Wednesday, September 30, 2009

blah

Food consumed:
breakfast-toast and PB, OJ=330
Lunch-lean cuisine, mint=335
Dinner-rice cakes, cereal, cheese, truffle=740

Total=1405

Not bad on food today.... soooo sore from the Turbo Kick last night, sigh. Hopefully making myself work out in the morning... even if I am sore. We'll see how it goes.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Laziness

I was reminded of something I already knew about myself today, and well actually it's kind of a law of physics.... a body in motion stays in motion and a body at rest stays at rest. Ok, this does apply to me. I have suddenly gotten very busy and remembered that I am much more motivated, efficient, and happy when I have a thousand things to do. Unlike when I'm lazy (hence the title) and just don't want to do anything then, even simple stuff like unpacking or cooking dinner. So now that I'm super busy, let's see how weight loss goes (ie more likely to work out).

Food today:
Breakfast-PB and toast, OJ=330
Lunch-potato chips, sushi=660
Snack-yogurt, rice cakes=150
Dinner-cereal, truffle, cheese, turkey=440

Total Calories=1580

Workout-Turbo Kick, 1 hr= I have no idea I'm guessing 500

I tried this new class that is mostly like kick boxing but with some other cardio and ab work, it was a lot of fun. I think I will continue going. Plus I work myself harder in a class than I do by myself.

Monday, September 28, 2009

I'm Back!

Ok I finally made it back from "vacation" or visiting the grandparents and am all set to get going again. I happily looked at the scale this morning to see 161.6 lbs... which means I only gained .2 lbs over vacation. Believe me, I ate whatever I wanted (yummy mexican food), but I did take a walk and go for a swim for the first time in a long time... it felt good, but man was my racing suit tight, which makes sense since I haven't had a new one since I was about... 20 lbs lighter than I am now. I think I would like to give it a couple more weeks before I try that again.

I'm still waiting for the results of my cholesterol test and have a huge purple and green bruise on my arm that's still sore to prove it. Oh the fun...

Also completely exhausted today, darn you time change! So trying to get back to some sort of normal routine tomorrow with a new motivated outlook.. I hope :)

So what I ate today:
Breakfast-toast and PB, OJ=330
Lunch-salad from a salad bar(completely guessing on calories here), mint=300?
Dinner-cereal, too much popcorn, chocolate=1170

Total Calories=1800

Well I was watching the Grey's Premiere and I got distracted and ate a whole bag of popcorn without blinking. So there's that, but I made orchestra, so that's exciting. I realize this was completely unrelated but yeah... On to working out and eating right tomorrow:)

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Undergrads...

The undergrads came back this week...

I know I know, everyone else has had them for ages, but we have one of those screwed up quarter systems and it wasn't until this week (keep in mind they don't leave until mid June). I forgot how crowded they make everything. I was selling lab goggles and notebooks to freshmen on Tuesday and we got swamped with people asking us where things were in the giant sciences building. We dont' know where most things are, it was entertaining. Blind leading the blind. I'll have to get used to the crowdedness of campus again. It also means summer is officially over and I should really stop slacking off.

But first... of to AZ to the gradparents' place this weekend. Wish me luck on not being bored out of my mind! (also no internet, so expect me back on Monday)

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Biggest loser S8Ep2

Ok I know, I suck at posting lately. I have about a million things going on, including getting my blood taken, packing for AZ, laundry, you get it. I did manage to watch BL last night while I was doing my laundry, so here's a few opinions etc. I'll have to get back to posting everyday when I get back from visiting my grandparents in AZ (not so much with the internet there).

*Spoiler Alert*

So I wasn't sure how I felt about this 150lb challenge thing. I always think it's great when they do this stuff that let's them stay on longer, but 150lbs in week 2, that's kind of mean. I do like that they were all working together, less game play, more losing weight is always good.

So glad Tracy is back and mostly ok. I kinda wish they had showed what she was doing to work out for all the people out there with some health restrictions, but hooray for the purple team:)

I also really liked that they gave them opportunities to decrease the amount of lbs needed for this week. I wonder if that was originally the plan, or if Bob and Jillian were like, ummm this isn't cool, help them out a little. I was also super impressed that they all worked together and just did that balance challenge. pretty awesome!

All the phone calls home made me cry... yeah, I'm a little girly.

