Right now I'm 30.  Monday was my birthday.  I'm freaking out.  Not over the decade change - I spent all of my twenties in school, so I'm looking forward to reaping some rewards.  I'm freaking out because I have to:

 

 

1. Plan a wedding (mine - woo hoo - October 2.  2,000 miles away.  Five bridesmaids in 5 states.  Ack.)

2. Find a job after I finish residency

3. Finish a book proposal for a self-help book

4. Lose 15 pounds

 

As you can see, I have successfully avoided doing any of the above by creating my own blog site.  Also, I painted my fiance's trim in his living room.  He knew about this, but I got a worried phone call -- "the paint dried so fast that you were able to do two coats already?" "Um, yeah."  I like painting trim.  It suits my meticulous nature.  But I've lived in apartments, dorms, or dad's house my whole life, so I never got to paint anything until now.  I don't know all the secrets yet.

 

Usually I am not sitting around too much.  Usually I am working.  As a resident I work a zillion hours a week, and tomorrow I will be on call at the hospital.  Maybe I can slip away to get to the gym, but who knows.  Tonight is my special birthday dinner out somewhere.  I'm wearing a cocktail dress, which is a huge mistake.  First of all, I have a horrible rash that prevents me from trying on wedding dresses, and also it's downright Antarctic outside and I am going to freeze my ass like Scott in the South Pole even with my new little black spangly shawl and thigh-high Victoria's secret boots.  One must sacrifice class for anti-frostbite measures sometimes.

 

Weight loss.  I never tried it until last year, when I did Slim-fast.  I did great - lost 15 pounds.  Then I hit a plateau and went web-searching.  I found Skwigg.  She's amazing, and I'm rather embarrassed about how often I visit

her blog.  Anyway, she acheived her amazing physique via Body For Life. Now, I personally think Bill Phillips is a nice guy, but kind of a goon, really, and his writing is rather young.  But he put together a damn good program.  If I could do interval training without popping joints out of sockets and had a freezer bigger than a breadbox (I live in Boston), I might even follow the plan.  I know.  We always have excuses.  But my version of the program got me strong as hell, but no change in pants size or weight.

 

Then came October, when I took a break, and November, and December... well, I was working out until I got the stupid rash.  Now I'm starting back again, 6 pounds for the worse since September.  Must lose 10 pounds before I try on wedding dresses... I'm apt to talk about diet and working out non-stop so maybe I will stop.  My meticulous nature can make dieting an obsessive's dream.  I get to computerize all my meals and calculate all my nutrients.  I can eat chicken breast 18 times a week and wilt spinach on a daily basis. Some people might not consider that good fun --

 

My fiance is a nurse.  He probably thinks I'm nuts, but that's okay, as long as he marries me.  Then I can buy an elliptical trainer and put it in his basement (tt won't fit in my apartment, that's for sure!).

 

All right, that's enough.  Have a lovely day.

 

Monday is always difficult for me.  I know.  Wah.  Mondays are happiness  and cake and pop rocks for everyone else, right?  Problem is, I work until 9:30 tonight.  That's around 14 hours and that's too long. 

 

Don't get me wrong.  I used to work 36 hour shifts before they became illegal (residency requirements).  But 14 hours of (mostly) psychotherapy can be draining, and I do another 12 hours tomorrow. 

 

Fortunately, this monday morning I got to work at my usual time and discovered no patients had been scheduled for the first hour of my pharm

clinic.  My 9am also cancelled, which left me an hour and a half for fun and games (like blog-building).  My supervisor would like to think I was reviewing the latest JAMA Archives, and I have the door to the office closed so she won't be disillusioned.

 

Had I known, I would have brought a change of clothes so I could hop across the street to the gym.  Between a 14 hour day, winter clothing requirements, and the fact that I bring all my meals in Gladware entree containers, I have yet to come up with a solution for gym clothes.  When I make more money (someday) I will just have to get a locker.  Maybe get a more sophisticated carrying case than the navy blue backpack I've been lugging around for 5 years now.

 

Speaking of gladware containers, here's what I'm eating today:

 

1. cottage cheese, yogurt, diet pepsi

2. green tea, apple

3. brown rice, chicken breast, spinach

4. balance bar

5. brown rice, chicken breast, spinach

6. ? - maybe kashi go lean + milk?

 

My jump back onto the eating well wagon has gone okay so far.  I think I've lost a pound.

