lazy nutrition for lazy girls

           Hello. I have to come clean: I don't have a lot to write about now. I know people come to my blog to read stories about med school life or college survival tips or the like, but I've been idle-ish for the past couple of weeks (because of sem break).

           Speaking of sem break, I have a couple of med school friends who said that they went crazy over the break because they had nothing to do. It does feel weird, after months and months of shedding our blood, sweat, and tears, we have a couple of weeks to spare to catch up on all the lost time. And catch up I did. I love being idle. All break long I spent lying on the bed, watching Flipping Vegas reruns on FYI, pigging out on whatever unhealthy salty food was in the pantry, and generally just vegetating. Yes, I am quite disgusting. But I'm okay with that.

           Or at least I thought I was, up until school opened with a couple of lectures about nutrition and living a healthy lifestyle. Long story short: I've come to dislike my eating and exercise habits. Before, I'd usually indulge myself by satisfying whatever sugar craving I had. If I wanted ice cream, I'd go to the nearby McDonald's to pick up a sundae or something, and I'd tell myself that I "deserved it" for all the hard work I'd put in that week or day. I saw sugar as a reward for myself and as a way to keep me motivated through long study sessions.

           But now I realize that all that has to stop. We were made to compute our ideal body weight recently, and apparently, given my height, my ideal body weight is 116 pounds! Really puzzling, considering that my BMI is 22 and it still falls under the "healthy" category. Also recently, I found out that I currently weigh 122 pounds - a big shocker, since the last I weighed myself, I was 118 (granted it was using a different weighing scale).

           What the hell. I hate feeling like I'm not in control of my life. I hate always giving in to my body, eating as much as I want to eat and thinking the stress will burn it off anyway.

           So I've sort of decided to change and eat healthier. And exercise more. I say "sort of" because admittedly, I'm not 100% committed to this new lifestyle. What I'm going to do, instead of drastically switching to veggies and daily hour-long exercises (as I should be) is I'm going to make a couple of small changes to my diet here and there. I'm sure it won't be the best way to lose weight, but I think it is the more sustainable way.

Off the top of my head, here are a couple of changes I've made to my life so far (that I'm not even sure will really work, but hey it couldn't hurt to try):

1. Substituted cookies and chips with packs of dried mango. Yeah, it still contains sugar and still has a considerable amount of calories (110 for six pieces I think) but I figure it's still better than eating junk food. Come on, I can't cut sugar out of my diet ENTIRELY!
2. Breakfast is usually whole wheat bread + peanut butter. The benefits of eating peanut butter are still widely debated (according to what little research I conducted), but the nutrition label on my jar says it contains 0 trans fats (which is good). It's already 200 calories for two tablespoons though, and still contains a lot of sugar. Not good, but whatever. It keeps me full enough that I don't need to eat again until lunch. 
3. Cooked a batch of chicken breast strips. It was my first time cooking raw meat (by myself)! I was really nervous the entire time and every time the oven made a weird noise I'd jump. (Oh yeah, note to self: get a fire extinguisher.) A week's worth of chicken breast cost me 97 bucks! It really is a lot cheaper than if I had gone out and eaten at a restaurant. My roommates helped me along the way, telling me when the chicken looked undercooked. I let Rap and Anton be my first taste testers. They said it tasted fine, for chicken breast (which is normally the most boring part of a chicken). Yay! Achievement unlocked! 
4. Instead of going out for dinners, I now eat mozzarella pesto sandwiches, sometimes with the chicken I cooked. It's usually not enough to make me feel full, so I stuff myself silly with fruit for dessert. Do I get sick of the sandwiches? No way. I love pesto. I love cheese. I can eat a lot of a food I like and not get bored! 
5. ZERO SOFTDRINKS. This is the easiest part of my lifestyle to change, because I don't drink a lot of soda to begin with (I hate the taste). But in a past life, whenever I ate at fastfood joints, I'd usually end up buying drinks with the meals because I always get suckered by the compelling argument that "Five pesos lang  naman ang additional para sa drinks, Ma'am!" Now, NO MORE. I don't care how much I get to save, or how little extra I have to spend. No softdrinks for me. No siree. Five pesos lang ang additional? GO SCREW YOURSELF I AIN'T BUYING IT I'LL JUST TAKE WATER, THANK YOU
6. Exercise for 30 minutes every other day. This is so far the hardest thing to maintain, because even though I tell myself that it's only 30 minutes of my day, it actually takes up a lot more. I spend about an hour afterwards resting, showering, and generally recovering from the physical activity. And honestly, on most days, I would rather spend that hour and thirty minutes reading a book or watching Legend of Korra or lying on down on my lazy bum. But my quick fix is to this is to work out with people like Rap and Anton, who have already established the habit of exercising regularly. +1 exercise! Social life bonus! 
7. I've actually recently started lifting weights (two 10-pound dumbbells), something I'm really happy to be able to do given my weak elbows (more on this later). I realized that I actually enjoy doing this a lot more than doing my usual treadmill exercises, which can get really boring after the first fifteen minutes! Lifting makes me feel strong, even if I do just lift two small dumbbells. Besides, I like having a teeny tiny bicep bump to show off to Rap afterwards. hehe.

