What I Ate Wednesday: I'm Amanda Bynes?

WIAW!

So my last post was last WIAW. To sum up the in-between: I went to work, I went to work, I had a weekend with my Fiance and I studied, I went to work, I went to work and I went to work again.

I think that's it. 

Psychiatry though, is fascinating work. Yesterday I got to go to court to see a hearing to legally continue holding one of our more difficult-to-balance patients against his will. 

And every morning I ask people if they're thinking about hurting themselves or hearing or seeing anything that might not be real. And often they say yes. 

Today one of my patients told me he sometimes hears my voice when I'm not there, and that his roommate and he agreed that I sound and look like Amanda Bynes. This is not the first time I've heard this. I used to babysit a girl who would get out the video camera and say, "Okay talk. We're doing The Amanda Show." I don't know: 

Actually that 100% looks like me:

Maybe in the She's the Man days. It's more my voice that I think may be kind of similar, but that's hard to hear via the internet. Maybe I'll do a vlog someday.

And so while I channeled my inner Amanda Bynes and told people "I'm brilliant! Shhh!" I also ate things.

Breakfast: Overnight Oats. Last night: 1/3 cup oats, 1/4 cup soy vanilla yogurt, 1/3 cup almond milk, 10 g (1 tbspish) chia seeds. Dash each cinnamon and nutmeg. Seal in container, let set overnight in fridge. This AM: add 1/2 sliced banana and stir until its ugly!

And for the first time in a while I remembered my multivitamin with my breakfast:

Morning Snack: Roast almonds w/ dried apricots.

Lunch: Tofurky Sandwich with Hummus and Bell Pepper. Yeah, just like last week. 

Afternoon Snacks: Dried apricots, Orange and...

 Soft Serve Banana Peanut Butter Ice Cream

1 frozen banana broken in pieces

1 tbsp peanut butter

1 oz. almond milk

Blend in magic bullet.

Dinner: Vegan Meatballs with Whole Wheat Spaghetti and Salad. I tried these new vegan meatballs from Trader Joe's and they are way awesome. I microwaved them about 2 minutes to thaw the middle and then took John's suggestion to crisp the sides in a pan, and they were perfect. With Peas & Thank You marinara I made a while ago from the freezer. 

Happy WIAW all!

Do you get compared to any celebrities?

Build Your Own Triathlon. Have Some Freaking Fun.

Doing only one type of exercise gets boring. Both for my brain and my muscles. So today, to counteract taking the last couple finals of my week (only 2 left), I did something fun.

(Besides eating these awesome overnight oats.)

Overnight mix: 1/2 cup oats, 1/4 cup yogurt, 4 oz. milk. Topped in the morning with strawbs and bananas.

So, something fun. 

I built in my own triathlon. Let's clarify, I'm not a triathlete really, and I'll save my swimming background for a different post, but I own a bike now, and as a student I get free access to the university pool, so sometimes I think I ought to take advantage of that.

I realized with the bike commute and morning run, I could swim after my finals and make it a triathlete day, so I looked up distances for a sprint triathlon:

Swim: 750 m (0.47 miles, 15 laps in 25 m pool)

Run: 5k (3.1 miles)

Bike: 20k (12.4 miles)

I added a few miles to my bike commute to make the distance, and I didn't do it all in a row, which made it pretty manageable. My day looked like this (sorry for the cell pics - I don't try to carry my camera on the bike with everything else):

5 am: Run my 5k loop, about 30 mins. 

6:30 am: Bike commute - 3.5 miles

8:30 am: Finals - Preventative Medicine and Biochemistry

9:30 am: Swim 1500 meters, about 40 mins.

(I doubled the race distance, 750 crawl without stopping, then 750 of drills and other strokes.)

Fancy hair. Adorable google lines. I heart swimming. 

11 am: Bike commute to lunch - 2 miles

Zipped up and hauled on the bike.

11:45 am: Seis de Mayo lunch with friends! I got a veggie burrito.

1 pm: Bike home with some extra mileage - 7 miles

I'm a little tired, but running very high on endorphins, and that's a lovely way to end a long week of finals.

And so, this calls for a big dinner. I actually don't know what I'm going to cook, but it's going to be awesome.

Have You Seen My Chopsticks?

They look like this:

When I say, 

"I really lost my chopsticks today," 

it sounds to me like something one would say when they really mean, 

"Today I got completely teetotaler whack-a-mole crazy."

But that's not what I mean. I mean I literally lost my chopsticks.

7:30 am: Leave for school. Chopsticks are in backpack.

12:00 pm: Go to eat lunch. Chopsticks are nowhere to be found. 

Somewhere in the in-between time they ran away. Let me know if you see them.  

Fortunately my roomie was willing to lend a fork, so I didn't have to starve.

So yes, no starving today.

Breakfast was rather icy.

Overnight Oats with Frozen Blueberries

Overnight mix: 

1/4 cup (56 g) plain soy yogurt

1/2 cup (4 oz.) almond milk

1/2 cup (39 g) quick oats

Morning addition: 3/4 cup frozen blueberries. 

