Walking pad

During Jeff-Bezos-takes-all-my-money days a.k.a. Prime Days, I bought a walking pad. It arrived at work last week (because I shipped it directly to work because I'm no dumb dumb) and today was my first full day of using it and let me tell you, it was awesome. I got 6k steps before leaving the office. Normally, I get between 2-3k steps. So, I was killing it. This was also a good thing as, after leaving work, I had more stuff I had to do and couldn't get a work out in. Here's hoping I can keep up the good work!

More to come tomorrow, but first, off to the land of unconsciousness! Random photos to appease you

Day 9/365: Working to exhaustion

So last week got really busy. On Thursday night, I came home absolutely exhausted. I've worked every single day since December 27, which, by the time the weekend rolls around, will be 18 continuous days of working. And don't get me wrong, I love my job, but I don't love doing my job as often as I do. Anyway, Thursday, I came home and slept at like 6:30 p.m. and skipped the gym because my knees had blown up and I figured a day off was merited. On Friday, we bought a car, and after work, Nasur picked me up in his new wheels and we met up with a friend for sushi and a card game. I insisted on being home early since I knew I had to do a 24 hour shift the next day. Saturday, I woke up nice and early around 5 a.m. and then stayed up working until about 8 a.m. the next day. I slept a bit and then we drove the two hours to Midland to pick up my car (since Nasur had driven it to Midland on Friday to buy the new car), had dinner with my mother and Mark, and then we drove back home. We got home around 10 p.m. and then I slept for about 6 hours before having to get up and head to work again. It's been crazy. And today, as I was driving to the gym, I was on the phone with my mom and was complaining about how tired I was. She essentially said, "No shit you're tired," and then I opted to skip the gym again to head to bed early tonight. My goal is to be in bed by 7:30 p.m. so that I can get at least 9 hours of sleep tonight. 

Anyway, because I've missed the gym, I've been trying to be good about my eating. I kind of flubbed up over the weekend because there were interviews and they have Panera cater and I was left alone in a room with the leftovers all night. So, I wasn't eating super unhealthy things, per se, but I did have more to eat than I needed. Also, I took last night's dinner as an opportunity to eat more than necessary. But, I'm back on the tracking train and today was a good day. My dinner tonight was some laughing cow cheese wedges and pretzel chips because I wasn't that hungry and because cooking seems like too much work. 

I also weighed in this morning and had a loss, but not much. Probably because I could have done better with my eating on Saturday and Sunday. Anywho, I'm going back to everything full force tomorrow. I just really needed a rest day. Like really, really bad.

Nasur and his new set of wheels

Friday's sushi - Nasur and I split it

After Sunday dinner

Today's weigh-in

Today's selfie - hello, under-eye bags, and red eyes - sooo tired

Thanks for tuning in! Cheers!

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!

Awesome first day!

Well, let me just say that I am super pumped about this month after today. Sure, there were slow points. Sure, there were the I'm-so-tired-an-explosion-in-my-pants-wouldn't-wake-me points. But, mostly, I'm really thrilled with the nurses and doctors I get to learn from. And that's enough about that - work will stay at work!

Waking up at 4:15 was rough today. I got out of bed and my left temple was pounding in protest. I took something for pain and went about the morning. I knew I needed to eat a hearty breakfast because you never know when food'll be an option in the OB world - it really can be feast or famine. Anywho, today's hearty breakfast was two egg whites + 1 egg, cantaloupe, strawberries, and a slice of banana bread I made on Saturday.

We get lunch for free at work - it's in a place affectionately known as "the trough." Do with that what you will. It's mostly decent food, but there's no such thing as fresh fruit (unless you count the overly waxed apples and oranges). There is salad that once upon a time lived in a bag somewhere and there's usually something pretty okay. Today, I heaped half my styrofoam plate high with salad/lettuce and the other half had some kind of lemon pepper fish and a BBQ chicken drumstick. Then I went hungry until a suture representative brought the interns cookies. I definitely had a few as my stomach was causing me physical pain. Then we hung out for a few more hours before my first rep dinner with people trying to sell us equipment. So, I had a pretty awesome teriyaki chicken with some veggies and a little bit of rice.

Given that we were at the dinner until 8, I opted out of the gym because my butt (and the rest of me) needs to be in bed. But, tomorrow night I have no excuse dinners, so don't worry - I'll be going!

I think that this is going to take a bit of getting used to. My bowels weren't sure what to do with all the lettuce today and turning down dessert at dinner was hard, but hey - it's a treat! And I wasn't celebrating anything. Plus, I've got some delicious fruit pizza this weekend to look forward to.

Also, thanks for all the love and support - with comments and emails! I'm going to have an easier time because of all of you! I especially liked the comments about keeping it slow and steady and not going for the all or nothing. Making positive changes should be gradual - I've learned from my own past that going balls to the walls only results in pain. When I focus on all or nothing, I usually just fail and then I really let myself spiral into a pity party that isn't pleasant for anyone.

More photos (I kinda forgot today) and a weigh-in on Monday (forgot that too!) for you to look forward to! In the mean time, have you ever had to talk yourself into being okay with a gray area or imperfection?