I woke up this morning feeling very happy, cheerful and positive about my day. I had to wake up at 6:30 AM to get ready for my neuroanatomy class, and although it was tough, I still felt pretty positive. My day was going great. I was finishing my powerpoint projects pretty fast, I had time to go to a Cancer Awareness Club meeting and listen to a very inspirational talk from cancer survivors. I had the opportunity to ask for volunteer positions in cancer research and clinical experience. I met up with fellow classmates to study for our neuroanatomy lab practical that's coming up this Thursday. I realized that I only packed lunch, so I go back home, cook something light to pack for dinner so I could study at the library.

For those of you who don't know, I don't have a car. I've been told that I should get a car for a very long time, but the financial burden of having to pay for insurance seems pretty big, and being a full-time student, I don't have the time to get a job. So my only source of transportation is through my dad. I have to ask him to give me rides, and there are days when he says yes, and there are days when he says no. He had to send some files to someone by a certain deadline, so he was spending time working on that when I had to go to school. I'm guessing the time pressure plus the fact that he knew I was waiting for him to finish got him a little antsy. I decided to try to help him out because something was wrong with his Open Office, and he just yelled at me to not touch anything. That one moment of yelling, just made my very happy day to a very stressful day. It's actually amazing if you think about it, how just one small, short incident can ruin your day in a split second. But it's up to you to determine if it'll affect you. Yes, I felt hurt and upset, but everybody makes mistakes. I'm sure he didn't mean to yell at me, it was just that he was so enveloped in his emotions that he couldn't help but do so. Everybody gets angry, and everybody makes mistakes on deciding what is the best option to relieve a situation. I just happened to make a mistake in trying to help him out when he didn't want it. My dad is a very loving person, but just like everyone else and myself, he makes mistakes.

Stress is a very big deal when you're working out. You never want to be in stress for a long period of time because stress increases your cortisol level, which is linked to your leptin levels that tell your body to store fat in your abdomen. So you don't want to ruin all your hard work by getting stressed over something that happened for a split second (not saying that whatever happened was unimportant). The good thing is that fat is stored in your abdomen to help you get more energy to run. So take advantage of that, and workout when you're feeling down, upset, angry, or just stressed in general. I always go through a psychological battle when I'm stressed. I constantly tell myself "maybe I should not workout today because I feel so upset", or "I don't even feel like moving because I'm so mad/sad". Learning to redirect your anger, frustration, depression into a fuel to exercise and move your body will benefit you more than you think. It's very difficult to change that mindset, but it's so worth it at the end. I can say for sure that when I workout, I am always more positive. I don't feel as mad about what happened before, and it gets easier to do things I'm supposed to do for the rest of the day.

Guess what today's workout was - Upper body workout!!

Workout - 

Upper Fix (managed to use my 5 lb weights throughout)

Diet - 

Breakfast: Chocolate shakeology with 8 oz water and banana. (I gotta switch things up)
Snack 1: Strawberries
Lunch: Brown rice with 4 strips of turkey bacon
Dinner: Brown rice with chicken breast, red bell peppers, and broccoli stir fry
Snack 2: Vanilla almond Quest Bar.

How I felt - 

I have a very weak upper body. The hardest workout for me is any type of arm workouts. For example, holding a plank is really hard right now (but I'm getting better at it), doing push-ups is hard, any tricep related workouts kill me, and staying on all fours for a long period of time burns my shoulder muscles. I've always wanted those toned muscular arms so that I could wear a tank top without feeling embarrassed. I'm really glad that I was able to consistently use my weights throughout the entire Upper Fix workout. I know I'm going to feel sore tomorrow, but that's totally ok because that's how you know you got a good workout. I feel like I've gotten a bit weaker than last time though. It might be because I didn't sleep enough. Sleep is another thing that you must have in order to recover from your workouts. Finals week is definitely making it hard to sleep enough, but I am trying to add some naps here and there.

For my meal plan for today, I feel a bit guilty because I had a quest bar at 10 PM. But then I worked out right after, so I don't know how much it affected by weight. Besides the late night Quest Bar snack, everything else was pretty good. I didn't feel any cravings, didn't get hungry in between, and drank lots of water to stay hydrated. Hydration is key, so make sure you're drinking a lot of water when you're working out. Drinking lots of water also helps improve your skin too. I feel like I look forward to eating my daily dose of fruits every single day. I love fruits, and they're such a great alternative than over processed sugary desserts out there. Strawberries seem to be in season right now, so take advantage of it. If you don't like strawberries, you can always replace them with other fruits like apples, bananas, kiwis, peaches (1 large peach a day), and many others. Fruits definitely help me to stay away from wanting to eat junk foods, and I think they're helping my skin too.

What is your favorite fruit, and what do you do to reduce your cravings? For all the other students out there, how do you deal with stress?