Not enough hours in this struggle of a day

So, today started out crappy and it didn't improve much.

I had my weigh-in today and let's just say - it was not what I was expecting.

That is a 0.4 pound difference from last week, which could be rounded down to zero. So, that was not what I was hoping to see. I felt as though I was on point with my eating last week (minus Thursday), but maybe I'm overdoing it on the carbs. So, I figured today would be the first day I tried out the FastDiet.

In short, the FastDiet is a 5day-2day diet where for two of the days a week, you essentially fast. You eat 600 calories total split between breakfast and dinner. And the time between the two meals is as long as possible. Since today was also the first day of my period and I rarely get hungry on day 1 of my period, I decided to give it a whirl. I had a mostly normal breakfast (minus the yogurt protein shake) and had a protein shake + leftover salmon for dinner.

Breakfast

Blurry pic of dinner

So, I have no disclosures to make - I don't work for FastDiet, I don't get paid by them or anything, but I learned about it while in Malawi. One of the docs at the hospital I worked at did the FastDiet to lose weight. Supposedly there are a bunch of health benefits to fasting (read the book if you're interested in learning more), but the basic science behind it is that when we first inhabited the earth, we lived in a truly hunter and gatherer society where there were times of feast and famine. During the times of famine, we essentially fasted, and that's what our bodies are actually used to, and that's how they function best. The author backs it up with lots of literature and his own experience. He gives you all his medical tests pre-fasting and then shows them to you all again post-fasting for a while (I don't remember how long, but it wasn't long). Anywho, everything was better post-fasting. Now, the other thing he did was compare it to just normal calorie-restricted diets and it seemed to be having more positive health effects faster. Soo, anywho, I decided to give it a whirl. And let me tell you, given the way today went, there basically wasn't any time for eating anyway.

However, a little after lunch time, I was asked if I'd gotten lunch. I said no and that I was fasting. I was met with mostly some "suit yourself" and "whatever"s, but one person asked me if I was basically trying to starve myself thing. No. The answer is no. You go back to eating normally on the days you're not fasting, but you fast two days a week. I figured since calorie restricting wasn't helping, why not try something new? I'll give it my best go this week and report back. Today wasn't hard at all. In fact, after the day was done, I was mostly just dehydrated.

But I could have been dehydrated from nearly bleeding out (not really) this morning. So, when I went to put on my backpack this morning, I thought my backpack strap had pinched my upper arm. It really stung, but as I was on my way out the door, I mostly ignored it and moved on. However, once I was in the car, I took a look to see if it had already started bruising because I pinched it hard. Nope. Turned out, I had ripped through the middle of a mole/skin tag on my arm and it was bleeding profusely. So, I grabbed the scub shirt I wore yesterday (I was taking it back to exchange it for a new one) and stripped off my shirt, put the dirty one on, and used the bloody one to hold pressure while I drove to work. Once at work, I grabbed some tissues on the bottom floor near the entrance and held pressure until I got upstairs and a co-resident bandaged me up. And I left my bloodied shirt on the front seat of my car. I'm sure any onlookers would've been majorly grossed out. Oops.

So, that start to my morning (shitty weigh-in, nearly bleeding out), kinda reflects how the rest of my day went. I understand that starting out as an intern is going to suck and there's going to be a major learning curve, but yikes. I doubt my doctor abilities like whoa.

And to top it off, I hurriedly did some grocery shopping tonight and bought a big ass watermelon only to find out when I cut into it that it was totally going bad. I tried a piece to see if some of it was salvagable, but nope. So, goodbye $5. Does anyone know if you can get your money back for bad produce that you tossed? I mean, I took a picture of it...

You nasty, watermelon

It can only go up from here though, right? Even if I literally didn't have time to get to the gym today because I stayed so late at work and then had a bunch of HR, insurance, and all that bullshit to do and will likely have a sore back tomorrow, things will be okay, right? SOMEONE SAY YES.

How do you deal with really bad days? Do you have a certain person you call or talk to? A certain activity you like to do? Some advice please!

First day doing it all

So, let's start out with the number that you've all been waiting for - my latest weigh-in (you can see all of my weigh-ins here)!

