Is it possible to remain healthy and do well in medical school if you aren't a genius?

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cryhavoc

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So I wouldn't say I'm a genius, I'm a little smart and I work hard. However, a fear of mine is that in medical school, I will have to sacrifice my health to keep up. Which I'm willing to do, but would rather not. I can definitely see myself still eating healthy, but will I still have time to exercise 5 hours a week, and get enough sleep (at least 7 hours a night, occasionally 8) and still perform well?

I just read that a lot of medical students let their health go and I wondered if it was because they, like me, need to do more work than their peers to keep up . . . I'm very interested in being a doctor, and living a long, healthy life.
 
cryhavoc said:
So I wouldn't say I'm a genius, I'm a little smart and I work hard. However, a fear of mine is that in medical school, I will have to sacrifice my health to keep up. Which I'm willing to do, but would rather not. I can definitely see myself still eating healthy, but will I still have time to exercise 5 hours a week, and get enough sleep (at least 7 hours a night, occasionally 8) and still perform well?

I just read that a lot of medical students let their health go and I wondered if it was because they, like me, need to do more work than their peers to keep up . . . I'm very interested in being a doctor, and living a long, healthy life.
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Yes. If you're committed and disciplined, it is very possible to do both. What usually gets me in school is the lazy bug and it's exercise and healthy cooking that gets sacrificed, not studying.
 
cryhavoc said:
So I wouldn't say I'm a genius, I'm a little smart and I work hard. However, a fear of mine is that in medical school, I will have to sacrifice my health to keep up. Which I'm willing to do, but would rather not. I can definitely see myself still eating healthy, but will I still have time to exercise 5 hours a week, and get enough sleep (at least 7 hours a night, occasionally 8) and still perform well?

I just read that a lot of medical students let their health go and I wondered if it was because they, like me, need to do more work than their peers to keep up . . . I'm very interested in being a doctor, and living a long, healthy life.
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You definitely don't want to live the short, brutish lives of doctors.

Now, there is always free time if you do two things: (1) Learn to say no, and (2) Do not procrastinate.

Well, three things: (3) Get a Starbucks card.
 
Yeah, I mildly remember reading a statistic that said the average lifespan of doctors was close to 70, and it didn't shake my desire to be a doctor, but I was not pleased with the statistic. I want to live a long life, even if the path I choose is fraught with stress.

Then again, given the high rate of suicide, the suicides could be dragging down the average. I wonder what the average lifespan is of a doctor, factoring out suicide, and based on specialty.
 
Med school is difficult but it doesn't and shouldn't take up 24 hours/day of your life.

Obviously some weeks and months are worse than others, but overall you can make time for anything if you prioritize it.

And I am also not a genius.
 
All it takes is discipline. It's not hard to stay healthy, people just make excuses to eat like garbage and call it "stress eating". It takes all of a couple hours max to make all of your meals for the week if you want to go that route. However, I don't like reheating everything so I legitimately make every meal from scratch and hit the gym for at least 10 hours a week. I'm not exactly killing it in class, but I'm perfectly content where I'm at.

The whole your life is over mantra is way overblown. Is your life over if you're working 60 hours a week? No. Treat med school the same way.
 
xffan624 said:
Yes. If you're committed and disciplined, it is very possible to do both. What usually gets me in school is the lazy bug and it's exercise and healthy cooking that gets sacrificed, not studying.
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This is very much the truth -- at least for the first few semesters I've finished! It's entirely possible to remain healthy and do well in medical school (and no, you don't have to be a genius). Heck, I feel like I have more time now than I did with my last full-time job. It's all about efficient time management.

I could study plenty, work out, do more for my class, join more clubs, do more research, etc... but I just don't really feel like it. Instead, I just watched 4 hours of Scrubs after lecture and lab today. :whistle:
 
I send the time management thing. Along with eating healthy and getting enough sleep. It IS possible particularly in the first two years. Learn to cook healthy foods and don't live on pizza and beer all the time. Get a crock pot and use it. Find and figure out how to use the grocery store raw foods, beans, rice, and good proteins sections. The absolute worst thing you can do is eat poorly. Makes you stupid for lack of adequate nutrition.
 
