Exercise fail

So I haven't been good about exercising this week. But it was for an awesome reason. My brother and sister in law were visiting from California. My brother recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan and was nice enough to come visit me since school makes it hard for me to get out there to see them. They arrived on Tuesday, so I still went to my barbell class on Monday and that went really well. I was finally able to do the triceps part without hurting my elbow. I don't know what I did but hopefully I'll be able to replicate it on Monday.

But after they got here I didn't exercise at all because any time I wasn't in class or sleeping I was spending with them! Well and doing the bare minimum homework for my classes. We had such an awesome visit. Completely unhealthy but amazing! I took them to so many restaurants. We went to Taj Mahal, Snooze, Coopersmith's, Stufft, the Rio, Hacienda Colorado, Rasta Pasta, Walrus, Buttercream Cupcakery and the Melting Pot. I am going to have to exercise like crazy to make up for all of that! I'm so sad they're gone but I'm so glad that I got to spend that time with them. I wish we lived closer together. But CO and CA are definitely closer than Hawaii! That's why I dont ever want to move back there!

Anyway, back to goals. I want to go to the gym both days this weekend to make up for only exercising one day during the week. And I need to go grocery shopping for some healthy food since I ate out most of the week. And I need to start catching up on school. Sigh...and have I started on any of that yet? Nope! Been catching up on TV shows and slept in.

I'm trying to incorporate sweet potatoes into what I'm making because I hear they're pretty healthy for you. But I dont really know what to make with them. I tend to eat a lot of pasta (which I know isn't that healthy) so I dont have a lot of easy/quick recipes with potatoes. And that's always the key for me. Whatever I cook it needs to be quick, because at the end of the day I never want to spend that much time in the kitchen before I get to homework etc. So if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them!

Finally studying!

Yay I'm being productive! Sure I haven't done nearly as much to prep for my contract negotiation assignment as many of my classmates but at least I've done something. This assignment is scaring the crap out of me. I know it's important to think about but I hate legal stuff. I wish I could afford to hire a lawyer to negotiate my employment contract for me. Although I guess if I could afford that I wouldn't need to negotiate so carefully huh?

I've also started studying for a test that doesn't close till Friday, which is way sooner than I was managing last semester. So what do I think finally made me start? Well the fact that practice management still sucks and is a time waster makes me feel like I should at least do something useful in there so I work on homework. And my roommate and I started studying together tonight which proves that I'm definitely more motivated to study when I have someone else to be accountable to. So I guess that has to be my plan for the rest of the semester. Study buddies!

I've also discovered a great way to get myself to eat better. My cousin and I had our second weekend cooking marathon. She lives down in Denver, about an hour and 15 minutes away from me so it's relatively convenient for me to visit her (esp compared to when I was a kid!). When I had more time I used to go down and spend whole weekends with her to get away from all the stresses of school etc. But now both our busy schedules mean that we usually only have one day every so often the meshes so we've made a new tradition. I drive down, we shop for whatever we feel like cooking for the week (trying to make it relatively healthy) and cook enough for both of us to have leftovers. This week we made:

Chocolate chip cookies (cause it's my specialty, yes I know it's not healthy)
Guacomole to snack on while we cooked
Smoothies, again to snack on while we cooked
Seasoned ground turkey for tacos (which we had some of for dinner before I left)
Homemade spaghetti sauce with ground turkey meat

I've had the spaghetti for dinner the past two nights and it's so good!

Exercise-wise I killed myself at barbell class again yesterday. So far my thighs are hurting most of all. We'll see how badly I'm hurting tomorrow. Last week the second day after was the worst, although I wasn't pain free until Sunday when it was almost time to do it all over again!

Random thought: does anyone else notice how similar Blogger feels to what Xanga used to be? Although I still haven't figured out how to get this site to notify me when people comment on a post I've commented on on someone else's blog.

