Exhaustion.

It's 8:45 pm. I'm about to go to bed. Old woman? No, just the overwhelming exhaustion of a medical student.

Weigh-in tomorrow. Kind of nervous.

Workout: 3 mile run.

Food: 1238 calories.
Breakfast: Cinnamon Oatmeal and black tea.
10 am: Vanilla Chai tea
12 pm: Tofurky Sandwich on an Oroweat Naturals Sandwich Thin - my first time trying these. I like how thin they are, so my vegetables can shine! And an apple.
4 pm: Trail mix
7 pm: The last of my Cholent (stew).

Finishing off the stew means I get to cook something new tomorrow, I just haven't decided what it will be.

Stay lovely.

This week = crazypants.

It's a crazypants week. Between class, clinic, research presentation prep, psych clinic and studying it feels like it's nonstop, but I'm on track I guess. I still feel enormous though, which makes me enjoy everything else less. :(

Weigh-in: Skipped it. I want to wait and see a bigger loss later. Besides, at the "healthy" rate I'm supposed to be going, I shouldn't be seeing loss every day necessarily, and that's just depressing, so I've decided on Monday and Friday weigh-ins. So 3 days until I'll be updating that.

Workout: 4 mile run.

Ode to my Running Shoes

Oh my lovely Asics

And my RoadID

My reflective little yellow shorts

You're a little bit breezy

You carry me on for miles

and I feel strong in your grasp

Thanks for making these smiles

And shrinking my lovely ass.

Today I learned...

1. All about glomerular, developmental and cystic kidney disease.
2. How to treat fungal infections.
3. Why the airway resistance increases in bronchitis and asthma.

But that was class; other things I learned:

4. I really don't like textured soy protein. I don't like the taste, and whoever "textured" it does not know how delicious things are textured, because that's not it. It will not deter me from my culinary adventures though, experiments aren't always flawless. Anyway, the point is that I made Cholent (a Jewish stew) from Veganomicon for dinner, and it's the first of the recipes that I really haven't loved. It's still good, and I'll enjoy my leftovers I'm sure (now that I've scooped all the textured soy protein out), but I just wouldn't make it again.

5. With no traffic, I can make it from here to my boyfriend's in 2.25 hours. 

6. Weekends = love. Regular week = :(

I had an awesome weekend with my boyfriend and friends. Here's a brief summary:

a. We went out to eat - Mexican friday night and Thai for saturday lunch. 

b. We saw Blue Valentine (I loved it, but I love heartbreaking movies. This is not a feel-good one, but it gave us lots to talk about.)

c. We cooked for a whole bunch of people at boyfriend's apartment - Spinach Linguine with Basil-Cilantro Pesto and Artichoke Hearts (from boyfriend #2 - Veganomicon). I would eat this for the rest of my life. I couldn't even believe how great it was. And I was so relieved, because sometimes feeding a vegan meal to a large crowd can go awry. 

d. We went out in the evening to celebrate our friend's birthday.

e. We went for a nice 5 mile run by the beach. This is the first time boyfriend and I have ever worked out together in 4 years of dating. He didn't break up with me after seeing my exercise face, so that's great.

f. We walked up and down the main street, browsed some stores. We looked at really expensive kitchen gadgets and dreamed about our kitchen together someday.

g. We went to the art museum, mostly because we happened to walk by and it's free on Sundays. Nice surprise.

h. We drank coffee. I love coffee.

Then it was back to real life (see 1-3, I'm learning lots). 

Weigh-in: I was back up to 121 this morning. I didn't binge, but I wasn't strict with my eating over the weekend either, so I'm not surprised.

Workout: 25 minute weight routine. 

I've missed you all, I can't wait to catch up on your posts and see how you've been. It's a crazy week for me, but keeping up with you all is one of my favorite breaks. 

Stay lovely.

Well frick internet.

I wrote you guys a lovely post last night that was lost in an internet failure.

So this will be a combined yesterday shortened-version/today post.

I'm visiting my boyfriend this weekend in a lovely beach town that I've missed so much since moving to LA. It feels great to be back. I'm actually writing from the Starbucks where I used to study in college. This picture is from 2006, but the beach is still just as pretty. I'm on the far right.

Thursday:

Weigh-in: Decided not to. I was hoping for a bigger loss today.

Workout: 50 mins yoga. It felt good, but this pose gets me every time: Chataranga dandasana

To clarify, this isn't me. But I love her hair.

Food: 1246 cals. Same meals as the day before, but I remembered a picture of my cinnamon oatmeal:

Friday:

After 4 hours of class, I made the drive here. 

Weigh-in: 119.8 (That's a 1.4 pound loss in the past two days. Since I know my caloric deficit wasn't more than 1/2 pound, some must be water weight, but I'm still happy).

Workout: 4 mile run. This weekend I'll get to run here along the beach, and I'm pretty excited. I may even convince my boyfriend to run with me.

Food: 830 cals so far: Oatmeal, tea, Lentil-Curry Cauliflower, Clif Zbar (They're made for kids, but the portion is much better for me than a full Clif bar, and they're delicious). I'm not sure what's for dinner. Boyfriend and I are going to cook (from Veganomicon of course - my new love. Boyfriend has some competition with this one). 

