A Whole New Level....

... of stress...

The countdown begins. I will be VERY happy once this thesis is written, out of my hands, and defended. Soon. Soon.

In the meantime, I am doing okay. Not sleeping well (or enough) and not eating well (not entirely true- I am eating very well-- my wonderful friends keep cooking for me! I am just eating a lot for the minimal activity I am engaged in). But I am trying to maintain perspective. Luckily my labmates have been wonderful in helping me keep my head together. We go through our lists daily of all the things we are thankful for. Here are some of the things that help me maintain my sanity these days:

• I have a wonderful husband who buys me pretty flowers, cleans out the refrigerator (and the kitchen), and takes me to my favorite restaurant for my birthday (he knows the way to this girl's heart)!! He is also a saint whenever I need technical help or in dealing with my roller coaster of mood swings.

• I have a loving, supportive family who are ALL taking off work to fly, drive, or bus their way to me to support me and celebrate with me all that they have helped me accomplish.

• I have AMAZING friends who cook for me, edit my thesis for me, walk the king pup when TE and I can not, they remind me that I can do this, and are generally coming out of the woodwork to help me through this!

• I have a new job to start when this is all over. Someone recently told me that I got the "golden unicorn" and "NO ONE gets a job right out of school these days!"

So that is my daily affirmation. I hope seeing it all in print will help keep me from losing it.

I can just revisit my list whenever I need to :)

Thesis Eating

Sitting in front of a computer all day affects how you eat.

Normally, I like to think about meals I want to make hours, or even days, ahead of time. I

subscribe to food magazines (thanks M&N!!), own countless cookbooks, have more food sites bookmarked than anything else, and yet- I can not remember the last good/new meal I have made.

My meals on writing days go something like this:

1) Set up coffee first and foremost, no less than 8c (usually for both TE and myself)

2) Eat muffin (classic corn or lemon raspberry) or breakfast bar (lately )

3) Work, while refilling coffee, and maybe grab a snack if one is around: grapes, cookies...

4) Continue working until starving and jittery from the coffee-- make lunch (burrito, English muffin with peanut butter and apple butter, leftovers, or really anything I can microwave/toast/prepare quickly)

5) Work, diet soda and pretzels/crackers or veggies and dip, work, more liquids, work, eat something fabulous my husband (or friends!) has made, go back to work, bed....

Really- calorie-wise, it is not that bad, thanks to the fact it is summer and I have been trying to make more of an effort to have more fresh fruits/veggies around (TE brought me some home-grown, BEAUTIFUL Swiss chard and eggplants recently!) but I feel uninspired by the foods. Not something that can be changed, but once I am finished I have BIG food plans :) Meals I have in mind, pies with frozen summer fruits, and the best yet: I am taking a 2-class cake decorating class!

As a graduation gift to myself, and to inspire me to get back to cooking, I will be learning how to make my cakes look as good as they taste! (Have I mentioned lately how much I love cake?! Ha!)

Presentation -and following instructions!- have never been my strong suit- even though I usually pull it off, well enough--

This was my friend J's birthday cake- a vanilla cake with caramel whipped cream frosting and a caramel ganache (a ganache will save any ugly cake!). I will have to share all that I learn in the class here- I am sure it will be good fun!

But until then.... I just get to sit back (at my desk!) enjoy and appreciate all the great food everyone else has been cooking for me! Not too bad :)

New Breakfast

Thanks to Shannon, a fellow CALERIE participant (who is almost done! OMG where does the time go?!) I have a totally new idea for breakfast.

It is vegetarian (!!), protein rich, and leaves me full for hours!

Here is goes:

1/2 of an English muffin, toasted (50c)
1 veggie burger (boca is my preferred brand) (100c)
1 egg, poached (80c)

1 thick sliced tomato (5c)
1 thin slice of a mozzarella ball (I will need to weigh this next time) (est 50c)

I cooked these separately (and did not broil the tomato and mozz quite as much as I would have in cooler weather) since I could not imagine how to balance it all- but the taste is the same!

