I’m alive.

There were many times this past few days I wasn’t sure I would make it out alive but I’m still standing…A little scarred from some battle wounds but still standing

I’ve been lurking on all of your food blogs and life blogs and have been commenting but I had to choose between using precious internet time for giving support vs. posting so I chose the former!

Regular blog programming shall return May 10…until then, here’s a few highlights on my plate: My life is about to get really crazy; but in a good way

April 30: Last undergraduate class of my life! Wahooo!

April 30: 3 finals (and did I mention MCATs?)

May 1-10: 3 finals + MCAT cramming

May 12: Visiting Houston Texas (exciting I know)

May 17: Walking the stage

May 22- May 29: CRUISE TO ALASKA!! I’m excited; we never visit “cold” places in the summer so this will be a new one!

May 29-June27: 4 weeks of hardcore summer school!

July 1 - Decide if I’m going to apply to top tier medical school based on MCAT scores or take up an offer to a Texas Medical school.

July 3- Possible visits to Valencia, Spain!?!!!!

Should be a life changing, exciting, whirlwind few months up ahead. This blog is turning into more life stuff and less weight loss stuff I know but I will update all my stats and such in a few weeks; I have fallen off and gotten on the wagon a few times these past few weeks so be looking for some sporadic numbers. I’m thinking of taking a page out of glam’s book and ditching the scale…its cons outweigh the pros.

Edit: Good news!! I just found out that I will be receiving the Amman Award…for “exemplary service to the student body and embodying Amman’s qualities of honesty, dedication and sincerity in contributions to the university…” YAY! they  make me sound good haha, i’m most excited about the desserts they serve at these receptions — they are so fancy schmanzy :]

Scene: Walk back from class on the way to the car…

Hmm, well I’ve been thirsty all day and I forgot to grab a bottle of water…I’m gonna drop by the dining hall for a second…

Ooh water is soo refreshing…Oh I have to do well on the MCAT’s, this is my one chance to make it where I want to go…Dear god, are you hearing me?

OH did they just put out some cookies…I want 1/2 of one

Eh, 1/2 is never good enough..I’ll take the whole one…Oh my phone’s ringing…crap! I forgot to call that lady back…OH no, when did I grab that handful of nuts?

Oh these nuts are good…I want some more…I better go write down what I need to do in my planner — well first the nuts.

Wait, is that GARLIC bread!?? YUMMM! I’m gonna grab a piece…okay, write stuff down in planner.

Wait, call mom first to make sure she got that appointment fixed – - wait how many pieces of garlic bread did I just eat? Oh who cares, I want more!

Mmm I’m HUNGRY…and nothing looks good…oh  wait that bread looks really good — I’m gonna make a sandwich.

Oh I have to remember to stop by the bank…why do I have only cheese on my sandwich…oh the spinach and lettuce look wilted and the veggies look stale. Oh well, scratch the sandwich — I’ll just grab a grilled cheese thats already been made.

Oh you know what goes great with grilled cheese D? Some fries..grab some of those.

Did I forget to turn off the straightening iron before I left my room? Oh crap I must have…you know that time that girl had to pay a ton of money b/c she burned down her room.

I don’t have a ton of money…I have to start looking for a job…did I remember to post my resume for that one job?

Oh I have to call financial aid before graduation. No I didn’t post my resume. Crap, DID I JUST EAT A FULL PLATE OF FRIES?! Okay this has got to stop…

But I really need something sweet…now I feel too full and gross…

Oh they just put some cheesecake out, I want a bite….No, I don’t want a bite, I want the whole thing, No I’ll just settle for some sweet tea.

Good job D…you stopped the cheesecake binge, but you  just ate your weight in food otherwise.

Ooo are those watermelons, those are sweet! I’ll grab some of those and some water.

….Crap I have 3 plates, 2 bowls and 2 cups sitting at my table! I look crazy…what did I eat again? Oh crap, its 3pm…I have to be at work in 30 mins…what DID I just eat all that for!? I feel disgusting.

Oh crap, i forgot to take pictures…

Am I going to be able to carry all those dishes to the conveyer belt without dropping them?? I swear the watermelon slicing lady is judging me.

Oh crap, I just spilled water on myself! Damn phone calls!…

I need to blog about this.

See, its days like this that remind me how far I’ve come but how FAR I have left to go. They remind me that I am far from perfect, that my issues with food are VERY deep seated and sometimes my issues with food seem insurmountable. But then I remind myself that these sort of days are now happening far and few in between and for now, thats a few steps broken into a marathon trail…so instead of crawling into a hole of guilt and self disgust, I commend my body and soul for the times it has fought back and crawled its way back to sanity. And that for now, is the best thing I can do for myself.

