Nursing student here, need support with motivation

ninka_polish

Hi everyone, I took time off my final year of nursing to de-stress and lose wight but every day i just postpone it and do nothing in line of any weightloss initiative. I need support from someone strog who already has healthy habits maybe help me a little bit please, drag me with you for a bit pls till i can get up and do it myself. I woupd be really grateful.

4DaySale

Hello,
Recent RN grad here too To give you a quick nudge in the right direction:
1. Why do you want to drop weight? This is what you have to figure out, you and you alone. With a background in Nursing, you already know the effects of HTN, Hyperlipidemia, Insulin resistance etc. Is it health, how you feel, appearance, or a combination thereof, but figure this one out.
2. Time is not your enemy. Usually, when ppl want to drop weight they set a goal like loose Xpounds in Xtime. At face value, this is not bad, but there is such a thing as dropping the weight too fast which will affect your health, muscle composition, and long-term success. Preferably, don't lose more than 1% of body weight per week, with the exception of the first week. Time is your friend. (Roughly speaking, 1lb of fat has 3,500 cal, so if you wanted to drop 1lb fat/week, you would have to be in a caloric deficit of 500cal/day - 7 X 500 =3500)
3. Tracking. MyfitnessPal is great. At first, it is cumbersome, but it becomes practical very quickly once you have your frequent meals and recipes saved. Furthermore, not only will it track your calories, but will let you analyze your eating habits and adjust accordingly. Track your weight as a moving average, not daily - record it every day at the same time, but track how it moves over the course of 3-5 days rather than a single day, as it will fluctuate based on your sodium and carb intake as well as hormonal movement.
4. Food: Eat the foods you like but try to increase protein and decrease carbs (don't eliminate them). Be mindful of the fats and fat-rich foods. DO NOT eliminate those, but be aware that they are calorically dense and can add up quickly. Eliminate processed foods and severely reduce sugars. Other than protein shakes, remove liquid calories. The trick is to have a lot of protein, fiber, volume (via low-calorie foods), and a moderate amount of fats in your meals - This way it won't even feel like you are on a reduced diet.
5. Exercise: Strenght training
6. Don't chase perfection: whether in your diet or appearance, it won't happen; And if it does, it is likely you'll be miserable getting and staying there.
7. Be consistent. No plan will work if you can't stick to it (don't chase perfection). If you want to have a treat of your choice every once in a while, do so. It is not gonna make/break your reduced diet, but will go a long way in keeping your sanity. Just make sure you recorded it. If after a while, these foods you eat become a habbit, you may not even have to track them anymore, just follow your body's signals.
BEST OF LUCK!

springlering62

Totally different, yet a little the same. I retired, rather than taking time off.

I decided to make “me” my full time job and went at it just like it was a real job: scheduling workouts in advance, having regular times for meals, snacks, walks, treating weighing and logging like accounting functions, educating myself here and elsewhere about nutrition, etc. much as I would have pursued “continuing Ed” credits while it was working.

Deanner03

Nursing Instructor here.
Take the time to focus on yourself. Eating better, getting some exercise, etc., will help you to cope with the stress of nursing school (and it IS stressful), and when you lose a bit of weight, you'll find that being on your feet for clinicals (and then when you get out in the field) gets easier. Your back/legs/feet will hurt less.
Take it slow. Start by reducing your intake a bit, but track it so you know what's going on. It'll get easier and easier. Up your water intake. Then maybe once you're getting the hang of this, start walking or doing something else you enjoy for physical activity. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Make small changes that you can sustain.

kshama2001

ninka_polish wrote: »

Hi everyone, I took time off my final year of nursing to de-stress and lose wight but every day i just postpone it and do nothing in line of any weightloss initiative. I need support from someone strog who already has healthy habits maybe help me a little bit please, drag me with you for a bit pls till i can get up and do it myself. I woupd be really grateful.

Sounds to me like you would benefit from some ACT therapy (which I am currently in myself) or CBT therapy (which has helped me in the past.)

While you get the ball rolling on that, consider that what will help you far more than motivation is discipline:

(Disclaimer: language is "salty")

http://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is-discipline/

If you wait until you feel like doing stuff, you’re f*****. That’s precisely how the dreaded procrastinatory loops come about.



At its core, chasing motivation is insistence on the infantile fantasy that we should only be doing things we feel like doing. The problem is then framed thus: “How do I get myself to feel like doing what I have rationally decided to do?”. Bad.

The proper question is “How do I make my feelings inconsequential and do the things I consciously want to do without being a little b**** about it?”.

AnnPT77

You'd like to be a nurse, and have invested a bunch of time and effort in that. That's wonderful. Nursing is a life-giving, life-affirming, caring profession, and we need people like you . . . even though the job is super tough, and the public isn't always appreciative. (My mother was a nurse, started nursing education in her late 30s, before I was born.)

You've gone this far, which makes me think you're strong, and that's going to be useful for both your self-improvement and your planned career.

IMO, finding sustainable habits is crucial to losing weight, becoming more fit, and - most importantly - to staying at a healthy weight with good fitness long term. Treating weight loss/fitness as a hard-push, major revolutionary change, big project with an end date . . . is antithetical to what's needed for long-term success.

So, try a small positive change for a few days. Is it something you can keep up? Keep it up, add something new when it seems achievable. If not something you can keep up, try something else. Just keep chipping away like that, trying manageable positive changes, keeping ones that are sustainable, making a new plan when you find things that aren't going to work for you.

If you do that, you can:
* Lose the weight
* Become fitter
* Establish a lifestyle that will serve you well for a long time
* Set yourself up to be a nurse who'll be a model of healthy lifestyle for her patients, which is a powerful thing.

Those are big goals, equivalent to . . . I dunno, walking the 2180+ mile Appalachian Trail, or something. But for either case, it's small steps that will get you there.

On a more practical level: One option would be to join one of the challenge groups here, one that seems sensible and achievable to you, then commit to participate for at least a month, even if things don't go exactly perfectly. The challenges come with a built-in support group of supporters and cheerleaders. Some even include "old hand" participants who've been quite successful themselves, i.e., are further along the road to better health. You can find many of them here:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/categories/challenges

Best wishes!

Fflpnari

RN here!
Atomic habits is an awesome book. I follow james clear and he posts some of the stuff.
I started really tracking food and losing weight during nursing school. Food prep became a requirement. It was so helpful to have my food really to go for those 5 am clinicals. Going for walks helped with the stress of school too.

I got my food in a routine for classes. Premeir protein drink. I would mix one of those with coffee for my AM classes. Figure out what works for you!

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springlering62

That’s so sad. The teens at my gym- and there’s a bunch because the owner comps them- just do their thing and if they communicate at all with me, it’s usually a smile and a wave.