Workouts and Eating

Today I thought I would share with you my workout and eating regimen only because I think I finally found something that works for me and might even give me my six pack abs...someday.  :o)     Most of you will want to skip this post and that is ok.  I'm fine with that. 

As you know, I am a pretty regular exerciser and somewhat a healthy eater.  I know that I need to work better at both of these areas if I want to lose the fat I have slowly packed on around my waistline, and for the past six weeks I have been doing just that.  I actually started working out more regularly the beginning of the year, but the past six weeks I have been strict to my schedule.  I have also been trying a new eating approach and really paying attention to what my meals contain.  I'm not really trying to lose "weight" as I am at a decent weight, I am trying to lose the fat and build muscle.

My workouts have been a combination of Zuzka Light's Power Cardio and Strength DVD workouts, Tatianna's (from lovingfit.com) upper and lower body workouts and interval cardio.  I really like to use the DVD workouts during the week because they are short, about 15 minutes long, which is perfect because I do another 20 min HIIT combo on the treadmill afterwards.  Tati's workouts are usually around the 30 min length and with a 20 min run afterwards it just made my weeknights too short, so I do them on the weekends.  The HIIT (high intensity interval training) run combo that I do is 10 min of alternating 30 sec of a full out run with 30 sec walk, followed by 5 min of flat running. 

My schedule is this:
Monday: rest or yoga
Tuesday: fullbody workout followed by HIIT run combo
Wednesday: HIIT run combo
Thursday: full body workout followed by HIIT run combo
Friday: rest or yoga
Saturday: Upper body workout followed by HIIT run combo
Sunday: Lower body - optional HIIT run combo

I have a calendar set up to help me keep track of which exercises I need to do for the week and it feels so great to cross them off and know that I actually did them!  This schedule has worked out really well for me and I am noticing changes with my strength/stamina and the way I look.  I am at the point where I am adding in some weights to my workouts which adds some intensity to the workout.  I am also working out for six weeks, then taking a week off and doing nothing but yoga or resting.  I want to give my body a break every now and then, plus it keeps me motivated.

As far as my diet goes, I have been doing intermittent fasting every other day (EOD).  I tried the 16/8 combo but it didn't really seem to work for me.  With the EOD method, I eat normal every other day and "fast" on the off days.  I will explain what I mean when I say "fast" so you don't think I am not eating all day.  To start out, I figured out what my calorie range needed to be on a normal day using this formula.  Since I am trying to lose "weight" (more fat than weight) I cut the total down by 20%.  It comes to around 1250-1300 calories.  I don't really count my calories per say, but I try to use this as a guide. Now, my normal days I eat my normal calorie range, and my fasting days I cut my calories in half.  Yes, I said half, and no I am not starving myself.  Here's what I do: I fast on MWF which are the days I rest with the exception of Wednesdays when I run.  So I'm not doing a super intense workout on the days I am fasting and burning myself out.  I eat a small breakfast if I am hungry, and a larger lunch and then a smaller meal at night.  The EOD fasting really calls for you to eat one large meal a day, but I have a hard time not eating at night, so I just eat a small meal. The reason I chose this method, is because the research stated those who did this method of fasting lost more fat and gained more muscle than other methods.  So I tried it, and it works really well for me, but  I am also going to take a week off the fast the same week I take off my workouts, just to let my body take a brake. 

I have also been eating healthier.  I have a portion of protein, veggies, fat and carbs with every meal and use my hands as measuring tools - 1 palm is protein, 1 fist of veggies (though i usually do two with a salad), 1 cupped hand of carbs and 1 thumb of fat. My meals are pretty similar during the week which makes it really easy to prepare everything for work, and the weekend they are a little more lax only because I cook for the family and they don't want to eat salads all day.  :o)           

I haven't measured myself in awhile, but I think I am down about a 1/2 -3/4 inches around my hips and thighs.  I am finally able to get into my smaller jeans now without a muffin top! Plus, I am now starting to see definition in my arms, legs and abs.  I still have a ways to go and it's a slow process, but it's working!  Maybe I will get brave and post some before and after pics for y'all.  :o)

I really enjoy working out and being fit and healthy, and I want to make this a permanent part of my life.  I know it will be hard when I am in PA school, but a 15 min workout is definitely doable and will help me keep my sanity while studying. Not to mention if I can be in the shape I want to be in by the time I start, then all I will have to do is maintain which is a little easier.  I can do this. 

