Psychiatry Resident

I love it. I could easily be a psychiatrist. It's just very interesting to me.

I will continue my GP training pathway though because I do want a life outside of work and GP provides the best work-life balance. I will do extra training in psychiatry though.

For the past two weeks I've recommenced my TAM (Tracy Anderson Method) workouts. This time I'm streaming! I absolutely love it. Tracy has really grown i the past few years since I've not done her method and I'm very happy with what she's up to. There is a lot more focus on paraspinal strength and functional strength and mobility. Also on the mind-body connectedness regarding not just movement but strength and health.

Already I feel brilliant. What i really wanted was the energy and strenghth to play with my kids more, both at home and at the playground. So often I get there and just want to sit down and have a coffee. Yesterday I finally got that motivation and energy back and went on the pay ground equipment and they climbed all over me and I felt good within my body.

MY aim is to do it daily, allowing a day or two missed a week if necessary (but hopefully not).

Another random update

I'm on annual leave at the moment, so I'm enjoying not stressing about anything.

I just got back from a most excellent road trip in Tasmania where I got to enjoy the magnificent natural beauty down there.

For the rest of my time off work I'm generally focusing on my fitness. I've had enough time to not have any excuses not to workout daily, and now I'm building a bit of a morning routine which I hope to carry with me into the craziness that is my work roster. My goal is to have the diet and fitness sorted before returning to med school so I don't have to worry about falling back into bad habits like caffeeine abuse and junk food use.

I've been still eating a mostly fruitarian diet for nearly one year now. I find the more fruit I eat, the better I feel, however cooked starchy carbs call me most afternoons/evenings. I seem to have finally broken the bread addiction, which in my opinion was the hardest to break.

My current day's food look a bit like this:
A large bowl of watermelon
About 10 mandarins and a few bananas
A few handfuls of raisins during the day as needed
Steamed potato or sweet potato or pumpkin with a handful of baby spinach
Then I make some sort of semi-raw dinner (last night was a sort of shepherds pie with raw grated zucchini/carrot/tomato layers and a layer of mashed steamed sweet potato)
And of course more water during the day
I also tend to have a few pieces of dark chocolate, maybe every second day. That's another difficult one to break.

I stopped drinking juices and now only drink water. I make the occasional watermelon smoothie or banana n'ice cream but I'm trying to eat fruit in the whole state.

My workout consists of about an hour (sometimes longer) of the Tracy Anderson Method, 6 days a week. I first do 30 mins of dance cardio, which is high-intensity, high-impact, and then 30-45 minutes of the muscular structure work which changes every 10 days. The Metamorphosis series has only 30 mins of musc, but I have an Mat DVD of heres which goes for 45-60 minutes and I really love it as it has standing legs (instead of on the ground) and more arms and abs, so I rotate that one back in every few days.

The main thing is, I'm sweating. I'm improving my cardio and I am really toning up nicely. I am not losing any weight though, which is really frustrating, but I keep reminding myself that this is a long-term process and not a quick-fix like under-carbing. I feel pretty good about how I look, it's just that it's annoying that half of my clothes don't fit. When I get up in the morning and look in the mirror, I'm like "Man, I'm looking good" but then I try on some of my clothes and they don't fit and I get upset. Such is life.

I am also doing taekwondo. It's on 3-4 times a week and the classes are really long at 2.5-3 hours. I'm going for my 7th kup grading next week so I'm trying to make the classes but on my annual leave I'm desperately trying to catch up with people and that gets in the way of evening training. There's also a Monday night social netball comp I'm now involved in. It's just held in my little town here, so I can even attempt to play when I'm on-call. Another girl in the team is from work so she's got it all down pat. It's good to have something to do in town.

So, I return back to week next week and I'm performing higher duties for the month, which means I wont be able to study as much, which means I'll have only 2 months of proper study before returning to med school. And...the anxiety flutters back through again.