Trying to be thankful

There are a lot of things in my life I wish I could change. And a lot of the time I focus on them because I'm a problem solving type of person (hence beginning this blog with a list of goals). But a post by a friend on facebook today made me think about a couple of things in my life that I'm thankful for that I haven't really recognized. She commented how things in life that you worry about sometimes work out better than you ever could have planned on your own. This is a VERY hard concept for me, again because of how much of a planner/problem solver I am. But in the last few months I've had a great example of how true this can be. I was so anxious about having to move out of my old apartment last summer. I felt like there was no way I could find a place that my cats and I would be happier in. Boy was I wrong. Henry LOVES my new place...and my new roommate. I think he loves her more than me sometimes :-)

My awesome new roomie!

I am so thankful that things here have worked out as well as they have so far. It's a great thing to be able to confide in the person you live with and I feel very lucky to have that when I need it the most.

Anyway, that was my attempt at positiveness for the day! Back to the goals.

I went to the gym again today so I've been doing great at sticking to the every other day goal. Although I think I'm going to modify it to M, W, F (with maybe a weekend run thrown in depending on how I'm feeling) since I want to try to go to the barbell class every monday. Speaking of that, my arms are finally slightly less sore today! Yay! So maybe I can do that after all and not die haha.

Food wise I've continued to eat leftover burrito makings for dinner. And still haven't been able to cut out the dessert. So no real change on that front.

Studying...still an epic fail. I'm doing the bare minimum to get by. Sigh...next week maybe?

Time to head off for some roomie fun! We both need the unwind today!

Ouch!

OMG my arms are so sore! I had forgotten how sore I could be after doing a barbell class. Why is it that the second day after is always the worst? So I just did cardio at the gym today (and not much at that, still working back up from not exercising at all). I know they always say you're supposed to do more of what made you hurt in the first place but I couldn't even lift my back pack without whimpering today haha. So I'll just plan on doing that once a week for now and see how it goes.

Ever since I made the burritos I've been having that for dinner every night because apparently 1 lb of ground beef goes a really long way in burritos! Good thing I dont get sick of leftovers very easily! I'm discovering though that I'm much more attached to desserts than I thought I was. If I try to just eat dinner and not have anything sweet after I dont feel full. It's weird. And I've tried substituting with something healthy (grapes instead of ice cream for example) and it just doesn't feel the same. Guess this is going to have to be an example of mind over matter...we'll see if I can do it...

I have at least three things I should be doing for school and yet I still haven't been able to convince myself to do them. I need ideas here...how do I get my motivation back?! I used to be really good about studying for a set amount and then giving myself a short reward (episode of a TV show etc). But now that kind of bribing isn't working, I just jump straight to the reward :-P

Guess the theme of this post is...how do you gain (or gain back) self discipline?

Yay exercise!

So I did pretty darn good on the exercise front today. I went to a barbell class at my school's gym this afternoon despite coming straight from a disappointing chiropractor appointment. One of my classmates runs this class and she is great at being motivating while still being realistic. It's nice to see that a fitness instructor struggles too...not just breezing through the workout without breaking a sweat. It makes me feel less bad about myself when I can only do about half the triceps set. So hopefully I can make this a weekly thing. A different instructor does the class on Wednesdays and my classmate says it's REALLY different so maybe I'll check it out, or maybe I'll just do strength stuff one day a week and cardio the rest. We'll see how I feel on Wednesday.

How badly am I going to hurt tomorrow? :-P

Food wise I did not so great yesterday and pretty good today in terms of branching out. Yesterday I had tuna salad on crackers for brunch/lunch (yes I sleep late on my days off!) and went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant for a friend's birthday. So that doesn't count as a an improvement in me eating healthy OR cooking for myself :-P Today though, I ate cereal for breakfast. Yes I know it's not that healthy but it's better than the days I don't eat breakfast at all, and like I said I'm not a morning person so dont expect this meal to be where I improve for quite a while! Then left over tuna salad for lunch, with grapes on the side! See I can eat healthy food...oh wait, I had a soda too...shhh that'll be our secret. I made...wait for it...HOMEMADE burritos for dinner! Ground beef (yes I put salty seasoning goodness on it, what of it?), refried beans (from the can, I'm not that industrious yet), lettuce, tomato, green olives, cheddar cheese and salsa. So while that may not seem like an accomplishment to many of you it took more than 10 minutes and I had to do more than boil water so for me it is :-)

I LOVE Mexican food (and yes I know tostitos totally doesn't count as real Mexican food but that's what I had in my house).

