[Part 3] 5 year plan - where are you headed?

What it's like in an office

The topic may appear to be straightforward but moving from a school environment to an office can be quite confronting to some. I thought I would go over some quick tips for coping for your first few weeks in an office environment.

If you’re an intern this might give you a heads up on somethings to look out for!

1.      The noise level is quiet

When you’re studying getting to control the noise in your environment is pretty standard. More over, if you’re at school you can always tell your friends nearby to be quiet if they’re disturbing you. In an office that’s not always the case

Depending on whether you’re in a cubicle or hot desking things can get pretty noisy. Not only are there employees who some how forget to put their phone on silent every day – but you can also over hear the inevitable work calls where you can’t move them to another room because they need /all/ that stuff on their desk.

2.      Doors open and closed is an issue

Some how on this blog I always end up talking about the weirdest of things. I don’t know if it’s just that I’m a little bit too picky – but one of the things that I’ve really struggled with is knowing when to shut someone’s door.

There seems to be a lot of unwritten rules about this. Generally, we’d think phone call – shut the door, no call open the door. But…depending on where you work, who it is and how tense the conversation is you can be opening and closing that door all day long!

If you’re interning be prepared for a lot of awkward hesitations in the doorway. Whether you’re knocking on an open door, closed door, door way, or just staring at the people inside hoping they give you an idea of whether you’re meant to be inside or not – there’s a lot of awkwardness when you first arrived in an office.

But rest assured you’re not the first socially awkward person to have no idea what you’re doing!

3.      The printer is always broken

If you thought that your library printer was never working – then prepare yourself for the office printer. Not only are you going to be cursing out a printer that never works, you’re going to be joining a group of people who are overly tense and also cursing out a printer that is never working.

The exciting thing is – there’s always one person in the office that everyone expects to be able to fix the printer. Fingers crossed it’s not the new intern who has no idea what they’re doing! More often than not by the time the printer is actually printing pieces of paper out there’s 100 documents backed up in the system and you’re going to be using up a forest worth of paper on documents people have already forgotten about.

4.      Emailing vs. talking

Continuing on with the theme of administrative issues – whether you should email someone or talk to them is a new issue that you never imagined would exist. Except somehow when you come to work with someone within a 100 square meter radius it’s an issue. It’s either an issue because 1. You just made a coffee and really can’t be bothered to get up to talk to them or 2. If you go to talk to them they’re going to want to see it and the printer isn’t working.

But if you do print it you a. have to worry that it’s not going to get through to them and b. they may have questions which starts a confusingly long email chain that gets everyone aggravated.

Choose wisely.

But all in all, it’s fun working with lots of people who are passionate about what they’re doing. An internship can introduce you to industry challenges, critical flaws in your education and reveal whether you truly enjoy the work or if it’s time to adjust your career trajectory.

Don’t shy away from an opportunity to work in an office environment – embrace the challenge and let me know how you go either on my Instagram; lulu_hensman or my tumblr thisisluluh.tumblr.com

Or leave a comment below!

Winter Time; Study with Me

Life style change - delayed?

Lifestyle change delayed?

I’ve been making a lot of lifestyle changes – mostly to try and combat my autoimmune disorder holistically. I was tired of feeling sick, fatigued and controlled by an illness I didn’t want. You’ve seen a lot of growth already in my ability to organize my day and build my skills in the gym and at uni. However, despite these changes some days I am delayed in my progress.

While working on my next lifestyle change ‘ attending lectures ‘ I experienced cold. Which to the new reader will sound strange for me to mention. I currently have cold induced urticaria, or a cold allergy. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of this before, I hadn’t until I was diagnosed and even now it seems a little wacky.

Autoimmune disorders are really easy to ignore. A lot like mental health if you learn to have a higher pain tolerance you can barely notice them. Unfortunately though, they can cause damage even if you pretend they don’t.

Before class I’d gone to the gym and showered afterwards. I always have a jacket on me but being a sunny day I only brought a light one and a cap to keep my warm – why draw attention to yourself if it’s not necessary right?