The blueberries were so nice and cold, my breakfast actually got some ice crystals going. Usually I only like a freezy smoothie in the afternoon, or a frozen soy yogurt for a dessert, but this was a fun temperature change for my morning. 

Lunch was a Trader Joe's Noodle Box. This morning was Kung Pao, and I've also had the Pad Thai. The Peanut Satay is still in my cupboard just waiting for it's day in the sun. Of the two I tried, I prefer the Pad Thai, but they're both really good. 

These are great because they're super convenient, don't require a fridge, and keep me full for a long time. Unfortunately they're about 25% a daily allotment of sodium, but it does help to pour on only part of the sauce. If I ever ate them at home I'd cut the noodles in half (leftovers!), load it up with steamed veggies and it would be perfect, but in my mind that sort of defeats the purpose of buying packaged food. It's supposed to be easy to take with me. So not an every day food, but I'm happy with it for a quick lunch when I'm low on leftovers. 

First the Pad Thai...in a time before my chopsticks made a break for it. 

And Kung Pao. With a fork. 

Forgive the cell phone pics, that's another thing about portable lunch food, it's usually eaten without my camera around. 

For snack, I'm still working on that tray of 12 apples from Costco. 

And dinner looked exactly like last night. You know me, I love my leftovers. 

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In other news, yesterday for a workout I did a couple of the free 20 minute classes I had downloaded from Yoga Download. The intermediate/advanced "Power Vinsaya Flow #5" and the Dave Farmar "Baptiste Power Yoga #3."

At the time I thought it couldn't possibly be working me out very well ... I wasn't so much holding poses as constantly falling out of them. I suppose I'm a combination beginner/intermediate yoga-er, (yogini? yogress? what's the word?) so the intermediate/advanced was especially a challenge. It was nice to try something new though, and this morning, my muscles are reminding me they're around, and well-worked.

It felt great to stretch them out with 5 mile run this morning.

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Guess what I saw driving around the neighborhood today? 

The ice cream truck! I'm actually reasonably certain he doesn't sell anything vegan, though I suppose I could verify that, but I just like the obnoxious sometimes unseasonably Christmas-themed music. It makes me feel like summer. 

5 weeks from now I'll be getting ready to take Boards in the morning. EEP. Back to work.

Tell me: Do you eat by temperature? Is one meal of the day usually hot vs. cold?

It's Official. I'm Like a Grown-up.

Why?

It's not the living away from my parent's house. It's not filing my own taxes or loan applications or my own car or the medical school thing.

No, it's because I, for the first time since high school, own an actual bed. I want to be clear, it's not like my family's just left me out in the cold on this, I've been quite content on a memory foam mattress topper. But a couple weeks ago, I just woke up (on the floor) and thought, "The time has come. I'm buying a bed."

Yesterday boyfriend woke up bright and early to drive down from Santa Barbara and after a stop at my house, we were at Ikea by 10:30 am. Since it opens at 10, we got a great parking spot.

We took our time going through the store, stating opinions on light vs. dark wood, lantern-style lamps (I prefer sconces) etc., but spent extra time in the area of beds. (And desks, for boyfriend.) After some serious furniture-wrangling challenges (they really don't make those carts big enough for mattresses), we were rather exhausted. And that was just getting it to the parking lot. After some brilliant wrangling, we got it all in the truck. Time for a nap.

Okay, no nap yet. By this time it was 1 pm. Initial hunger+angriness had come and gone but it was definitely time for some lunch. We were in Covina, CA (the nearest Ikea) so with the help of Yelp! I had found a nearby restaurant with lots of options the previous day: One World Vegetarian Cuisine. 

With everything on the menu from various asian-style dishes to pastas to veggie burgers, I was seriously impressed. And everything is vegan. 

To start: Summer Rolls with Peanut Sauce. They were a bit non-traditional in that the filling was warm with seitan and jicama, but really delicious. 

Love it when he takes pictures while I'm chewing. 

For me: Yin and Yang Serendipity (sweet and sour crispy chicken). Boyfriend said this was the best fake meat he'd ever had. I have to agree. Stunner. 

For him: Chick-un Fried Rice.

After that lovely meal, we drove back, got through the worst of it (wrangling that furniture up the stairs) and then it was time to build a bed. And so, remember this?

Before: 

After:

That's my desk out in the loft (the brown one). But I mostly study at school. 

It's a queen, in a very small room, but there's still room for my yoga mat, so I'm good. And now I can look out my window in the morning without standing up. The best part? I went for the nice foam mattress. I can't even describe how well I slept last night. Or how early. I think I was asleep at 7:30. It may be dangerous to hang out on this bed. 

Good thing I slept well though, because this morning boyfriend and I had a 10 mile training run. Unfortunately I think I twisted my foot running on the slanted road shoulder on Friday, and it was really hurting today. Still, I made it through. After the run, an excellent breakfast of Berry Maple Overnight Oats in a Jar:

flax meal + yogurt + oats + almond milk + frozen berries + maple syrup + peanut butter scraps:

And a big mug of tea. 

Now it's time to get some studying going (next tests are only 1.5 weeks away!), and maybe make a meal for the week. I hope you've had great weekends so far. 

And to my runner/medical readers: what should I do for a mildly twisted foot?