My darling bf is currently doing assignments and studying for exams for his psych degree. He's so stressed and everything else in his life has been put on hold and he's procrastinating, and it's interesting to watch someone do that to themselves from an outside perspective. I really don't want to do that to myself when I go back to study. I did well at banning myself from stressing in the Chinese med course, but then again I was only doing 3 subjects (75% study load) and it was pretty easy compared to med school and it was only the first semester. But... saying to myself "I'm not allowed to stress" and "I'm prohibited from stressing" etc really worked well and I'll try to do this when back at med school.

Also, I've just completed the recruitment for St John Ambulance (volunteer first aid/med team service) so I will be volunteering with them as a paramedic and medical student in their medical team. They do events like the Iron Man and music festivals. I worked along them as a paramedic a few times (paid with my job) and saw other med students get some much practical experience and develop into really good emergency physicians that I want in on that action!

I've also got to tee up another observation placement at the GPs. I might ask him (the GP I shadow) if I can go in tomorrow seeing as some of my plans have opened up some space. He's only available for me to shadow Tue, Wed, and Thu. It's a really large multi-clinic so it's such a great experience for me there. I feel the volunteering stuff will give me more confidence that I can actual do this doctoring stuff. Being lost in textbooks isn't very encouraging right now.

Oh, I've also been listening to Jodie Whitely on YouTube who does hypnosis/guided meditation and I find listening to her at night sends me into a nice, deep sleep. I don't have that many sleeping problems, but with shift work and the chronic anxiety I had a while ago I found the hypnosis to be a really great tool. I can recommend it.

Tonight, I'm off to a Tibetan Buddhist centre to have a vegan meal and have a lesson on....can't remember. I think it's the Four Noble Truths or something like that. I listen to lessons occasionally on YouTube. I like the Dalai Lama, but the lessons can be long. I don't have much patience for long lectures which is why distance education works well for me.

That's my wrap up. I will try and post more again when I go back to med school. For now, it's all Kaplan and Dr Najeeb revision stuff.

The Hangover

My social life was reinstated last night.  It was a big one.  At 9am on the train home this morning, still in our party gear, coats and bags drenched in alcohol, and one iPhone lighter, my friend said "Have you seen The Hangover?"  Our adventures could certainly be drawn as parallels to that movie.  At one point I nearly lost my shoes because I decided they were hindering my dancing skills.  Needless to say, I spent all of today in bed.  My dog and cat loved it.

I just splurged $5.95 for a Box Office movie and watched 127 Hours.  I heard people had fainted watching the scenes where he self-amputates his arm.  I can see why.

Now I am a bit fuzzy in the head but have a bad habit for studying.  I just want to gently read a few pages on antibacterial agents in my Kaplan notes seeing as this week is Osteomyelitis.  I just also looked at my class discussion forum,  and will just flick through this week's case again and make a list of what I want to achieve tomorrow, albeit I will be lucky to find an hour.  Monday morning might be a final look over.

In TAM news, we took some self-portraits last night at the club, and this afternoon I saw them on Facebook and I was quite impressed at how well my body has maintained the tone the TAM workouts gave me, despite me not working out very often atm.  It is inspiring me to keep working out, even if it's irregular and my diet is up and down.  Also, Triple J had Itch-E and Scratch-E on Friday and it took me back to the mid-90's electro/rave music I used to love dancing too.  I NEED their music for my dance cardio workouts.  Very excited.

Things I'm learning

This week's case study is osteoarthritis, and there are some new medical terms I am coming across;

• osteophytes
• subchondral sclerosis
• subchondral cysts
• Herberden's nodes
• Bouchard's nodes

When there's not much going on in the case study, I guess you hang on to whatever you get!

I'm still too bored to read all about bone anatomy, so I'm currently looking at the musculoskeletal section of First Aid for the USMLE Step 1.  I wont get my 30-day subscription to USMLE World Q-bank until Week 5 or it will run out before the end-of-term exam.

Even my presentation this term on Paget's disease is not overly exciting.  Sheesh.