Amazing weight loss! I feel bad for the pink team, I think that Amanda just hasn't hit her sweet spot yet. Don't give up! I'm sure she'll get there. It was very impressive that they got over the original 150 lbs, I wonder if Bob and Jillian really switched a lot so this would happen. Will we be seeing traditional week 2 numbers next week instead? Also, I still love Daniel, he's amazing and in the 200's!

Monday, September 21, 2009

MIA

Sorry I completely disappeared for a few days. I wasn't having the best eating habits and everything in lab was going wrong, so I basically curled up in bed and read for a day and a half. So back to the real world and blogging.

I did weigh in this morning and despite my terrible eating the last 3 days I am still exactly the same weight 161.4 lbs... weird huh? Anyhow, it doesn't look like I'll be getting under 160 by the time I go to Arizona on Thursday, but I'll check thursday morning just in case.

More to come later today!

Friday, September 18, 2009

Oops

Well my internet was weird last ngiht so I didn't get to do this.

Yesterday I ate
Breakfast-toast and PB, OJ=330
Lunch-pork, plum, mint=220
Snack-handisnack=100
Dinner-popcorn, handisnacks, grapes, ice cream, wine=840ish?

Total Calories=1490

And I finally realized that my emotions are all weird and I'm craving food due to PMS... duh. Also I feel like i"m getting sick, which is not good.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Free Food Temptation

So today, in the lobby outside my lab there was free food... alllll day. Talk about temptation, I was going crazy. I walk through there at least 5 times a day and grad school is full of free food. Plus in grad school it's a culture thing: you get paid no money, you must steal the free food. It's basically implanted in our brains. Resisting the urge, especially when it comes in the form of really bad for you things (pastries, chips, chocolate things...) is really hard. I did bring a supply of snacks today, so I resisted, but I had to think, free food does not mean you have to eat it, about 10 times.

So what I ate today:
Breakfast-cereal, OJ=310
lunch-pork with veggies, celery, yogurt, mint=280
Snack-rice cakes=90
Dinner-salmon, popcorn, ice cream, grapes=1000

Total Calories=1680

Well I had kind of a rough evening. My parents are still talking about moving, and it's still upsetting me a lot. Plus all my lab stuff is not working, so it was a not so good mood and I just wanted something to make me feel better. So food it was, but at least I managed to stop myself before I went completely crazy, I knew I was full and I didn't go get any more.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Biggest Loser Season 8!!!

*Spoiler Alert*

Oh my god, this season is ridiculous, everyone is sooo big, you could tell the trainers were almost just astonished. But the good thing is they all started and tried really hard. I'm so glad Daniel is back and he's such a good guy, so encouraging to everyone and really helping out his partner since she's in the same position he was last time.

Oooo, I love all the research testing. It could be really cool if they're able to give a little bit of the progress for some of it by the end of the show. It's really scary how sick these people are, I hope nothing more serious than what happened tonight happens the rest of the season.

Oh my god Jillian's crying....oh she's so sweet :) I love Jillian so much. I like all the yelling and puking and then she does the whole emotional thing too.

Well I'm sad that one of the young ones had to go home early, but she looks really good! I bet she'll do well in the finale. I also kind of feel like she was the most negative out of the group, so maybe that will help with nice group dynamics (I get frustrated with the drama). Also sooooo glad that Coach Moe made the weight he needed, hopefully Tracy can come back next week!

Food for today:
Breakfast-toast and PB, OJ=310
Lunch-cashew chicken, mint=305
Snack-yogurt, pringles=160
Dinner-small corn muffin, pork with onions, mushrooms, and oranges, ice cream, 2 handisnacks=585

Total Calories=1360

Exercise-40 min on olipticle =393 calories (or so the machine says)

I had a mental fight with my scale this morning and I WON! yay me, so I didn't weigh myself, sticking to it until Monday. Had a little issue with buying food after my fun GYN appointment at the grocery store, but I didn't eat it all and I made my new yummy orange braised pork dish, so that was exciting!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Food intake

Breakfast-cereal, OJ=350
Lunch-leftover cashew chicken, mint=285
Dinner-cheese, turkey, pringles, rice cakes, yogurt, kiwi, PB, truffle=605

Total Calories=1240

Workout-weight lifting 40 min, according to some website about 290 calories burned...I think I may have pushed a little hard lifting this morning, but it was nice to get back into it. Probably I'll be sore tomorrow, oh well, no pain no gain right?

