Eating right and exercising seem like a distant thing in our priority list when we are going through medical school. We awe at people who are able to get a workout in, in the middle of taking 3 midterms that week. “How do they even do that??”, we wonder to ourselves.
The truth is that they didn’t just wake up one day and had this balanced life on lockdown. They planned and prepared; took small steps to make small changes in their lives that lead them to adopt a balanced and healthy lifestyle. So here are some tips to get you started on your journey to staying healthy in medical school
Meal Prep:
This sounds like an extra stress added to your plate, but trust me if you have your meals figured out for the week, you will already be on your way to success. This is one thing you can check off from your To Do list and you will feel so accomplished! And guess what? You don’t have to worry about what you are gonna eat for lunch and dinner for the next five days AND you are gonna save a lot of money. Because let’s face it, medical school isn’t exactly cheap.
Plan ahead of time: Decide what you are going to eat for the rest of the week. Plan out exactly what you are going to make. For example, for a 5 day week you will have 10 meals. Decide how much and what you want for those meals. Then figure out what ingredients you need for those meals and make a list. This will prevent you from buying random snacks and extra groceries that might go bad.
Spend Sunday nights making your meals. Spending 2-3 hours on Sunday making your meals for the whole week vs. spending half an hour to an hour every day (~5 hours) figuring out what you are gonna eat is going to save you time that you can use throughout the week to study. You can buy containers to portion out your meals. Label your containers with the day of the week that you are going to eat those meals. Then just grab and go as you are crushing your classes in medical school!
Exercise:
This doesn’t have to mean that you are getting dressed to go to the gym and following a workout plan to get 6 packs or a flat stomach in 30 days. If you are someone who can do that, KUDOS TO YOU! But adopting a healthy lifestyle doesn’t have to be intense and a shock to your current lifestyle. You will only set yourself up for failure if you give yourself unachievable goals and you feel discouraged to even try anymore.
Take small steps to incorporating exercise in your daily routine. Make a list of achievable goals so you can actually complete them. Your goal can be as small as you want. Maybe you start with 10 push ups before your hop in the shower or 20 squats. Is it gonna give you big guns or big gluts, no. But what it will do is get you in the mindset of “I exercise in the mornings.” Then increase your goal to 20 push ups or 30 squats. Add planks, then jumping jacks, lunges, so on and so forth. You keep this up and eventually you’ll find yourself running in the morning and find out now you have leg days or arm days during the week. Look what 10 push ups in the morning got you! Don’t you already feel great about yourself?
Again, staying healthy, exercising, eating right, none of it is easy for a normal person and being in medical school makes it 10 times harder to live a healthy lifestyle. Don’t surrender because it’s stressful and difficult, find manageable dosage that fits you and what you can do. The day you say “it’s impossible” is the day it’s downhill from there. Pick up your to do list and add “10 push ups on Monday” and then add “packaged salads, hummus, and carrots” to your grocery list. Check it off your list this week and see how motivated you feel to keep adding to this list that will pave the way to a healthier version of yourself.
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