Straight after the gym I shot out the doors and started wandering around campus trying to find my first class of the day. In hindsight I should’ve remembered the Australian way, warm on the outside means freezing on the inside. Whenever there’s warm weather we all crank up the airconditioning. Which makes for a great safe haven for the average person – and I am by no means trying to change anyone’s AC habit – but for a cold allergy…it can spell disaster.

By the time I reached my room the few flecks of shower water still left on me from my fast towelling off had made themselves known as the light breeze came past. I was so keen to make this class I just ignored it thinking that once I was inside I’d be protected and fine.

Being that it was a warm day inside the AC was on high. Long story short, because I really don’t want to tell you how long I sat there – I ended up hurrying home early from the class, with red rashes on my hands, legs and stomach because I didn’t want anyone to think I was weak. The whole class slowly became more painful, definitely not because of the subject, but because I’d screwed up in remembering to take care of myself.

Lifestyle changes are meant to be a marathon. There will be days when change is so easy, you have so much stamina, that you don’t need to pause for breath. But in that same marathon, there will be times when even drawing air into your lungs is painful.

If you’re following a 2018 lifestyle change with me – I am super excited for you! Join me on Instagram and twitter in this 2018 change, but don’t try to keep pace. Some days I’ll be lagging behind, struggling because of something as stupid as airconditioning – and somedays I’ll be sprinting ahead. Everyone has their own unique challenges that will take time to overcome. Relax and trust that little by little we’ll make a permanent change.

If you’d like to join me on my lifestyle journey then you can connect with me on Instagram, tumblr, twitter or facebook!

Instagram: the_underage_lawyer

Tumblr: theunderagelawyer.tumblr.com

Twitter: @underagelawyer

Facebook: @theunderagelawyer

5 Year Plan; What do I want to change this year [PART 2]

Coffee Study; Study with Me

How to plan and organized your college work

Study with me!; Summer Reading

One weird way to recover from burn out

What happens when you read everything, attend every class and every lect...

I quit coffee for a week! Oh my gosh!

I was so tired the first day without coffee  - I couldn't even smile!

I went without coffee for a week – which as a seasoned law student seemed like something of a nightmare. An impossible hellish journey brought on only by the desperate attempt to follow the multiple instagram fitness girls who claim that coffee is their ‘pre-work out’.

Completely unbelieving of the idea that a mere coffee could be sufficient boost to my energy to encourage me to drag myself into the gym I hesitantly – very hesitantly – began to cut down on my coffee consumption.

I’m a little ashamed to admit the process of cutting down my caffeine intake actually took 2-3 months – which is probably why I didn’t boast about it on Instagram. The process of cutting back on my caffeine intake was actually harder than I thought – resulting not only in sleep deprivation but a lot of headaches and higher sugar intake.

Slowly through I cut down from eight coffees a day to one to two a day. Once I was only consuming one coffee a day I cut it cold turkey for seven days.

-          I strongly advise against cutting it completely if you’re already drinking eight coffees, do it slowly like I did.  Trust me it’s already a significant challenge.

The first day of cutting coffee I didn’t really mind it I just exchanged it for tea. I was aware that tea had caffeine, but I wasn’t really looking to cut caffeine completely. I wasn’t anymore energised than normal – nothing magical really happened to me. I went to the gym as normal – not taking any coffee before hand. I just had a high carb snack which is good for the body as it can convert simple carbohydrates quickly into energy.

The second day was similar but I only had one cup of tea – I didn’t feel like I needed any extra energy. I’d reached a pretty good medium. Although it is worth saying that by this stage it was past exam time and I was on holidays so there was no real demand on my sleep. I chose instead to try out some herbal teas and started to focus more on taking in straight drinking water. I started to set a goal of 1200 ml a day, or two drink bottles worth (I have a 600 ml bottle).  Personally I never saw much value in increasing your water intake – despite its recent popularity in the health circles. However, this opinion would change over the next six days.