 

The pound did not come off Saturday night, however, when my fiance took me to Meritage for my birthday dinner -- very fine.  I highly recommend it.  They even gave me a little tasting menu (the meal I ordered) wrapped in a red

ribbon to take home with me, so I can share the contents with you --

 

 

White vert jus tossed blue sky mesclun and endive salad over grilled french beans

 

Wood grilled lamb t-bone with black tuffle gnocchi and red wine essence

 

Fromage des clarines with apricot almond compote and toasted abruzzi bread

 

Spice Pumpkin Lattice Napolean with poached cranberries and honey whipped cream

 

Not exactly dietetic, but the portions were small (wee apricots with wee cheese and thin thin thin croutons), so in the end I had a bit of everything without being stuffed.  And I loved the 2oz servings of wine - so each course could have a matching taste.  Fabulous. 

 

Yum!  I love my fiance.

 

 

 

Yesterday all day I thought it was the 13th.  I always get confused about the

days when I work on the weekends.  I think that after this page I will blog in a more sensible reverse order - adding new entires to the top instead of the bottom of the page.

 

I'm really slacking off with exercise this month.  I detest complaining about that, like life is just too hard, I can't get moving... ugh.  I can.  I just don't want to think about it first thing in the morning when I'm late and in a rush to get to work.  I don't want to carry all the extra crap around -- gym shoes and smelly clothes.  It's a real issue because I am basically itenerant and have to lug all my crap around wherever I go during the day, whether it be clinic or the hospital or another hospital.  Most places I don't have any area to leave my stuff.  Next year will be worse, though, so I have to figure this out.  It's not a very glamorous blog topic.

 

Today I brought white tea to work to drink.  It doesn't leave that bottom-of-a

-parrot's-cage taste in my mouth like green tea does.  It's expensive as hell, though.  I was feeling extravagant.  A long time ago.  I hardly ever drink tea, until this week.  You never know what is going to stick and become a habit. I never thought I could eat 10,000 chicken breast a week or that I could combine cottage cheese, oatmeal, egg whites and call it a pancake and LIKE IT.

 

But working out.  I love weights.  I love lifting them and hard muscles and body lines and seeing fat melt off.  I hate cardio unless it's a really complicated aerobics class with lots of flailing around, but those seem to have disappeared in the days of spinning, pilates, and mixed classes.  Of course they are out  there, and I love pilates too (at home, admittedly, not in front of people), but it is one more thing to complain about.  No more blog bitching!

 

Meals today -

 

1. cottage cheese and yogurt

2. 2 (small) butter bakery cookies brought to group supervision

3. whatever they have at grand rounds, with the fattiest/carbiest stuff removed

4. salmon, brown rice, peas, low-fat cheese

5. chicken breast, spinach, brown rice

6. kashi golean crunch + skim milk

 

Triumphantly I did not partake of the chocolate bonbons or bagels passed around this morning, nor did I order any Girl Scout cookies.  Tuesday morning meetings are murder on the diet.  Not sure why, but in the normal course of things I hate bagels.  I hate the mothy smell, the texture, the mouthfeel.  It's like eating floury glue. Somehow on Tuesday morning they seem like a good idea, and to add protein the cream cheese seems like a really good idea.  Suddenly

I've blown a quarter of the day's calories, there's no gym in my future on busy Tuesdays, and my pants get incrementaly tighter.  But not today!

 

Adieu

 

4:51 pm addition => Ack, today was not such a good eating day.  At grand rounds I had the ham sandwich without the bread + lots of garden salad (no dressing).  But they also had HUGE chocolate cookies that were quite delicious.  Well worth it.  But I was very hungry again at 2:45, so I ate my midafternoon meal.  Fine.  I think I packed those portions too small (it is so easy to go overboard with rice in a gladware entree container), because by 4:45 my stomach was rumbling like crazy and I still have two more hours of

patients before I can go home and eat.  I went to the vending machine and the only thing halfway healthy was peanuts.  Opened the bag, they were stale... ugh.  Ate a few and tossed the rest.  So I'm 75 cents poorer and still hungry.  I

did well last week, felt full, eating great, feeling great.  Now, since yesterday, I've been starving in spite of eating a little extra (threw in hot cocoa yesterday

100 cal and the three extra cookies today.  Well, we'll figure it out.  The good

news is I have 60 min of walking, between coming and going to work and going and coming to grand rounds.  Also got 16 flights of stairs in. 

 

I just need to work out in the real way.