The battle of the bulge – or why history can be bad for your health
Excuses come easily to me, always have. Regardless of any excuses that I might make to justify things to myself, I have come to a definite conclusion – I have let myself get horribly out of shape.
Since beginning of MA in the fall of 2010, I’ve probably put on about 25 extra pounds. While I’d like to imagine that it’s 25 pounds of muscle, recent trips to the gym dissuade me of this notion. Looking back on the past year, 2011 wasn’t a very conducive for exercise. Between moving to a new town, starting (and finishing) an MA program, and a muscle injury resulting from a ill-advised attempt to join an American football team, it’s been a while since I’ve been serious about exercise.
Looking back on the past year, I’ve realized just how harmful grad school can be harmful to an active life. My grad school experience was a perfect anti-exercise storm. I moved to a new town and didn’t know where local gyms were. My university charged students a surprisingly high amount (a membership fee, plus additional charges per visit) to use its meager gym facilities. Changing cities meant losing my friends who I exercised with, and losing the knowledge of where local activities were. And to top it all off, my attempt to join an American football team to impress a girl ended in an injury which I still notice to this day (but it did impress the girl in question).
And then there’s the dissertation. My program gave me roughly 5 months to create an original piece of research which counted for 50% of my final grade. This meant 5 months of sitting in libraries, sitting in coffee shops, sitting in archives, or sitting in my room working on my dissertation. By now you’ve probably realized the common theme of these 5 months – sitting.
But don’t forget eating. Eating and writing seem to go hand in hand. Need a break from writing? Have a snack! Need a longer break? Have a meal! Need an even longer break? Go shopping for more food because you’ve spent all day eating and not writing!
Before too long I was starting to notice shirts feeling a little snug, or pants not buttoning as easily as before. For too long I managed to convince myself that this was all in my imagination. This wonderful delusion ended today when I bought a scale.
I write this post as a way to acknowledge to the world (but more importantly, to myself) that I must make a change. Time to stop with the ex-cuses and start with the ex-ercise.
So I was wondering, how do other students and academics who might be reading this feel about how their work influences their health? How do you manage writing with working out? If you have any thoughts on the matter I’d love to hear them.
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[...] further complicate matters, academia is not always figure friendly (see my post about grad school weight gain) so not all academics may feel comfortable about how they dress. [...]
The thing that killed me was the pub. Oh my god, the pub. And I was pretty good at York about running regularly etc. but the cider ….
Don’t take this the wrong way, but we recently discovered a cocktail bar here that made me think of you. It’s on a beach and the only cocktail they serve is a gin and tonic which consists of an entire high-ball glass of gin, a slice of lime, and no tonic.
But you’re right, grad school was basically an exercise in eating, drinking, and sitting.
I take it as a compliment. That’s amazing.
I actually lost 5lbs in the process of acquiring an MA, but I attribute that to a major dietary change (I went vegan right as I started school) … though I’m sure that MA-related stress burned off the calories I acquired from the surprising social drinking habits I suddenly developed. That has almost certainly negatively impacted my health, and the fact that intensive drinking is the norm even in grad school is something that surprises me, albeit only in hindsight.
As for general fitness, well aware of the negative effects of 24/7 sitting, I tried to stay active. In my first semester I went to the gym regularly at first, but fell off that bandwagon rather quickly when essay season rolled around and I couldn’t allow myself the time to do ‘frivolous’ things like take care of my health. Same thing happened in my second semester. In my third semester, I didn’t even try. When I was active for that lovely 1 month of illusion, I definitely noticed a positive impact in my mood, my sleeping patterns, and overall outlook. It was a positive influence, but the reading workload made it very very difficult to feel justified in taking the time out of the day to exercise.
I really think that more awareness/encouragement of physical activity at the graduate level would be great. I got the sense that if you weren’t studying or writing, you were wasting your time; an academic culture that embraces and endorses physical fitness would be a welcome change.
My university certainly didn’t encourage us to exercise. It was something like 30 GBP to join the school gym and then something like 3 GBP per visit. That really adds up in a year, especially for people who aren’t working.
I think if you’re paying the health insurance fee, a gym should be included in that, not this “reduced rate but then you have to pay more on top anyway” stuff.
Great post, Ryan. Just wait until you become a chair, dean, or manager in the non-academic world. Another 25 pounds is on the way, if my own experience is any judge.
If food didn’t taste so good and sitting didn’t feel so nice, it would be a lot easier.