this really just happened

I: Why would you want to do that when you could instead come back to the bay and hang out with the second most interesting man you’ve ever met? I say second because I’m not cocky.
F: Because skyrim is a beautiful world.

Let’s face it, I’m a terrible person.

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A couple gems from the past few weeks:

T: …You asked if you could stay later? Might I remind you that you’re 25?
F: Ah, but she’s the one who bought my plane ticket home.
A: Oh yes, I remember.
F: Yeah. I don’t think it’s gonna matter to my mom whether I’m 25 or 50. Although let’s hope that by then, I’ll be financially independent and out of debt with a job and cats and stuff.

N: Ok this is so random, but when my family went to HK in 2010, all of my family members got gifts. [details omitted]
F: Yeah, they do that a lot in HK. This is why we go undercover, because you usually have to reciprocate, and we’re not that rich.
N: And I got a bracelet for my future wife.
F: This is probably why my mom will never let me elope. I gotta have an actual wedding so we get our money’s worth back. -_-

F: Deadlifted 255 yesterday!
A: Is that how you pick up guys? You literally pick them up?
F: Hahaha, it would take a rather specific type of dude to find this attractive.
A: Some guys like a woman who could provide for them if you were both lost in the wilderness.
F: This would indeed be a great place to be lost in the wilderness.

L: If you get to stay in Lewisburg for rotations, you can live in my basement if you’d like!
S (her son): …But that’s where I live!
F: Not anymore, I guess. I’m sorry it had to come to this.
L: That’s right!
S: Mom, why don’t you just adopt her?

My first day off was rather awesome. :D Woke up, went to church, randomly formed an a capella quartet that sounds amazing, went to the gym (had my worst workout ever but I’m going to hope that it’s only because I’ve been overtraining ._.), volunteered at the cat shelter and she took me out on a celebratory dinner. <3 We’re going for a plane ride on Wednesday if the weather holds! Supah excited!

diets

Given that I absolutely adore food and haven’t really ever actively tried to lose weight, this has been a somewhat trying time. :[ I already eat pretty healthily most days, and I already work out fairly regularly, but I’m pretty sure I used to eat way more than I actually needed to on a fairly regular (aka daily) basis because I like food more than I like drinking fluids (and I hate having to get up all the time to go pee), which basically translated to me being in a perpetually dehydrated state.

It sucks, but I wanna do well, so I’m doing it.

Truth be told, I was supposed to start dieting back in mid-April, when my whole I’m-going-to-enter-a-powerlifting-competition ambition began. But two days after this idea was placed into my head, our town had their annual chocolate festival…and then a week later, it was my birthday…

Basically, I made all the excuses in the world to avoid having to diet. :[ I’ve never actively tried to lose weight because weight can fluctuate so much so easily. I also don’t own a scale, so I’d much rather go by what I look like in the mirror. A couple days ago, my friend suggested I check out how much weight I lost from night to morning, so I decided to take him up on that.

At 7:30 p.m., when I weighed myself, I was at 125.8. 5 cups of tea/water and a meal of grilled tilapia + steamed veggies later, I was 3 pounds heavier (3 hours later). The next morning, I’d lost 2.2 pounds.

(You see why I’d rather just look in the mirror? >_> )

I really, really wish I could just work out harder instead of watching what I eat, because to me, lifting a couple hundred pounds is infinitely easier than curbing the sheer amounts of food that I consume. (Let’s not factor in how much I crave unhealthy food when I need to study. :'( )

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. :[ When I stepped on the scale about a week ago and saw that my weight hadn’t changed at all (still at 127), I got pretty worried, because I need to be at 123 for the competition. Granted, a lot of this must be water weight (at least, I hope so), because I’ve been guzzling water/green tea like a fiend (it helps to curb the hunger and possibly increases insulin sensitivity/has potential effects on energy metabolism + fat oxidation). In a sense, this is good because, I kid you not, this is the most well-hydrated I’ve ever been. I seriously need to start some kind of a caloric deficit though if I don’t want to be completely miserable next weekend (last-minute ideas include not drinking anything on Friday and then putting on all the clothes I own and running a mile or three, or spitting in a cup all day).

My “maxes” (quotations used because they’re not my 1RM; I still have no idea what those are, but I guess we’ll see) are currently as follows! (This is probably what they’ll stay at because today’s my last day for gains.)
Deadlift: 255
Squat: 225
Bench press: 120

I was at the gym on Tuesday and one of my friends (co-officer for FM club) asked me what I was working on.
F: Today’s deadlift day!
J: Is that all you do?
F: Well, there’s squats and bench press and several other accessory exercises too, but that’s the big one for today.
J: Cool. I’ve always been really impressed by your deadlifts.
F: Really? :D!
J: Yeah! They’re awesome!
D: What are you at right now, 235?
F: Yep! I did 225 last Friday, so I figured I’d move up.
(I was going to shoot for 250, but they convinced me to try for 255.)
J: Alright, let’s do this, Farrah!
F: Alright!! (manages 2 reps)
J: Holy shit. That’s really, really impressive. I wonder if I can do that. I’m a little scared to try now.
D: Yeah, it looked like you weren’t having much trouble with it. You know what’s really impressive though?
F: What?
D: Can I see one of your hands?
F: (holds up hand) They’re puny, I know. :[ It sucks for piano.
D: Your hands are about half the size of mine and you can still lift all that weight.