I know somewhere in this module the infamous brachial plexus is going to turn up, so I might as well start looking at that too.

I'm pretty happy with  my current understanding of NSAIDs/paracetamol and the DMARDs.  I suppose I could look at bisphosphonates and perhaps a little more biochem in the areas of gout and inflammation.  Yuk.

I also have a gaping hole in my knowledge of genetics, but my genetics book looks so scary.  My lecturer (Dr Laura Gunder) has authored a textbook Essentials of Medical Genetics for Healthcare Professionals and I'd love to get that one.  I might check the hospital library for it this week.  All other textbook purchases will have to wait a few more weeks at least.  I also really, really want Murtagh's General Practice as I love the way his companion handbook is set out.  That one I know they have in the hospital library, but I want my own to draw in!

And reading Metamorphosis-time.blogspot.com by Bethany, I am so jealous of her results!  Dang.  My friend at work is also looking awesome.  We started trying to get in shape together a few months ago and she kept going and I fell off!  I need to get back on the wagon.  My excuse is she is one of those people that only needs about 6 hours sleep a night.  But excuses don't get me anywhere!  So I just made a fortnightly(!) grocery list for tomorrow, this time trying to keep to bill down as well as being extremely healthy, so I went through my cupboards and have found plenty of ingredients I don't need to buy like brown rice, brown pasta, tea bags (not my fancy organic oolong, but oh well), and chicken stock power (not my fancy organic, non-MSG stock, but oh well!).  I tend to do better if I commit 100%, so let's try again!  At least I can still see most of the great definition from TAM (like I have mentioned before, I'm a 50/50 mesomorph-endomorph).

Anyway, just realised the time and I have to go get ready for my 14-hour night shift :(

Refreshed

I had a gigantic sleep-in the morning and I've woken with a bounce in my step.  I think this might be how normal people wake up feeling.

One of the best things I've gotten from the TAM is buying a blender.  The photo is my current favourite which is a small green apple and a handful of frozen berries plus cinnamon, all blended into the best morning smoothie.

Yesterday I finished up about 2.30pm and went on my "break" but went back into work at 6pm to handover to the next person.  I then did a quick bit of revision at home on rheumatoid arthritis using http://www.almostadoctor.com/ notes.  I also had a quick look into white blood cells as I was getting confused between plasma cells and B- and T-cells.  I'm not going to get too bogged down in it because there is a whole haematology/immunology module in my near future.

I watched Downton Abbey, which I'm currently obsessed with, and the new character this week of Mrs Crawley only served to fuel my obsession as she is a kick-ass nurse and there was a pretty good hospital scene.  Love it.

I am reluctantly doing an overtime shift tonight.  I just keep thinking about school fees, my Tibet trip coming up, and my sister's wedding.  I'd prefer a bit of extra cash for those, plus I'm well rested now thanks to having today off.  At double-time, with work just three blocks from my house, it's very hard to say no.  I'd only be studying anyway, and I'll probably study during the shift and get paid for it.

I'll certainly do study at home from now until then, and a workout inbetween.  I'm currently doing the TAM Meta and then jumping around like a fool with my iPod on until I at least get a good sweat.  I aim for 20mins straight after the Meta muscle workout which gets my heart-rate up anyway.  Sometimes when I jump around I imagine I'm taking an aerobics class!  It makes me think about which tunes I'd like in my playlist.  Current favs (for bouncing around like a fool):

• Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO
• Whip My Hair - Willow
• Higher - Taio Cruz and Kylie Minogue
• Club Can't Handle Me - Flo Rida
• I Like It - Enrique Iglesias

MSS Day 1, Week 1

Today is my first day back at med school.  Whoo-hoo.  It feels like I had such a massive break and I'm glad to be back.

I have, however, woken up with what seems to be the beginning of the flu.  Either that, or I ran a marathon overnight that I wasn't aware of and stuffed my frontal sinuses full of cotton wool at the same time.

Great.

