days if you don't count the half a handful of chocolate chips I just ate because I was super craving something sweet and that was the only thing handy.

Other than that, I'm working on some things in my personal life: budgeting, studying, and getting ready for my third board exam. I just spent the last few weeks trying to figure out how to set a good budget for my income (residents get paid less than minimum wage if you divide our salary by our 80-hour work weeks), how to fit in some studying throughout the day, and how to apply for my last set of boards (for a little while). For me, if you take your third set of board exams within the first 18 months of residency, the program will pay for it. Sooo, yup. Definitely going to take advantage of that. That's $815 I won't have to worry about.

I'm also getting ready for my friend's wedding in October. She recently asked me to officiate her wedding in addition to being a bridesmaid. So, if anyone has ever done that and has some thoughts, I'd be happy to hear them.

For now, that's about it. I'll weigh-in tomorrow and do a post on my weight loss while celebrating being done with the ER for life!!!

Tests and menstruation: a post with TMI

I am so ready to be done with two things: this test and menstrual cycles. As of today, I have one legit study day left and I'm so, so, so tired of studying. I'm doing fine on my question sets and I just don't want to study anymore. I'm over it. O. V. E. R. it. Last year when I was prepping for Step 1 (the first board exam on your way to be a doctor), I was freaking out all the time, crying, not sleeping, stressing to the max, and so on. This time around, I'm more chill. Why? Because I won't fail. I've studied a lot. I've put the things I'm being tested on into practice and can actually recall things because I've done them. So, we'll see how it goes. Also, Step 1 is basic science (read: basically useless) and this is practical stuff.

Also, today marked the first day of my period. Not cool. Kinda my fault though. I'm usually on a birth control pill (OCP). Why? Because it makes my periods 1000% better. I get diarrhea really bad the first day or two, cramp a bit, and bleed a lot. With OCPs, all these things disappear. But, I'd been noticing a bit of breakthrough bleeding with the last few cycles, so I wanted to do a reset and what better time than my month off, right? Wrong. Now I'm going to be bleeding during my 9 hour exam on Thursday (I just looked up how long it was going to be - I thought it was only going to be 8. Womp, womp). Awesome. So that means most of my break time will be spent rushing to the bathroom to make sure I'm not bleeding errwhere. Major bummer.

And it totally ruined my workout today. I was going to crank it up a notch (a.k.a. add 8 minutes to my normal elliptical routine), but after a half hour, I had to call it. I was cramping up like nobody's business and once I got home, my bum exploded. So, staying at the gym would have been a mistake.

In other news, taking ibuprofen for my cramps made my ankle feel better. So, that's an intelligent thing that I should have expected. Also, in other news, I made zucchini bread today because I really, really wanted something sweet. I'd been toying with the idea of making it but was afraid I'd binge and eat the whole loaf. So, I decided I'd head to the farmer's market to pick up some beans and then grab a cinnamon roll from Heaven/the Amish. The farmer's market was a bit bare today, likely due to impending thunder storms and the fact that it was Tuesday. Thus, no Amish. Thus, no baked goods for me. And I really effing wanted a cinnamon roll. So, instead, I came home and whipped up some zucchini bread. While it cooled, I hit the gym and was abused by my uterus and so I had a bit after my stomach calmed the eff down.

That's it. I gotta get back to hating my life/being bored forever studying. 

Photos for today:

Breakfast

Morning snack

Lunch - didn't want a sandwich, just the meat

Baking makes a mess

But then you get zucchini bread!

Dinner?

More salt for stomach settling

Another slice o' bread cuz it was gooooood

Bread for stomach settling

This is how we blog every night. Me in the lazy boy with my lazy boy

Today's positive: Listening to my body even though I wanted to keep going because I wanted a longer break and wanted to get a better workout in. Also, not eating the whole loaf of zucchini bread/not bingeing!