Encouragement and positive self-talk has been monumentally helpful.
From mid-April to now, I’ve gone from:

• 110 to 120 for BP
• 185 to 220 for S
• 215 to 260 for D

I still don’t know what my 1RM is for any of em’ though. My bench press sucks. :[ We’ll see if I find out my maxes next week!

Daniel and Justin say that if I do manage to break the national records (I’m pretty far off right now, but someday!), they’ll put up a banner for me in the second year classroom. :D

Waking up in the morning and seeing some really awesome abs staring back at me = amazing motivation. If being driven by sheer vanity and dreams of badassery can make me stick to this, so be it!

good point

I: (after Mike went to get seconds for dinner and picked up steak for us) His kindness extends way past the distance he has traveled.
F: Good one. :O
I: You should tell him that.
F: Sure! Hey Mike! Your kindness extends past the distance you’ve traveled. Did I get that right?
I: Yep!
M: I’m not really even sure what that’s supposed to mean.
F: It means you’re a nice soul. :D It’s a compliment!
M: But it’s not true.
F: Don’t refute your compliment!
M: …You’re really tall.
F: …alright, fine. You have a point.
I: What did he say?
F: That I was tall. :[
M: (to Isaac) And you’re really humble.
I: Hey!

EXB

What do you value about EXB?

Last year, for some unbeknownst reason, Davis decided to temporarily suspend EXB (Exercise Biology) as a major. I am fully aware that I’m completely biased, seeing as how that was one of my majors, but [to me]  it was quite possibly one of the stupidest decisions the school has ever made.

EXB changed my life, and I’m very sure that I’m not the only one. I loved almost all the EXB courses I took (with the exception of biomechanics, but that was due to the fact that I hadn’t taken the prerequisite or the recommended co-requisite yet due to my quarterly attempts at academic suicide), and I still carry the things that I learned from those classes with me today. My decision to change my original major to EXB was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. The teaching and instruction that I received from the amazing professors in that department remain unparalleled, and I’ve taken a crap ton of classes (105 different classes in my four years of undergrad alone >_> let’s not factor in grad school and med school), so I really think that’s saying something. It’s 1/2 of how I started exercising regularly (so I wouldn’t be a disgrace to my major, and also because my ex offered to be my free personal trainer, so why the hell not).

I’m actually lying about not having a clue as to why they suspended it as a major. Word on the street was that people thought it was “just another premed major, and the school already had enough of those.” Seeing as how I’m a poster child for that very reasoning because I’m currently in med school, I can’t argue against the fact that it is indeed an amazing major to be under if med school is indeed your goal, but it’s also produced a whole ton of dentists, pharmacists, physical therapists, athletic trainers, personal trainers, physician assistants, nurses…(I could go on, but I’ll stop there.)

Please don’t take that major away. :[ It’s honestly one of the most unique majors in the school (with the funnest, most informative and applicable classes, I might add).

---

Loosely related, but I helped out at a women’s health fair the other day and while I was there, I decided to check out what my bone density was. (I also got to see just how sun-damaged my face had gotten. Apparently, it’s not nearly as terrible as I thought. Mayhaps all those years of my parents telling me to keep my face out of the sun so I wouldn’t get any more freckles/get any uglier weren’t all for naught after all.) Anyway, back to bones. Once upon a time (senior year of undergrad), Dr. Shaffrath called me out in the middle of EXB 117 to say that I was an awesome human being. (I still wish I’d recorded that lecture, because I’m pretty sure it’d cheer me up even on my worst days.)

His reasons for doing so were because I’d somewhat recently volunteered to be the test subject for the hypothermia lab (it is just as it sounds; I basically submerged all but my head in a tank of cold water for an hour so we could monitor how my body responded to it vs. someone who exercised on a cycle ergometer next to me in the same tank). Usually, shivering is the beginning of the end and once you start doing that, you’re done for if you stay in said conditions for too much longer. But! We discovered that I was at the perfect body fat:muscle ratio that my shivering actually managed to raise my core body temperature. Pretty sweet. (Super-fun labs, didn’t I tell you? It’s been 3.5 years but I still remember all that pretty effing clearly.)

I’m really bringing this all up to preface my bone density results. I did a presentation in Cantonese for PHAC that year too, to educate the public (e.g. our patients) about osteoporosis. As an Asian female with a fairly small frame, a family history of osteoporosis (although I think it’s due in part to the fact that she’s sedentary/had to take corticosteroids for a while) and possible low calcium intake (I may be lactose intolerant, and I haven’t been eating/drinking much stuff with Ca lately), I have several risk factors for osteoporosis.

But hooray for weight-bearing activity, right? Your calcium stores peak at around the age of 25, so start building em’ so you’ll have farther to fall (especially if you’re female)!

I guess 0.9 isn’t too shabby. (My friend was at 1.5, so I’m really curious as to what she does. Mayhaps I should increase my calcium intake and start kicking telephone poles.)

• 0 to -1: normal bone density
• -1 to -2.5: osteopenia (early osteoporosis)
• -2.5 or less: osteoporosis

So this is my public service announcement to everyone:

• Prevention is key!
• Make sure you get adequate calcium + vitamin D.
  Calcium
  Up to 1 yo: 210-270 mg
  1-3 yo: 500 mg
  4-8 yo: 800 mg
  9-18 yo: 1300 mg
  19-50 yo: 1000 mg
  51+: 1200 mg
  Vitamin D
  400-1000 IU/day for adults (it’s safe for anyone older than 1 yo to take up to 2000 IU/day)
• Weight-bearing activity!
• Don’t smoke!