Basically, I’ve just been working a LOT and trying to fit in time for friends and the gym. I went to the gym for the first time in a week today, burnt 1200 calories with cardio, just to eat most of it back at dinner tonight when I go to a Japanese steakhouse with my parents. It’s ok, It’ll even out. I’m contemplating my new years plans, trying to decide if I want to spend it with my family and cousins or at the party that literally ALL of my friends will be at.. plus I’m thinking this might be the last year for a few years that I actually get to celebrate since I might have to work it as an RN.. decisions, decisions.. How’s everyone else’s break going? :)
I hope I make it! Question.. Do any of you guys ever work nights? How does that affect your eating schedule? I don’t wanna eat more calories, but I feel like, tomorrow I’ll be sleeping through breakfast, so I don’t feel too bad about snacking a little. Packing teddy grahams and pretzel sticks! Ahh! Wish me luck. :P
I’m sorry to put everyone through this, but I just need to rant. With my insulin pump, I’ve been able to live a fairly normal life.. I usually almost forget I even have diabetes until I have to push a button for insulin or check my blood sugar. Lately, I’ve been battling crazy blood sugars. I don’t know how much this means to any of you, but I upload my insulin pump into the computer weekly so my doctor can see my blood sugars and how much insulin (the hormone that LOWERS blood sugars) I’m giving myself with meals and to correct blood sugars. I guess that’s a good backround..
I’m a nursing student, taking 3-4 hour long classes at a time, doing 8-12 hour clinical shifts, and working 8-12 hour shifts on my hospital unit. I’m also trying my hardest to work out and lose weight. Lately, my blood sugars have been dropping a ton with class, during work, and when I work out. I’ve lowered my insulin levels during my workouts so I can get through them, but after I workout, for hours, the exercise has a lowering effect on my blood sugar, causing me to consume more sugar to raise it to a normal level, then eat a snack to keep it from dropping again. Basically when I work out, I eat back all the calories I burnt off because my blood sugars are lower for a day after I run or exercise. It’s frustrating because I feel like, why even work out if I’m just going to have to eat back everything and more that I burnt off at the gym? With class, I can deal with it, because it’s only a few hours, and I am not too bummed about having to eat a granola bar through it to get me through the day, although I’d rather only eat when I want to, not when my diabetes wants me to. Thirdly, with work. Ok, I did a 12 hour shift on Friday. My blood sugar was low at 10, so I ate glucose tabs (sugar to raise my blood sugar up), then a Kashi granola bar.. healthy enough.. Then at lunch, my blood sugar was low again, so I ate lunch and grabbed a candy bar (it was a bad day at work, and my sugar was low again, so I treated myself to M & Ms). 3-4ish, AGAIN my blood sugar was low.. ate more glucose tabs, another granola bar. 6pm, again (and by this point, I had a splitting headache from it being so low all day). I ate PB crackers. At this point, I’m not even counting calories, because I’m sure I ate all my day’s worth and I hadn’t even eaten dinner yet. I was starving. Basically my point with work is.. I always overeat because I have to.
I’m just so upset and frustrated. I am sitting at a solid 140 pounds. I eat SO healthy. I RARELY eat out.. last Thursday was the first time in probably a month. I work out, and hard. Yet I can’t seem to lose, and lately it’s because of my diabetes. My doc is trying to set my insulin settings on my pump, but with my crazy lifestyle lately, it’s difficult, because when I’m doing all these things, my blood sugars run low, but if I happen to not work out or go to work, they go high. I’m sorry, if I’m gonna weigh 140 pounds, I at least want to enjoy it. I wanna eat out or eat more or not work out as hard, because in my mind.. I should weigh 130 at least. One of my friends never works out, eats out every other day and weighs 10 pounds more than me… that’s it! I should be losing weight.. I count calories and don’t even have junk food in my apartment. I eat nothing but healthy foods, yet with my diabetes, I can’t lose anything. I only gain. It’s so.. defeating.
If you’ve actually read through all of this, I apologize for putting you through it.. I just needed to rant, to talk about it, because lately I’ve been really upset/sad about it. I’ve worked hard and have gotten nowhere because of my diabetes.. I just needed to talk.
The past month, I haven’t been eating EXACTLY perfectly… I’ll have days where I do awesomely, and others where I just suck. I’m also slacking on working out. I haven’t been to the gym in probably 4 weeks and haven’t run in 2 (and that was just a quick run..). I’m so stressed and busy with everything! I’m terrified to weigh myself..I just KNOW I’ve gained. I’m gonna suck it up and either do it Monday, or just wait until weds and kick myself into gear. I have so much going on with school right now, then there’s work.. I realized I’m working 16 hours a week and I’m starting to think that’s too much. I might cut back.. But at the same time, it’s fall break starting Friday.. I am going home, not really gonna monitor so much what I eat, like, I’ll try to do good, but we’ll see. I’m gonna be studying most of the time, but I wanna try and get to the gym at least 3 times. I wanna get back into the swing of working out and eating right and I think after this weekend I’ll be ok. But does anyone else have these issues? Nursing school is WAY too much this semester. I’m doing ok, but have no time for anything else!
So today was the first day back to school. I started 6th semester. We had to get up and be at school 2 hours early to take a math test, then had lecture from 10-2:20. My class was pediatrics/OB and it was split up like this: Peds was 10-11:50, then OB from 1230-220 with a lunch break in between. Before lecture, I was super thrilled about Peds and indifferent to the OB portion, but as class was going, I realized I really like OB! My professor was super enthusiastic and it really surprised me how into class I was getting! We learned so much and a lot of it was so cool, like how to tell how far along a woman is in her pregnancy with just an assessment of the abdomen or how to estimate a due date based on last full menstrual cycle. I dunno, it was cool though.
