my first post in a month and it's about housecleaning

I'm in Hartwell, Georgia this week, visiting my grandparents.  Prior to flying out here on Monday morning, I had worked 19 of the previous 22 days and was NOT in the most mentally healthy condition.  It's not so bad, though.  The reason I'm doing it is because other people are covering for me when I go on vacation later this year, so it all balances out in the long run.  Plus, having only 3 days off in a 3-week period was normal during residency and didn't equate to extra vacation later!

Now I kind of don't know what to do with myself.  I rarely sit and do anything leisurely.  I don't know when I get that way, but somehow my time outside of working, eating, sleeping, and exercising was usurped by a neverending list of household to-do's.  It's made me nostalgic for the days when I lived in one-bedroom apartments.  Owning a house is a lot of work!  Holland and I have now been in our house for a year and there are still boxes of stuff that have been sitting in our garage and outside storeroom all this time, never unpacked.  And don't you know this drives. me. crazy.

We finally made a little bit of progress on the boxes the other week - a lot of the books that we had no place for but couldn't bear to part with got put up in our nice, floored attic, where the rain will (hopefully) not get them.  There are still a number of the boxes left to deal with, though.

I also read this article during the middle of a stressful period last month and it was a bit of a reality check for me.  You see, I enjoy trying to be domestic - doing laundry, ironing, cooking, even cleaning. I like to have a schedule for the household chores because I feel like it makes my home peaceful, clean, inviting, and comfortable.  However, it has been hard to balance this with wanting to work out all the time, having a significant commute to work, and the "all-or-nothing" schedule of a hospitalist.  After reading the article, I made a list of all the things I was trying to do every week and realized that it was absurd.  So I made a list of my priorities.  Then I picked out the things that I was willing to outsource.  This actually ended up boiling down to "what things CAN I outsource?" Holland and I already decided earlier this summer to just outsource the ironing.  As much as I wanted to be a woman who ironed my husband's shirts, what ended up happening in reality was that my husband had a lot of clean clothes hanging in the closet, waiting to be ironed, and nothing to wear.  Let alone my own clothes that needed ironing - I hadn't worn those in a year.  So now, anything that needs ironing goes to the dry cleaners.  Holland's shirts are like $2 a piece and it is so worth it to have work clothes that are ready to go.

So, when I sat down and made my list, as much as it felt like admitting defeat, I finally decided to at least try having hired cleaners.  As I do not know anyone in Portland who could recommend a good person to do it, I decided to go with a cleaning service.  Yes, they're more expensive (because they pay taxes on their employees), but they are insured and bonded and they have a checklist of all the things they clean every time.  They do background checks on their employees and I can read reviews about them on Yelp.  AND, the BEST PART - I can schedule online! And if I have a question or need to reschedule, their PREFERRED mode of communication is email and they usually get back to you within 30 minutes.  These were my kind of people.

I rescheduled once and though about canceling at least a dozen times because I was sure they wouldn't clean things the way I liked them, I didn't like the idea of strangers in my house, yada yada.  Then, one morning, they finally came.  And when I came home, it was as if some sort of strange bomb had gone off in my house and magically sucked the dust off of everything.  Everything was clean and neatly put away and sparkling.  I checked the hidden dusty corners and they were dusted.  The sinks were shiny.  They cleaned the top of my stove and inside my microwave.  It was AMAZING.  And I think it really has helped some with the stress.  Even if I feel like the house is dirty and I want to clean it, it takes a lot off me just know that, if I don't get around to it, SOMEONE is going to do it in the near future.  And they will do a good job.  So, for now, I'm sticking with monthly cleanings.  I'm planning to do at least light cleanings in between.  But on the crazy months like these next few, where H and I are both traveling and/or working a lot, at least I know that someone will do a good thorough cleaning at some point.

hel-LLLLLLLLLO!

So the last time I posted in my blog was 6 months ago.  Nice.

So the fitness thing actually stuck.  I've lost about 18 pounds.  Before anyone gets too excited and tries to criticize that in any way, let me just tell you that I still weigh over 120 lbs.  By any chart or standard that you want to use, my weight falls solidly within the "normal" range.  I was overweight (maybe just good at hiding it) when my little adventure began and now I feel really good.  No apologies.