For around 280-300 calories, you can't get much better than that!

Mmmmm, thanks again Shannon!

Quick Update

I have some good things to post soon, and to keep me on task I thought I would highlight a few of them!

1) "My" new favorite breakfast (haha- thanks Shannon!)

2) Eating while writing thesis (not good!)

3) Yoga (at least I have yoga!)

4) What meals my wonderful husband has been cooking for me!

That is it for now- soon I will return!

Packing Light

I am on a bus. On my way to my hometown for the weekend. It is going to be a 6hr (at least!) bus ride. I tried to organize things so I could be very productive while riding... but alas, here I am, blogging :)

At least you get to benefit!

So I was waiting in line to get onto this bus, and I thought of a perfect topic to blog about!

This European couple came into the line behind me with nothing but a halfway filled back-pack and the girl's purse. I was curious (maybe they had shipped their luggage?) because this is not an overnight trip. Well I guess it could be, if you really loved spending your day on a bus... but really much more like a two day trip at the minimum. So it got me thinking... TE sent me a link to a great NYT article that I have made it halfway through, and this couple they interview in the beginning, lives with only 100 items (what??!!) TOTAL. I was thinking this couple could be like that. Or maybe it was because they are European... So I checked out all the other passengers in line with me and like me most had an overnight bag of ranging sizes and a personal items bag. Americans :)

Fascinating.

I tried to think of what I "really" needed this weekend (since I was in line with my suitcase, backpack and purse, all of which contents I will outline shortly).

I am going home for my best friend's bachelorette party weekend and we have a variety of things planned. But really all I need could probably fit into one bag. Probably.

So here it goes. Food items first :)

I am also going to calculate the calories since this is a diet blog (ha!). For reference this European couple came aboard with one diet Snapple (16oz?) and a single-bag box of chips ahoy. For.both.of.them.

Now let's compare.

Liz's Food For the 6hr trip
(Yes I am traveling alone, TE and the King Pup are hanging out at home this weekend!)

1) Sub.way footlong sub (ham and provolone, spinach, tomatoes, pickles, and jalapenos with mustard) and I know, I totally won't need a footlong, but who knows this trip may take 10hrs, better to be safe, and it was only $5... (see-- already excess) (670c - ish) (335c)
2) 3c watermelon (150c)
3) 1c Cheddar goldfish (~300c)
4) 1/2c Gluten free herb crackers (Amy's gone crackers?) (75c)
5) 1 Nature Valley peanut butter granola bar (170c)
6) 1 pack of raw fruits and nuts (TJs) (200c)
7) 1 bag of peanut M&Ms (250c)

and then...

for an emergency situation....
8) one of those gross (but so good) Little Debbie brownies (530c!!!)

I should be embarrassed by this...

I am a bit...

Grand total calories: 1815 without the brownie, 2345 with.
Oh my! How far I have fallen!
I, most likely, will not even eat half of it (packing waay more than I need) but still- why do I think I need 2300+ calories for 6 hours!?

I "bolded" the items i thought I would eat/have already eaten (watermelon and crackers) and that total is 810 calories. Better, but still- not great. I did only have breakfast and lunch so that fits into the 4- 400 calorie meal plan...
As long as I don't eat the brownie! :)

Which brings us to actual packing. I think I did pretty well considering my typical habits.

I fit all of my going out clothes (actually enough going out clothes for 3 girls...), beach clothes and towel, hanging out/causal clothes, PJs, 4 pairs of shoes (!!), and all my toiletries/makeup/hair stuff (I think that took up half the space) all into 1 normal sized suitcase!

Then I have my work and laptop in my backpack.

And my food and purse stuff in my purse.

So not minimalist- at all. Well, I never claimed to pack light!

Something to think about, I guess. Something other than my thesis... not what I should be doing. Alright-- back to work :)

Decisions

Well, I am on my way.

