All work and no play makes Chelsea something something

It’s definitely been one of those weeks at school. For the past few days, I’ve been running experiments for 15+ hours in the lab and crawling into bed immediately upon returning home, only to roll out a few short hours later and head into the lab to start again. As a result, I’ve been falling prey to overeating and eating the wrong things; the free cookies at coffee break, several cups of trail mix over the course of a few hours while sitting in my office in an exhausted stupor. And over the past few days I’ve managed to squeeze in just one meager workout, which I’m pretty sure I sleep-walked (is that the right tense? Or is it slept-walked?) through because I can’t seem to remember a thing.

An ode to pizza

I was missing pizza long before I went primal. As an East coast transplant to St. Louis, I knew I shouldn’t expect anything on par with the New York-style hybrids that dotted our New Jersey coastline. What I didn’t expect was the profusion of bizarre crust + sauce + cheese chimeras masquerading as pizza all throughout the city. Some are more palatable than others, but none have been able to fill the very specific (wide, thin, triangular) hole in my heart.

Live life like the weekend

One thing striving towards the primal lifestyle has impressed upon me is the importance of finding balance. As a graduate student, this can (and has been) particularly hard. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of eating whatever is cheapest and requires the least amount of prep work. As an undergraduate, I tended towards Kashi frozen meals and Annie’s mac and cheese when the work got to be too much. Nowadays, I make try to make better use of my weekends in preparation for the long and trying week ahead.

On finding my workout groove

I dub this Friday, and every Friday hereafter, to be Fitness Friday, on which I prattle on about my very limited exercise experience, complain about people hogging the squat rack, and post my PRs so we can all laugh about how pitiably weak I am (but I'm getting stronger I swear!).

One year ago last January, I joined my very first grown-up gym. Yes, I was one of the New Year’s resolution crowd. You know the ones; they flood the gym, monopolizing the equipment for about a month before disappearing all at once like a flock of migratory birds. And that was me, right up to and including the inevitable backslide. I picked the gym because it was along the metro line and close to grocery store, and went three times a week out of convenience and an illogical sense of obligation to one trainer, to whom I’d assured my commitment to getting into shape.