February Challenge: $100 Budget

February, new month, new challenge!

Meal planning is coming along, with a big hand from batch cooking. We have gotten better about identifying what soups, stews or other prepare-ahead-of-time dishes that we want to enjoy throughout the week. Some favorites are venison chili, chicken soup and corn chowder. Also, one large batch of shredded chicken for build-your-own tacos keeps great in the fridge and tastes even better on day two or three.

In a similar vein to last month's culinary motif this month we will be focusing in on the amount of money that we are spending each week on food and drink.

Yup, we're capping the grocery bill at $100 a week. 

Again, by getting into gear now we hope to make the transition to Intern Year smoother. By having good cooking/planning/prepping habits we will be able to keep eating clean/healthy and by tracking and paying closer attention to spending we should be able to maintain our goal budget of $100 a week.

WHY? You ask... because we love to travel, to dance, to live. By no means will we be starving ourselves, but we will cut out impulse buys, late night pizza ordering and other financial/health potholes. 

Heres to another month, and a new challenge!

Hickory Smoke Chili

I love a hot bowl of body warming chili in the winter. I hope you enjoy this recipe for my favorite chili, its quick to make, simple, healthy and best of all tastes even better as it rests over night. Make a batch to warm up the house on a cold winter day.

On a recent trip to Texas I picked up some new spices, special salts and new jams and preserves. This recipe revolves around the Hickory Smoked Sea Salt I found while in Fredericksburg, TX on vacation. Check your local grocery or specialty store for a similar ingredient.

This recipe produces a wholesome, mild chili with great undertones of smokey flavor. You may want to adjust the seasoning once everything is together to make it hotter or smokier.

Ingredients:

• 2lbs Ground Meat - lean beef or venison 
• 1 Red Bell Pepper - coarsely chopped 
• 1 Yellow Onion - coarsely chopped
• 1 Head of Garlic - cleaned and cloves crushed, not minced 
• 1 Guernica Pepper - clean and chop into small pieces 
• 1 Can Dark Red Kidney Beans - no salt added
• 1/2 Can Tomato Paste - no salt added
• 1 Can Diced Tomatoes - no salt added
• 1 Can Crushed Tomatoes - no salt added 
• 1tbs Olive Oil

Spices:

• 2 tsp Hickory Smoked Sea Salt 
• 1tsp Smoked Paprika
• 2 tbs Chili Powder 
• 1 tbs Ground Cumin 
• 1/2 tsp Ground Cayenne 
• 1/2 tsp Fresh Ground Black Pepper
• 1 tsp Garlic Powder 

In a large pan heat the olive oil, as it heats mix the seasoned salt, ground pepper, and paprika thoroughly with the ground meat then brown the seasoned meat in the hot olive oil. As the meat browns, add the crushed garlic cloves to the pan. Once the meat is cooked through transfer it to the slow cooker set on high.

Using the same pan, sauté the peppers and onion until translucent and browning. Transfer to the slow cooker and mix well with the meat. 

Clean and open the kidney beans, tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, and diced tomatoes. Add each of these to the slow cooker stirring thoroughly after each addition. Finally, add the remaining seasonings and mix well. Allow the slow cooker to cook on high for at least three hours, adjust seasoning to taste and enjoy!

Monthly Challenges: Build Better Life Habits

New Year, same me, same house, same boyfriend and same cat. New Year, new adventures, new milestones, new challenges.

Medical school is rough, you work harder than you ever thought you could and you change. you change in ways that are subtle at first, but become more apparent the farther through the crucible you go. Yes, the road to becoming a doctor is a crucible: a place or occasion of severe test or trial.

My time is precious, and expensive now. Therefore I am taking it upon myself to try out new money/time/brain saving ideas each month to nail down good habits and break expensive ones before entering Intern Year.

I want to know that what precious "free time" I have, and what little "disposable income" I'll enjoy are put to the optimal use. I want to spend my down time enjoying my boyfriend's company, and playing with my Ninja, not cleaning, or working at home. I want to use what little money doesn't go to loans and cost of living to gather experiences, not things.

Join me, take on a few challenges along with me and find out how I'm doing in my hunt for good, healthy and relationship friendly life habits.

January: Meal Planning

February: $100 Budget

Get Lost: Its Good For You

Today was a great day. Today was a win. Today I got lost.

Thousand Hills State Park boasts a beautiful lake with boats for rent, several swimming platforms in the back coves and miles of blazed trails set throughout rolling Missouri hills. Check out the link, the photos are ones I added (I love Yelp).  Sixteen degrees and I decided I was going to go out and jog the trails, get outside and challenge my body for an hour or so.

Yellow blaze trail

While the park isn't open to hunters, the surrounding land is so I was wearing more florescent and reflective colors than you can shake a stick at.

Phone charged, layers on, sneakers tied and clothing bright: check. When your dressed for the environment and the activity you have a lot more fun, and I didn't want to freeze.

The trails are decently marked with colored blazes, rather well traveled and visible thanks to the mountain bikers, and its rather hard to get lost with the lake in view. So how did I, a rather intelligent and experienced hiker get lost on a clear winter day in a park I'm familiar with?

I let go. My planned hour of jogging/hiking felt great, so I kept going, kept following the trail. I was taking pictures (to put on Yelp), listening to music, and monitoring calorie output with a heart rate monitor and texting friends (in the rare spots of service). Its amazing just how fast you can drain an iPhone battery when you are really using all the features.