I have a job!!!

It has nothing to do with aging or calorie restriction.

I am very excited about it, despite those details.

I am doing something related to what I did before grad school and in undergrad. It is funny how much of that I still remember. I start the job November 1!

It took me a bit to get excited. But I am fully on board now. I have 6 weeks to turn in my thesis to my committee. That fact is making me crazy. I feel like a chicken without a head. Running around aimlessly, too many things needing attention, nothing actually getting adequate time or focus. I am repeating myself, forgetting who I have talked to about what, forgetting meetings and plans... etc.

So to all my family and friends out there who have suffered because of my chaos, I promise to be better-- in November :)

So for now, I will be cutting myself off. Or trying to. So far I have been unsuccessful at being productive (I needed to celebrate, right?!). But my experiments are ending. Whatever is done is done. Whatever is not, will not get done. And now the writing really begins. First the paper. That is getting sent out the week of labor day. That will also be a (the) major chapter of my thesis. Then I will focus on the rest of the thesis. The more I do, the more I feel like I have to do. I never feel like I get any closer to the end. But the end is coming whether I like it or not....

But how are my eating habits you wonder??

Terrible! I have to get myself back into some old CR habits. I have been drinking too much, sleeping too little, and stressing out way more than is helpful (which in turn causes me to eat too much junky food). I need to get back to my standard meals.

Breakfast: I need help with this one. I can not do cereal (I really overdid it...), PB on toast is getting old although I can eat it occasionally, I have not wanted yogurt and granola, and it is too hot for oatmeal. Maybe eggs will have to do. Egg white omelets. Ideas?

Lunch: I am getting back into the Amy's burrito phase again. Thankfully I recovered quickly from overdoing that one. Also sandwiches are good too. Change up the mustard and it all tastes different :)

Dinner: It has been wayyy too hot to cook and I bought stuff for salads the other week and never used them. I need to get over that and eat salad again. My vegetable intake has gone into free fall mode. Luckily I have a lot of friends who have been cooking for me lately and they cook vegetables for me and TE. I think a rule of one salad/day needs to be implemented.

Well- that is it for now. I am sorry for the absence recently. I will try to keep you all posted on my progress and keep thinking of meal ideas for me, I need all the help I can get right now!!

CR Can Change Your Life!

Boy, I have been busy, and not posting! Honestly, I can not think about food in this stage of the game. I am working a ton and stressing even more- so that really cuts down on my food enjoyment. I have been maintaining my weight, which is all I want right now. I will pick up the counting and measuring again when I can think and plan. But for now, just eating...

Things are not bad though. I am writing (my committee said I can be done "when I am done" which means I am really pushing for August- keep your fingers crossed!) finishing up experiments, and.... applying for jobs!!!

Yesterday I sent out 2 applications (which now makes my application grand total = 3, 2 postdoc, 1 actual job) and have since heard "something" from both. The first response appeared to be an accident- I think they meant to forward my application to someone, instead they hit "reply-all" but it was short and positive so I think I will be hearing back from that soon.

The second application was for a postdoc in a lab studying diabetes, and how maternal nutrition affects diabetes risk (so cool!!). The lab PI has already called me and wants me to meet the lab members ASAP. She said she got in touch with me so quickly because she was very interested in my letter where I talked about how I became interested in nutrition and how it plays a role in disease prevention and treatment-- by participating in the CALERIE study!

That bit of information really helps me stand out as an interesting candidate, I think. Not many people can say that they ate 25% less food for 2 years to benefit science! And people love to hear about this study!!

I really did not know how participating in this study would really change my life when I signed up to do this. It not only changed how I eat and how I feel, but changed my whole professional goals! I feel like it has been one of the best things I have ever done for myself (grad school is very far down on that list right now- haha!). And I am so thankful that this research is ongoing and I can continue to be a part of it. Happiness :)