You Are Dust…

…and to dust you shall return.

Happy Ash Wednesday everyone and welcome to the season of Lent.  To get the most obvious question out of the way, I am giving up swearing for these next weeks.  I know it’s not chocolate, dessert, French fries, or meat (oh wait, I kind of already did that…) but it is something that I noticed I do a lot sometimes so I figured focusing on it and using each time I am about to swear as an opportunity to say hello to God would do me well.

Along with being the first day of Lent, it is also a Wednesday and you know what that means!!

Let’s do this.  Breakfast was eaten in the shuttle on the way to campus, hence the poorly lit picture.  I made a chocolate banana bread protein cake and topped it with peanut butter, chia, and maple.  I totally meant to put honey on it but I was almost late and in the midst of haste I totally forgot.  Oh well, it was delicious.

Once at school I did some preclinic prep work before some of the ladies and I headed off to Psychosocial class.  We talked about decision making and go to talk to a woman who was tested presymptomatically for Huntington’s disease.  It was very neat to speak with her and I cannot imagine having to make that same choice.  To deliberately find out whether or not I am going to get a mentally and physically debilitating disease by age 35… That’s rough.

Lunch was eaten very shortly after our return to the student room.  I was so hungry.  I chowed down on whole wheat spaghetti, roasted vegetables, and chickpeas all tossed in thai sunbutter sauce.

It hit the spot and kept me full all afternoon while I called out patient results, cleaned up files, and did a bunch of presentation work.  It took all afternoon but I made some serious progress.  I was pleased.  I snacked on a Jonagold apple while I worked.

Shortly after I threw away my apple core, I headed to catch the 4:30p shuttle home.  Traffic was a bit burdensome but we got back to the apartment complex in one piece, thankfully.  Once I was in my living room, I realized I had to turn right back around to go to church for the Imposition of Ashes service.  I was hungry again however so I toasted up a piece of bread and smeared it with ricotta cheese and homemade apple butter.

This was just right and kept my tummy happy through the whole church service.  I always forget how eerie this particular service is because it’s very quiet.  There aren’t a lot of songs.  There isn’t a lot of organ work.  It’s silent a lot of the time to encourage reflection and self-examination.  I don’t have a problem with it but I typically forget, yes every single year, so it always catches me off guard.  I will say that it’s a beautifully haunting version of eerie, not a creepy version so that’s good.

I walked back home from church after mass was over and immediately got myself in workout mode.  I was going to go to the fitness center for cardio but the wind was blowing so awfully that I literally almost blew away on my way home so I was not walking back out in it.  Instead I tried out the World’s Fastest Workout I saw on Pinterest.

As you can see, it’s supposed to burn as many calories as a 40-60 minute run and boost your metabolism for 12-36 hours afterwards.  After completing it, thanks to following the video below, I’m not sure about those claims but it got my heart rate up for sure.  Not a half bad thing to do when I don’t feel like going out of the apartment for cardio.

I followed that 4-minute workout with 35 minutes of Jillian Michaels 6-week 6-pack.  It has been about 6 weeks I think since I started so I’ll be doing a review of the workout and a pictorial time lapse of my results.  Check back in for that sometime soon!

After my workout I ate a late dinner (it was already 8pm at night!) of a baked sweet potato topped with homemade refried beans, Mexican seasoned tempeh, and rather sad-looking but rather delicious-tasting guacamole.  On the side I had carrots, celery, and tomatoes with ranch dip (fat free ranch mixed with Chobani fat free yogurt).

I nibbled on this while I watched Glee from yesterday along with a few other shows from my DVR.  When I finished up I set out to polish off my CPM/Chimera presentation, which I did (yay!), and I did a few things on my Cancer Genetics class case presentation.  All in all I was nicely productive so I’m heading to bed now I think.  Who’s getting 8 hours?  That would be this girl, right here.  Sleep well friends!

Questions: Did you celebrate Ash Wednesday today?
What are you giving up for Lent?