Healthy Embrace: Week 4 and Going Strong!

A little update is needed in between the busy phenomena known as life! I am still amazed at the amount I am learning, doing and seeing while studying medicine outside of the city. I have been 'co-anaesthetist' for a day and did my first patient intubation, am increasing my success rate at putting in cannula's, following births and neonatal check, antenatal check and examinations, orthopaedic surgeries, talking to patients with conditions such as pulmonary haemosiderosis, mesothelioma, breast cancer, CREST syndrome, Parkinson's disease, patients who have had surgeries ranging from a new hip to a titanium plate inserted into their chest and I had my eyes opened to the realm of bariatric surgery in a half day clinic... one thing for sure is medicine never fails to intrigue me and each day brings new challenges and new desires to learn more.

Are my triceps growing??

Thankfully no matter how exhausting the days become I have still been able to keep up my strength training and am proud to be on week 4!! The first week was lots of adjusting of weights to see what I can do and what makes me sore but now it is starting to feel like a proper workout getting into a good routine :) well the 'routine' part doesn't come easy in terms of time... each day is so different at the hospital, from 7am starts to night time finishes (particularly in maternity) there is no telling when you get time off so I go to the gym when I can... morning, mid day of afternoon, but either way it doesn't change my love for the workouts :) I just wish I could do more cardio and run or join boot camps and fit boxing sessions but only 6 more weeks until I trial running again, it is not too far away!

So all I can say is while it is still early days, while my weights look a little measly compared to others I don't care at all, its how I feel and I feel stronger with each session and love how the day after my muscles tighten to tell me so. I can't wait to see what the next few weeks bring!

I still love my raw 'Garden of life' protein powder and while I don't make my own almond milk, I have started having rice and chick pea milk which is actually quite tasty! Why you ask? you can get rice milk on its own but the chick pea adds a little extra protein so it is comparable to cows milk, however I am trying to reduce my consumption of genetically modified products which includes reducing the amount of hormones in dairy, the hormones given to cows to increase their milk supply... yes we end up drinking them too! Thankfully BST or bovine somatotropin, a hormone used to increase milk production in some countries, is prohibited from use in Australia. This little pamphlet can give a little info about the safety of Australian diary, or some more food for thought here, but for now I like using Rice and chick pea or almond milk while I investigate milk more, there is no harm in trying something new for a change too!