ShyRem said:
I send the time management thing. Along with eating healthy and getting enough sleep. It IS possible particularly in the first two years. Learn to cook healthy foods and don't live on pizza and beer all the time. Get a crock pot and use it. Find and figure out how to use the grocery store raw foods, beans, rice, and good proteins sections. The absolute worst thing you can do is eat poorly. Makes you stupid for lack of adequate nutrition.
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Pick one of the Micom models of Zojirushi's rice cookers: http://www.zojirushi.com/user/scripts/user/prod_category.php?prod_category_id=1

You may thank me later when you're eating perfect rice every day as soon as you get home. 😀
 
There are plenty of classmates of mine who only sleep 3-4 hours a night, less than that the weekend before an exam. I choose to get 7 hours of sleep a night, which I feel benefits my sanity and my family. I still cycle 6+ hours on the weekend and get my studying in. No, I don't get all A's but that's a decision I made coming into school. I wasn't going to sacrifice my health chasing the grade.
 
Yes.


cryhavoc said:
So I wouldn't say I'm a genius, I'm a little smart and I work hard. However, a fear of mine is that in medical school, I will have to sacrifice my health to keep up. Which I'm willing to do, but would rather not. I can definitely see myself still eating healthy, but will I still have time to exercise 5 hours a week, and get enough sleep (at least 7 hours a night, occasionally 8) and still perform well?

I just read that a lot of medical students let their health go and I wondered if it was because they, like me, need to do more work than their peers to keep up . . . I'm very interested in being a doctor, and living a long, healthy life.
Click to expand...
 
I slacked off when school started, but this term I'm working out regularly. There's no reason you shouldn't workout. I'm sure plenty of people don't workout or do other fun things, hoping this sacrifice will automatically earn them a great grade, but it doesn't work like that. You can sit at school all day and study on an off and get distracted, or you can study like you mean it, for 3-5 hours a day and workout as well. It can be done.
 
cryhavoc said:
So I wouldn't say I'm a genius, I'm a little smart and I work hard. However, a fear of mine is that in medical school, I will have to sacrifice my health to keep up. Which I'm willing to do, but would rather not. I can definitely see myself still eating healthy, but will I still have time to exercise 5 hours a week, and get enough sleep (at least 7 hours a night, occasionally 8) and still perform well?

I just read that a lot of medical students let their health go and I wondered if it was because they, like me, need to do more work than their peers to keep up . . . I'm very interested in being a doctor, and living a long, healthy life.
Click to expand...
Get on a good lifting routine. Maintaining interest and developing a mild addiction for being in the gym will help ensure that it actually gets done.
 
Never pulled an all-nighter… not once. Did well in preclin and boards. Better physical shape than 95% of these kids, mostly 10 yrs my junior. Definitely NOT a genius. AND I have a wife and kids.

So I don't see why a 20-something single lad/lady can't pull this off. If I can do it…

Work smarter, not harder… in terms of study, nutrition, exercise… well, everything.
 
cryhavoc said:
So I wouldn't say I'm a genius, I'm a little smart and I work hard. However, a fear of mine is that in medical school, I will have to sacrifice my health to keep up. Which I'm willing to do, but would rather not. I can definitely see myself still eating healthy, but will I still have time to exercise 5 hours a week, and get enough sleep (at least 7 hours a night, occasionally 8) and still perform well?

I just read that a lot of medical students let their health go and I wondered if it was because they, like me, need to do more work than their peers to keep up . . . I'm very interested in being a doctor, and living a long, healthy life.
Click to expand...


I say get a couple of things, a food steamer and a George Foreman grill, both are a good ways of making easy healthy and cheap bachelor food. My food steamer doubles as a slow cooker. I copied my girlfriend's fish stew recipe and it came out awesome but made some changes.

I got a pull up bar and a bench in my apartment, one stationery elliptical, and I think its good enough. I think gyms are a waste of time and money.

Mostly I found that fitness is about 75 percent diet, sleep, good vitamins and supplements, and 25 percent exercise. I have friends who work out 2 to 3 hours a day and still have beer belllies mostly because of lousy diets and bad sleep habits.
 
Seth Joo said:
I say get a couple of things, a food steamer and a George Foreman grill, both are a good ways of making easy healthy and cheap bachelor food. My food steamer doubles as a slow cooker. I copied my girlfriend's fish stew recipe and it came out awesome but made some changes.

I got a pull up bar and a bench in my apartment, one stationery elliptical, and I think its good enough. I think gyms are a waste of time and money.

Mostly I found that fitness is about 75 percent diet, sleep, good vitamins and supplements, and 25 percent exercise. I have friends who work out 2 to 3 hours a day and still have beer belllies mostly because of lousy diets and bad sleep habits.
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Healthy weight =/= fitness.
 
Shov said:
Healthy weight =/= fitness.
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To get or maintain a healthy weight you need a good diet and exercise. I was making some suggestions to make it relatively easy for someone who will not have a lot of time and money.