It's Been A(Long)while

Sooooo, it has been forever and a day since I last posted on this sad little blog of mine.  Quite honestly this year has been so full of bad things that I haven’t really wanted to talk about any of it because of how depressing it all was.  And by depressing, I really mean I was depressed for at least the first three or four months.  I won’t bore you with all the details but let me sum things up so you can finish reading this post sometime today.  :o)

1.      We finally closed on the new house (yes I will post pictures)  on January 18^th.   The week leading up to closing I requested a walk through.  We did not get a walkthrough.  There were some things that were not finished - some we knew about, some were a surprise.  Then, a couple days after closing we received and invoice from our contractor asking for additional money.  Our roof was missing shingles, and the shingles that were on would flap horribly in the wind.  We asked them to fix it, but they said not until we get our money.  There are a few other things that we found out were done poorly or incorrectly, so the first few months of living in a nice new home with so many flaws made me sick to my stomach.  I wasn’t even excited to move in, and I’m just now starting to enjoy the house. 

2.      I finally found a part time job as a C.N.A.  It lasted a whole two days.  When I got the call for an interview, they asked me what hours I could work.  I explained that I work full time in Wichita and wouldn’t be able to work until 6:00 pm, but could work until 10 or 11.  They said that would be no problem.  I interviewed, got the job and sat through two days of HR orientation.  Finally, after all the paperwork and orientation, I was ready for work.  I spent two four hour shifts training with another C.N.A and when I asked for the next week’s schedule, the scheduling lady said she needed to talk to the nurse in charge of things to see how they wanted to work me in.  Well, they decided that since I couldn’t do a 5-10 shift, that they couldn’t use me.  So I am still looking for C.N.A. work.

3.      I didn’t get into PA school, but I honestly wasn’t thinking that I would. I took the opportunity to do a feedback session and found out what I already knew – I need to get experience.  They also told me that my personal statement didn’t do a good job of explaining why I wanted to be a PA or set me out from the crowd.  Even though this hurt the most, it was good information.  Everyone that read my PS said it was great and well written, but apparently it wasn’t.  Since I wasn’t having much luck with finding a C.N.A. job and with everything else going on at the time (read below) I decided to wait a year to reapply.   

4.       Brad’s job progressively worsened, and sometime in April (I think) Brad slipped on the stairs and tore the muscles in his back.  He had to stay home for a couple of weeks.  After about two weeks of unpaid resting, Brad was finally ready to go back out and his boss decided to take the truck in and have a few things done to it.  So Brad would be sitting for another week.  When that week was up, Brad’s boss kindly told him not to worry about picking the truck up as he wouldn’t be driving anymore and gave a really bad excuse.  We were not surprised by all of this, but it would have been nice to know three weeks ago since Brad wasn’t being paid during this time. 

5.      Finally after a couple of months of searching, Brad found a job and started work again in June.  The first day on the job he pulled up to an elevated scale and as he was getting out of his truck he fell.  Five feet.  Onto his side.  He broke five ribs and bruised his lung and spleen.  So, once again he is at home mending broken ribs for another month or two.  At least this time it was work related and workman’s comp has been helping with everything. 

As you can see this year has truly been a year of the unlucky 13.  It just seemed like no matter how positive I tried to be and to look for the bright side of things, I just couldn’t find the light.  It was all sucky.  It still sort of is, but things are quieting down, Brad will go to work again soon and I decided to apply this year to PA school.  The PA program just hired a new chair and I had the opportunity to meet with him and talk about my chances. He gave me some really great ideas to get the experience I need plus some other general tips and advice.  He also said that I shouldn’t wait a year to apply and that if I want this, to go after it. There shouldn’t be any reason why I can’t get 100-200 hours by my interview in January.  He even offered to practice interviewing me and wants to follow up with me in a couple months.  This was a pretty big boost for me, and his pep talk really helped me get excited about this whole PA thing again.  So I talked to Brad and I’m going to go for it.  The next three years (one year of volunteering to get my hours and two in PA school) might suck a little, but it will be so worth it in the end. 

That has been the past seven months in a nutshell.  I will talk more about the house, post pictures and talk about a few other things that are going on at a later date, but I thought I would at least show my face on here and explain why I haven’t felt like posting much lately.