The third day I was over coffee – it still wasn’t appealing. I chose instead to drink hot water. It was around day three that I started to notice that I was actually feeling energy from things like fruit, cereal bars and chocolate. Previously I had never noticed anything like that when consuming these foods. I think that it was possibly because I was so used to such high doses of caffeine throughout the day that I didn’t really notice these lower doses of sugar energy. They just didn’t rank at all.

Fourth and fifth were pretty much the same. Nothing really happened but I did definitely start looking at coffee alternative. The ones that interested me the most were dandelion coffee  - mostly because it was gluten and dairy free allowing me to enjoy it without having to worry about too many additives. It’s surprisingly low in calories and just as easy to make as an instant cup of coffee.

The sixth day I started to take up more intense training – as I’ve spoken about in another blog. I found at this time that I was more keen to retry it. Thinking that maybe now I could feel the energy from the sugar in fruit I thought there may actually be something in the idea of coffee as a prework out. I stayed off coffee until day seven keen to get the full effects of the caffeine re-introduction.

At the end of the week I was ready to try coffee as my preworkout. For those who aren’t entirely sure what I mean – I’m not talking about a protein shaking, high fat low-carb magic shake – it’s generally some kind of food or drink used to peak your energy to give you that final push in the gym. As an energy type food coffee makes for an easy to make quick workout.

After one week of no coffee I was finally rewarded with a preworkout coffee. 6:30 am on a Monday morning I chugged one large mug of coffee in my gym gear. It was a quickly, barely enjoyed drink – as I was exhausted and desperate to start the next start of my day – as once gym is over I can crawl back into bed and sleep until my first class starts.

I didn’t feel any kind of magical kickstart to my usual gym routine. But I didn’t have any kind of carb snack or other energy bar before my workout. Surprisingly, I was actually okay without any of the stuff that I usually eat beforehand. The workout went as normal and I continued on afterwards, I didn’t even have to crawl into bed too quickly afterwards. It was a little exciting to me to be able to wait a little bit before diving back into bed. I noticed too my resting heart rate raised from it’s usualy 62 bpm at rest to 66 bpm at rest. An increase of 4 bpm – which is significant considering the only change was a return to caffeine (I did continue to have coffee periodically throughout the day – but I don’t think I’ll be increasing it back up to seven coffees a day!)

I didn’t learn anything amazing from this experiment – except I did begin to see that the impact of foods like sugar, simple carbs and caffeine had on my body. Previously I’d discounted these effects not realizing I was almost on a constant energy high. For anyone who maybe doesn’t ever seem to feel the impacts or benefits of these energy increasing foods it could be nice to try this experiment to understand how food can influence your mood and energy.

If you’d like to join me on my lifestyle journey then you can connect with me on Instagram, tumblr, twitter or facebook!

Instagram: the_underage_lawyer

Tumblr: theunderagelawyer.tumblr.com

Twitter: @underagelawyer

Facebook: @theunderagelawyer

I ventured into a gym; 2018 Lifestyle Change

I should've just had my address changed
to my bed - I spent so much time there

I tried to exercise five days a week. The recommendation for exercise is 30 minutes a day -and then I read some conflicting information which said actually there was a need for 90 minutes of moderate cardio a day. Struck with immediate concern that I was barely reaching 30 minutes of cardio let alone 90 minutes I decided I had to figure out some way to hit at least one of these targets.

During the third semester of law school I finally got my act together and joined the college gym. I organized myself with a set of downloaded podcasts and jumped on a treadmill.

This process I anticipated being a short-term measure destined to fall apart within a month. My health kicks have never been particularly successful before and I had no reason to believe that this one was any different.

Having not been a gym bunny  before my first experience in the gym was honestly terrifying. There were a lot of  machines that  didn’t understand and a lot people making weird faces.

