@Brant_Drake
I’ve been thinking more about/editing the chicken menu and decided for the “soup” course to do fried milk jelly cubes where the milk is chicken flavoured (simmered with roasted chicken bones). I plan on serving it in a soup bowl with confit egg yolk.
Would it be appropriate to serve this with chicken consume so it’s an actual soup?
It would be a shame to pour consume over the fried item but it would replicate the croutons in soup experience
My first instinct is to put the yolk in the center, surround it with some plants that can support the crouton weight (green onions, pickled carrots, snap peas - that kind of thing) up to slightly above the yolk, then pour the consumme to just below to cover the yolk, but not not enough to touch the croutons.
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ooh good idea!
my original idea was to do a carmelised onion puree but maybe I should just cut the pureeing. Would actually lower equipment use
Week 11: Day 6 (yesterday)
10min bike+9min incline treadmill walk +8min eliptical+ 7 min bike+6min treadmill+5min eliptical+4min bike
- got HR up and felt good
PM cardio
35min cardio workout video
Deload: Day 1
Squat: 2x5-165lbs
paused squat: 2x5-155lbs
good mornings: 2x10-115lbs
leg extension: 2x12-80lbs
cable row: 2x15-70lbs
- felt good and light, happy to deload
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The pattern is messing with me.
Why did you do the extra bike, and/or why didn’t you do more incline treadmill and elliptical?
Switching machines keeps it interesting
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Deload: day 2 (yesterday)
Deadlift: 2x5-245lbs
Paused deadlift: 3x3-235lbs
Front squats: 2x8-115lbs
Tricep extension: 2x15-22.5lbs
Face pulls: 2x12-27.5lbs
- felt pretty good, deadlifts nice and fast
I’m working on slowly reducing step count. Capping at 26k
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Reducing steps should help with the wild hunger.
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Me over here struggling to get 7k in a day… 
This is part of my motivation. Right now, I’m a grad student who mostly works remote. I can do most of my work from a treadmill desk
My body has more or less adapted to this step count
I’m not going to have this luxury when I get a real job, industry or academia
I think 20k steps will be possible if I prioritise activity even with a normal job since I don’t plan on having a husband or kids
I’m tapering down so I can hopefully it have to drop calories too much when the time comes
I find it frustrating that remote and hybrid work is on its way out. I’m definitely going to work somewhere where I can walk to work and am not required to dress up unless it’s client facing
Also, I’m also not really in support of walking desks in offices. They’re loud and come with injury risk. Would be nice if there’s a company out there that allowed them, but I 100% understand why they aren’t allowed
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Definitely good to plan ahead. As you said, remote work is on its way out. The longer you are away from your seat the more notice you will draw in the office. Makes it difficult to get steps in during the work day.
With you here! I want one, but only if I had an office with walls. Most offices are open floor plans with cubicles, not exactly friendly to your neighbors.
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I like Stan Efferding’s “10 minute walk after meals” idea. On a 3 meal a day protocol, that’s 30 minutes of walking a day, and it affords a LOT of metabolic benefits to do after meals.
What I’m thinking is early morning workout + 1-1.5hr walk before going to work. I’m going to make sure to be walking distance to work so no long car communte. standing desk at work but take 30min walk during lunch. Then 2 hours or so on a treadmill desk at home when finishing up extra work stuff or doing life admin work (e.g., filling out forms for bank…)
Not having kids would essentially free up at least 4-6 hours a day
professors actually get a proper office and some of my professors do have treadmills in their offices, but is it REALLY necessary?
I’m also not sure how far I’ll get in academia so best to plan for the worst
My professors here also often ask if I want to do walking meetings. It’s really quite progressive
I already do this
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Ah, I was meaning for when you transition to the workforce, and sharing with @unicornsandrainbows as well.
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Deload: day 3 (yesterday)
Rope pull machine: 11x(2min easy+ 1min medium+ 20sec hard+ 40sec rest)
- got HR up and felt good
Deload: day 4
50min kick-boxing HIIT workout
PM cardio
45min Pilates cardio workout with cohortmate
- more cardio
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Deload: Day 5 (saturday)
random exercises done for some sets and some reps
- good bloodflow and felt good to just play around
Deload: Day 6 (Yesterday)
3x(5min bike+5min incline treadmill walk)
10x(45sec core exercies+15sec rest)
- got HR up and felt good
PM: putting extra meat to work (starting week 1’s workout)
Deadlifts: 1x5-255, 265, 1x4-275lbs
Squats: 1x1-185lbs beltless, 1x7-165lbs, 155lbs
leg extensions: 1x12-85lbs, 1x11-90lbs, 1x10-95lbs
abductor machine: 3x12-125lbs
- that was… tough. Deadlifts moved smooth and didn’t feel too heavybut I just felt like I had not power, squats moved well but also felt pretty difficult to get through (not surprised lol), rest fine
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Update: FIRST YEAR IS OVER!!!
Here’s the typically year end summary post.
long post ahead. Tl;dr: grad school hard, LA sucks, people good
Academics
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I’ve finally detached myself from econ. I struggled so much first and second quarter with econ classes and it finally clicked that econ just isn’t worth it. This past quarter, I didn’t take econ and it’s mindblowing how much better I felt. I’ve read a lot of studies about how lacking “sense of purpose” is correlated with burnout and honestly didn’t believe it until now. I was spending a lot of time and effort on something for no reason.
