I'VE MOVED!

WE'VE MOVED TO THE WIX BLOGGING SITE! 

I've been unhappy with blogger for a while, and I've decided to give Wix a try. 

One of my new year's resolutions is to be better at balancing my time, energy, and life. In addition, to find happiness (and beauty) in each day. I changed the name of my blog to Balance and Beauty to reflect those goals, and I encourage you to check out the new site!

New address: 

www.http://balanceandbeauty.wixsite.com/allison

Follow me on Instagram to keep up with the latest posts:

Username: balance.and.beauty

Linked here

what's in my bag: rotation edition

I absolutely love what's in my bag posts, and here's an updated look at what's been in my workbag for rotations the past six months. My post about what I carried in my bag during the first  couple years of medical school can be found here.

pepper spray - cosmetic pouch - cell phone - card holder - allergy bag 

face powder (great for keeping your eyeglasses on your nose too!) - water bottle - diabetic foot checker - planner - pens - small notebook - eyeglasses

Cosmetic bag: 

hand sanitizer - mirror - floss - perfume - concealer - heavy duty lip balm

ponytail holder - bandaids - my favorite lipliner

PS : my super comfortable turtleneck that's been living in all winter is 50% off at nordstrom! It's linked at the bottom of the page!

Click here to shop the planner. 

resolutions

BLOG REGULARLY

I haven't been the best with regular posts, but I enjoy creating posts and documenting different parts of my life. It's a nice creative outlet and I want to be able to look back at these stages of my life and laugh, be motivated, or just be embarrassed haha. 

BE  CREATIVE

I want to be more creative in live, whether that means trying a new type of blog post I wouldn't normally feel confident doing, going back to painting, or decorating my home a different way. I love DIY projects  and experimenting with cooking too and just have not made time to do any of that lately.

RELAX MORE

I've been doing well with this the last six months and really want to make a conscious effort to continue this. I'll post my ways of relaxing and what has changed my outlook on life for me in another post, but in 2017 I want to make time to relax and keep a good attitude.

PRACTICE CLEANER EATING

Jake and I did the Dukan diet for a couple months (posts phase 1 here and phase 2 here), and we plan to start up again in January. We normally do pretty well at home with our food choices but lately we haven't. Overall for 2017 I want to make better choices with my food and experiment with new recipes for vegetables so we don't get bored of the same thing each week.

KEEP UP ON HOUSEKEEPING

Over break Jake and I Have been able to maintain a tidy living space. I wish this was always the case and so did he. I'll start off the year writing dusting and vacuuming reminders and make an effort to put all the dishes and clothes away before I go to sleep each night. Hopefully this will make a difference.

BE EVEN MORE ORGANIZED

I completely lost my organization skills when I was on my surgery rotation, and family medicine was regular enough I didn't feel like I needed to keep track of everything. I regret not staying more organized, and with many to dos for our Italy trip, rotation schedules, and the Step 2 exam lurking in the near future, my DayDesigner will help me keep organized. (DayDesigner posts here and here)

shop daydesigners here : http://daydesigner.com/#_l_g9

Here are some other planners I love:

diy framed calendar

There are so many amazing calendars with great artwork. I love the idea of framing a calendar to add some artwork to a dull corner. I bought this white frame at Target and cut around my calendar to fit the frame. I chose a travel themed calendar to give me some more excitement before our trip this summer, but linked at the bottom of this post are a few more favorites.

Have you bought a 2017 calendar yet?

dukan diet: cruise phase

The cruise phase of the dukan diet is a long phase, and you are supposed to stay in this phase until you reach your goal weight. So we are both still in this phase (the last two weeks we were awful about sticking to the cruise phase...we may have ruined everything). 

The point of this phase is to start introducing more vegetables into your diet. If you remember from phase one of this diet the "attack phase" (full post here) then you know so far the diet has been all protein! 

The vegetables that are allowed include a wide variety, but of course the starchy vegetables are not allowed. 

The rules of this phase are that you have to:

alternate in a few pure protein days a week with the days that you incorporate vegetables

continue drinking 1.5 L of water

continue oat bran every morning

walk 30 minutes a day

The 4 weeks we had been in this phase before we messed it up, we noticed that the dramatic weight loss from phase one had slowed down. In phase two we were at an average of 1-1.5 lbs a week of weight loss.

We've learned that this diet works, and it works well. After five weeks I was down 11 pounds from when I started, and Jake has lost about the same. Unfortunately, with my two weeks of cheating I'm only down 5 lbs from when I started the diet when I checked this morning.

We don't feel limited at all in this stage as far as hunger goes. Jake enjoyed this phase much better because he could introduce salads. Some of our favorite meals include cooking taco meat turkey inside Anaheim peppers with fresh pico on top, zucchini noodles, hot wings, buffalo chicken dip inside of peppers baked in the oven, and steaks. We ate a lot, and drank a lot of water and lost weight because of how little carbs we were eating.

The biggest challenge we've faced, is that after 5 weeks we just felt bored and because we had done so well for so long we didn't care how often we cheated if we went out to eat or ordered take out on the weekends. To be more successful, it's important to not cheat as much. The weight will come back on quick the more you cheat! 

Read more about this diet in the book here: http://amzn.to/2ic2HMo 

gift wrapping

I started my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving this year, and finished up yesterday. Wrapping presents is usually one of my favorite holiday activities and in the past I've tried to search out the cutest wrapping paper possible. Unfortunately this year I was much busier with my school rotation schedule and so I just headed to target and explored what was there for wrapping supplies.

I shopped all online this year, it made it easy and fun! I liked being able to multitask on work breaks and explore holiday sales. Plus it's always fun to come home to packages at the door!

Happy holidays to you and your loved ones! 

splurge, save, steal : red vests

With the temperature dropping this past week, I've been living in vests. Even at home in the heat! I received my red vest for Christmas years ago, and I brought it back out for the holiday festivities this year.  

Below are the links to shop and a few of my other favorite red vest picks.