I was so scared to be laughed at or told off for making a mistake that I practically walked around with my eyes on the floor the entire time that I was there. I’d barely make it to thirty minutes before I was diving out of the door and crawling back into bed. When I first started this experiment I wasn’t very energetic and most of what I remember is being so exhausted I’d just fall asleep in the morning and not wake up until night. It was a disaster during law school because I could barely stand to study afterwards.

I tried to exercise outside once or twice
but then an ant bit me - I haven't been back since

It was at this stage that I looked into the energising foods/preworkouts/whatever it took to get me out of bed. I was throwing back coffee at about 7-8 mugs per day. Which I know definitely wasn’t ideal for my teeth colour and probably had other negative side effects. Over all I was disappointed because I really had thought that exercising more would not only give me a big green tick health wise but would improve physical and cognitive abilities. So far, I was just sleeping more.

I stayed in that physical exhaustion stage for about a month. Getting to the gym everyday was one of the biggest challenges and even though when I was there I loved it – afterwards it completely destroyed every other part of my day. I had to use my rest days as study days and then I was done and tired and generally fed up with it all.

It was then that I started to watch fitness vlogs – something that I had never previously done because the idea of watching someone in tight yoga pants squatting and drinking protein shakes was about as appealing as watching paint dry. Surprisingly though these vlogs were far more informative than I anticipated. I learned about lifting versus cardio, using macro and micronutrients to fuel my body and how to properly train my body.

Thus started the second month of my experiment. I was still mostly cardio, reluctant to let go of my concept that a good workout required sweat and exhaustion – currently I thought I could only get this from a good 90 minutes on the elliptical machine. However, I revamped my diet – which I will talk more about later. I started a flexible dieting program focusing more on nutritional needs rather than caloric value and had an impressive energy boost. It was the second month too that I started to read about too much cardio and exercise can be damaging as well. I cut back from a 90 minute cardio regime and instead stuck to a 30 minute cardio session and 20 minute weights session 5 times a week. This was much better- and suddenly I found those little improvements were starting to show. While I still wasn’t able to run a marathon or lift heavy weights I could focus better and I was more confident around the gym machines – I even looked up from the floor occasionally to smile at some of the other sweaty souls in there.

The third month was the biggest challenge – I left my gym college and headed back home. I thought initially that I’d have to be extra on the ball and prepared myself with a pintrest board full of at home workouts built around pilates and HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). Of course at this stage I had very little equipment and although I was using the 8FIT app to try and keep up my fitness it wasn’t really giving me the same growth and movement that I was getting at the gym.

I convinced my dad to take us down to the local pool/gym place and was surprised to be faced with that same feeling of intimidation. Despite my progression on the elliptical and exercise bike my progression in the swimming pool was next to none. I could barely hold my breath for three arm strokes – never mind actually reaching the end of the pool in a decent time. Dad and I kept going for a few weeks – but the novelty of swimming soon wore off as you can’t listen to podcasts and your head is in the water pretty much the entire time. It wasn’t enjoyable for me and I wasn’t getting any resistance training – something I read was important for overall body and cognitive change.

So I turned back to the gym – facing my fear head on and approached a personal trainer. The PT was fantastic, working with me to create a whole body routine with alternate sessions. It was similar to what I’d been doing before but working with someone else gave me the confidence to set goals that before I had thought were impossible to reach. I write more about what working with a PT was like in a later blog. As of writing I am exercising 5-6 days a week for about 60 minutes with different combinations of cardio and strength training. I am more able to focus on a single task then I was before and I definitely feel more energised and able to do things than I was prior to starting this experiment.

Overall, I don’t regret my foray into the gym and don’t plan on leaving anytime soon! 

Study with me! Weekend study motivation

I hired a personal trainer!?

I hired a PT – personal trainer. After two months of going on my own to try and hit the daily exercise targets I’d finally realized that DIY-ing your own fitness regime has its limitations. I was keen to try out some harder and more complex exercise to see if there was a way to fast track my performance. 

