I don't know about you but for me, my bed always seems to be exceptionally comfortable between the hours of 6 and 11 A.M. I am not quite sure what it is, but it is like a force is pulling me into the sheets and despite my best efforts, I am always sucked into the snooze cycle before I quickly need to drag my butt out of bed. I unfortunately fall victim to this more often than I would like to admit, but I am amazed to say that these first two weeks back at school, I've been pretty successful at getting up early. And today, as I grudgingly silenced my 7:30 alarm, I thought to myself, "Practice what you preach."
I am on this journey to become someone that spends their entire life telling other people how to take care of their bodies and what they need to do in order to keep them healthy. So shouldn't I also be held accountable for this as well? How many times have we heard our doctors talk about regular exercise and about eating healthy? We respectfully listen, but often times it is in one ear and out the other because who has time for that? I agree completely. Who has time for it? With last semester being ridiculously busy, I definitely fell into not having time for the gym, even though I really enjoy working out ( I know it sounds crazy, but stay with me here). But this semester, I told myself that I needed to practice what I preach, and most importantly what I will be preaching. How can I expect my future patients to carve time out of their day to fit in exercise if I can't fit it into mine? So, with that mentality, I've been lacing up my Nikes and telling myself, "Yea, you're obviously doing this because you feel great once you've run that mile, but you are also doing this because one day when you are asking your patients to do this, you will know it is possible." I do understand that in some cases this is not always possible, but for me it was a matter of poor planning.
I have plenty of medical school friends that made it a part of their routine and I'm pretty sure that we all have the same amount of time in our days. These past two weeks, I've made going to the gym a priority and I'm proud to say that I've kept up with it. How did I do this? I built it into my schedule. This is something that I used to do in undergrad. I would pick a class or a time slot and I would designate it as my "gym time." I would treat this like any of my other priorities and I'd stick with it even if it was tempting to take that time to go back to my apartment and nap. It was difficult at times, but as I've read it somewhere, you never regret a work out. How my body feels when I've been consistently working out is incomparable to any nap. And actually, I need less naps when I've been following a regular workout schedule. I feel more energetic through out the day and it's even easier for me to fall asleep. But, something to keep in mind is that you don't have to be perfect about it. Of course, I'd love to be able to fit into my schedule every single day, but if I can only make it to the gym three days out of the week (heck, even if I can only make it one day), that's still better than not going at all. Health is not an all or nothing situation and nothing works out perfectly every time. So, my goal is to keep that in mind as I try to plan my time and make the most of it, even as my days get impossibly busy.
I know everyone has different reasons why they wish to live a healthy lifestyle, but I hope I have inspired some of you to think about why you'd like to implement healthy choices and how you can get fit it into your day.
I hope you guys are having a wonderful week and I will talk to you soon!
- Genesis<3
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