After class, I went for a run, did 1.58 miles out in the heat. Then I went to the gym and did 1/2 mile more on the treadmill and Killed my biceps. It was good. :) And today, not really going into detail, I burnt about 300 calories at the gym and I ate about 1300 calories altogether (and they were healthy! NO bad foods. :) ).
THEN! I went to work and actually liked the Organ Transplant Unit I was floated to for once. The nurses there were super cool, so it made me dread the clinicals I’ll have there a little less.
Anyways, it’s 1 am, I’m dead tired. Bed time. But thanks for reading, if you actually made it through all this! Haha.
I ran and kept my calories at 1200! Here was my intake..
Breakfast:
Lunch:
Dinner:
Snack/Meal 4:
Looking to make today another success! I’m gonna work today from 11-7:30, then hitting up the city canal with my roommate for another (hopefully longer!) run! :) Have a good day everyone!
Ughhh so today was an awful day calorie wise. I mean, I guess according to myfitnesspal, I earned almost 800 calories because of exercise, but I also ate about 1760 (approximately) because my brother and I went to a mexican restaurant for lunch. I am only about 2.6 pounds heavier than I was at the beginning of the summer, but it’s still a bummer! Lately, I dunno why I have been feeling like this, but I can not get enough food in me! I’m seriously constantly hungry. Ughh. Even after I eat what I’m supposed to, I still feel like I need 3-400 calories after my 1200. I guess what I really should start doing is listening to my body, but I’m so bad about that, I have such a bad habit of eating super fast and not realizing I’m full until I’m way way already done eating. It’s awful. And I go balls out at the gym every day off that I have, then run on days I work (which is very hard after a 12.5 hour shift +45 min drive home), but it’s almost not enough. Whatever.
Here’s my thought. I’m doing OK I guess (maybe I’m doing one too many cheat days, lately it’s hard for me to keep track of my food), but I’m moving out into my own apartment on the 9th. It’s always much easier for me to control my diet when I’m on my own, don’t ask me why. But my plan is to get back on track for real when I move back to school, because next year, I’m staying there, not moving home. So there’s really no place to go but.. up? right? Eek. How are you guys doing?? I’m sorry if you read this whole thing, I just needed to get my thoughts out there, they’ve been pestering me a lot lately!
Since I don’t have many free days this summer, I feel like I have to go all out at the gym when I DO get the chance to go..
Today, I did a full on upper body workout with 2 moves for abs, then walked 35 min at the highest incline on the treadmill, burnt 400 cals! I’m gonna get a turkey sub for dinner with some grapes, then going for a run with my friend later. Great day. Then, to work tomorrow I go. I have a pretty full weekend ahead of me, Saturday booked, then not off work again til weds. Eek.
So I’m going to go today. Work has me drained, and when I’m not there, I’m way to exhausted to move. Today, I’m getting up, eating some breakfast, and hitting the gym. I’m hoping to get a really good workout in, since Florida is in 4 days! Eek. 4. days. But last night I went on a run with my friend and 2 miles was a struggle. I got through 3, but mannn, I am out of shape. I’m bummed I let myself get to this point. I think from now on, I’ll at LEAST run every day, and maybe I can incorporate lifting in my week 2 days, I’ll just do more body parts when I DO lift. Hmm.. we’ll see. But for now, wish me luck! This one’s gonna be a doozy.
It’s days like today that really make me feel like I’m exactly where I wanna be in my life.. like I’m going in the right direction. I am a nursing major, which a lot of you probably know, and I work at a hospital right off my college campus. Basically I do a lot of CNA work, tech work, “dirty work” like draining wounds, cleaning up incontinent people, vital signs, emptying ostomy bags, but I also help patients with their activities of daily living (baths, linen changes, walks, etc..). And I work under the care of an RN, kind of her “helper.” Not saying most of my work is really fun, but I absolutely LOVE the patient care. I love working with all the patients, meeting new people every day, and generally just helping everyone be the most comfortable they can be during their stay at my hospital. And it’s so cute.. 2 days ago, one patient told me,” You better come see me before you leave tonight!” a half hour before my shift was over. So of course, I went into his room to say ‘bye’. He got up out of his chair and came over and gave me a HUGE hug and said “I’m really glad I met you today. Thank you so much for taking care of me… Y’know? It’s not every day you meet an angel. I hope I see you again. If not here, then in heaven. You’ll be a great nurse someday.” My heart melted. And I get this all the time, but today, two of my patients at about 5:45 were like, “So when is your shift over?” I told them 7:30. “Well, are you working tomorrow?” I’d tell them, no, not tomorrow, but Sunday. “Oh.. I might be gone by then..” Or, I’ll get a “Maybe I’ll see you Sunday! I should still be here!” An hour later, “Oh..are you leaving now?” I’d tell them, not quite yet, that I get off work at 7:30, so I still have another hour and 45 min.. It happens almost every day, I get comments like that. So sweet. And today, I had a patient that was being discharged to go home.. this little old lady, being moved to an assisted living facility in her home town. They came up to get her and I was busy with another patient.. I almost missed her, but JUST as they were pulling her outta her room, she was like, “THERE you are!! I was just telling Ruth I wanted to see you before you left! I just wanted to say thank you for everything you did for me today. I hope I see you around at home (we’re from the same town and I had just met her that day.)”
I want to be a nurse practitioner eventually.. yes, after working a month at this hospital in my position, I know with all my heart that this is what I am meant to be doing. I am moving in the right direction.
