Terrified

nelsonhrae

I am 24 and pretty happy with how I look in the mirror. There will always things I want to change and I would love to be five pounds lighter but my BMI is healthy and my jeans button with no issue. However, I start nursing school for my MSN in two weeks and I am terrified. The overwhelming consensus on this board and every other forum I have been on is be prepared to gain weight, be it 15 or 50 lbs. And that though scares the bejeezus out of me. I was a bit chubby a few years ago (see Exhibit A, my profile shot) but I started going to the gym 4-6x times a week and made some changes to my eating habits. I fought long and hard to have this body be at a place where I like it and I am so so scared of losing it. I know my workload is going to be intense and that things that used to be important will go to the wayside and I know that what I put in my mouth etc is under my control but I still can't help the fear. Please tell me there are some other survivors out there that went through this or another rigorous program and came out unscathed.

HollisGrant

I am 24 and pretty happy with how I look in the mirror. There will always things I want to change and I would love to be five pounds lighter but my BMI is healthy and my jeans button with no issue. However, I start nursing school for my MSN in two weeks and I am terrified. The overwhelming consensus on this board and every other forum I have been on is be prepared to gain weight, be it 15 or 50 lbs. And that though scares the bejeezus out of me. I was a bit chubby a few years ago (see Exhibit A, my profile shot) but I started going to the gym 4-6x times a week and made some changes to my eating habits. I fought long and hard to have this body be at a place where I like it and I am so so scared of losing it. I know my workload is going to be intense and that things that used to be important will go to the wayside and I know that what I put in my mouth etc is under my control but I still can't help the fear. Please tell me there are some other survivors out there that went through this or another rigorous program and came out unscathed.

I'm going back to college in a week. I don't plan to gain weight. I intend to do the same things I am doing now: meal planning and preparing my food ahead of time. You can do that, too. Have healthy food on hand, pack a lunch, and don't miss meals so you won't feel tempted to eat junk.

bwogilvie

My grad program was in the humanities, not nursing, but the first year was pretty intense (huge amounts of reading in foreign languages, lots of writing, seminar presentations), and I lost weight. I did make time to exercise, but what was more important was that my main transportation was walking, and I did as much home cooking as I could. (I became a big fan of making huge pots of freezable food on the weekend, then thawing it out later.)

People who put on weight when they start an intense program don't intend to do so, but they don't have the knowledge they need to monitor their weight and fitness and to respond to any problems when they're small. You have that knowledge, since you've already successfully lost weight. Keep that in mind!

I'll mention one thing that might prove helpful. One great tool, which I take from John Walker's "The Hacker's Diet" (free online at http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/), in the "Perfect Weight Forever" chapter, is to weigh oneself daily and calculate (or have a program calculate) one's exponentially weighted smoothed average weight. He discusses the method in the chapter "Signal and Noise." In the maintenance phase, if the average goes more than 2.5 lbs. over your target, that's a sign that you need to cut back on net calories; if it reaches more than 5 lbs. over the target, it's time to go back to serious calorie restrictions.

Unless you have issues with daily weighing, I recommend it; it's a kind of early warning system for weight gain, because the exponentially weighted smoothed average eliminates daily fluctuations (water retention, etc.) from the equation: it's OK to be 6 lbs. over your target on any given day, as long as the *average* remains close to your target.