Workout DVDs part 2

I really like workout DVDs. You can wear your weird-looking but comfy shorts with only a sports bra, sweat until you think your face is about to fall off, and generally look as awkward as you need to in the privacy of your own home. Plus, there are some great workouts out there.

As I've had some time off recently I've been trying out lots of new workout DVDs. I still like Jillian Michaels 30 day shred because of the time:energy ratio - only about 25 minutes and you get a great workout. However, because I have all day to myself, I've been working out longer and harder (and I think I actually am starting to notice a result - amazing!) Here's my latest favorites:

The Firm: 500 Calorie Workout

The first time I did this workout I didn't like it because it was hard to follow - you probably need to try it at least twice, because I really like it now that I know what I'm doing. It's fast paced and there are a lot of combo moves. There are 5 strength and 5 cardio sets, each about 5 minutes long. Cardio includes step, kickboxing, and plyometrics. Strength is good all around but lots of lunges and squats - this one hurts my hamstrings if I'm not careful! This is about an hour total.

Amy Bento: Kickbox Xtreme

This seriously is extreme! The first time I did the workout I didn't realize that there were options (on the DVD menu) to change the length of the workout (about 5 options ranging from 30 minutes and up). This workout totals almost EIGHTY MINUTES LONG if you go all the way through. It's all cardio and uses no weights. The instructor is not the best at cueing (partly because everything is so fast paced) so you need to watch this one more than once to get the full benefit too. It's a great workout though and will definitely get your heart rate up.

Women's Health: Ultimate Fat Burn

2 cardio and 2 strength segments, the instructor is very encouraging (almost too much) and I do work up a sweat. This one is only around 30 minutes and intermediate intensity. There is a little "bonus" on the DVD that talks a bit about the background of all the instructors which was actually more interesting than I would have thought - after watching it I felt like I knew who I was exercising with!

Trainer's Edge: Killer abs and back

This one is good for an ab workout and the instructor wears an eye patch! My abs were a bit sore the next day so that was a good deal too. It's about 40 minutes, the first half is mostly cardio with a focus on abdominal movements and the second half is on the floor. He uses very light weights, a body bar, and a jump rope but I dont use any of these things and do just fine. :)

So, I've been exercising pretty good intensity since I stopped working two weeks ago. I hope to keep it up so once intern year rolls around it can all turn into flab. ;) Just kidding, sort of.

Also, on a non-exercise note: If you haven't ever seen "Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long," I recommend it (particularly after a drink or two). Quite funny.

Moving

I stole a few boxes from behind the liquor store this weekend.

I began packing today.

Holy Cow, we have a lot of stuff.

may is flying by!

I've been doing my best to keep myself as busy as possible lately, even without anything that I "have" to do. It's an awesome life, I've gotta admit! :)

• The house business is going quite smoothly. The inspector came and said the only major thing is it needs a new roof. Thankfully, living in Hailstorm City has blessed us with hail damage (which most insurance covers). The current owners are getting us a new roof very soon - awesome! We will (finally) close June 1...I can't wait! I just want to start packing and move all our stuff already! I need to find a BUNCH of big boxes, too.
• We've been obsessively watching HGTV to figure out how to decorate this "house." That sort of thing stresses me out, so we may just have a bunch of rooms with boxes for a while.
• I've been dying to make some food lately as I have been hanging out with my mama all week (she's off work too) and haven't cooked a darn thing. Usually I just read a bunch of recipes until I'm inspired to make something, but unfortunately I have not found anything to spark my interest. I did, however, make one delicious dish and one not-so-delicious dish today:

Delicious (and easy, and HEALTHY) guac!

2 avocados

1 can Ro-Tel Mexican Lime and Cilantro diced tomatoes

1 (or less) can navy beans

Blend the navy beans in a food processor with juice from tomatoes. Smash in both avocados. Add the tomatoes. Eat - on chips, pretzels, or a spoon.

The beans are an awesome addition because they add lots of fiber and protein, have no fat, and they're so mild you can hardly taste them. The Ro-tel is awesome because it has all your flavor in it and you don't have to do any work!

Just in case you wondered what they look like ;)

Not delicious quinoa dish

Leftover navy bean mash

regular tomatoes

quinoa

salt/pepper

lime juice

you know what, nevermind. I'm not even going to to tell you the rest...blech! Maybe adding navy beans to guacamole is a good idea, but not to quinoa. Have you ever used quinoa? (pronounced Keen-wa I think)...it's sort of a chewy nutty rice...I guess. I got a box to try recently since it's supposed to be one of the healthiest grains or something....Anyway, on to something else!

