Grad Student Turning Into Mush

[Samson]

Hello! 

 

My name is Samson. I've been reading the nerd fitness website for a LONG time, at least four years. I've had the emails sent to more than one account and eventually unsubscribed.

 

In college, I read the articles but never really applied them. Or if I did apply them, it was all or nothing that quickly ended in me binging on a pan of brownies. Not a good memory. I stayed in undergrad for an extra year, and everything started going better for me. I started dating my boyfriend, started going places more, and even though I was eating out more, I lost weight. People started to tell me I looked good.

 

The summer after, I worked hard to maintain my fitness. I ran every other day and did push ups and squats in my room. When I got to grad school, I tried very hard the first month to eat healthy. However, I had a bad experience coming off a Whole 30-ish diet. I ate half a pint of ice cream (I know) and ended up with a fever for a week. It turns out the new medicine I've been taking for my bladder disorder makes my body less able to regulate its temperature. I immediately fell back into my old eating habits--habits based on emotional eating that are far worsened by being in a long distance relationship and finding comfort in food instead of my far-away boyfriend or friends back home. Coupled with sitting mostly all day, having barely any time to work out, and living in a part of the city that makes me afraid to go alone and has virtually no parks, my new life is turning my body back into mush.

 

I'm here because I have a little over a year before the boyfriend pops the big question. Between now and then, it is my goal to be an absolute machine--school-wise and fitness-wise. I want to work hard for myself and my future, and I want to feel great and form good habits instead of waiting for it to be over.

 

Phew! This thing is long. But, basically, that's me. I'm hoping to actually get involved in the NF community instead of watching from the sidelines, and potentially make some friends along the way.

 

I noticed I'm a little late for the 6-week challenge, but if anyone is doing any group activities, I'd love to be a part of them. 

 

Thanks  

[Darth Yoga]

Yay! I hope you find the Order of The Stick to be an encouraging influence.

 

Just because the 6-week challenge is more than half over doesn't mean you can't set some specific goals for yourself, track your progress, and reward yourself for completing them. You can post a battle log. You can put a progress bar in your signature. I love having charts where I can check off my progress. It helps motivate me, and it reminds me that often my emotional sense of how well I am doing on my goals has very little to do with my actual performance. A lot of times I get down on myself when I've actually stuck pretty darn close to my goals, and on the other hand, it is easy for me to not realize how much lots of little "cheats" add up. 

 

Also, I highly recommend establishing new habits in small steps, and really integrating them into your life and making them your new "normal", and build on it over time. That said, I find that when I make crazy "fix everything at once" changes to my life (which I do), even if it falls apart in a month (which it often does) I find a couple things in it that stick with me for the long haul. And sometimes a big change works so well it gives you the fuel to stick with it long term.

 

But no matter what else you are doing, it can make a huge difference to set a few specific, reasonable, measurable goals, and track your progress. Even if you are overall making more changes than just those two or three things, those things are the benchmarks and the ones that you make certain to do no matter what, and that even if you fall down on everything else, you pull yourself up and manage to at least do these three things.