The only reason I post about this at all is to let anyone who's interested know that it appears that it actually is possible to be healthy, fit, and even lose weight without being miserable, hungry, and socially isolated.  Yes, I had to count calories.  There's really no way around that.  Here is the basic secret:  there is no secret and no magic.  You need to do more strength training, a moderate amount of cardio, and you need to have a healthy diet.  The diet part was not easy and sometimes downright hard for a few weeks...maybe even months.  But now it feels normal.  I did not lose weight quickly.  A lot of times I felt like I wasn't making any progress at all, which is where it was helpful to have a trainer to tell me to just stick with it.

(I did wear a Bodybugg device while I was actively trying to lose weight, which was useful because it made it impossible for me to fudge how much I was really burning and compare it to how much I was eating.  The Bodybugg was great for me at the time and I was unable to lose weight until I got it, although I will say that now I'm tired of wearing the armband and having everyone look at me and ask what it is.  I've ordered a Fitbit Flex, which I'm expecting to arrive on backorder in a few weeks.  I tried a Jawbone UP and hated it and sent it back.  For now, I'm just using an app on my phone that counts calories.)

I don't actually have a "diet."  But if I had to come up with some general rules, here they are:  I cut back on alcohol, cut back on cheese, and cut back on processed carbohydrates.  I started eating a little more meat - tuna or turkey at lunch, chicken or beef at dinner.  I always have some protein (whey or peanut butter) at breakfast.  I replaced rice with quinoa and, when I do eat pasta, I try to make it whole wheat.  I found a brand of cottage cheese that I like and I put it on almost anything I eat for dinner.  I quit getting pastries at Starbucks.  I actually quit getting anything at Starbucks other than a plain iced coffee with skim milk and one pump of classic.  I have something sweet on most nights but I try to make it harmless - a piece of Dove dark chocolate, a Skinny Cow ice cream bar (my particular weakness).  I also drink between 2-3 liters of water per day.  It took me months to work up to that.  In the beginning, even getting over 1 liter of water per day was a struggle.  To make it easier on myself, I squeezed lemons into it until that resulted in me going to the dentist thinking I needed a root canal, only to be told all the acid was making my teeth sensitive.  I avoid artificial sweeteners, which included removing diet Coke from my routine diet.

My diet has never been perfect but whenever I feel like I've strayed too far off course, I just remind myself that this is real life and rein it back in the next chance I get.  The other week, my mom visited.  It was a special occasion and I ate lots of special things.  I had also kind of relaxed up the week before then - having a little more wine and eating out a little more with Holland.  My weight went up about 3 pounds.  So this past week, while I was at work, I got back on track and now the extra weight's back off.  Real life.

My first trainer moved on to a different job and now I work with someone different.  I work with him twice a week and he has been absolutely essential in keeping me on track and keeping me from hurting myself.  I currently try to lift weights four times a week (two days legs, two days arms/abs) and I do cardio 6 times a week.  I try to run on non-weightlifting days and on arm days and do the elliptical on leg days.  Cardio is best done AFTER weightlifting (not before).

So there you have it.  I figured since my last post 6 months ago left off with talk about my personal fitness, it was an appropriate place to pick back up.  I'll try to start posting more interesting things, though.

wherein I become one of those obnoxious people who posts about her diet and workouts

As some of you may know, a couple of weeks ago I decided to get a personal trainer. I'd been thinking about it for several months but I think what finally pushed me over was turning 30. Yes, I know, to those of you turned 30 quite some time ago, this is not a big deal. But to me it was. It gave me a huge sense of "it's all downhill from here" with regard to my body (when, in reality, my metabolism has almost certainly been going downhill for years before I turned 30). I just wanted to have a better "starting point" from which to roll down.