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I’ve had to go through a mindset shift with respect to classes. In undergrad, it was important to do “what it took” (within reason) to do well in the class such as writing projects on topics I wasn’t interested in just to complete the assignment and spamming psets and memorising instead of actually understanding the material, taking difficult classes to look impressive. It was a bit of a transition to see classes as secondary. For example, I absolutely bombed a midterm (econ no less) and went to the professor to ask what I should do. His response was “you didn’t do the worst in the class, why are you worried”. Another professor told me to write a lit review on something I’m interested in instead of writing a project just to complete the assignment.
It’s honestly so freeing not to have to worry about grades. OTOH, advisor has been getting on my case about taking interesting, but difficult/time consuming classes that aren’t too relevant to my research.
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The professors and teaching staff here are amazing. Competent and good people who open their offices and care about us.
Some highlights:
First quarter econ prof was extremely charismatic and engaging. He’d throw out funny comments and most classes sounded like there was a laugh track.
Second quarter econ TA went above and beyond to hold office hours and explain things. He’d regularaly stay 30+min after class to answer question and didn’t cancel pre-exam office hours despite having food poisoning.
Behavioural econ prof from second quarter would take us for coffee and talk about whatever- topic included surf spots (a cohortmate likes to surf), housing in LA, job market tips and LA food scene
Quant marketing prof ended his last lecture of the quarter with a 30min presentation with advice for ressearch, grad school, job market and printed a little booklet for us.
Research
- Research was a lot more of a struggle than I expected. I got started early but projects failed and it took me a lot longer than my cohortmates to come up with something workable and it messed with my confidence quite a bit. Part of this is that I drastically switched direction from what I was doing in undergrad, Surprise… I do CS adjacent research now
It also goes to show how things work out. Two summers ago, I did a research internship with a professor who studies managerial practices. I thought it was strange that I got matched with her because it was unrelated to what I was interested in at the time . Well…now my project is based on the work she and some colleagues did . - Remember those failed projects? well, I seem to be a bad omen for collaborators. I can now add death and lawsuit to the list of unfortunate events. For my latest project, collaborator is going on maternity leave, but it’s not catostrophic since my advisor is still functional
- I still haven’t wrapped my head around having ownership of projects. I sometimes am surprised and confused when my advisor doesn’t know certain details or when she gives me leeway (e.g., “come up with a plan”) but I have to remind myself that this is MY project and that advisor is there to give guidance. Still, it’s scary when advisor doesn’t know things!!!
Life
- I completely underestimated how much I’d hate LA. It feels like I’m living in a scam with how expensive everything is and how shitty some aspects of life here are, especially with how much I’m paying. I’ve never had to deal with being catcalled, seeing (human) shite on the sidewalk, clearly drugged up or mentally unstable people shouting and staggering around… I also dislike the laid back, superficial SoCal vibe. It’s not uncommon to see wannabe influencers wandering around. With that said, the department has really gone above and beyond to make my life here easier. I got subsidised housing with AMAZING mantainence services. Programme director and PhD liaison help us with forms and bureaucracy.
- I’ve made friends! I do almost weekly workouts with one of my cohortmates and I’ve actually had some friends over to my place more than one time. I still haven’t broken out of the “little sister zone” though. My friends respect my ideas and like to have discussions with me, but the way they interact with me is as if they’re talking with younger sibling.
- I’ve really been spending a lot of time thinking about cooking, sometimes more than on classwork. Really strengthens my desire to do more with cooking. I asked a professor about work life balance and he said that he mostly works 9-5 on weekdays and 3-5 hours each saturday and sunday. Since I won’t be having kids, I could probably do 9-6 on weekdays, and 3-5 hours on weekends, which would give me 5-7 hours each weekend to work on food stuff. I’ll also have more financial leeway
Random Tidbits
- Relationship dynamics are really weird. Some professors seem to treat us like colleagues and say some TMI information or gossip. OTOH, there are somethings that make it feel like we’re back in middle school… except real parents are replaced with adviors. For example, there’s a student in another department who did poorly on an exam and that prof sent an email to the student’s advisor and asked for a joint meeting to discuss the student’s performance… parent teacher meeting style… At conference in SF, my advisor found me and warned me quite sternly not to go out in the morning the same way my mum would.
- My ability to handle workload seems to have dropped off since finishing undergrad. I have NO idea how I managed to survive lol
\endrant
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Week 7: Day 1
Front squat: 3x10-115lbs
Good mornings: 1x10,9,8-115lbs
Lunges: 3x14 (total)-115lbs
adductior machine: 3x15-55lbs
- wow this was tough, but made it through, felt good though
PM cardio
35min kickboxing workout video
- got HR up and felt good
Week 7: Day 2
Paused squat: 5x5-155lbs
face pull: 3x15-37.5lbs
tricep pushdowns: 3x15-32.5lbs
cable row: 3x5-100lbs
- took it easier today, the paused squat felt good
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I think adopting the mindset of high standards, but low expectations would be good for you. That and just being more process oriented in goals than outcomes.
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I try to do this