anyone else losing weight in grad school?

[shadowclaw]

I think I've been looking at this thread's title since I started my graduate education. Every time I see it, I think "hell no."

I gained a lot of weight during undergrad, but then lost a lot of weight towards the end through dieting and just being more active. Got to grad school, gained it all back plus some. I didn't eat a lot during the week, but I definitely binged on crap on the weekends. My activity level also severely tanked. My undergrad school had hiking trails that I'd walk daily and I worked as a waitress running around 40+ hours per week. My masters school had no trails or anything like that, plus was a good 80 minute car ride from home 3 - 5 days per week. I spent a lot of time sitting in my car and even more time in the library or wherever reading. I never sat so much in my life as I did during those two years.

Now that I'm doing my PhD, I'm definitely not in my car that much, but I do spend a lot of time reading and doing computer work. Unfortunately, my workload has made me turn to crappy processed food, which isn't helping me drop the pounds. I bought an exercise bike to use while reading at home, so hopefully that will help. I just need to improve my diet, which is hard since my husband loves eating garbage and gets upset when I cook healthy meals, and I really don't have time to cook two different meals.

[AnnaLee]

Omg!! It is hard to hear. You have to find time for eating. Have fruits in between your studies.

[victoriaaa]

I was worried about the exact opposite of this, so this is actually kind of heartening to read. I've lost almost 70lbs in the last year, and I'm hoping to lose about another 10 more, and I've been worrying about putting back on weight as going back to school will be a massive lifestyle change from working full time like I have been. I've gotten myself to a point where I only eat when I'm hungry and am able to prevent myself from eating out of boredom, so I'm glad to know this won't be an issue in the fall. But if anyone is losing weight and not wanting to, please take time to eat and take care of yourselves!

[spectastic]

On 1/2/2017 at 1:49 AM, shadowclaw said:

I think I've been looking at this thread's title since I started my graduate education. Every time I see it, I think "hell no."

I gained a lot of weight during undergrad, but then lost a lot of weight towards the end through dieting and just being more active. Got to grad school, gained it all back plus some. I didn't eat a lot during the week, but I definitely binged on crap on the weekends. My activity level also severely tanked. My undergrad school had hiking trails that I'd walk daily and I worked as a waitress running around 40+ hours per week. My masters school had no trails or anything like that, plus was a good 80 minute car ride from home 3 - 5 days per week. I spent a lot of time sitting in my car and even more time in the library or wherever reading. I never sat so much in my life as I did during those two years.

Now that I'm doing my PhD, I'm definitely not in my car that much, but I do spend a lot of time reading and doing computer work. Unfortunately, my workload has made me turn to crappy processed food, which isn't helping me drop the pounds. I bought an exercise bike to use while reading at home, so hopefully that will help. I just need to improve my diet, which is hard since my husband loves eating garbage and gets upset when I cook healthy meals, and I really don't have time to cook two different meals.

maybe you should be the one being upset in this case, because he's dragging down both of you.

[orange turtle]

When I started grad school, I weighed about 135 pounds at 5.4 feet. I gained weight (~7 pounds) the first semester.

I then lost ~18 pound in about 6 months. My pants are falling off my hips and I've had to self-add 2 holes to my belt, and am on my way to my 3rd self-add hole.

I did start eating more healthily after gaining the 7 pounds and did exercise quite a bit more. I started doing more exercises as I felt it helped with the stress of graduate school. To be honest, I can't tell if the weight loss was due to work on my part or a combination of stress and healthier habits.

So, thanks folks for sharing your experiences. It's reassuring that weight changes in graduate school are quite common.

[miss-prufrock]

Ever since I started grad school, I went from 190 pounds to 183. I've just begun grad school in January. Probably because I'm on a drug holiday for psychotropics and also, I've been working part-time? It makes me spend less for junk food and, well, food in general.

[RunnerGrad]

As a dietitian, I am saddened to see people without any education in nutrition giving others nutrition advice!  Nutrition is a science, and if you are interested in learning more, seek out a registered dietitian or a registered dietitian nutritionist.  Do NOT see a “nutritionist” who doesn’t have the dietitian credential, because that term is meaningless - people have certified their pets as nutritionists!  Dietitians provide science-based, evidence-based nutritional guidance, which is something that I hope anyone who is interested in grad school would be interested in.

[VulpesZerda]

My weight was never something I thought about until grad school. Like others, a change in lifestyle seemed to occur (poor diet from new stress, no longer playing sports or working on my feet). I was a healthy weight at the start, but during year one I rapidly gained 30 pounds. Second year I worked on losing the 30, successfully, and I had a best friend's wedding to help motivate me. Now third year I'm back into unhealthy eating habits. These habits and my cognitive gymnastics to justify them are so ingrained at this point, I think I might consider CBT to help maintain my weight and re-learn my relationship with food. 

[RunnerGrad]

On 2018-03-06 at 3:49 PM, VulpesZerda said:

My weight was never something I thought about until grad school. Like others, a change in lifestyle seemed to occur (poor diet from new stress, no longer playing sports or working on my feet). I was a healthy weight at the start, but during year one I rapidly gained 30 pounds. Second year I worked on losing the 30, successfully, and I had a best friend's wedding to help motivate me. Now third year I'm back into unhealthy eating habits. These habits and my cognitive gymnastics to justify them are so ingrained at this point, I think I might consider CBT to help maintain my weight and re-learn my relationship with food. 

I’m running a group program right now called Craving Change that uses CBT to help participants change their relationship with food.  It’s an awesome program that has been well-evaluated and has had great success!

[itsjoya]

Its the opposite, stress helps me to gain weight which is what I don't want. Good thing I am so done with paper works and I have time to do a cardio workout. 

[VulpesZerda]

14 hours ago, RunnerGrad said:

I’m running a group program right now called Craving Change that uses CBT to help participants change their relationship with food.  It’s an awesome program that has been well-evaluated and has had great success!

That's awesome, I just Googled and it looks great! I have Judith Beck's books so I should probably start by opening those back up. I'm actually in health behavior research within psychology, but not so much the clinical side of things. Although with the new NIH guidelines, I think most of my projects would be considered clinical trials, even if just measuring how much sunscreen people use. Anyway, I love this area of work except when it applies to myself

In case anyone was wondering, also, when I successfully lost the weight I was using My Fitness Pal over a year's time. The research shows that self-regulation methods like food diaries can be one important piece of the weight loss puzzle for many people. At first I thought I wouldn't have time for it, but after you enter the foods you normally eat just once it becomes very easy to log them again using shortcuts, only taking a few seconds.