This morning . . .

I did a little happy dance. I went to get dressed and thought I would try on some of my work pants (that I haven't fit into for several months) and sure enough, they fit! I've have a good couple of weeks and the weight loss has clicked again, and it feels great to finally be back in my pants! I still have several pounds to go, and the pants don't quite fit perfectly yet, but they zip, and they aren't obscenely/offensively tight! I'm bottom heavy so when I gained a few pounds during our spring move, it all went to my hips, legs and butt. In the summer it wasn't too big of a deal because I could wear loose fitting skirts and dresses, but now that fall/winter is here, I needed to slim down so I could wear my dress pants.

Which brings me to a brief update on my weight loss and running. I stopped logging in my weight loss a few weeks ago because I seemed to gain, lose, gain, lose. I was extremely frustrated. I finally went and spoke with my weight watchers meeting leader and shared my struggle. It made me realize the obvious: that it was the weekends I was really struggling with. So much so that I wasn't tracking at all on the weekends. (With weight watchers each food has a point value, and your supposed to track everything you eat. You get a certain amount of daily points, and then 35 extra points you can use whenever you want during the week). The other problem was that I was using about 5 of my extra weekly points a day which meant that when the weekend rolled around I only had about 10 extra points left. My meeting leader pointed out that if I want to splurge on the weekend I need to stick to my daily points during the week, so that I have 35 points to splurge on the weekends. Although obvious and simple, it was exactly what I needed to do. And surprisingly sticking to my daily points has been easier than I thought. Here's to hoping that the weight loss continues and I eventually meet my goal.

And in regards to running, I haven't advanced much, but I've remained steady. I'm running about twice a week, and between 2.5 and 3.5 miles at a time. I enjoy running in the summer, but I have a habit of quitting when fall comes along because my asthma makes running in cool/cold weather a challenge. But this year I have access to a fabulous indoor track thanks to Mr. Dawkter's health club discount for being affiliated with his hospital. So I am trying to keep up with it, and just move it inside. So far so good, just hoping to eventually increase my mileage now that it's becoming a little easier (knock on wood). I'm still hoping to run some kind of race in the spring. I'm hoping that if I set a goal like participating in a race it will keep me motivated over the winter months.

So after a few weeks of feeling like I was treading water, I finally feel on track again. It's wonderful to look in the mirror and feel good about myself again. I forgot what that felt like! For those of you trying to meet fitness goals, or lose a few pounds, stick with it, and try something new if you need to. It doesn't come easy, but it's definitely rewarding!

Pumpkin Obsessed

I've noticed that I don't have any recipes on my new blog so I am going to try and do something about that this week!

For the last few weeks I've been enjoying various PUMPKIN recipes. One of my favorite new recipes are for these light/low calorie pumpkin muffins by Angela Liddon author of the website: Oh She Glows . Although they are "healthy" I didn't think that they necessarily taste like it! I added a few semi-sweet chocolate chips on top of mine - and they were delicious! Seriously, they are wonderful, you need to try them!

I'm hoping to share recipes for pumpkin martinis and a pumpkin cream pie later this week!

Month 4, PGY-1

Is October over already? It's hard to believe winter is just around the corner, and we've already survived four months of residency. October was Mr. D's first month on neurosurgery and it actually wasn't too bad. It definitely was our hardest month thus far, but that was to be expected.

There were several things that made this month more difficult.

The first being hours. Doc had some seriously long days. For the most part I didn't mind, but there were some nights where I got extremely frustrated because I missed him. But on those late nights he was there for important reasons so this is something that I will just have to adjust to.

Another reason the month was hard: the demands of the service. Mr. Dawkter found himself busier with more patients, more issues, and more complex problems, all of which were an adjustment for him. He came home the first two weeks frustrated feeling that he didn't know things as quickly or as thoroughly as he thought he should. I was constantly reminding him that this is his first month on neurosurgery, and that the other residents had been doing this for months and years. I know Mr. D felt like he wasn't keeping up with the other residents, but he couldn't have been doing that badly because he already got his monthly evaluation which included mostly 5's (of 5). So although he has room for improvement, I think he did well for it being his first month. I also know that he got here by pushing himself and he excels by being hard on himself.

The emotional aspect of the service was the third challenge that neurosurgery brought. Although Mr. Dawkter had experienced seriously injured and terminal patients, this month seemed to bring a greater number of sad stories and tragic cases that seemed to weigh more heavily on his heart. I don't know how he or other medical professionals and emergency personnel handle it. It made me realize that my "bad day," is nothing compared to his "bad day."

We are officially 1/3 of the way through intern year. Next up: trying to adjust to sharing my husband with medicine during the holidays.