• So, I'm trying to think up something else delicious to make (preferably bake) since this weekend is Mother's day (a big family get-together at our place) and a family friend is graduating from...audiology or something. She's getting her doctorate which is pretty awesome! Here's a few ideas of what to make

Mint Julep Cupcakes

Mixed-Berry Chiffon Cake with Almond Cream Cheese Frosting (that's a mouthful!)

Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cake

or maybe something else entirely. Or nothing at all!

• Gregory, my youngest brother, is graduating from high school this year and has decided to go away to college...in Oklahoma. We're all a little sad he wants to leave us but he wants to get a fresh start. He figured out how to get in-state tuition by pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering. My brother, the rocket scientist.

• Oh yes....and the most important of all.....

are you ready?!

We are getting a puppy!!!

HOORAY!

Isn't she adorable?! I met her yesterday, she is about 4 weeks old and we can get her the weekend of May 22. I'm so excited! She can just barely walk around :) I thought I was just going yesterday to look at the pups, but...well...you can see what happened. I fell in love.

We're deciding on names. I think right now our top ones are Lucy and Bailey. We have a list of maybe 10 names though, so maybe it will end up something else entirely! Awwww...

I probably should get to cleaning, packing, and getting ready for our new little addition! She won't be little for long :) I can't wait!

picture perfect

You're in for a photo treat today! I got Chris to upload TONS of photos for me, and I'm so excited that I'm going to share them all at once! Yay!

First, these are some gorgeous roses we got at Meijer a couple weeks ago. They were too pretty not to share!

Next is a set of photos of some cupcakes I made for my friend Sabrina's bridal shower. Sabrina was my roommate for...maybe four years? I can't remember exactly but it was a really long time! She's a super awesome friend and I'm so happy for her and John. John is definitely a lucky guy!
The cupcakes are a mixture of red velvet (of course with cream cheese frosting...yum!) and a special "princess funfetti" mix with only pink and purple sprinkles! :) I also made a couple "UK" cupcakes since Sabrina and John are super UK fans. I wish that I had gotten a close-up of the engagement ring cupcakes because I added "luster dust" on them - making them shiny and sparkly!
Me, in my cute little apron that Chris got me a couple Christmases ago!
I love how well the monograms turned out - it was so easy with my little food writing markers!
Mmm....velvety!

These pictures are WAY overdue - they were for my Grandpa's 90th birthday party. When I think of Grandpa, I think of bourbon, so this cake was perfect for him. I placed the bottle on top of a delicious chocolate chip cake, and we had both his families get together to celebrate 90 awesome years.
Oh and the brown "bourbon" color? Those are peanut butter candy melts. The only thing yummier than a rice crispy treat is a rice crispy treat covered in peanut butter candy!


Hooray for cake! :) Now the only photos I'm missing are those of my dad's chocolate-raspberry layer cake that I made for his birthday. He's got those pictures (not Chris this time!) so I've got to get those from him.

Now that school's out I'm working on a pretty sweet project that I will give you details on soon. A sweet project that actually does not include cleaning my house, painting my fingernails, or the rainy yucky weather. It does involve cake, though, and a bunch of other things. That's just a hint. I hope you are excited. :)

the family doc

My mom has had a chronic cough of and on for years. She typically seems to get a cold sometime throughout the winter and, although she gets over the acute illness, a dry cough lingers for months afterwards. She obviously hates it and my dad has made it clear that it drives him crazy.

Unfortunately, tax season always seems to ramp up right as the cough starts. My mom is a CPA and gets extremely busy this time of year. Things also always seem to fall apart in one way or another during this time every year. One year, my brother had appendicitis. Another year my grandma got sick. This year my grandpa Joe had a bad fall that led to his passing away in March. These months are always so busy for my mom and she doesn't have much time to get seen by a doctor.

But she went to the doctor anyway! She was so sick of coughing that she went to a few appointments. She was prescribed a couple different rounds of antibiotics, steroids, allergy medicine, and even an inhaler! Nothing seemed to help...

One day a couple weeks ago my mom asked me what specialist she should go to for her cough once April 15 passed by. She told me she was planning to make an appointment with an ENT, a pulmonologist, and an allergist. Holy cow - that seemed excessive but apparently she wanted to get to the root of the problem. This cough was driving her nuts! I felt sort of guilty that, here I was, almost an MD and I hadn't even thought about how much it was affecting her.