I’d watched a lot of fitness blogs and I’d seen many cool moves that I was keen to learn – mostly just to show off in the gym. Most specifically I was keen to learn to do a ‘box jump’ a movement where you jump on top of a 24 inch box and land in a squat position. The second one I was keen to get started on was a squat rack – a machine which helps you to squat using heavy weights. It’s a very popular machine for fitness bloggers – and I was pretty inspired at this stage.

I’d met the girl I worked with previously on a Friday morning boot camp that the gym ran. I had started going out of general interest – thinking that it might help me figure out how to get more out of the gym. It’s a 45 minute high intensity interval training session (HIIT). HIIT are very popular modern work outs as they raise your heart rate and increase your after caloric burn.

There are two types of calorie burn – active calories and resting calories. Generally speaking, you have to move to burn calories, however, post exercise oxygen intake can increase your resting caloric burn to up the number of calories that you burn overall. Post caloric burn will increase your total calorie burn – allowing you to eat more! This is especially important for those who struggle with metabolic syndromes as was shown in a study in the Scandinavian journal of medicine & Science in Sports (Larsen, Welde, and Martins, 2013). However, this effect can be triggered by any high intensity exercise such as Tabata – a 20 second on 10 second off interval training style. In the study I present on the afterburn effect, a fast paced cycling exercise was used, where the participant was working at 75-80 percent of their max heart rate – this did positively trigger the caloric burn after exercise.

I had my first session with a personal trainer on a Monday. This was a lot less intimidating than I’d built up in my head. It was more like a work out with a friend than what you see in the movies. We went through some exercises that we hadn’t done before, talked about my performance goals and worked out ways to reach them.

The next training session I was keen to try a box jump. – It was then that I discovered while a lot of these things look easy they really require more control over your muscles than just the ability to jump onto it. I could get onto the box but quickly lost my balance and fell off onto the ground. After that I chose to focus on building my balance instead of falling on my back several more times.

After that minor set back I was thrilled to be given alternative ways of reaching my goals. Previously there’d been a lot of research and work on my behalf- that wasn’t always successful. Making the decision to work with someone else allowed me to tailor my program so that I could see my progression in strength, balance and agility and I could do so without feeling disheartened.

I’m still working on the routine that I was given by my PT two months later. While I haven’t achieved my major performance goals yet I am seeing performance increase. If you read the first lifestyle change article where I discussed my first foray into the exercise world you’ll discover that I really struggled to have energy after my training sessions. That is definitely no longer the case. Now I can continue on with my day as if I hadn’t studied. I have to make sure I don’t stay up too late or I can’t get up in the morning – but it’s probably a good thing!

 If you’re looking to make some changes in law school and wondering if it’s worth the effort – I would recommend starting out with a personal trainer – going it alone is hard. While you may save money I personally found that I got a better benefit from working with someone else – at least initially. I felt like I could be certain I was doing the right thing and I could focus more on pushing myself harder rather than constantly trying to find out what I should be doing.

Keeping up motivation and knowing what to do took a lot more time and effort than I had expected – especially if you’re hoping to reap the full benefits of exercise and not just a good insta photo every now and then.

As of April I have definitely experienced some cognitive benefits. The biggest I’ve found are;

·         Increased focus

·         Better problem solving

·         Increased self discipline

They definitely weren’t immediate changes and I’m not super woman status yet. However, the lifestyle change has definitely increased these areas of my life and I'm looking forward to seeing their impact on my academic endeavours.

If you’d like to join my on my lifestyle journey then you can connect with me on Instagram, tumblr, twitter or facebook!

Instagram: the_underage_lawyer

Tumblr: theunderagelawyer.tumblr.com

Twitter: @underagelawyer

Facebook: @theunderagelawyer

2 HOUR study with me! (no music)

2 HOUR study with me! (no music)

2 HOUR study with me! (no music)

STUDY WITH ME! Real time study! [+ delicious vegan donuts!]

I hired a Personal Trainer; 2018 Lifestyle Change

I hired a PT – personal trainer. After two months of going on my own to try and hit the daily exercise targets I’d finally realized that DIY-ing it has its limitations. I was keen to try out some harder and more complex exercise to see if there was a way to fast track my performance.