 I'd also started to feel like my body was really unbalanced from doing all that running and nothing else. Like I was only strong in one way but weak everywhere else. In medical school, I did a lot of yoga in addition to running. But that, along with a lot of things, fell to the wayside during residency. It was then that I started to get injuries from running and hiking. Most were small little aches and pains that I ran through and which self-resolved. But then I strained my medial gastroc ("gastrocnemius", your calf muscle) about a year and a half ago. I couldn't run for a month and took six months to run without requiring a heel wedge in my shoe. I went to a physical therapist who specialized in runners and she filmed me. As we evaluated my form and looked for the ways that I could improve, I realized that it all boiled down to being weak in a lot of areas where I used to be strong.

 I started to get chronic neck pain due to tension in my neck and shoulders. I knew it was because I had lost the open pectorals and strong lats that kept my chest open during yoga class. Massages helped, but only for a few days. Without fail, by the end of my work week, I was knotted up and again having neck pain that progressed into terrible tension headaches.

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 So, the trainer. I wanted a female, but all the females that seemed like a good match for me worked only early in the day, which doesn't work with my work schedule. So then I picked a guy, we'll call him "G" (which seems like a good nickname for a personal trainer). The gym manager told me she'd seen him work with all sorts of clients and that he did something different with every one of them (meaning he tried to fit the routine to that particular person). She also told me that he had trained his girlfriend and gotten her in shape, which seemed like a nice thing to me.

 I met with him for a consultation and thought we'd be a good fit. One of the first things I told him, however, was that I wasn't willing to count calories and eat things that taste bad and be miserable. I told him I was aware this might limit my results, but that I just wasn't willing to diet right now. He was cool with it, so we focused on my other goals: get stronger so I don't get hurt, get a toned booty and thighs.

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 I'd purchased an intro pack at my gym and went through those initial 3 sessions. I'd been learning to do free weights, including barbells, which I love because they make me feel like a badass. I also liked working with a trainer because it pushed me to a level of exertion that I don't usually push myself to during my workouts and it felt really good. So I bought more sessions. Yes, I felt terribly guilty about it because personal training is SO. EXPENSIVE. All I've been able to think of his how that money could have gone toward saving for a new car or paying off my student loans. But then I think, "thirty," and tell myself I'll buy fewer clothes.

 As we were scheduling my sessions for the next few weeks, he mentioned that we would take measurements again next week (weight, body fat - which we'd done on my initial visit). He mentioned that we might not see the weight number change much but that I could expect to see a change in body fat. That's when I let slip that I actually was trying to lose a little weight. As in, those same 13 pounds I've been "trying to lose" for years now despite having no real plan. Well, he got really excited about this goal. He did say that it would mean making some changes to my diet, which I knew. There have been a number of medical studies that have shown that people don't lose weight with just exercise - it requires dietary changes as well. So I agreed, somewhat cautiously, to keep a food journal. Like most women of my generation, I have a complicated relationship with food. Just the idea of calorie counting or doing any sort of diet conjures up feelings of being hungry, miserable, and socially isolated.

 But I did the journal and man was it a surprise. I probably eat 3000 calories a day on most days. I've just somehow managed to keep my weight stable by running a lot and by intermittently skipping meals. I guess the reassuring thing about it was that, seeing how badly I eat, I feel optimistic that there is a lot of room for improvement without having to delve into the "hungry, miserable, and socially isolated" territory. Hopefully.

 So we first decided to start with breakfast. As in, not either eating just a granola bar or going to Starbucks and getting a breakfast pastry. The principal idea with every meal is to have a protein, a complex carbohydrate, and a vegetable. I'm not really going to do vegetables at breakfast but agreed that I could do oatmeal. He said put brown sugar, nuts, fruit, whatever you want in it. But try to eat a 1 cup (uncooked) of whole, rolled oats in the morning. That is actually a lot of oatmeal. I couldn't even finish it for the first two mornings. But now I can and it is actually very satisfying and, in general, I'm not hungry again two hours later. I put brown sugar and walnuts in it and it's good. I make it with less water than the package says, though, so it won't be slimy.

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 So there's that. Is it possible to actually adhere to a healthy diet and not be hungry, miserable, and socially isolated, then eventually fail? I don't know. I'll let you know if I figure it out, though.