The Interview

The day started with check-in at 8:30 and a program presentation at 9:00.  We had an opportunity to visit with current first year students before the presentation and I learned a lot about the schedule and what to expect with the workload.  After the presentation my group had a Q&A session with students where we were able to ask questions and learn even more about the program.  After this I had my interview.  I have to say that it was nice to have the interview right away, but after having a chance to talk to students because I didn’t really have a chance to get nervous and I think that helped a lot.  Plus, the interview was over and I was able to focus on the rest of the morning.  I didn’t really know what to expect with the interview.  I mean, it’s an interview so there are always things that are given, but I had heard a few horror stories from previous students so I didn’t know what to expect.  There were two interviewers; one was faculty and the other a PA from the community.  This year they decided to go a different route with the questions and asked all the students the same 15 standardized questions.  I felt that the questions were fair and pretty much just different ways of asking “tell us about yourself”.  The first question of course was why do you want to be a PA, and even though I was ready for the answer, I wasn’t sure how in depth to go so I rattled on a bit and was hoping they would ask follow up questions if they needed, but they didn’t really and just moved on to the next question.  I feel like I answered each question honestly and just tried to be myself.  The interview itself didn’t see to take too long, and afterward we had a student presentation that talked about the program from the student’s perspective and of course it made me fall in love with WSU even more.  After the presentation we had a tour which was led by one of my physics classmates from a couple years ago!  She is such a cool person and she was very helpful.  She said it took her a couple of tries to get in, and the main reason was because she didn’t have patient care experience.  She said that if she would have had even a certificate, like a C.N.A license, it would have bumped her up into the acceptance pool because just having a license gives you an extra 10 points.  This made my heart skip!  The one area I was lacking in and the most worried about, might not be as dire as I first thought!  I mean, even if I don’t get in I still have a job lined up to gain that experience, but it would sure be nice to be accepted this year and not have to go through another year of applying. 

After the tour we had a short wrap up session where we had the chance to ask any other questions and then we had a little personality assessment we had to fill out and we were done!   Now comes the longest two weeks of my life – waiting until the week of the 28^th to stalk my mailbox. 

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. And some other stuff....

So, I say this every time I post, but it has been a hellacious month.  Let me begin my starting where I left off – my birthday.

The Good:

The Wednesday before my birthday I got a call from the radio station I listen to saying that I won tickets to the Chevelle concert the Saturday after my birthday!  I was pretty excited because I never win anything and I completely forgot that I put my name in the drawing.  Then, Friday (my birthday) I received another call saying that I also won a “meet and greet” with the band before the concert!  Say what?!!!  Brad and I got to meet the band and have a picture taken along with a personally autographed band photo.  How cool is that?  The concert was awesome and it was definitely a great birthday present. 

I also finished off the semester with two A’s, woo hoo! 

The Bad:

Well, even though the concert was awesome and it was a great experience, Brad and I didn’t have as much fun as we should have due to some other issues with Brad’s work.  People that we thought were friends turned out to be really big assholes who were only out for themselves and to destroy Brad due to jealously and revenge.  Some people were trying really hard to get him fired and the Monday after my birthday and the concert was a big meeting, so we had other things on our minds.  The good news (sort of) is Brad still has a job.  On top of everything else going on at his job, the new truck he has been driving for almost a year started to breakdown.  This meant that Brad did a lot of sitting while it was being worked on, which meant less money for us to put towards the house and closing.  The truck went into the shop twice and acted up a third time, so Brad was to take it to the shop again and get in a spare truck until it was finished after the holidays.  Which brings me to -

The Ugly:

Because Brad was behind due to all the sitting around he had to do, he decided to work through the weekend before Christmas and come home Monday night and I decided to go with him over the long weekend.  Well, I met Brad on Friday and first thing Saturday morning, some jackass truck driver decided to pull out right in front of us.  The bastard didn’t even stop at the stop sign, just pulled right out and made a left turn.  The problem?  We were in the right lane coming straight at him.  There were two options, hit his trailer full of cotton or hit the ditch.  Thankfully due Brad’s quick thinking and skillful driving I am here to write this post.  Brad took the ditch route and we hit the approach went up and over it, through a fence and came to a stop.  We both had our seatbelts on and no one was hurt, but the truck was a mess.  I immediately looked at the truck and to my amazement, the fucker kept driving.  I picked up my phone and started running after him and tried to flag down a car because I knew if he left and we didn’t get a license plate or something, he would be gone and it would be a fight with the insurance company.  To my amazement, no one stopped.  Thank God we were not injured because I think we would have died out there waiting for someone to call for help.   So, after a very long day and the guy we were delivering the hay to was sweet enough to drive us to Amarillo so we could rent a car and drive home.  Not only was the accident a major event on its own, not having a truck to drive also meant that Brad was not going to be earning extra money which put us in another state of worry.  The only good thing about the accident, yes, I said good thing, was Brad caught a cold Monday and I think it turned into bronchitis.  So even if he had a truck to drive, he wouldn’t have been able to.  Plus, it gave us time to get the flooring in the new house put in.  So, even as messed up as it all was, it sort of worked out.  The cops did end up catching the other driver, and he maintains that he didn’t see anyone coming (no shit!) and that he wasn’t there when we went into the ditch.  He says we were going too fast for the corner and went off into the ditch.  Now it’s up to the insurance companies, but I really hope Brad’s company insurance doesn’t let that one slide by. 