I’d watched a lot of fitness blogs and I’d seen many cool moves I was keen to learn – mostly just to show off in the gym. Most specifically I was keen to learn to do a ‘box jump’ a movement where you jump on top of a 24 inch box and land in a squat position. The second one I was keen to get started on was a squat rack – a machine which helps you to squat using heavy weights. It’s a very popular machine for fitness bloggers – and I was pretty inspired at this stage.

I’d met the girl I worked with previously on a Friday morning boot camp that the gym ran. I had started going out of general interest – thinking that it might help me figure out how to get more out of the gym. It’s a 45 minute high intensity interval training session (HIIT). HIIT are very popular modern work outs as they raise your heart rate and increase your after caloric burn.

There are two types of calorie burn – there’s active calories and resting calories. Generally speaking, you have to move to burn calories – however, post exercise oxygen intake can increase your resting caloric burn to up the number of calories that you burn overall. This is especially true for those who struggle with metabolic syndromes as was shown in a study in the Scandinavian journal of medicine & Science in Sports (Larsen, Welde, and Martins, 2013). However, this effect can be triggered by any high intensity exercise such as Tabata – a 20 second on 10 second off interval training. For the studies of afterburn effect fast paced cycling was used, where the participant was working at 75-80 percent of their max heart rate.

I had my first session with a personal trainer on a Monday. This was a lot less intimdating than I’d built up in my head. It was more like a work out with a friend than what you see in the movies. We went through some exercises that we hadn’t done before, talked about my performance goals and worked out ways to reach them.

The next training session I was keen to try a box jump. – It was then that I discovered while a lot of these things look easy they really require more control over your muscles than just the ability to jump onto it. I could get onto the box but quickly lost my balance and fell off onto the ground. After that I chose to focus on building my balance instead of falling on my back several more times.

After that minor set back I was thrilled to be given alternative ways of reaching my goals. Previously there’d been a lot of research and work on my behalf- that wasn’t always successful. Making the decision to work with someone else allowed me to tailor my program so that I could see my progression in strength, balance and agility and I could do so without feeling disheartened.

That being said my workouts – while they were good at creating my progression and allowing me to build what I wanted to build better strength and talent in. There still were movements in my routine that I wasn’t thrilled about doing- mostly because while they were good for my body they were so tiring! However, I could see changes in my ability within two weeks Before if there was one thing I never did it was jog. I could sprint – but not jog for a sustained period of time. Within two weeks running for ten minutes possible and something I did.

I’m still working on the routine two months I haven’t achieved my major performance goals yet but hopefully by the endo f the year I’ll be able to update. If you’re looking to make some changes in law school and wondering if it’s worth the effort – I would recommend starting out with a personal trainer – going it alone for a few months is hard. Keeping up motivation and knowing what to do took a lot more time and effort than I had expected – especially I you’re hoping to reap the full benefits of exercise and not just a random achievement.

As of February I have definitely experienced some cognitive benefits. The biggest I’ve found are;

·         Increased focus

·         Better problem solving

·         Increased self discipline

They definitely weren’t immediate changes and I’m not super woman status yet. However, the lifestyle change has definitely increased these areas of my life and I'm looking forward to seeing their impact on my academic endeavours.

I tried a non-detox healthy-yet-flexible diet?

I went on a macros diet. In the past I’ve tried to eat healthy-  even going so far as to be a raw fruitarian for a little while. The idea of nutrition affecting your whole life is something I really resonate with. I think if you eat whole unprocessed foods you feel a lot healthier, happier and have a lot more energy. But – law school makes it hard to follow an unprocessed diet. 

Typical fruitarian spread

My law school is literally five minutes from the nearest dominos – and they don’t charge delivery to the law school library so you know pizza is my life source when it comes to exam time. And sadly, all that processed food took a much heavier hit against my body than I realized.