Oh tomorrow I'll be posting my opinions of the Biggest Loser Season 8 premiere, but not an entire summary. SOOOOO excited!!

Scales/WI

And today I was 161.4 lbs.... again, which annoyed me. Also, how likely is it to vary up and down through the week and then get the same weight for WI day?

Anyway, I was mostly annoyed because yesterday when I got on the scale I was 160.6, and was excited. This brings me to my topic: scales. This is always a controversy, how often should you weigh yourself? Well, I've been doing it once a day in the morning every day, but now I bet I wouldn't have been as disappointed if I hadn't known about yesterday's weight and got the same today. Would have been somewhat disappointed but not as much as I am now. I weigh myself everyday as a reminder to pay attention, but maybe it's not such a good idea? I think this week I may skip the scale until Monday and see how that goes.

I also reasoned through in my head and realized all the wine probably dehydrated me so my body sucked up a bunch of water yesterday, hence back to 161.4. It did however motivate me to push hard in the gym this morning, which is good.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Hermit Day

Today I just stayed home and watched tv and cleaned a little and just hid from life. It was nice. I was thinking about going to work, but it just didn't seem like it was in the cards. Especially since I was slightly hungover from alll the wine last night. Considering how drunk I was I didn't eat much extra food (or at least not nearly as much as I normally would when we go to those). I also only ate as much of the Thai we ordered as I was hungry for and I ordered something without noodles and with lots of veggies. All in all I think I'm learning to think healthier and some better control. We'll see what the scale says tomorrow!

Breakfast-cereal=290
Lunch-5 Shumai, Cashew Chicken and a little rice, truffle=520
Dinner-kiwi, turkey slices,2 pringles, cheese, skiny cow ice cream, mint=465
Total Calories=1275

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Wine

This post is due to a wine premiere I'm going to today and hoping that I don't go completely overboard and kill my weight loss for the week. Btw, I looooovvve wine!

Alright, I know that when you're trying to loose weight alcohol is a bad word, but can we all really do without it for as long as this might take (many months, a year)? I don't think so. Not only does it taste reallllly good, but as a 20-something, there are bars and clubs and parties to go to. Some of those things don't require alcohol, but don't you feel much better in those heals when you can't entirely feel your feet? I thought so.

The next step is, how do you incorporate it into your calories? Well, there's keeping all other non-healthy things out of your day, or the eating less (but that can be difficult if you don't want to be very drunk), or exercising some extra calories off, so it's not too bad.

I think it's possible to indulge sometimes and still lose the weight. Let's see if it works out...

Food?:
Breakfast-cereal, OJ=310
Lunch-plum, turkey, pringles, carrots, yogurt, cheese, mint=355
Dinner-eggbeaters, cheese, mushrooms=200
Wine Tasting-6 glasses of wine, pita bread, cheese=900

Total Calories=1765

Wow, a little big, but I had a lot of wine, and it was soo good, I'll make up for it tomorrow.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Friday (finnnaaaaally)

So first I just want to say all the people who lost loved ones on 9/11 are in my heart today.

Food I ate Today:
Breakfast-toast and PB, OJ=310
Lunch=PB&J sandwich, plum, yogurt, mint=335
Dinner-cereal, smartfood popcorn, chips, truffle=670

Total Calories=1315

So good on the calories but not the best food... can't have everything.

I didn't get to go to the gym today because my experiment that was running overnight stopped at the first step and I spent all day fixing it. So more time in lab tomorrow, very not fun.

Hooray for the weekend though, just hope I can keep my calories in check.

Sorry not exciting today, but I'll try for some longer things this weekend.


Thursday, September 10, 2009

One Week!

Hey, I've managed to blog my way through an entire week, and I have to say, "I'm loving it!" So I promised you guys some optimism for yesterday and well, it kinda didn't happen. I apologize and bring you optimism one day late instead.

I want to talk about mini-goals. I spent a lot of this week when I should have been working reading the archives of FatBridesmaid, because I wanted to look at how a successful blog started and evolved (She's completely amazing btw, you should be reading her). I was mostly amazed by her perseverance. I get up and think oh my god, I have 36ish pounds to loose, how will I do that? It seems impossible and overwhelming. I'm sure you've had that feeling. Then I thought, what about the people who have even more to loose, how do they do it? My answer was mini-goals. If you can look at just this week, or just those 5 pounds, it seems easier, doable, underwhelming (don't know if that's a word, but work with me here). Alright, so I should make some mini-goals.