I probably won't be able to post/comment again until Sunday, but maybe I'll get on in the early morning or something. 

Stay lovely.

Holy Delicious.

Happy Wednesday.

Weigh in: 121.2 pounds today, so we couldn't exactly say the weight is flying off. At least it's not gain.

Workouts: I've gone on awesome runs the past couple days (3 miles each day).

I feel highly motivated right now to just get myself back to happy/in shape, and I've been cooking the most delicious healthy stuff, so yay. And look what arrived today!

I think it sounds like a fun read, and it might help me stay motivated for more than weight loss, because it's mostly about treating your body well by not putting crap in it. And health is such a great motivator. Which brings me to...

Today's food:

7:15 am: Black tea with splash of soymilk and Cinnamon Oatmeal with a tsp of brown sugar (I make my own, the instant stuff has way too much sugar). 278 calories.

10 am: Chai tea with soymilk. 8 calories.

1 pm: Red Lentil Cauliflower Curry (from Veganomicon - I made it last night) with Trader Joe's Mango Ginger Chutney. I'm so happy with this dish. Awesome and healthy and satisfying. 420 calories. 

2:30 pm: Ghirardelli Chocolate Mocha (made with 1/2 serving of powder and 10 oz. unsweetened plain almond milk) 117 calories.

5 pm: An apple. 116 calories. (I buy big apples)

7:30 pm: Chickpea Noodle Soup (also from Veganomicon.) This one is ALSO awesome. It's seriously everything I liked about chicken noodle soup before becoming vegetarian (though I can barely remember those days) but grownup and more flavorful, with whole wheat pasta and spinach wilted in. I'm so glad I have like 4 more servings at least. This was kind of a lot (2 cups - I was super full) so I'll probably eat 1.5 cup servings in the future. Salad with olive oil and vinegar on the side. 350 calories soup. 50 calories salad. 

1337 calories. 20% fat, 67% carbs, 13% protein.

Now I'm going to curl up with my new book and wake up energized in the morning. I'm feeling like things are going to be okay. 

Stay lovely.

PLL!

It already feels like I've been back in school for ages. And it's literally only been like 13 hours.

I had a successful day though: aced a quiz, registered to present my research at the conference in 3 weeks and made a hotel reservation for that, and got through all my lectures for the day.

Still, it never feels like enough does it?

Food wasn't great. I mean, I sort of originally planned to only eat like 1200 and then I ended up eating like 1600, so even though that's supposed to be what I'm eating, I don't feel good about it, because it's like I had a goal of 1200 that I didn't meet. Whatever. Tomorrow's a new day.

To happier things: when I finish studying tomorrow, I'll be looking up the Pretty Little Liars episode from tonight online. That's something to look forward to. So I've been out of high school for 6 years. I still appreciate some good fashion, drama, and of course lovely skinny girls. Also, Ezra (the teacher - Ian Harding) is hot.

Yes please. Come on Ezra, I'm way more age-appropriate. 

Anyone else watch this show? Or other ones? I'm kind of a TV junkie.

Finally Back!

Well, happy 2011 loves!

Seems like it arrived kind of fast. I'm not really ready for class/studying/real life tomorrow. Who is right? I mean really, I don't think I've said "Oh my gosh I'm so excited to start school and not be on break anymore" like, ever, in my life. When I left home, this was the view from my window:

It snows the day I leave?! Needless to say, I was sad to go.

Here's the airport tarmac on my way to my gate. Sort of peaceful considering how many people cross over it in planes every day.

And now I'm back. It's been a great weekend with my boyfriend. He bought me an Anthropologie dress for Christmas! It's called Awaiting Wings Dress:

Maybe I'll put up one of me wearing it in a while. Have I ever mentioned I LOVE Anthropologie? Love.

 2 bottles of champagne + me + him + my house alone = Good times in every room :) But to business:

I promised a current weight: 121.4 pounds. That's up 8 pounds from 2 weeks ago. I'm not sure how that's possible, but it's been consistent over 3 days of normal/healthy eating, so I'm accepting it as real. Apparently the binging over break was even more dramatic than I wanted to admit to myself.

BUT I am ready for some routine and predictability in my food and exercise. In that way, I'm excited to be back. I find I'm way more likely to binge when I can't plan well.

So first, the recent successes:
1. I've succeeded in not eating desserts. I have been craving sweet things, but I'm in the process of transitioning my cravings to fruit or soy yogurt. It feels good.
2. My boyfriend committed to running the half marathon with me in April, so I'm excited to be able to share that with him.
3. I've cooked some really delicious (quasi-healthy) things recently. Most notably, for New Year's Eve dinner my boyfriend and I cooked california rolls (with carrot, cucumber and avocado) and - unpictured - Japanese miso stew. It was awesome. Here's the rolls; boyfriend rolled this one. Mine were not so pretty. That's pickled ginger on the side, and we dipped them in soy sauce. Yum.

We also made this incredible Pumpkin Baked Ziti from Veganomicon. You would swear there's cheese in it. I'm telling you, if you're thinking you'd miss cheese if you went vegan - no - buy this book and go for it haha. I'm eating more delectably than ever. 

I missed you loves and I've enjoyed finally catching up on your posts this evening. Lets have good weeks.