Someone at work just had a week off with the flu, so I hope I don't get it as bad.  Bad, bad timing.

Yesterday I blocked out my entire day (for today) with when to get up, have breakfast, workout, 3x 2-hour study blocks, grocery shopping, beauty/pre-bed routine etc etc.  If only my Google calendar had the function to move everything down by 2 hours because that's how long I slept in this morning.  I have a really full-on week so I thought I might try and get on top of my sleep banking. 

I did a pathetic workout this morning.  I just got the New York City Ballet Workout DVD.  Man, I didn't realise how dated that thing was.  Geez.  But it was good and I can see a lot of the TAM theories in there.  TAM is definitely better though, and I'll do that tomorrow.

I got an email saying my PT books have been shipped so I can expect them during the week.  I really hope it complements what I'm doing and doesnt' distract too much.  Maybe it will help knit my study and fitness lives a little.

Now I have to go study because my first lecture is tomorrow!

Working out

I finally did a workout last night.  I finshed day shift and started on-call at 6.30pm, so I went straight home and put on my workout gear, did the 2nd series of the TAM Meta muscular workout for the first time, which wasn't too bad and quite an enjoyable change, and as soon as I was finished I got a call-out which took me out until11pm.  Now I'm back at work at 7am.

Although I didn't do cardio, I'm happy I'm working out again.  My body is starting to feel less sluggish already.  I was a little disgusted at how my capris fit, but that's ok.  I'll get there again.  I'm feeling optimistic again.

I also ate about 50% on-track which I'm hoping to improve on today. 

It's only 8am and I'm abpout to hit the books already.

Feeling good.

Nothing much

I don't have much to report since the last post.  I'm at work, I'm sorting out things like transferring my tuition fees to Samoa, and getting my application together for the ADF.  I'm nearly ready now to start studying before we get a job.  First I'll start with the work guidelines, then move back to my pharm text again.

I think I'm doing musculoskelatal and I just can't wait to find out!  I see there's also neuro and GIT available this term. 

So far, the food I pre-prepared on Sunday is working well for me and I barely notice I'm eating so healthy.  I realise I can easily live on fruit and veges for my source of carbs (no need for bread, pasta, and mostly no rice) as long as I eat them at regular intervals, but I still have this terrible sweet tooth.  I'll try going back to the dark chocolate at night thing again or maybe try and make TAM recipe of chocolate pudding bu add more chestnuts and blueberries and less choc.

I don't miss dairy at all (except it's in the chocolate), and green tea is a good substitute for coffee.  I do crave coke occasionally but if I have it it just makes it worse.  I have no problem with craving fats, but I have a lot of "healthy" fats like red meat (lean, but still enough), olive oil, and sometimes avocado (we have an avocado shortage atm.  I assume it's to do with the cyclones up north).

No workout logged as yet, but it's only early.

Back

Friday night I unexpectedly had a big night - lots of fun, and then had to get up early the next morning ot meet my sister as we had tickets to see the Tutankhamen exhibition at the Melbourne Museum.

Then I only had just enough time for a power nap before heading out to a farewell party for someone from work who I will miss.  Everyone will miss him - he's great.

Then I couldn't sleep last night because I had a Redbull, my bodyclock was off, it was very stormy, and I kept thinking about the apocalypse that was due at midnight.  I really should ban myself from Redbull.

Tonight I started back on-call, but before that my sister talked about a girl on Dr Oz who prepares her whole week's food every Sunday and cuts up veges and puts them into Tupperware containers in the fridge.  So today I made soup out of all my old veges in the fridge from when I did my big TAM shop about 2 weeks ago.  I'm really pleased I've at least got my nitrition back on-track.

I also dropped 0.5kg without trying and my mood has lifted and I have energy again, so I'm just going to blame being female for that and try and get back on track during the week.  The damage isn't that great afterall.  I wish I had a few more days off, but nevertheless, I'll try and at least get in my muscular workouts.  I think the pressure of doing muscular and cardio every day was a bit much so I'll start off with alternating days and trying to do at least one.  Mind you, the TAM Meta workouts are only 30mins, so I really should be able to do both.  The cardio takes more planning due to sports bras and getting all sweaty.  I can do the muscular stuff in my work overalls if need be.

