Exercise and Fitness During Medical School

By: Amber Park

The way physicians provide care for their patients versus the way physicians care for themselves has been one of the most controversial and puzzling concepts I have yet to grasp. The undeniable hours and extent of effort we put into our studies and work can interfere with our ability to work out. However, I have realized that much of the disconnect truly comes from what we prioritize and how we schedule our days. As a former athlete, I have the advantage of knowing what kinds of exercises I like and can do in the gym. I know what has fueled my love for fitness. Given this background, I wanted to provide some tips for medical students, residents/fellows, and attendings who might not have had the same experience as myself in terms of learning about nutrition, scheduling, and the types of workouts that we can be doing. 

Nutrition

Taking the time to cook and properly fuel ourselves can be time consuming and difficult. Medical students and physicians tend to stay up late, and stopping at the fast food drive through can be a welcome time saver. I also have to confess that I am a stress eater and love to snack on sweets or the closest free food available to me. We all have our struggles. To help myself eat better, I make a meal schedule each week with the same prepared lunch for all weekdays and a different dinner every night. I grocery shop the Friday/Saturday before so I have fresh ingredients for the weekend if I want to eat in (and believe me I love eating out and trying new food!), then I meal prep all my lunches on Sunday. At the same time, I prep all the ingredients for all of the dinners that I plan to make throughout the week. This makes it a lot easier and less time consuming to actually cook when getting home from classes/work.

Here are a couple ideas of what I like to eat (I also get a lot of recipes from tik tok):

Breakfast:
– Pancake bowl – Kodiak pancake mix with vanilla greek yogurt + berries/bananas
– Yogurt bowl – greek yogurt mixed with protein powder + bananas or honey
– Breakfast tacos – 2 eggs with turkey sausage and spinach in a low carb tortilla
Lunch:
– Steak and chicken fajitas with onions, bell peppers, and low carb tortillas
– Alfredo pasta – chickpea pasta with homemade cheese sauce (cottage cheese, mozzarella, + seasonings)
– Hamburger bowls
Dinner:
– Chimichurri steak with broccolini and mashed potato
– Pineapple chicken with bell peppers over rice
– Sushi bakes

Exercise

Scheduling time to workout as a medical student or physician can be extremely hard, especially as a resident. While I have no personal experience speaking for residents, I can share what I have learned as a medical student. As a medical student, I have realized that the more accessible you make working out, the easier it is to fit in. I also use it as my break in the day! Most of us turn to watching a show or being on our phones as a way to decompress. An easy change to make is to do those same things while on a walking pad or indoor bike. My current rotation is an hour to an hour and a half away, so I end up wasting about 3 hours of my day driving. In addition to that, I had a gym that was 15 minutes away, but I found that driving back and forth after getting home late made me eat much later and stay up later. So, I decided to use the money from what I would pay for a gym to buy a set of dumbbells. I already had bought a peloton bike off Facebook marketplace and am currently looking for other additions to my home gym. Access to workout equipment at home has been a life changer. As soon as I get home, I can just get on the bike and do a class for 30 minutes plus abs and I already feel that much better. More recently, I have also been working out in the morning. I just get up, brush my teeth, put some clothes on and go. Before, I had been working out about 2-3x a week; now I can workout 5-6x a week.

For those who struggle to get motivated to work out or who don’t even know where to start, I think that the best thing to do is to start with simple activities like running or biking. Lifting weights can be technical but much like learning to ride a bike or to run is something that can always be learned. Knowing what motivates you and working toward a goal are a large part of what makes the difference for me. Personally, I have signed up for a marathon for the end of the year and look forward to training for it. For others, the goal may be losing weight or feeling better in general. By setting goals for ourselves, we create purpose which leads to the motivation to start and stick with an exercise routine. Here are some links to get get you started: 

• Running shoes: https://www.reddit.com/r/RunningShoeGeeks/
• Youtube workouts: 
  https://www.youtube.com/@TIFFxDAN
  https://www.youtube.com/@pilatesbodyraven
  https://www.youtube.com/@sydneycummingshoudyshell
  Apple Fitness + is not bad either
• Running workouts: Nike Run Club App is a good place to start!

I hope this was helpful, and like I said: I don’t know everything, and not everyone is the same. Working out and taking care of our nutrition can be challenging and difficult when working with limited time constraints, but, despite taking care of others, we need to take care of ourselves too.