The music stopped in my ears, no more messages to check, no more photos to take and (gasp) no more data for my exercise app! Its an eerie feeling, and its not that the music stops or the camera doesn't click. It the wash of realization that you are alone. The connection to the world beyond was cut, batteries dead and outside acknowledgment denied.

Did I turn around? Nope. There was a time before cell phones, when I hiked for the pleasure of it. For the simple fact that I could be alone, have time to reflect and just focus on the immediate world around me and my interaction with it. Its been a long time since I've done something for the pure pleasure of the activity.

Swim platform in the far cove

We spend so much of our day plugged in. Connected, networking, Facebooking, blogging, texting: chasing a feeling of inclusion and community. But we neglect ourselves in the process.

Take the time to get lost. Really lost. Let the phone die, the iPad battery run out, and the laptop closed. Maybe even go for a walk in the woods and find out where the trail ends.

Reestablish community with yourself, with your head, heart and body. Look inward for a sense of connection and completeness.

Mind, Body, Spirit

The three tenants that Osteopathic Medicine revolve around are: mind, body and spirit. Keeping these in mind help not only with the amazingly arduous task of becoming a doctor, but in caring for our patients and ourselves.

Mind

A common problem in medical school

The mind is a terrible thing to waste - we've all heard this before. But it is also fragile and needs a break from time to time. Medical school stretches our minds to the limit, with huge amounts of raw information to memorize, millions of connections to be made between facts about diseases, treatments, symptoms and side effects, and rigorous schedules of deadlines, due dates and exams.
Taking a moment to think about nothing and veg out seems impossible, but its not - and we need to. Even just a few minutes a day are enough to refresh and reset our minds for the mental gymnastics our education requires.

Its temping to turn to Youtube or Facebook for some brain down time, but try these ideas instead for your mind rest/refresh:

• Meditation - the Mayo Clinic has a great introduction to mediation and easy ways to get started. 

• Rest - "sleep like the astronauts" was the pre-exam catch phrase all through medical school, and for good reason. We need to recharge the batteries and get a good nights sleep to perform at peek mental power and agility. 

• Prioritize - don't let the day get too hectic and unbearable that your brain hurts. Plan ahead and create a must-do list for the day. Prioritize the top three things you absolutely have to do each day and start with them, then move on to the should-do items.

Body

NEMO triathlon 2013 - I'm on the far left

DO you treat your body like a temple? Or more like a cheep motel? 

To live a fulfilled life we need our bodies to be there (and get us there).  Nutrition and physical activity are hugely important for all of us to maintain the hectic pace we live at, note I didn't say diet and exercise. 

Changing the way we look at food, at activity and fitness is the next step. Taking the focus off low-calorie, low-fat, High fructose corn syrup, etc and placing it on food that is recognizable, grown and fresh simplifies the quagmire of the grocery store. 

Get out of the elliptical machine, bench press gym frenzy and build activity into everyday actions, make fitness fun and pleasurable. 

• Shop the perimeter - Yup, avoid the gooey-center of the grocery store and expand your horizons by shopping only on the perimeter of the grocery store. Here we find the fresh produce, the butcher counter and dairy section - identifiable food! Dehydrogenated and trans-fats are no where to be found.

• Use a hand basket - Yes, I said it. No push grocery carts. Not only does this limit drastically what we can fit in the basket, but also makes us use our muscles (gasp) to carry the food.

• Daily Exercise - Cant get to the gym? Awesome, take the stairs everywhere, park far away from the door, walk to the grocery store (bring a backpack) ride your bike to work. Make your daily activities active.

• Get Out of the Gym - Get outside when the weather allows and bring the family too. Look up local parks and trails in your area and go try one out. All you need is a pair of sneakers, and dress in layers. Teaching little ones active hobbies and weekend activities will instill positive life habits in them early and encourage you to be a great example. Heading to the neighborhood playground is great too, monkey bars are way more difficult as an adult and all the bending and squatting while playing with the kids builds relationships and thigh muscles. 

Spirit 

North East Missouri sunrise

Life is hard, and we can make it so much harder by trying to make it alone. Keeping in touch with loved ones, family and friends and maintaining and growing those connections to the world are extremely important. Medical school can make you feel so alone, only a handful of people in the country understand what you're experiencing, your language changes, your ideals shift, your understanding of the world and systems around you change and its so hard to adjust. 

Keeping the mind and body in line and on track are huge, but not as important as keeping the spirit up and engaged and feeling involved. Over the years I found myself calling my family members more just to chat, to keep a connection and feel like I wasn't alone. I was checking my phone, email, Facebook constantly to the validation that others existed and cared that I was there. 

It's hard to feel loved, worthy and human when you are constantly pushing and dragging yourself forward. Depression can sneak into your life without any fanfare, you can find yourself just not caring anymore, no drive left and no pleasure in anything. Depression can feel like you've run out of gas, no energy or interest. Depression can be sadness and despair, nothing is going to change and you'll never be happy. 

Listen to your spirit, keep in touch with yourself and know when something feels different, or you feel nothing. There is help, there are people that care and you can feel normal.

• Affirmation Statements - Check out this post by Remez Sasson to learn about affirmation statements and try out a few. Positive thinking can make you feel positive and change the attitude you approach the day with.

• Maintain Connections - Make that phone call. Call your mother or grandmother while walking to or from class. It doesn't have to be a long call, and you don't even have to have something to talk about, just reach out to say hello and know you are connected to the people that love you.

• Be Honest - Be honest with yourself, don't run or hide from how you are feeling. No one feels great all the time, and there is a point that you should seek professional help. I've been there and yes, its hard to accept at first, but there are professionals for this reason: we all need help sometimes.