Working

Working.  What's new.

Work - Got rudely woken by a fantastic MVA job sent to my pager early this morning.  I wish my brain had been screwed on a bit tighter before starting the job, but it went ok anyway.  One learns how to do this job in one's sleep out of necessity.

I was beating myself up about my poor scene control skills, but my wiser and more experienced co-worker talked me down and was very nice at reassuring me that I'm good at what I do.  That was nice and generous of her. 

TAM - Hmmm... so I'm not as tired today as I have been all working week but I still feel like I need a day off before I can regroup and relook at this fitness thing.  One of the reasons I wanted to do my PT ticket was to always make sure I made the time to keep in shape.  I'm starting to think of fitness as being like maintaining a clean house - it's always there, waiting to be done.  You can leave it for a few days or even a week, but then it gets ugly and takes a lot of work to get back on track.  You don't have to do much but the more you do, the better it looks.  It's not fun at times, but if you just get it done then you like what you see.  The difference between doing the minimal and looking extraordinary requires and exponential increase in effort - like climbing a mountain that keeps getting steeper.

My friend explained to me what climbing Mt Kilimanjaro was like - he said by the last day reaching the summit it was like it took 30 secs to take each step.  The progress what ridiculously slow due to the altitude.

Study - I'm missing study.  I just reviewed bundle branch blocks and wrote up a sheet for the clinical board on how to diagnose BBBs on a 12-lead ECG.  Most ambos don't really get into 12-leads as we only have 3-leads (in my ambulance service - except for the [Mobile] Intensive Care Ambulance paramedics) as we really only treat shockable rhythms and we call for MICA for other arrhythmias causing perfusion problems, ie bradycardia with hypotension, or SVT.  But really, we're not expected to DDx even SVT or ST-elevation.  But we do.

So, yeh, BBBs are not high on the priority of ECG diagnosis.  We're more about treating symptomatically, ie chest pain => acute coronary symptom protocol.  It is good for me starting out, in a way. because we are taught to really concentrate firstly on the patient's clinical presentation, and secondly on the other information like the "numbers" and the ECG.

It was good to go over ECGs again and just refresh on a few things.

Two weeks until term starts.....

Getting smashed

I just got my ass kicked at work this weekend and it's still not over.  I'm basically simply trying to survive. I feel if I got left alone today at work I might have enough energy tonight to do a workout.  Maybe.

Last night on-call I had a good interesting cardiac patient (young person with atypical chest pain with a previous history of arrhythmia but a very poor historian, presenting in sinus tachycardia), and an interesting foreign body trauma patient as well.  All I can say it, be careful where you leave your knitting needles.  Two patients only, but they took over 7 hours due to long transport times and waits at the hospitals and of course the lovely paper work.

My house is so ferral - my dishes are still in the sink from making my TAM food two days ago.  Foul.  So that's the first thing on my To Do list today, then general housekeeping.  I must get these done before the new week starts so maybe, just maybe, I can start fresh and get back into working out.

The TAM diet is not going well.  I don't mind the food so much, but its not satisfying enough and I find my energy levels are low.  I felt much better on the Venice Nutrition.

Anyway, I feel so tired but I'm maintaining my new set point weight.  I am hoping to regroup and attack that plataeu again.

Two weeks until I go back to med school.  I had a read through my USMLE Step 1 book on Kindle in the ambulance last night but I really want to go through my work guidlelines during the week too..

So much to achieve.

Blogger and reignighting enthusiasm

Blogger is back up finally, so I just published some posts I've written over the past few days.

Last night we finished at about midnight.  I got to bed by 1am.  It is freezing here atm.  The heater went off but the fan kept going in my ducted heating and I couldn't reset the controller on the wall.  So at about 3am I had to put a coat and boots on and go outside with a penlight torch and reset the fuses so I could turn the fan off.