Noticing that I was more sluggish, and had way less motivation to get things done than usual I determined that I should go on a detox. I started doing a bit of digging to find the best detox for me – having such an affinity for fruit I was keen on a juicing diet – but there’d been a lot of discussion around me about a bone broth detox. But the more reading I did – the more hesitant I became – about both juice cleanses and bone broth. Lately there’s been some hit back against detox diets, with nutritionists claiming that a healthy body can detox itself – and these diets are just a new form of starvation diets. I’ve linked in that sentence an interesting article from “the conversation” which I thought was a good starting point for research into detox diets.

By the end of my research spiel I’d definitely wiped going on a detox off my mind – but I still felt anxious going into a grocery store to try and figure out what exactly was going to make my body healthy and ready for another semester of law school. Because I wasn’t really looking to lose weight, mere calorie restriction didn’t seem like a reasonable option – especially since you can eat anything on calorie restriction – it’s just how much or little of it you eat.  I was more interested in fueling my body on for study – and there’s not a lot of ‘diet plans’ for that.

So after a bit more prodding around (admittedly on the fitness side of youtube and Instagram) I found out about an eating lifestyle called ‘if it fits your macros’. Often shortened to IIFYM is a modern day way of eating that focuses on three key nutrients known as macros – fat, protein and carbs. These three nutrients are essential for your body and help you live a healthy life.

An easy way to try this method out is to download the myfitnesspal app on your phone and simply enter in the foods you eat. It’s basically like a more advanced style of calorie counting – but unlike calorie counting I was looking at the nutritional value behind the foods I was eating. Because I was paying more attention to nutrients it wasn’t so much that I could eat processed junk through the whole day-  because I’d run out of fat and carbohydrate quickly.

As of writing this article I’ve been on IIFYM for about five months. It’s been okay – it’s definitely a learning curve. When I first started I had to drop about half the amount of fruits and vegetables I was eating – which I thought was super counter intuitive because obviously fruits and vegetables are good for you.

However – they don’t have a lot of fat and protein.  So I had to turn to pintrest to find some alternative recipes to hit the optimal amount of fats and proteins for someone like me. To increase fats and proteins I found myself eating a lot more fish, beans, tofu, kidney beans and avocado. These healthy options for fats and proteins added a lot more variation to my non exam time diet – and most of time I’m not really interested in eating out.

foods I actually ate while doing IIFYM

When it comes to eating out – the app on your phone is the most amazing invention since the dawn of time. My fitness pal (not sponsored) has a great inventory of restaurants and take out foods like pizza, sushi, pasta and dumplings so when I ate out I just entered roughly what I ate and had a good idea of the nutritional break down of the food.  – I could even track my weekly take out night and over time I learned how to eat in the week so that one night of heavy sodium pizza didn’t leave me feeling sluggish and headachy.

An interesting feature of macros dieting that definitely confused me at first is that it is highly individualised. For example a law student may need more proteins and fats because proteins are important for making hormones and enzymes, and fats help the absorption of certain essential vitamins like A, E, and K. While carbohydrates are less useful overall as not so much energy is expended throughout the day. However, an athlete will need to consume more carbohydrates and proteins to help repair tissue and fuel their body to replace the energy they’ve expended. Additionally, your macro requirements may vary from day to day – for example I exercise everyday except for during exam time. So pre-exam time I need more proteins and carbohydrates to fuel me throughout the day, but during exam time I need more fat to help store energy and absorb vital nutrients to fuel my brain.

Unlike a detox the IIFYM diet is intended to be a way of living. It is design to fuel your body well and allow you to indulge in treats because you wish to and not because you’re desperately craving them. I’m still doing the IIFYM lifestyle – and hoping to continue it for a lot longer. I may have struggled to lose some of my fruit intake in the beginning – but I definitely don’t regret it!

