Walls Fall Down

Finally! .... I finally had a great eating day, without even really thinking too much about it. I needed this, I really truly needed to *want* to eat right and then just do it already! So although it's only 6:30pm, I still have 250 calories left, I have eaten one million vegetables and had almost 100grams of protein (which means that is 100grams of carbs - probably in the form of chips and candy - that I didn't eat). I haven't even had a craving for anything bad today, which is a great accomplishment because my life has been overrun with them lately.

Yesterday was a particularly bad day. I had a horrible exam and I decided that I needed to calm myself (as I seem to do often) with food. Kind of bingey actually. A bag of chips, swedish berries, mini reese peanut butter cups, Wendy's (kind of ironically with a side of baked potato), a chocolate bar earlier in the day and a bagel for breakfast. It was all I ate, but considering it's 95% fat, I surely ate 1000's over my daily limit. I felt sick later in the night, but I just didn't stop myself. It was a way to calm and comfort myself and even my way of procrastinating studying for the next one... ahem... which I am certainly *not* doing right now. I don't really regret the move yesterday, I wanted it, so I ate it. Looking back I just wish I had picked different foods to binge on. And considering it flicked a little switch inside to eat well today, then I am alright with that.

I went grocery shopping today to get tons of vegetables and it is officially my goal to eat every single thing I bought today (haha... although, obviously not all in ONE day). I need to get in the habit of using up what I buy; I am pretty sure I have everything that I could ever want, and I really want to stop wasting food, it costs too much money. I want to try to keep my grocery bills under a 100 bucks and go about every 1.5 -2 weeks. That's doable, right?

I haven't exercised this week, but I am sure I'll get back into it when I have the time. I remember early last week I got on the treadmill again and it was a wonderful feeling. The first time I ran 5 or 6 minutes straight and didn't even feel winded - I stopped because I don't want to screw my knee up again... but the next day I was tempted, so I ran again, this time my full mile. It was great. It felt so great to feel every muscle in my body activated. I wasn't going as fast as I did early this year, but I still felt a twinge in the knee later on that day. Damn it all to hell. I need to find some effective tibial band exercises/stretches - I refuse to give up running, especially when the nice weather is finally here.

I am very excited for the weekend (despite the fact that I should be studying) because I think I found a bistro table set to go on my balcony so I may enjoy the outdoors a little more! I already have some string lights on the railing and just need some seating and some extra light. Can't wait! And also I need to go shopping to get a decent wardrobe for my clinical work (which starts in just over a week)! Exciting... I haven't been shopping in a while... let's see if I can lose some weight before then (or at least get back down to the 205s-ish).

Have a good night!

One Fine Day

Haha.... I had to Kathy... I had to use the title..

So I decided to join Kathy on her 'One Perfect Day' challenge, where for one day you had to do everything possible to make it a good day. And I think (for once) I have succeeded. I ate lots of vegetables, ate just within my calories - believe me it was difficult to do so - and drank most of my water (I'll finish it up before bed). I wasn't able to exercise, but considering I had an exam this morning and a very scary exam coming up, I don't really feel comfortable giving up 2 full consecutive hours to bike riding and weight lifting (at least not until this next exam is over, all the others I couldn't give to shits about). So anyways... it was great to finally feel hunger for the first time in a long time. Oh how I have missed you wayward daughter...

I have been avoiding wearing my smaller jeans the last few weeks because I know what will happen when I put them on, they'll be tight and uncomfortable and I didn't want to remind myself of what I was doing. But this morning for my exam I had to put them on, and yup... just as I thought. Uncomfortable. It was a little scary because I know that I have lost weight before and I have put back on that weight. I didn't want to admit that this is essentially what I am doing again if I don't stop myself now. I don't know what has happened the last little while, but my sheer frustration and also apathy for school (and other areas of life) has spilled over into the health aspect... or really, the eating aspect. I keep thinking that I deserve the foods that I am eating, or that it's a special occasion, so I'll stop when it's over. But the special occasions never stop... eventually another one arises. I can't let myself eat like every day is a special day, I have to get back to a normal, healthy, everyday sort of diet.