So, next week, my goal is to hit 240.2 and if I do, new tennis shoes for meeeee!

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, but at the same time eventful because it was my first day trying to juggle life as it will be for the next two weeks with no time off - not even a weekend!

After my weigh-in, I showered and made some breakfast. My breakfasts always tend to be the same, so eventually you'll get bored of seeing it. That being said, if you have any suggestions for yummy, low-cal breakfasts, I'm all ears!

2 egg whites + 1 whole egg, sourdough toast, watermelon

On my way out the door, I grab a yogurt protein shake - it's my way of trying to avoid snacking too much before lunch. But, when breakfast is about 7 hours before lunch, that's hard to do ;-)

This is an old photo I have so you can see the protein shake

At work, I made it until like 8/8:30 before my stomach started audibly growling. I had some new belVita breakfast bars in my bag and I had 2/4 of them, but gobbled down the other 2 like an hour later. I also ate an apple that I had from last week.

I got lunch around 12:45, which was pretty decent - I managed to take a picture of it today as I walked down the hall. About half my plate is bagged salad (beggars can't be choosers), there's some curry chicken which was pretty moist, and then some fish casserole thing...? I don't always know what I'm eating, but I appreciate not having to cook. There's a pretty decent selection and I try to fill at least half my plate with salad. That being said, they only have two options for salad dressing: ranch and italian. So, tomorrow I'm taking my own salad dressing - it's healthier and yummier :-)

After lunch, I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off. I think about 10 women delivered this afternoon. But it was so great! I hate sitting around idle, so, to me, being busy is awesome. I learned a lot today and got in a lot of steps! My fitbit (like most fitbits, I think) is set to 10,000 steps a day and I definitely made it today.

Once I headed out around 5:45, I ate a fiber bar, rehydrated, and headed straight to the gym - not the one near work, the one near where I live. I like the feel of that L.A. Fitness better. Plus, I kinda like the anonymity. I majorly sweated it out during an elliptical session and then headed home where I ate some watermelon and drank insta-urine raspberry green tea crystal light.

It looks like urine, but it's not

ALL THE MELON IN MY MOUTH

I had to wait a half hour to cook my quesadilla dinner and I needed a little something to munch on until it was done given that it was already past 7. 

Trader Joe's got my back

Half an hour to bake this thing

Dinner + fat-free sour cream

I did some reading for work, restocked my gym bag and am getting ready to hit the hay. One of the things I'm trying to think about is how to pack healthy snacks. At work, I usually need something super portable, but I don't love the idea of eating packaged food all day - I'd like to get some fresh fruit in there. Any ideas? What's your go-to healthy snack?

Exploding melons

Did you know that watermelons could explode? Me neither. You see, I typically buy two watermelons every week because it's summer and they're in season and they're almost out of season so I must have as much watermelon as possible before that happens (read: I really like watermelon). So when I woke up this morning and saw that my watermelon had a crack down it, I was confused. I thought maybe Bailey had attacked the watermelon, but there was juice coming from it, so maybe not. And then I touched it and it felt pretty hollow. So I guess it exploded and then juiced everywhere?

Exploded watermelon

So, yeah. Four garbage bags later (had to layer it to make sure it didn't leak), I had that cleaned up. The nice thing was it kinda smelled nice. But I'm bummed that I have less watermelon, but it could've been worse.

In other news, the big test is tomorrow. I tried to keep today as normal as possible because I don't need to stress myself out. First thing was a gym trip. I pushed myself a bit today in terms of getting my heart rate up which lead to a great workout. I felt awesome after. I came home and studied some more. I'm going to do a bit more review before bed and then I'll be up about the same time tomorrow so I can hit the gym before I go take the test. I want to get my blood pumping and endorphins going before sitting for 9 straight hours...

I went and checked out the testing site today (it's about 10 minutes away from my apartment) and took a look at the locker situation. The lockers are a bit small, so I'm not sure what food I'll end up packing. I picked up a Jimmy John's sandwich for tonight and I grabbed one for tomorrow too since my other option would have been making my own, which wouldn't have kept as well in a locker. I'm thinking I'll also take some zucchini bread, some pretzels, a fiber plus bar, some grapes and some blueberries. Watermelon doesn't keep so well without some refrigeration. I'm hoping that I'll be able to go the 9 hours without getting hungry. It's hard to take a test while you're hungry. 

