What I Ate: 7/10/2009

• 2 oz. mesquite braised chicken breast (about 80 kcals, 16g protein)
• 7 large strawberries (about 60 kcals, 0g protein) and about 24 dry roasted cashews - OOPS, I let free food get to me and had a bunch of protein-less calories :-( On top of this, I ate all of this by *grazing*, the gastric bypass patient's biggest enemy. There was a pile of trail mix sitting next to me during the test. I should have gotten up and moved. (about 275 kcals, about 7g protein)
• 3 oz. mesquite braised chicken breast (about 120 kcals, about 24g protein)

Total: 535 kcals, 47g protein, 35.1% kcals from protein. Booo!!!

I was so depressed after a day-long practice test that I didn't feel like working out, but I dragged myself there and got in about 37 minutes on the elliptical for a supposed burn of 350 calories. It's better than nothing.

What bothers me about the bar on some level is that I don't think I want to be a lawyer. I have a lot of lawyer-friends that I adore, but on some level I just don't identify with this profession. I want to be a law professor (really, I want to be a writer and lecturer), but that's seeming less likely as the days pass because of Yale Law School politics. In a way, maybe I shouldn't even care about passing the bar...

In any event, I'm taking it. In Oakland, a place I've never been before. Why am I not taking New York, Virginia, Maryland, or South Carolina? (Because I'm crazy.) When I take it, I'm thinking about doing a three-day liquid diet, just to take the confusion out of food. I wouldn't have touched the cashews or strawberries today if they were strictly off-limits. My body has become so used to the protein levels I've been feeding it the past week or so that it reacted poorly to the strawberries and cashews. My stomach was hurting most of the time I was eating the cashews, but I ate them anyway. That's a compulsive eater for you. And even later today, my stomach was still feeling off, so I didn't eat anything else and fell way short on protein.

I also can't seem to move on from Michael Jackson. I know how ridiculous this is. You'd think a personal friend of mine had passed away from the way it's affecting me. But I'm still overly emotional about it. I've spent a ton of money on memorial booklets and things, and I'm listening to his music constantly. Last night I remembered that my high school junior year original oration, which took me to the quarterfinals in the national speech and debate tournament, started with me singing "I Want You Back" (my longtime favorite J5 tune.) The choice of music was random, as my oration had nothing to do with anything that song discusses. I just loved Michael Jackson, and during high school I was particularly obsessed with the Jackson 5 and other 1970s relics. Anyway, there are so many moments of my life that his music has heightened and intensified, and I'm so sad that he's gone. Just to get through these last 2 weeks of bar prep, I'm cutting myself off from listening to the music. I will finish mourning in August!