I managed today, so let's make it two days in a row with appropriate caloric intake, some water drinkage and maybe if a walk if I get tired of being indoors all day. I can do this... I can get back on track. One day at a time, right? That's all it takes...

Cannonball

I think I might be done counting the days, frankly it just getting harder and harder to figure it out (especially when I leave 6+ days in between posts these days and apparently I am an idiot at math) - so I don't know if I'll forever give it up... when I think about it too much it feels like I should probably keep going with it for tradition-sake, but... here's to change! So for now I'll just keep going with my song-name titles.

Potluck was last night, so I refuse to weigh myself in the next couple of days... I need that time to recover from the amount of food we had. There was sushi, pasta salad, lasagna, mac n' cheese, caesar salad, potato casserole, korean noodles, cheesecake, cupcakes, beer, apple pie. It went well, but it was definitely a little nervewrecking the first little while as these are not my best friends, they are my new friends from class, so I would actually have to entertain them to a certain degree, keep the conversation going. I was really afraid that they wouldn't have a good time and wouldn't come over ever again... haha, yes, I know I am unreasonable, but that just seems to be how a woman's mind works. So it was a little quiet to begin with, but once people had some beer in them, and more food arrived, all was well. We played some boardgames, chatted and most of all... ate and ate. My cheesecake was a hit, so I am super happy with that, although the huge amount of vegetables I cut didn't get eaten, so I suppose that is what I'll be munching on for the rest of the week (which is really atonement for this past week).

So... on to a review of the past few days... exercise did go really well for a couple of days, so well in fact that I was almost too sore to go on Wednesday; my back and ass really ached, so I figured giving the muscles a little break was better than keeping on straining them. On Thursday we had a softball practice (and on the most gorgeous day ever), we played... I mostly pitched, but by the next day, from bending down to pick up balls and even from throwing and catching, my ass (still) hurts, my back (still) hurts, my shoulders and weirdly... my hands...frankly I didn't even know we had significant muscle in our hands. Oh yes.. and the burn.. I did put sunscreen on, but totally forgot about my legs, not cool. I now have this weird looking red-sock thing going because the damn burn only goes halfway up my calf (damn capris), and my chest got burnt with little spots on the back of my arms. Anyway, the pain in those has started to recede, so that's one positive.

The food was never good... I couldn't keep myself from munching. The days would go by fine, but then by the evening I would continually make trips back and forth to the kitchen. This is certainly the way I procrastinate and it's going to make me fat again if I keep it up. I don't quite know where the motivation went, I thought that being back at the gym would make me avoid the bad stuff as to not ruin all my hard work, but instead it seems to just justify it a little more. Now that the potluck is over, and I seriously need to get down to studying, I am going to make a more concerted effort to get the food in control. I just need to keep myself busy (STUDYING).

Alright.. and as for pictures... Me... dancing? I think? (obviously this is the unedited version...)

One Year and 45 Days: Tourniquet

Alright, I am making myself a plan of attack for the next week to get myself back in the habit of ‘healthy living’ so to speak.

(Note: the definiteness of these statements)

I will go to the gym Saturday to Sunday (haha... next Sunday) with no breaks. I have the time and I like doing it – this should not be a problem.

I will drink my water every day for the week.

I will log my food every day for the week.

I will take my bloody vitamin every day for the week.

I will actually manage to eat a vegetable or two each day (I figure I should start small on this one).

These are totally doable steps. I am not saying I will be perfect, but I think by just getting back in the habit of doing these things, everything else will fall into place. And I know that the exercise is a huge part for me.

On to the rest of life: I have managed to survive the week and I am pretty sure I’ll still be a student by the end of the month, so all is well with me! What a relief it was to walk out of my last (venipuncture) practical yesterday. I had to keep repeating the steps in my head over and over, because on our informal evaluation I wasn't using a good sterile technique, I didn't check the damn solution, but I am pretty good at finding the vein on those super obvious fake arms (especially when you can see the students' 400 other pinprick attempts on it). When it came down to actually do it, it was great - all went fine. I really wish that human's veins were as easy to find, but I will worry about that later. If anyone would like to offer their arm for practice, I am always looking for willing participants... :)

I am having a potluck/housewarming (and yes I realize I’ve been living in my place for about 4 months now) on Friday and I am really excited to have people over. I haven’t had a nice group of friends over here yet, so this will definitely be interesting, also because my place isn’t exactly large. My dad finally brought over my last few pieces of furniture, so now I am technically all set in my place - I just need to arrange it all. I am not yet sure how I need to feng shui it, the inspiration has yet to hit. But at least it means I actually have more than a love seat and a papasan for people to sit.