Good morning everyone! I know I said I wouldn’t be around but I just got an unexpected break in my schedule…I walked around all morning thinking it was thursday and planning my usual thursday afternoon activities (my mornings are the same all days of the week) and I just realized after reading a few blogs that its HUMP day…WEDNESDAY! what a let down

I hit the snooze button one four too many times this morning and was running appreciably late…I rushed to class sans shower or morning breakfast..by the time I got out I was starving.

Class was incredibly slow today (I had already read up on what he was talking about and knew about it from another class) so I let me mind wander a bit and thought about some changes I want to make around here…

• I was listening to Bob Greene’s interview yesterday on the Biggest Loser website where he talks about eating 5-6 small meals a day and I’ve been meaning to incorporate that into my days instead of 3 big meals and very empty nutritious snack of goldfish bowls.
• Speaking of which I was reading Mizfit’s blog (who btw is amazing and if you don’t read her everyday, you have to pop over there RIGHT now!) and she talks about eating snacks that combine protein, complex carbs and some fat…i.e peanut butter + apple instead of just an apple…seeing as to how I think thats pretty SOUND advice and because I can’t continue eating snacks on whim like a 5 year old anymore and because there are birds watching out for me…I want to start being more mindful of eating 5-6 small meals and balancing them out a bit especially the snacks.
• Lastly I want to track proteins and calories and fiber in every meal but I worry I’m going to get obsessive about the numbers and no one wants that happening. Points for me are easy to track; its just one thing but three or four different things and all that inputing into website; I’m not sure!
• All of these things are only going to be fully incorporated after the MCAT…the meals are easy to get started on but all this logging and tracking – I just don’t have the time to start that regime up just yet!
• Enough rambling

Without further adieu here’s breakfast!

I’ve been craving cold breakfast over hot since its getting to be pretty warm outside but I think I need to go back to my oats…I miss them and I miss their fullness!

Orange slices for dessert, some oven roasted potatoes with ketchup and a croissant. I didn’t eat the croissant, it looked better than it tasted and after one bite I decided I wasn’t going to waste my day’s eating on that. I ate about 1/2 the potatoes pictured; worked out to about 1/4 cup of potatoes. They weren’t that good either but I was reading up on some notes for class and ate mindlessly before I could stop myself. That’s the thing about going to the dining hall for breakfast/ I end up wasting a bit b/c I’m never sure of whats in what and how it tastes till I take a bite of it and they don’t give out smaller portions.

The oranges were delicious.

My hot water with breakfast…my mom told me the other day that drinking hot water with a meal is supposed to help with digestion. I’m not sure about that but what I do know is that it somehow makes me feel fuller, more satiated…any scientific basis for this or is it just me? Chime in if you know!

Off to class #2 of 3! I can’t believe I’m done with classes in 2 weeks…geez where does the time go?

Edit: I’m not going to be around all day tomm…so see you guys thursday!

OH you can have your people call my people for an autograph…

So Right after I ate the oatmeal…I started to walk to class about 20 mins early and on the way outside the business school I saw all these camera crews and a lady came up to interview me about the business program…and before I knew it, I was ushered into this “reception for young entrepreneurs” so I grabbed this soda and that bread (it had some fancy italian name to it) on a oh so fancy napkin plate. Check out the grease on that napkin! I ate about a bite of this after my (discreet) photo and didn’t eat anymore until I came out and threw it away…I did drink about half the soda throughout class tho.

P.S. This photo comes to you at a great price…there were suits and “Corporate executives” EVERYWHERE and I still managed to capture this shot w/out looking ridiculous (I think if those suits did have a food blog, they’d have their own personal camera crew following them around)…I swear, at the end of this little adventure, I’m gonna be good enough to take spy shots

2 points for the coke and disgusting bite of bread.

HITCHCOCK was onto something!

After class I stopped by the dining hall to grab the snack that never stops smiling…GOLD FISH! And I balanced the goldfish on my knees and all just so you guys would know the color jeans I was wearing today…how’s that for classy and personalized huh?

2 more points…I ended up not finishing the bowl since I was late for class…see below for explanation!