This morning I was happy the heater came on without any problems as it was freezing!  I was due back at work at 8am.  I quickly started to do some dishes and take out the rubbish but y pager went off and that was it.  I only just got back to branch now (about 5pm).  I just had something to eat and now I'm hoping to rest tonight (I'm on-call again).  I still have a really back neck and all I want to do is take Temazepam and red wine, but I will settle for resting my heavy head on the couch under the heater for about 2 hours.

No workout again, and I ate the TAM diet today and yesterday except for one meal each day.  Yesterday it was chicken burritos at the dinner party, and tonight, alas, it was a Quarter Pounder meal on the return from our 250km round trip.  I was hoping to have my cheat meal on the weekend some time anyway.  I will try and save my cheat meal for Saturdays now so I can keep better track and not feel so guilty about it.  I think my last one was last Saturday night...?

So I'm wondering how I can possibly do the TAM and fit it in with my work because right now I'm failing.

My last job today was a very sick respiratory patient that required a doctor escort. It was excellent because I told the doc I was a med student and he grilled me a bit in the back of the ambulance on the trip on the way down.  It was good.  I felt like a real med student again.  He told me he was the head of the emergency department of another large regional hospital and that I wouldn't have a problem getting a job despite studying offshore.

I hope he is right.

(Edit: Oh darn, my pager just went off gain....)

Tired

My nap turned into going to bed at 7.30pm, then at 7.45pm realising I was supposed to be at a dinner party. By 8.05pm I was dressed and at the party with a bowl of chocolate pudding that I had made for the TAM diet!

We got called out then cancelled by midnight.

So no workout logged yesterday and I have woken to such a messy house - how did this happen? I'm on duty again today so we'll see what I can squeeze into my day.

Dead-tired

We got smashed all day today at work. I'm so glad I had my food pre-prepared and quickly grabbed the containers and put them in my new cooler bag. They didn't taste too bad afterall.

Blogger is down so I have to save these posts for now.

So it's 7pm, I just got home, I have one TAM meal left (apple and blueberry for before bed) and I can't be bothered working out. I'm exhausted and I have a headache. I haven't had a rest day for 5 days so I think i'll take one now although it's not scheduled until Monday. I don't want to but i'm so tired and I'm oncall tonight. Maybe i'll try and have a nap and see what happens.

Blenders, capris, and DVDs

My DVD player died this morning straight after I did my cardio. I have wanted a second one for a while for the spare room i'm hoping to turn into a gym. I thought it would be about $100 but it was only $45 so I bought a blender as well. Then my friend told me I can play DVDs on my Wii... Oh well, at least I now have two players. Just need another TV and stand.

I'm really happy with my muscular definition so now I need to shed some more fat to see it better.

Now with my new blender I can do the week 1 TAM diet. I bought all the ingredients for a week and it was about $90. Not bad, eh?

This arvo I quickly whipped up the first 3 meals for the next 2 days but I need to do more tonight while i'm oncall if we're not too busy (as well as do my muscle workout). I think all of them can be frozen quite well.

Also, I got a pair of workout capris/leggings from Target for only $20 so i'm quite happy about that but can't wait to get some more nicer workout gear. Will have to wait though....

My workout space

Meta Day 2

Woke up on a real downer this morning. Not sure if it's hormonal (I think it is - I have that "fat, ugly bitch" self-talk going on) or what. I haven't heard back from uni about next term and I seem to have a lot of financial stress atm. Not even feeling optimistic about this TAM program or my ability to keep breaking through this plataeu which feels like a tight elastic band - it's moving but needs constant force.
And....my neck is still sore.
I decided to do the muscular workout first today but I needed an hour to talk myself into doing my cardio. I think on my days off I'll do cardio first then muscular back-to-back so it gets done. I did the cardio but it was a poor performance. My mood lifted for about 10 mins during the cardio but that was it.
I'm feeling guilty about not following her diet. I don't have a blender for starters. I think I'll give it a few more days, maybe the first 10 days and see how I feel. I would prefer to double the cardio to an hour than eat pureed food for a week at a time.
So how to cure this mood: a). Drugs - chocolate, sugar, alcohol, natural endorphines from exercise or sex, b). Distraction -movies, shopping, visit friends, c). Perspective - think about people in a much worse situation and realise my life isn't that bad, d). Achieving a goal - cleaning, organising study. Not sure which I'll go for.
Sorry about this low post. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.