I exercise only 4 hours a week and stay relatively fit. I credit my diet mostly for my fitness. I used to be one of those people who used to work very hard in the gym only to see very modest results and never paid much attention to diet. II also found that working out at home was better than at a gym. Good nutrition is key if you want results.

People think the more you torture yourself the more you will gain muscle or lose fat, that is far from true, in fact the more you do that more likely you will get injured, or worse. That is why I avoid gyms, because often you will run into so called personal trainers who will get you to train with them and pay them some big fees, they will put you on insane programs and you will probably get hurt or get sick of it. Most gyms I find to be toxic fitness environments.

My current Macros are 40 percent protein, 40 percent carbohydrates, 20 percent fat, I weight lift regularly, do cardio regularly. Never over do cardio. I think running is a waste of time.
 
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I found out first semester that you really just need to incorporate it into your routine or it probably won't get done. You can always find other things to do. I actually lost 10 pounds in the first month of school because there were days where I would go 10-15 hours forgetting to eat. I gained it all back. This semester I'm working out 4 times per week and I've done it enough that I feel guilty if I skip. I'm averaging 2lbs lost per week.
 
Mehd School said:
I found out first semester that you really just need to incorporate it into your routine or it probably won't get done. You can always find other things to do. I actually lost 10 pounds in the first month of school because there were days where I would go 10-15 hours forgetting to eat. I gained it all back. This semester I'm working out 4 times per week and I've done it enough that I feel guilty if I skip. I'm averaging 2lbs lost per week.
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Some people lose weight and others put on weight, everyone is different, some people stay the same. Good nutrition is a lot more important if you want to keep a healthy body weight, I think weight lifting is more beneficial than aerobic exercise too, running is good to a degree, but without weight training, if you are not building lean muscle mass, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage in so many ways.

A guy I lived with in my first year used to go to Chipotle every day, he actually lost weight eating there, but he was smart about what he ate there, bought a salad with a lot of greens, veggies, protein, etc. and tossed out the excess stuff. I could not understand how he could not get bored of eating it each day.

Eating out, and fast food is probably the worst thing for you, a lot of people I know have no idea how to make a meal, its not as hard as people think, and its surprisingly easy not very time consuming to make a good healthy meal without spending too much time or money.
 
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A few readers passing through may find this interesting:

If you have the time, read Pavel Tsatsouline's "Enter the Kettlebell" (pdf floating out there someplace). Buy a bell online (Fringe sports has some deals and free shipping to boot: http://www.fringesport.com/products/onefitwonder-premium-kettlebells.) and follow the book. If you progress through The Program Minimum and make it to the Rite of Passage, you will find a program that will prove quick and efficient (20-60 minutes depending on approach and the day) but at times brutal (if done correctly), delivering the benefits of both aerobic and anaerobic exercise. 3-5 days a week, in the confines of your own living space… do it right and get STRONG (including heart health). Only downside is that you may need to purchase a heavier bell once you are a couple of months in.

Links to check out:
http://www.strongfirst.com
http://www.dragondoor.com
http://worldkettlebellclub.com/intro-to-kettlebells/
 
I don't go to a top rated school or anything like that but I'm surviving (B student). When I started med school, I promised to never pull an allnighter and now that I make sure to get 6-7 hours of sleep even on exam days, I've realized that I'm doing a LOT better. Those 2-3 extra hours of studying weren't helping me because I was a zonked out zombie the entire test. Med school tests (at least at my school and I'm sure almost all others) aren't pure regurg and I have to sit there and reason my way through.

I definitely wasn't eating very well last year and put on a lot of weight. This year, I've stopped eating out, stocked up on fruits/veggies and make sure I exercise at least 5 x a week and it's worked well for me. I'm energized, I have more time (I don't waste it at restaurants) and I'm (slowly) losing weight!
 
Dharma said:
A few readers passing through may find this interesting:

If you have the time, read Pavel Tsatsouline's "Enter the Kettlebell" (pdf floating out there someplace). Buy a bell online (Fringe sports has some deals and free shipping to boot: http://www.fringesport.com/products/onefitwonder-premium-kettlebells.) and follow the book. If you progress through The Program Minimum and make it to the Rite of Passage, you will find a program that will prove quick and efficient (20-60 minutes depending on approach and the day) but at times brutal (if done correctly), delivering the benefits of both aerobic and anaerobic exercise. 3-5 days a week, in the confines of your own living space… do it right and get STRONG (including heart health). Only downside is that you may need to purchase a heavier bell once you are a couple of months in.