The Other Stuff:

Due to the accident and Brad’s illness we spent a quiet Christmas at home and went over to a friend’s house for dinner. Christmas didn’t really feel like Christmas this year and after a really crappy December I was just ready to get onto the New Year.  We spent the first week in January laying the floors in the new home and I finished up the tiling last week.  I was so tired afterwards!  I know that there are quite a few spots where I messed up the cuts, but I think did ok for the first time.

And with all of the above going on, I had an interview with an assisted living facility after Christmas and got a job offer last Friday.  Orientation starts on Monday and I’m not sure how many nights I will be working a week, but it’s nice to know that I’ll finally found a job.    Oh, and I also had my PA interview last week, but I will go into that in a separate post.  :o)

Interview Invite!

Yes, it has been almost a month since I last posted.  I am a horrible blogger.  Mainly because my life really is boring and normal.  Ok, well that is sort of true as I received some pretty exciting news last week.  I got an interview invitation!!  Wooo! I got the e-mail last Wednesday after class on my way home.  Thank goodness it wasn't during class because I wouldn't have been able to sit still or keep quiet.  :o)  My interview is on January 10, so I have about a month to prep.  I am going to take advantage of the mock interviews my school does and brush up on the new health care act.  Now that classes are winding down I am looking for a C.N.A job to gain some experience, so if I don't get in this year, I will have that under my belt for next year.    I'm so excited, I can't wait!


Also on the exciting news front, the painters are just about finished painting the inside of the house. After about three weeks of waiting and being at a stand still, they can finally move forward with cabinets and finish work.  The bad thing about this is we will be able to start laying the floors once the cabinets are in.  It's bad only because we are doing them ourselves, but I am actually excited about doing it.  Does that make me weird?  

Anyway, that is really all that has been going on.  Brad and I hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year.  We celebrated over the weekend and his mom and dad stayed and his sister and two nieces came over for dinner.  We had a lot of fun and dinner turned out quite nicely. 

Classes are winding down - yay!  I took my last chapter exam yesterday in statistics and I think I did well on it.  The comprehensive final is next Monday, and my last chapter exam in pathophysiology is next Tuesday.  After that exam I am a free woman!  Woo!  So looking forward to next week.  :o) 

This Friday is my birthday but we are not planning anything.  Honestly, I would just love if Brad could be home Friday or early Saturday and have a nice quiet weekend together before things get crazy with laying the floors and moving.   This next month is going to be crazy and will fly by.  Before I know it we will be moving in to our new home!

House Pics

Living room

 Kitchen

 Dining area

View of living room from kitchen island

 

 View of bay window in dining area

View of entryway and stairs

Second bedroom upstairs

Master bed and bath

Basement living area

Doors to third bedroom(on right) and office (on left)

 

Door to laundry room

Busy, busy

So much has happened since the last time I blogged that I'm not sure where to begin! I was sick last week and I think it was due to me running myself ragged.  Most of my time has been split between work and school with house decisions mixed in there.  School has been really busy and taking up most of my time.  I took my third test in each class this week and I this time I did well in stats, but not so well in pathophysiology.  I am pretty sure I dropped my grade down to a B with that one, but I have one more test to help make up for it.  Classes are going well, but I will be glad when they are done in a month.

Work has been very busy, which is making my life feel like it's on fast forward.  Usually I have a little time throughout the day to relax and do things like blog, but lately it has been so crazy that I barely have a moment to check my e-mail!

Now, on to the big exciting thing going on in my life.  The house.  :o)  Brad and I went over a couple weekends ago and I took a bunch of pictures.  I think I will dedicate one single post to them alone.  This weekend Brad and I are going to Lowe's to pick out some tile for the bathrooms and light fixtures.  They will begin painting next week and it will be so awesome to actually see the color on the walls!  I am really looking forward to when the cabinets get installed. So far it sounds like we will be moving in around the 15th of December.  That is a guesstimate, but it's what I am planning on either way because I will be finished with finals and will be able to devote all of my time after work to moving everything over.  It still gives me plenty of time to clean the old house too.

I've also been feeling the need to crochet lately.  It all started with this picture from Kate over at The Small Things Blog. 

I love the pattern and thought, I can make that!  So that is what I have been doing off and on this past week. I had some yarn I bought awhile ago for a scarf but never found a pattern I liked, so I dug it out and started crocheting.  I used up two skeins but it isn't quite big enough, so I will need to buy one more to finish it. Here's a close up of it so far. 

I had to run to Alco for a couple of things tonight and while I was there I looked to see if they had any more of the gray, but alas no luck.  I did however find another gorgeous color that I am dying to try this with this pattern!


I know this doesn't sound like much, but these few short paragraphs have really been hectic and have left me exhausted. I am definitely looking forward to next month when classes are done and we are all moved into our new home!