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.
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.