Links to check out:
http://www.strongfirst.com
http://www.dragondoor.com
http://worldkettlebellclub.com/intro-to-kettlebells/
Click to expand...

Commercial workouts give you an organized exercise program, but any kind of strength training is good for you, and moderate cardio. There are some people who like to do intense cardio, like to do a lot of running, but to me this is a huge waste of time, and also winds up destroying muscle tissue.

Nutrition is key to maintaining a healthy weight, stress management, sleep, people overlook these things, most fitness trainers will never tell you these things other than the nutrition. Things like skipping key meals like breakfast will most likely wind up leading to weight gain, also eating at odd hours, these are things medical students do a lot.
 
Seth Joo said:
Commercial workouts give you an organized exercise program, but any kind of strength training is good for you, and moderate cardio. There are some people who like to do intense cardio, like to do a lot of running, but to me this is a huge waste of time, and also winds up destroying muscle tissue.

Nutrition is key to maintaining a healthy weight, stress management, sleep, people overlook these things, most fitness trainers will never tell you these things other than the nutrition. Things like skipping key meals like breakfast will most likely wind up leading to weight gain, also eating at odd hours, these are things medical students do a lot.
Click to expand...

Nutrition is most definitely key, I agree. I skip breakfast daily though (coffee, black), barely eat during the day (handful of almonds, maybe some fruit), workout (at home) and feast afterwards. Works for me and I'm usually the only one not complaining about "starving" on days when a lunch break is delayed or out of the question. But I eat mostly nutrient rich, whole food (i.e. LOTS of veggies), home-cooked meals that match the activity of the day (i.e. higher-carb/lower-fat/moderate protein on workout days, low carb/higher-fat/moderate protein on rest). I think one should eat when one sees fit (instinctively). It's more about what one chooses to consume and when (in regards to activity, not so much the clock) that matters most. Personally, I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting protocols and it works exceptional well on a tight schedule.

For those interested:
http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html

Sorry for the semi-derail there. If people pay attention to what their doing and maintain continuous intention towards living healthy, there shouldn't be much of a problem. It's when people start sacrificing health for grades (which is usually to nail down minutiae that won't make/break your future career) when trouble arises.

Take home: Apply Pareto's principle in all approaches. Readers, look that up if you never heard of it before.
 
Dharma said:
Nutrition is most definitely key, I agree. I skip breakfast daily though (coffee, black), barely eat during the day (handful of almonds, maybe some fruit), workout (at home) and feast afterwards. Works for me and I'm usually the only one not complaining about "starving" on days when a lunch break is delayed or out of the question. But I eat mostly nutrient rich, whole food (i.e. LOTS of veggies), home-cooked meals that match the activity of the day (i.e. higher-carb/lower-fat/moderate protein on workout days, low carb/higher-fat/moderate protein on rest). I think one should eat when one sees fit (instinctively). It's more about what one chooses to consume and when (in regards to activity, not so much the clock) that matters most. Personally, I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting protocols and it works exceptional well on a tight schedule.

For those interested:
http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html

Sorry for the semi-derail there. If people pay attention to what their doing and maintain continuous intention towards living healthy, there shouldn't be much of a problem. It's when people start sacrificing health for grades (which is usually to nail down minutiae that won't make/break your future career) when trouble arises.

Take home: Apply Pareto's principle in all approaches. Readers, look that up if you never heard of it before.
Click to expand...

Well that is good if you pay attention to what you eat on a particular day, most people if they skip a meal just eat whatever becomes available, I tend to lose discipline if I skip meals, usually lunch is the one for me that makes me lose my discipline. I can skip breakfast on occasion without messing up my routine because you can get a protein bar or shake or some kind of liquid meal replacement, I can just run to the supermarket or gas station and get a quart of plain whole milk.

Still I think skipping out on breakfast ruins things for most people and sets them up for failure. I saw this website about unhealthy breakfasts and it got me laughing so much, the only unhealthy breakfast is none at all or Ihop, man that stuff is way worse than McDonald's. I would say Denny's and Waffle House is just as bad, because they serve basically the same food.

I am definitely a lot healthier than I was in undergraduate, but I think its because I am lot more grounded and people around me are more realistic than they were in undergraduate school.

I forgot, a food kitchen scale is really useful to own, you can use one to measure your ingredients and estimate the macro value of your meals.
 
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Of course. Get a slow cooker, vitamix and manage your time properly and you won't have a problem
 
in second year i usually get 8 hrs of sleep (but no naps) everyday, work out 4 times a week, down from 5-6 during the first yr..i perform ok, about top 40%, ill take it
 
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