Mini-goals:
1) Blog everyday for the rest of the month (Except the days I'm at my grandparents because well internet is a problem)
2) Count calories everyday for the rest of the month-even if I go over, totally destroy everything, I will count them
3) Get out of the 160's by the time I go to my grandparents' house (which is the 24th)-it's only a pound and a half, but I want it, and I just want to do that much right now.

Loftier goals to come after I succeed in these small ones.

Food I ate Today:
Breakfast-ditto=310
Lunch-ditto+nectarine=365
Dinner-Tandori Chicken Lite sandwich, carrots from Cosi and two glasses of wine, one mint=745

Total Calories=1420

Decent day, also wine rocks...

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Yay I exercised!

So just to warn you all, this is going to be a pretty random post.

Food I ate today:
Breakfast-ditto the rest of the week=310
Lunch-PB&J Sandwich, yogurt, mint=305
Snack-rice cake snack bag=90
Dinner-mac&cheese, chocolate covered strawberries=750
Total Calories=1455

Exercise: 350ish calories burned on the oliptical, 30min plus cooldown

Alright, so optimistic first. I got up and exercised this morning and it felt good! I'm going to take a break tomorrow so I don't push myself too hard. I know, I know, people heavier and more out of shape than me do way more everyday on the Biggest Loser. I do not have medical supervision and don't have time to get sick because I pushed too hard, so this is the way it goes.

Next, well you may have noticed the mac and cheese on the food list. I'm not perfect, I never said I was, and I never will. Last night I really wanted mac and cheese and talked myself out of it, but the craving continued through today and I just couldn't stop myself. Honestly, it didn't taste quite as good as I remembered, possibly due to the topping of guilt on top.

Ok, lastly a little personal info that's having a large effect on my mental state. I found out my dad lost his job today, which is not as bad as you are all thinking. He's been looking for a different one for a while since the (now) old one had issues that he didn't like. He has several leads, so it's not that bad. He, however, mentioned that one of these possibilities is in St. Louis, which is my current problem. Explanation: I'm from NJ, my parents still live there, still live in the house I (up until college) lived in my entire life. So when he says St. Louis, my world starts to fall apart. Now, yes I am being waaaaaay too dramatic here, especially since it's only a possibility, but hear me out. Being able to go back to that house for a couple days every 4 months-ish keeps me grounded, and able to survive living so far away from most of the people I love. It would make life really really hard for me if my parents sold the house.

09-09-09

So the title isn't what I actually want to talk about, but it is kind of a cool day. Anyhow, what I want to talk about is construction. Yep, you got it right.

I hate construction.

That's not the whole story, but it does sum it up. Ok so any grad student or undergrad who stayed for a summer or professor knows that summer at a university=construction time. Ok, I get it, the nice little undergrads who pay you lots of money aren't around, so you use this time to convert the place into a disaster area. Plus, where I live you can't do much construction outside in the winter... it just doesn't go well. However, university, you might remember that other people do work here, all summer.

Also, I have had the good fortune to be in a permanent construction zone since I arrived at grad school. They are building us a brand-new, shiny, clean lab building. We're moving at the beginning of November (well, that's when we're supposed to move). Great, that is actually really awesome, except for the actual moving process, which I'm sure you will here much more from me about. But again, construction, allllll the time. It's loud and dusty and occaisionally turns off the power without warning and there are construction workers everywhere (well sometimes that's not so bad).

Anyway, as I said before:

I hate construction.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Grumble

Food I ate today:
Breakfast-rice crispies and milk, OJ=310
Lunch-PB&J sandwich, yogurt, carrots=340
Dinner-Turkey, mushroom, cheese, toast, raspberries=385
Dessert-4 chocolate covered strawberries=240
Total Calories=1275

Ok you look at that and you say to me, why is this post titled grumble? Well I'll tell you, while the food I ate today list is within my limit and I feel super full on what I feel like is a small amount of calories, I didn't have a great day.

Yeah, so I wanted to work out today, but I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to do at work this morning, so I said, ok, I'll start work, I'll go to the gym after lunch. I know myself better than this, if I don't go early in the morning, I don't go. Right, so I didn't go to the gym. Then I was going to come home and make this new recipe orange braised pork thing. However, I open up the pork I bought yesterday and it's a funny color, ewwwww. Needless to say, I didn't make the pork dish. Now I have to figure out what to do for lunch the rest of the week...