OH yea, about the title of this post…see how there’s only about 1/2 a bowl of gold fish there?? Well on the walk between the dining hall and my second class, I saw a few birds eyeing me intently…In the spirit of mother nature and earth day, I appreciated their beady little stares and kept on walking. And a split second later, the biggest (and ugliest) of the pack lets out this shrieking “CAW” that I swear was “ATTACK!” In bird language and a bird SWOOOOPs towards my open bowl of gold fish!! I had to shoooo it off and flail my hands at it while trying to hold onto my precious snack with iron gripped claws! In the midst of all that flailing the damn bastards won and got to peck at half my snack!!! I’m telling you…birds are VICIOUS! you can’t make this shit up….If they had asked nicely, I would’ve given food to it…tomm its war people, I’m bringing out a covered container of gold fish!

DINNER

Dinner was a delicious bowl of sauteed veggies on top of 1/2 a cup of rice! It was SOO yummy and I added some sirichara (sp?) hot sauce to the side about halfway through for flavor!

I wanted to mix it up so you guys could see the rice but I was sitting by a bright sunny window and the lighting was terrible!

And for some sweet…not so juicy watermelons…these looked a bit battered but were good enough to eat!

And A piece of bread I added to the plate…

Trying to cover up the light so you can see my dang bread!…now thats dedication…at this point, I was about ready to inhale that bread!

There we go! It wasn’t as buttery/garlicy as it looks in the pic…

After bowl one of veggies + rice, I went back for more…about 1/2 this bowl more! I blame those dang birds, they stiff me of 10 goldfish and I have to eat a half a bowl of dinner more to be full!

I estimate dinner to be about 12 points with the bread and veggies, rice and only one piece of the watermelon…the other two looked too sad to eat!

All together for the day (unless I add something more): 26 points! eek I have NO ROOM to add anything more but I have a LONG night of studying ahead of me…time to balance this baby out tomm.

NOTECARDS NIGHT

Okay, the hitchcock day has left me pretty winded…I’m off to cozy up with some notecards….Ciao ladies!

I’ve been starving all morning…no idea why so at around 11 I finally bit the bullet and made myself oatmeal…I was going to treat myself to the local bistro sandwiches but I couldn’t wait that long so maybe tomm?

This is about 3/4 of a cup of uncooked oatmeal (3)…then I added some homemade yogurt (about a cup) to it…

I decided to eat it with some cut mango marinaded in spices, a little bit of sesame oil and water. My mom’s special recipe…I LOVE this stuff…Its so fragrant, spicy and goes with everything from oatmeal to tortillas.

Yes, it is as spicy as it looks but its easy to tweak up or down the spice level.

And finally with Salt to taste…MMM! I estimate about 6 points altogether…3 points for the oatmeal, 2 for the nonfat homemade yogurt and 1 for the mango marinade! Boy, am I the only one that could eat oatmeal with anything. Literally, I eat oatmeal as a base for soups, as a rice substitute, as breakfast, as a pancake… I swear, if it wasn’t for oatmeal, I would’ve quit on healthy eating and trying to feel full a long time ago!

Nothing like oatmeal to satisfy some hunger and hold you over! I won’t be back till late tonight…happy tuesday everyone

Oh come on, you know you still listen to Alanis Morissette!

Good morning! I just got back from our 7 am meeting…ugh. Sorry for the lack of dinner post last night — I chose sleep and at 2 am in the morning, blogging was more than you could ask for… 2 more weeks…

I drove into campus from home this morning (about 45 mins away; I live on campus) and parked about 20 mins away because I was positive there would be no parking in front of my house at 7 am…10 spots, 300 people – yea, not so much. So after trekking back to north campus, rushing because I had to make the 7 am meeting and carrying books and stuff in from home, I see a spot…RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY DOOR…for the first time in 3 years that I’ve been here. yes, I know its irrational but I am inexplicably ticked off…take this as a testament to why standardized tests don’t do any good in this world and neither does lack of sleep.

Since I have nothing much of value to really say…I’m off to get started on my day!Mm I love a good morning shower don’t you — nothing wakes me up better…except maybe a workout!

Dinner

Dinner last night was a black bean salad with onions, peppers and tomatoes….yummy! With a pasta base and alfredo sauce on the side.

As you can see, the penne just got lost in the mix but it was there and it was yummy!

Dessert was 1/2 an orange shared with my brother.

At around midnight and round 2 of studying, I grabbed some wheat bread with laughing cow cheese…no picture sorry! I left the camera in my brother’s room and I didn’t wanna wake him to take a picture.

All in all dinner was about 6 points + 1 point for the orange slices and 2 points for the bread/laughing cow = 9 points.