Meta Day 1

Since my total freak-out in early Feb, in March I started working out and eating healthy and as of today I have lost 4kg and 2% body fat  in to months and have gone below my normal "set point".  I'm not sure if that sounds like much, but to me it means all my clothes in my wardrobe fit nice again, and even one pair of jeans I put on yesterday are too loose.  If Ionly lost another 4kg and 2% body fat I would be pretty much at my ideal - the best body I've never had (as Tracy would say).

I got my Metamorphosis Hipcentric today and after taking my measurements and "before" photos I've just done my first Meta workout.  I couldn't decide whether to do cardio or strength first and it kind of threw me off.  Normally, people say to do strength first, but meta doesn't explicitly state which to do first but it seems to be suggesting cardio first.  It is more important to do cardio everyday, so maybe it's putting the importance of it first.  Oh I don't know.  It's annoying.  The diet is so prescriptive yet something like this really bugs me.

I've had a look at the diet and I wont be following it.  It's too small!  I feel my body will continue losing weight following my current diet which is modified Venice Nutrition.  I might try a few recipes because I likes the ones from the BC which some seem similar. 

My modified Venice Nutrition diet is based around the blood sugar stabilisation of eating every ~3hours and eating a balanced meal of protein, carbs, and fats.  I make sure to have both low and high GI carbs in the same meal (eg brown rice and strawberries), and I have slightly reduced the protein portion from about 140grams to about 100grams per meal, and if there are a lot of non-starchy veges in the meal (ie spinach, tomato) then I add that portion on top of the carbs - ie they don't count.  I also absolutely do not want to eat "fake" sweeteners as I read a few studies where the test mice actually gained weight, compared to the ones that had "real" sugar.  And I also knew a very experienced body-building trainer who swore every client of his that ate "sugar-free" lollies etc still held weight.  That's enough convincing for me on top of the suspected carciongenic nature of artificial sweeteners.

I pretty much don't eat dairy except my 2 pieces of dark chocolate every night (85% coco) and have added bread back in at once or twice a week (I had a very upset tummy after not eating bread for a week and then eating it, so I want to be able to eat it still) but its always wholemeal.  I also eat as many spices as possible (against TAM recommendations).

Anyway, I'm happily following the Meta workouts.  I kind of felt ripped off on the arms section and I miss doing the Mat Workout DVD, but the legs are all done in the all-fours position (aka doggy-style) so I think this is working them.  I hope its enough because doing the Mat I got really good tightness of the tricep bingo wings so far, so I hope it continues.  The Mat is also about 45mins and the Meta strength (or "transform") workout is only 30mins.  Hmmm....  I really like the cardio DVD, but I think I prefer the Mat and PDS strength workout so far, but I'lll stick with Meta for now and decide whether I'm going to renew it with the continuity program later.

And as another totally random thought, I'm watching Cesar Milan "The Dog Whisperer" and I've decided there are a few male humans that should be neutered to help their personality.  Seriously!

It's here

Finally, my TAM Meta has arrived....

Metamorphosis!

I've just seen online that my TAM Meta cleared Australian customs yesterday afternoon!   So exciting!  That means it might hopefully arrive tomorrow, but should definately make it during the week!  Woop-woop!  That's about 2 weeks from ordering to arriving in Oz if anyone was wondering.  I already have my PDS so I don'r really need it need it but I can't wait all the same.