Other than that, good luck to me! I'm off to review a bit more. Here are today's pictures (apparently I never took a picture of my lunch today - whoops):

Breakfast

Post-gym protein

Looking more like an ankle everyday

Swelling is going down!

My foot is still a bit strange color-wise though from all the bruising going away

It looks dirty, but it's just blood breaking down, I promise

Afternoon snack

Dinner for tonight

Dessert (there are 2 slices there, btw)

Today's positive: not freaking out about my exam and trusting myself.

Portion control

I almost didn't go to the gym this morning. I didn't get out of bed until a bit after 8 and I really needed to do a lot of work on my personal statement today. But when I was getting up from my desk to make some breakfast, I had some low back pain and I knew I needed to go work it out. I did most of my strength training routine, minus the core work so that the muscles could relax a bit. It was a pretty decent workout, but I didn't go until after 10 and the gym proved to be rather crowded. That will help motivate me to get to the gym early, I guess.

In other news, I finished my personal statement. And I studied. A lot. I also went to Zumba and ate a lot of good stuff.

Today's weigh-in

Breakfast

Protein smoothie

Lunch

I could only eat half because it's pretty hefty in the calorie department

Snack

Snack

Kitty in a window!

Today's positive: only eating half the mac and cheese despite wanting all of it.

So many photos. You're welcome!

Ah, the internet. A wonderful thing, which when randomly removed from one's life, causes one to go into a blind rage and hate all things Comcast-related. In short, my modem crapped out on me. When the service tech came today, he took one look at the modem, declared it "ancient" and then replaced it and voilà! Internet has returned and one could rejoice! Hallelujah. But, really, Comcast wasted 3+ hours of my time, so I'm still not a fan. And after my discussion with the tech today, it sounds as though Comcast is slowly making its way into changing legislation so it can indeed have a monopoly. That will be a dark day, my friends. A dark, dark day indeed.

Moving on. After the tech left, I ate some b-fast because I was starving and then hit the gym for a weight lifting session. I debated over waiting until the afternoon and going to yoga, but I wanted to shower and get the rest of my day going, so just lifted some weights.

Breakfast

Pre-gym carbs

Post-gym protein

Then I did something called studying. All day. Well, I also cooked some, did some laundry (I've been hitting the gym twice a day on some days, so my gym clothes were running low), and watched Parent Trap while doing little things (cooking, laundering, wasting time...).


I also uploaded photos from my camera and will now post all of them on here because I love you. You'll notice that some of the more dinner-appearing meals are labeled "lunch." That's because I'm trying to have my big meal in the middle of the day, rather than at the end. Also, it gives me a lot more time to procrastinate on doing the dishes ;-)

That's about all I've got right now. I'll be up early tomorrow to hit the gym and then spend the rest of the day on my butt studying until I hit up Zumba. I really like Zumba so making 2 gym trips is totally worth it.

Breakfast sometime last week

Snack

Hard boiled eggs = protein punch

Breakfast

Breakfast

Post-strength training protein

Monday's weight (I think) - I already mentioned I've been gaining/bingeing...

Protein again

Breakfast

Thursday's weight...yikes...

Snack

GOUDA sandwich

The gouda sandwich plus watermelon

Snack

Protein snack

Snack

Another snack

Breakfast

Yesterday's lunch

Dessert

Half of this was yesterday's dinner

Noms

Today's lunch

Fiber/dessert - these cookies are only good after being submerged in milk

Snack

Snack

Snack

Treat! This is my favorite and I bought 1 at meijer to have with my pizza

Tonight's dinner

Brownie in a glass pre-microwave

Post-microwave

Today's positive: PRODUCTIVITY EVERYWHERE. Cleaned the cat litter, took out the garbage, did laundry, did the dishes, cooked, studied, did lots of questions, watched a movie, updated my iPod, got internet. BAM, BITCHES.