Total daily points 25…I’ll let it slide

Breakfast

Breakfast today was the usual plain yogurt with granola…are we seeing a pattern here! I tend to be a creature of habit I guess but today it was only 1/2 a cup of yogurt w/ granola! Ya’ll know what it looks like :0 Total points: 4

I’m off to…you guessed it…STUDY! Today’s subject of choice: Organic chemistry!

So after I posted breakfast I went to my Computer science class, my investment analysis class and walked around campus running errands for a bit…I’m back in my room to wash up a bit; its so muggy outside that I feel slimy!! and then a bit of biology MCAT-ing till 4 before tutoring…anyone know how B-cells work in acquiring immunity?

Lunch:

The pics didn’t come out very well…I was hurrying because I had about 20 mins to get food, eat it and get to class! I couldn’t figure out a lunch hour in my schedule this semester but no worries…only 10 days of this left…FOREVER!

I had a small spinach, green pepper and tomato salad with a drizzle of peppered oil and some noodly stuff on top. I ended up picking out the noodly stuff soon after this pic b/c it was bland and added nothing to the salad. (2 points)

The other side of my plate had some grilled green beans (1 point) that were YUMMY! A piece of bread that was soo doughy and flavorful…I love love love bread, especially doughy bread (3 points!) and a black bean cake that was supposed to be the star of my lunch! It looks a lot bigger in the picture but really it was only the size of about 2/3 of my palm. Anyway, was basically a grilled patty with black beans, green peppers and onions = delish! But I only ate about 2/3 of it b/c I was full by the time I got to it and I never try not to add calories that I don’t enjoy. So altogether about 6 points.

And dessert was these juicy watermelons! YUM…I love summer fruit…they are so PRETTY!

So altogether lunch was about 9 points with the watermelons!

And after class…a little midafternoon snack!

SNACK

MMMM….The snack that keeps smiling!! …..GOLD FISH…

And heres a cup filled with coke that I drank!

I was feeling pretty run down and I don’t drink coffee so coke is my go-to pick me upper in desperate situations……someone left me an email a few weeks ago telling me that coke actually erodes your bones and eats away at them a little bit at a time…ummm… EEK! I certainly do like my bones full and functioning so mebbe not worth it?

Snack: 4 points!

“B cells fight immunity in the body by creating antibodies to the antigens that accompany infections…”

I know you were dying to know more…well, there is more where that came from so stay tuned

Ciao ladies…off to study study study!

often go awry.

Hey everyone…Did you wonder where I went? Did ya think stuff like..go figures, she puts up pictures one day and then disappears forever? Well I’m here now and I missed you guys! I had some posts all ready to go and wordpress decided to not upload and then my internet was down and I was way to busy trying to keep my head above water to fight wordpress or At&T DSL.

In between here are a few things that have been going on with me:

• Dallas had the worse storms in a LONG time this weekend…my car was brutally beaten down, there were dead trees everywhere and the fence in our house has flown off its hinges.
• My MCAT study hours are now topping to about 7 hours a day + work and full time school keep me wanting more sleep. Eek. May 10 is 20 days away.
• I had a fabulously productive weekend and spent a lot of time with the family.
• I’ve been inexplicably obsessed with the songs I’m gonna be by the proclaimers and I will survive by Gloria Gaynor…is my subconscious trying to tell me something about long marathons and survival?
• I’ve been drawn to happy hollywood endings lately so I watched The Wedding date, When Harry met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle while studying this weekend. Meg Ryan = classic.
• I saw an ad to enter to win $10,000 of “K-Mart dollars” and tried to brainstorm a list of things I would buy at Kmart if I won that contest. I came up with 3.
• My money and capital markets professor likes to “lead us through” our learning but just ends up talking to us like we are 3 year olds. This is a senior level finance class…MOOOOVE along, sir.
• My hair is getting that ratty, stringy look of hair that hasn’t been cut in a while…It’ll have to be after May 10.

See not that much that you missed out on. I forgot to snap a picture of my breakfast but here is the granola and yogurt that I ate earlier last week. With a side of pineapples (a small bowl) = Total of 7 points!

Gotta go: the rest of the day includes an investment analysis class, tutoring at the high school, maybe a short workout and then about 5 hours worth of MCAT-ing at the least.

Off I go…Lunch and dinner probably won’t be up till late tonight!

Hope you have a fabulously manic-less monday! Its sunny and a bit damp out today…note to self: grab rain boots at some point during the day for upcoming storms!