She had already been prescribed good antibiotics and due to the length of the problem it seemed unlikely she had an ongoing infection (unless it's fungal or something really weird, which is unlikely). My first guess after a URI was allergies/asthma. She does seem to have reactive airways that are worst in the wintertime. She has never been diagnosed with asthma but it runs in the family so it could be a cause. However, the steroids should have helped with that and the inhaler would have made a dramatic difference.

What else could cause a chronic, dry cough? The only thing I could think of was GERD. My mom has no history of heartburn, doesn't ever notice a sour taste in her mouth, and is completely healthy other than this cough. When I suggested this diagnosis to her, she was skeptical. I actually did an UptoDate search and found out that up to 30% of people with chronic cough because of GERD actually have no other symptoms!

Either way, she had no other options until she could get in to see a specialist, so that night my dad sent us off to the store to get some prilosec. I was really hoping that it would work, not only for my mom's cough to get better, but just to prove that my medical education was worth it - I actually learned something!

After about a week and a half of taking the prilosec, my mom told me that she was not coughing nearly as much - almost not at all! It's been well over two weeks now and she seems about back to normal.

I'm so glad my mom feels better. I'm also glad that I apparently learned something these past four years! Hooray for being a doctor!

M.D.

Well, it's all done. Four years of medical school are now behind me...it's kind of hard to recap it all!

Four years ago things were surprisingly different. I spent the summer working in a pharmacy in Colorado and raising chocolate lab puppies. I came back to KY just in time to drive down to Florida to watch my little brother's baseball tournament. I had a nice tan and crazy blonde hair (not just regular blonde hair, mind you).

I still have vivid memories of orientation week - everyone introducing themselves on the first day, lining up for hours for our IDs, for our TB tests, and filling out paperwork. I think we were all really, really excited. We had no clue what we were in for!

Then, anatomy started. It was awful. It was intimidating and stressful, and I think the worst part was we didn't know each other well enough to talk about what we were going through. Then biochem started, which was almost as overwhelming as anatomy. Blech. This became the beginning of Chris and my friendship, though, so things weren't all bad. :) I think Chris was one of the biggest reasons I passed that class! Springtime rolled around, and with it came neuroscience and physiology - and a nice breath of fresh air! We started spending afternoons playing frisbee and evenings watching House.

Second year came and went sort of as a blur - IID, path and pharm...then the boards. I just remember hours and hours sitting in those chairs at the library being MISERABLE but knowing that soon it would be over and we could move on with our lives. Step 1 came and went and I wasn't too happy with how I did. But I passed, and life went on. (I still made it into my top residency choice so apparently it didn't make too big a difference.) Second year I was overinvolved as well, taking way too many leadership positions at once made me a little crazy but I think better at time management in the end.

Then - Third year! Clinicals! Everything was new, frightening and exciting at the same time. Once I got the hang of them, I really liked almost every rotation - it was nice to know that after all this time putting in hours studying I actually liked what I was going to do with my life. I had made the right decision going to med school after all!

Fourth year was just plain awesome. Except for the stress involving the match, every rotation was what I wanted to do and when I wanted to do it. I even got a month off and married my best friend! I have become much more confident in what I know and, on occasion, I really feel like a doctor. How cool is that!? (I need to write the really awesome story of how I cured my own mom - I'll do that soon!)

Exciting times to come, too! May 15 is graduation (I'll admit - I've already paraded around the house in my cap and gown), June 1 is our closing date for the house, and July 1 starts residency! I'm excited (and very nervous) to start...it definitely will be another adventure.

School's out - forever!

TOMORROW is my LAST DAY OF SCHOOL.

EVER.

After TWENTY YEARS of school.

Holy cow.

Next time I see a patient, I'll be "Doctor ______"
(Dang, now I have to decide Twist/Simmons)

There are tons of thoughts and memories I want to share. I want to celebrate, I will miss a lot of my friends...I think a long post commemorating the past four years is in order, but may take a bit of thinking on my part so I probably should wait until I don't have to give a presentation at 8am to actually start writing. We'll see about that tomorrow then.


A side note: "Happy Birthday Dad!"


And finally, my funny patient of the day:

Chief complaint: "absurdly sweaty armpits, hands and feet."

And nerdy factoid of the day: Hyperhidrosis (or excessive sweating) is often treated with topical aluminum chloride (such as Drysol or Xerac), but can actually be treated with botox injections or even surgery to cut the symptathetic nerves going to your skin so you can't sweat. You can also take anticholinergics but they typically dry out your mouth, eyes, etc. in addition to your "absurd" amount of sweating. I learned all this during my dermatology rotation. I admit, I am a huge nerd and I really, really like derm. But it's OK, because I AM ALMOST A DOCTOR!