Some changes I'm GOING to make:

1. EAT MORE VEGGIES. Note: I hate veggies. Well, most of them. The only ones I like are lettuce, potatoes, corn (wait is corn even a vegetable), and tomatoes (mostly when they're in pizzas or pasta - and come to think of it, tomatoes are fruits!). And onions, when they're on top of burgers! But the ones I can tolerate (and are easy to prepare) are broccoli and cauliflower. So my resolution is to roast up some broccolli to serve as my daily source of greens. The Internet says it isn't very hard to do and only takes up some 30 minutes of my time. Plus, I can probably freeze the leftovers and eat it the next day. Side note: Half your plate should comprise fruits and veggies (more veggies than fruit, to be more specific), while about a quarter should be grain. Meat should be a very little sliver (matchbox-sized daw, but doesn't that sound so tiny and sad? What the hell!)
2. Exercise for AN HOUR. Every other day.
3. Substitute ice cream with non-fat Greek yogurt. I haven't actually checked out the price of this at the grocery yet though. If a cup costs more than fifty bucks, screw it, I'll just stick to fruits for dessert. 
4. If I must get coffee, I'll take it black, without any sugar or cream! Black coffee is zero cal.

Yup, that's about it. Now for some other changes that have been going on with me:

1. National Novel Writing Month! This is my third year joining the contest and hopefully my third win. The goal: to write a 50,000- word novel in a month. My progress: 21k, and sorely behind my daily goal. Ugh. 
2. I think I'm finished with my TB prophylaxis. I'm not sure, because I can't keep track of when I started the treatment (I kept the date in my cellphone, but I had to reformat it because of memory troubles). As of now, I like the feeling of not having to worry about taking my daily pink Rifampicin Isoniazid pill. I'll be doing a sputum test soon to see if the prophylaxis was effective, then I'll report back to Doc Henri (my ex - thesis adviser and current pulmonologist). Then if she says I'm all clear, I'll get to do an IV infusion which will help me send my rheumatoid arthritis into remission! 
3. Speaking of arthritis, I CAN STRETCH MY RIGHT ARM NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was bent for, what, two years!?! I didn't think I would ever see it straight again, but IT'S STRAIGHT AGAIN!!!!! My left still has a long way to go before it's straight, but I know I'll get there soon!

On an unrelated last note: I saw Interstellar the other day, in IMAX. The visuals were beautiful but the script and the storyline were both disappointing. If it's eye candy you're after, I'd recommend IMAX (the sound is really awesome too, I felt like I was really blasting off into space), but you can get as much out of the experience if you just watched in a regular cinema.

That's about it. Now to worry about where to get lunch. Bye!