And my hair! I am preparing to get a nice picture, but it's been rainy and gross outside, and frankly I haven't really had an excuse to get all dressed up in the past few days, so the moment I do have a picture I will post it on here. When I attempt to let the hair curl it doesn't turn out really well, it just ends up getting super big and making me look like a child... with triangle hair. Oh well... I guess I just have to curl it the old fashion way with a curling iron.

Alright I am off to rearrange my place, eat some vegetables, exercise and all-in-all not think about school for a day! Have a great weekend...

One Year and 41 Days: Breakaway

I have been thinking about posting for a long time, however because I have had little time to think about nutrition, let alone follow it, the blogging always seemed to get pushed aside. It was always on my mind though. And after a wonderful email I got from Melly (thank you!) I am back after a slightly-longer-than-necessary hiatus. And honestly I have not even glanced at the scale in probably two weeks.

I have actually been busy. I swear I haven't been just sitting on my ass all day stuffing my face with sweets (although, that may have happened once). I have been internally freaking out the past week about my two practicals that occurred yesterday and today. My entire semester was pretty much riding on them. One of them I didn't do so well in, but the other went perfectly, so all-in-all I think I'll be back to school next semester. To prepare for the practicals I have been staying late several nights at school practicing with our equipment as much as possible and as important as that is... man, it is utterly exhausting. I have been averaging 6 hours of sleep a night which is not nearly enough. So needless to say exercise has fallen aside and I really hate saying that when now I am paying for a membership. Although now that my stress-inducing practicals are over (the worst ones anyway), I am planning on taking a trip to the gym tomorrow morning. Only one practical, one presentation and one assignment left. Still counting down the days.

In other news... it's beautiful outside lately! After being couped up in school all day I got off a couple subway stops early just so I could walk part way home in the sunshine. Tougher than I thought considering it's partly uphill... but I needed to soak up the sunlight - winter was getting me down.

I have been cooking a little more lately... chili one day, honey pecan chicken another, tons of veggies are sitting in my fridge, but the past few days I have been ignoring them for the convenience foods. Staring at them everyday makes me feel guilty, so maybe I'll actually gather some up tomorrow for lunch/dinner. School can't really be my excuse anymore... (of course, I reserve the right to use it at opportune times).

I had an interesting experience on Sunday... My friend Emma invited me to a hair show where she was going to be a model for her long-time hairdresser. She told me that I could come with her, see the show and get my hair done for free... so thought why the heck not? (despite the fact that I have been growing my damn hair for ever) When I got there it was this huge deal! where tons of companies were set up with stages and demonstrating tables like Redken and Jessica Simpson's hair company, etc. It turned out that I was going to be a hair model and get my hair cut on stage (a small stage... nothing too scary). But, I had no idea. As a large girl I never even would have thought that things like that can happen. And really it wasn't that big of a deal, but the fact that the label 'model' was associated with me felt so juxtaposing. I couldn't help but wonder whether the hairdressers thought I was appropriate for it. Nonetheless, I got my hair cut... into a bob! Not exactly long anymore. I was a little upset about it, and wondered for a long time whether it was worth it, but it's only hair. If I want to grow it back... then I will... it will just take a long time (this is me being super reasonable). I will admit I love short hair, it's fun to play with, it's sassy (it's a little like Katie Holmes' hair...), but I still want to know what it feels like (and looks like) to have the long sexy hair that so many women have. So it was an interesting day where crowds would stop and watch as my hair was cut, some would take pictures and I would never know if I should look at them directly or avert my eyes - a very surreal experience that I probably will never do again. It wasn't horrible, but certainly wasn't emotionally fulfilling in any way (okay... but it is fun to call yourself a 'model' for a day - even if you don't feel you quite deserve the title).

Alright... I am off to get a little work done before bed. I hope to get back on the blogging bandwagon this week!