Sorry, not very optimistic tonight, I'll try to get back to my happy place tomorrow.

Budgets

A friend of mine mentioned today that another mutual friend had gone shopping and was not adhering to her budget, and this got me thinking about the word budget and what exactly that means to us.

For a grad student budgeting our money can be well difficult and very important, on the other hand having a calorie budget is important to weight loss, and last, but not least, budgeting our time in grad school and in weight loss is also important. Ok, so now budgeting seems to have taken over my life and I'm sure a lot of yours as well.

I recently decided that a monetary budget was something I really needed. Up until now I don't have so much of a spending problem that I was having trouble making ends meet on my lowly graduate stipend, but I am planning a trip to Italy next fall and I would really like to be able to buy souvenirs and still have a savings account when I get home. I've only officially kept track for a full month so far, but I've managed to stay mostly in bounds. Some not fully expended areas covered a couple that I went over in and so far, so good. It is a big step into adulthood to keep track of everything... I always wondered why my mom had piles and piles of receipts on her desk... well now I know. Welcome to real life

Ok so calorie budgets, we all have them, do we stick to them? Well I know we try, which is a good step in and of itself. Sticking to our calorie budget means we feel good, we (hopefully) lose weight, and everything fits into place.

Budgeting our time, ok grad students unite on this one, if you don't budget time in lab, nothing ever gets done. Turns out this is true with the rest of life. Cooking healthy food takes time, exercising takes time, sleeping takes time, well you get the idea.

Overall point: Budgets are important!

Biggest Loser

Today is the one week mark to the 8th season of Biggest Loser! I am a huge fan. I've only seen Seasons 6 and 7 so far, but I'm really excited for 8. If you haven't seen the preview, here's a link: http://www.nbc.com/the-biggest-loser/video/clips/the-biggest-loser-extended-preview/1152091/

I'm especially thrilled that Dan is back and that it's singles this time. I wonder if it will help or hurt Dan the first couple of weeks since he's already partially in shape, his numbers might not be as big.

Anyway, the point is I'll be following the show and posting my own little comments about it the next day.

Also Tara (from Season 7) has a new website with a blog if anyone is interested: http://www.taracosta.com/

Monday, September 7, 2009

Mmmmm Strawberries

So I'm planning to have about 1200-1400 calories per day. I've done some research and 1200 seems to be the lowest healthy amount of calories, but that's a little tough, so I'm giving myself some wiggle room. Plus, I'll just lose a little more slowly, which I'm ok with. A lot of my research is from Jillian Michaels (who I love btw). Her books and her old radio show were very informative.

Food eaten today (with calories):
Breakfast-rice crispies and milk, OJ= 310
Lunch-rice cake mini bag, chicken and asparagus, mint=330
Snack-strawberries and chocolate=320
Dinner-egg beaters, mushrooms, cheese, toast with jam, chocolate covered strawberries=500

Total Calories=1460

So I went to the grocery store and they had really good strawberries that I really wanted to make into chocolate covered strawberries (which are amazing), and that's where the extra chocolate calories came from today. There was extra chocolate when I was making them that I just couldn't let go to waste and I know that's like clean plate syndrome, but it was chocolate...

Anyway, so just a few over calories, not too bad. I did have a little exercise walking home with my groceries.

Labor Day

So today is labor day and from what I looked up on labor day, it is supposed to be a day of appreciation for trade and labor workers and their families. Ok so I think that grad students should definitely go in that category since we are basically slave labor. Well I went to lab today, only for a half a day, but still.

The university does sort of give a lot of our department's grad students a way out of going in this weekend. They do maintenance on our buildings, which shuts down things like fume hoods, water, power etc. This, however, depends on which building you work in. My particular building had the power shut down yesterday and the reverse osmosis water shut down all weekend. So part of the weekend I was off the hook, but I needed to get some things done today, so in I go.

The other problem with the building shut down is it says in the notification emails something along the lines of: Since most of the campus will be gone this weekend. Well, of course, most lab oriented grad students are not actually gone, expecting to be able to work. I wonder if the university knows that we usually work holidays and weekends. Maybe someone should write the dean a letter. I think it should say:

Dean, remember when you were in grad school. Did you work on the weekends? Remember that when sending out notices about building shut downs. Love, the graduate population of your university.