Studying...lets just pretend this doesn't exist for a little while longer haha.

Am I crazy?

So I've alway been a very organized person. And I realized I'm feeling very directionless the past few months. Which I'm sure sounds weird, being in my third year of veterinary school and all.

Part of vet school that make it all worth while? The animals.

But I feel a lot like I'm just drifting through life. That, now that I've gotten on the path I always wanted, I'm not setting new goals for myself. So I thought if I made myself more accountable for the ones that I've been considering by blogging about them, maybe I'll stick to them and they'll become as much a part of my life as my chosen career has been. I have NO clue who will actually be interested in this. To those of you that I'll invite to read this, don't feel bad if it's boring and you stop following after this one entry, I know we all have super busy lives. But if you find my struggle to find purpose and direction something you can relate to, or even just want to help me out with some encouragement and suggestions, I'd love that too! Plus I figure this might be a great way for me to reconnect with people I've lost touch with and get even closer with current friends. And if anyone stumbles across this (never used this site before so not sure how public this really is) feel free to comment as well, just please be nice :-) So here we go!

Goals I'm considering:

Exercise -
I've always felt good after I exercise but I've never seemed to be able to drum up the follow through to do it for very long. I used to swim in high school and I loved it but then I got injured so that went to the sidelines, at least in terms of competition.

In college I tried going to the gym for a while and hated it unless I had someone to go with, and that was hard to find. So I turned to intramural sports to keep myself active. I had SO MUCH FUN playing softball with my friends.

Me at bat. I was a horrible hitter, pitching was my only real contribution to the team. The first time I hit the ball over the infielders' heads I couldn't believe it!

But I got injured way too many times (3 serious ones and a few minor ones I'm sure I don't remember) so now in vet school I've been a little more cautious and haven't been playing sports involving a ball :-P

So what have I been doing recently? Well living in Colorado, hiking is an undeniable draw. I love it! But again, the follow through is what comes in to play. I don't know why I don't do it more. Weather can be an excuse sometimes. I enjoy it more when I go with someone else and it's hard to mesh schedules when you're in such a demanding professional program. But when it comes down to it I need to stop making excuses and just do something!

I've very recently started trying the gym again. Because I love the elliptical (wish I could afford to buy one and just exercise in my home cause I hate having to leave the house to exercise). And I went on a run near my house today just to see how it felt. 1.4 miles in crazy wind was not fun.

So part of me feels like this is just going to have to be a matter of will power. Set a plan and make myself follow it. But what should that plan be...? Or is that even the best way to go about it. Right now what I've set for myself is super simple (which makes we worry I'll weasel out of it too easily). Do something active every other day. Thursday I went to the gym. Today I ran outside. Lets see if it holds up on Monday.

Healthy eating/cooking more -
I love to bake.

Pride of my baking skills...I make KICK ASS chocolate chip cookies!

I dont really enjoy cooking though, unless it's done in the crock pot. So I tend to eat the same things over and over because they're easy to do. Which means they're not always the most healthy choices. I eat lots of pasta. Usually cereal for breakfast (I'm not a morning person so dont even suggest I get up early enough to make something that takes more than 10 minutes in the morning!). I get sick of sandwiches very easily so I always have a hard time planning lunches. Which means I usually take leftover from whatever I made the night before leading to more...you guessed it, pasta! Money is also a huge reason I haven't worked on this goal before. Being on a student's budget (literally living off of student loans) means I feel guilty whenever I spend money on food. But I get bored with the things I cook so I eat out way more often then I should. No idea where to start here...

Gaining back my good study habits -
I was pretty damn good at studying during my first year of vet school. I love to study with other people. Quizzing/discussing concepts is the way I work best. However, as the years went by and we all got more burnt out and were less willing to spend as much time studying I started to study alone more (again meshing schedules with my fellow students was a huge obstacle here). And I apparently suck at studying alone. All I can ever really motivate myself to do is read my notes. And that is NOT an effective method of studying. So my ill defined goal here is to be more proactive about trying to get people to study with me this semester.

Ok I'm sure that's way more rambling than anyone will care about so I'll stop for now. Thanks for reading if you got this far!