Monday Morning

Ahh yes, so this morning was my WI morning (I know I started this on a wednesday, but Monday's are usually the day I WI).

So I weight 161.4lbs, which is a little smaller loss than I was hoping for, but still a loss. I figure as long as I lost weight, I can be happy about it. Plus this week I will actually be counting calories and working out more than once, so it should get better.

Also wanted to thank my first follower! I'm so excited that someone is actually reading this. More motivation to keep posting:) Thanks Meg!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Almost forgot!

I got completely distracted by this new Facebook application that RM1 talked me into called Farmville and almost forgot to do this post.

So very quickly, I ate today:
Breakfast- OJ, Rice crispies and skim milk
Lunch-two slices american cheese, 4 turkey slices, small low fat yogurt, low fat pringles, truffle
Dinner-take out Chinese (including 4 steamed pork dumplings, some assorted beef and chicken veggie dishes that weren't the breaded fried kind, and a little rice), one brownie

Not sure how the dinner part is going to effect my WI tomorrow, but most of the chinese was not that bad being mostly veggies. I'm just worried about portion size and the brownie. We were at an outdoor concert, and they just looked soooo good.

More interesting things tomorrow I promise!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Evolution of weight gain

So today at the jazz fest, a friend of mine from college and I were talking about the way this girl an ex-friend of ours married looks now (namely she's gained a lot of weight and looks kind of terrible). It got me thinking about my own weight gain and how it came about.

Ok, we all know that everyone warns you about the freshman 15, so as a freshman I paid attention. I wasn't amazing looking but I was still in the healthy range for my height. I worked out, kind of watched what I ate... no problem, also spent the summer after freshman year losing about 5-6 lbs. Great good times, so this is 130lbs about.

Sophmore year, I gained back the weight I lost over the summer and a couple more. Then I went to Europe for the summer, welllll let's just say the czechs don't exactly have light food. So add another 8ish lbs.

Junior-senior year slowly gained up to 155lbs, decided spring semester that wasn't ok and did online WW, lost 10 lbs, then drank my way back to the 155lbs in the last month and a half of senior year.

Ok so everyone is warned about that freshman 15, no one mentions the grad school weight gain (which I know many people have had). So I entered at around 150 having tried WW again during that summer. It took about a year to gain the 15lbs to get me up to around where I am now. I kept trying WW, but I didn't want to trek to the meetings or the points were annoying or whatever... so that's where I am and how I got here.

Jazz Fest...

So today was an absolutely gorgeous day here and I got to go hear free excellent jazz music outside all day. Something to note, anything free is a must do for grad students.

Anyway, good day of sun and fun, not too bad on the food front either I don't think.

Food for today:
Breakfast-rice crispies and skim milk
Lunch- rice crispies, skim milk, turkey slices (3), nectarine, mint
Dinner-pot stickers (chicken and veggies), skinnycow fudsicle, lowfat pringles, truffle

Not bad considering I went to a festival with plenty of bad for you temptations... like funnel cake and burgers and well you get the idea. No exercise besides wandering around the festival, but at least I didn't stay in my room all day and do nothing.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Free Pizza

Ok, so something that's vaguely relevant to weight loss, at least to eating habits anyway. I don't actually like pizza, at least not as is. I like pizza without the cheese, so at least I feel like I'm not getting quite as bad for me food when I eat pizza as everyone else. This is relevant because we had free pizza at our Chem department social today and it was dinner.

So food consumed today:
Breakfast-toast, PB, OJ
Lunch-chicken and asparagus, pretzels, mints (H2O)
Dinner-3 pieces of pizza (one sausage), half a cup of root beer
Snack-2 truffles, mint

Anyway, overall not bad, no exercise because I was sooo tired after yesterday. Slowly but surely.

Hg...

Alright, so I never thought much about the heat block that's kept on my bench until today. I broke the thermometer, and it turns out it was a mercury thermometer. Yeah... so instead of doing my little assay I was planning to do, I got a crash course in Hg clean up, needless to say, I am now somewhat behind on my plan for today.

So for all you lab slaves out there... check and see if your thermometers are still mercury, and get rid of them if they are. Mercury clean up is no fun!

Graduate Social Structure

So later today we have the first department social of the year to "welcome" the first years, which lead me to thinking about the chemistry department's social structure. In my experience it goes something like this:

First years hang out together- this tends to be obvious due to orientation, classes, TAing, and the lack of a lab to live in. Sometimes this group splinters into Chemistry disciplines (Organic, Inorganic, Pchem), although I assume this depends on how big the department is (ours is rather large).

By about the middle of 2nd year people splinter off into hanging out with their groups- generally you rarely see anyone outside of lab, so this is natural, as long as you actually like your group. There are also groups who tend to hang out with specific other groups depending on the situation.

Ok so those are the basic rules. I happen to meld a few of my first year friends into my hang out circle, not sure how common that is. It also helps that I live with one of them... plus I'll meet the 1st years due to my 1st year roommate.

So at this social this is what normally happens. People show up with their groups, often they will see some long lost year-mate and wander over to talk to them. Creating either little clusters of lab groups or little clusters of year-mates, generally there isn't much mixing besides that. I feel that this is really not optimal to our socializing, but have yet to figure out a way to fix it. So I just try to actually talk to people not in my year or my lab group.

Anyhow, that's my morning thoughts... time to get some lab work done before this lovely social (they do give us free food, which is nice even if it is pizza).

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Food for Thought

I generally intend to list food intake and any exercise I've done everyday along with any other tidbits about weight-loss that seem relevant.

Today I ate:
Breakfast-whole-wheat toast, PB, OJ
Lunch-chicken and asparagus, pretzels, 2 mints (lots of H2O)
Dinner-turkey, toast, cheese and mushroom sandwich, nectarine, pretzels, truffle, mint, gingerale

I'll start counting calories next week when I know for certain I'm completely not sick anymore.

Exercise:
half an hour on the stationary bike

The exercise was amazingly tiring, probably due to the fact that I've been sick and not working out for the last well almost 2 weeks. Note to self: take recovery slowly in order to not get injured.

So overall I've done pretty well today(assuming I don't eat a ton after I finish this). Good first day of the blog!

Little bit of background

Alright, as I'm hoping this will stay semi anonymous names and actual locations will be changed for all of this part. And yes, I do understand that having my picture on the blog will make it less anonymous, but that seems essential for the weight-loss portion. The grad school stuff will be more hidden as to not embarrass or get me into trouble with any important people (not that I want to bash anyone, but all information may not be favorable). With that out of the way...

I just became a 3rd year chemistry grad student at a fairly prestigious university, which I will call Univ. for the remainder of this blog. I live with two roommates to cut costs (grad school is not impressively well paid) who will be called RM1 and RM2. So the point being, RM2 just moved in a few weeks ago (RM1 has been my roommate since the beginning of grad school) to start our program as a first year, which began just on the 1st. And of course, when they start, we all move up a year, making me a 3rd year. Upon becoming a 3rd year, I am a little confused. Mostly due to the fact that I in no way feel as if I know enough to be a 3rd year. I remember what it felt like to look at a 3rd year when I started. My opinions of them went something like... wow, look at all the information they know and they have actual research projects and they know how to do grad school. I can now, for certain, say that most of those things were absolutely not true. The amount of knowledge I have seems to decrease with each passing year, and I have no idea how to navigate grad school. I do actually have multiple research projects, but that doesn't seem to help.

Anyway, that's what has been on my mind mostly this week as well as... I wonder if any of the 1st years are cute and are they too young for me to be thinking about dating them?

Starting Picture


I thought a beginning picture would be a good start... as you can tell I'm still working on what this whole thing should look like, more to come later!

The Beginning...

Well hi anyone who is actually reading this! I have never done a blog before, so you'll have to bare with me and we'll learn as we go. This blog is going to have two sort of functions.

The first being to hold myself responsible for losing the weight I've been trying on and off to lose since I started Grad school (2 years ago), and to inspire others to get healthy (and happy) along with me.

The second is to share what the life of a chemistry grad student (otherwise known as a scientist) is really like and share my limited insight on that subject.

I expect other subjects will come up considering I'm prone to tangents, and hopefully this will evolve with me. So welcome! and feel free to comment.

So to start off with I'm 5' 2" and well this week my starting weight was 161.8lbs but before I got a stomach virus about a week and a half ago I was about 168 lbs, so that's the official starting weight. My goal is 125lbs and I would like to meet that goal by my 25th birthday (next August 5th). Of course optimistically, I would love to get there earlier, but that's my reasonable goal.