I change my study habits; Lifestyle Change 2018

Lifestyle changes are all about making a change for a more positive you. The aim of them is to become more efficient, productive or attractive in some way. Generally we know that by doing something ie. Running more, we will become more efficient at it. However, there are some categories of self improvement that are not as clear cut. The most obvious of which is academic achievement. There’s been a lot of focus on smarter study – but whatever that is, is generally elusive to the press and the scientists themselves. What had been a common feature of universities is that they will provide three avenues of learning one subject

·         Lectures

·         Tutorials/seminars

·         Readings

Their claim is that all three must be completed in order to have learned a subject to a sufficient level. This is obvious in error as few students ever bother to complete the one, let alone the three, areas.

The second claim is that by attending in-person one will gain greater benefit from tutotirals and lectures than listening online. There is little evidence to this effect – especially little on how students between 16-25 find learning in real life as compared to online.

The third claim is that written notes not typed notes create more pathways in the brain that facilitate the learning of the subject.

I’m curious to see if I make a lifestyle change in regards to my study patterns – will I see a grade improvement?

At university there are multiple ways you can study; I like to catagorize them into three broad categories.

The Ghost

The ghost is the student that does the work, does the readings but never goes to lectures. Those things are recorded – why bother turning up if you’re not going to be graded!? The ghost’s logic is if they’re only there to get a degree the real experience of a university has no meaning. They’re just there to do the work, get out and get paid.

These students are very self-driven and enjoy being able to cruise through the course on their own – without any interference from the lecturer. Unless there’s a graded tutorial required you’ll never see this student. They either hide out in their room or tuck themselves into a cosy corner of the library.

If you end up in a group assignment with this person you better make it clear you’re not there to do all the work – because they’re not doing more than what they have to. If you keep doing the work for them they’ll cruise on through.

Should have but didn’t

Much like the ghost student this kind of student never turns up to lectures. But they also don’t do the readings, they rarely make it to tutorials and they’re pretty blasé about the final exam. In reality Ps get degrees and working harder than 50% is a waste of time.

Their work ethic affords them a lot of free time and they’re often richly involved in university life. Things like sports, languages, pub crawls – this kind of student is all over it. But…their grades suffer for it. To see this student getting any higher than a C is a rare sight.

Lecturers warn you that you can’t do a class without the readings, the classes and the lecturers – but these guys know from personal experience – a bit of common sense can get you places. – That and a few late nights of cramming before the exam.

The Over Caffeinated

The lectures, the readings, the additional readings, the supplementary notes – most common in freshers, this kind of student has done it all. There’s nothing you can surprise them with – in fact if there is anything that’s potentially unusual about the course they’ve probably already emailed the convenor to confirm that was the intention, worked out a draft answer and they’re double checking it now.

This kind of student spends hours studying each day. Sometimes at the expense of their own free time – and as much as we like to claim that we don’t – we’re all a little jealous of the fact that they have such amazing self-discipline.

I personally fall somewhere between a ghost student and the over caffeinated – as most students probably wouldn’t fall directly into one category or another. The difficutly of the course, the amount of interest you have in it, whether it’s semester one year one or semester two year five – all play a huge role in determining how much time you’re going to invest in this academic endeavour.

I’ve always been curious – as a chronic non lecture, tutorial avoiding, and generally work minimising student – if I did all the readings, attended all the lectures, tutorials and did every piece of additional work – would I obtain the elusive HD?

This semester is the beginning of my third year – the very point of the up hill marathon to finally getting my law degree. One should never start a marathon aggressively – but in law school the harder you work – the more you can hope for a job at the end of it.

So this semester I am going to take three courses – a full

time load – and for each these I will complete all recommended and supplementary readings, attend all lecturers, all tutorials and all seminars.

Wish me luck!

In total it adds up to 46 hours of work (approximately) per week. This is calculated following the course guides but in all honestly it’ll probably add up to more, so I’m preparing for this. Over the course of the semester I will be tracking my grades and then combining them at the end of the semester into one average grade. This will then be compared to the average grade of the prior semester in which I would listen to lecture recordings, attended the minimum number of tutorials and never did readings.

So in six months time we should have an allegorical response to the question ‘if I tried harder-  would I do better?’

If you’d like to join me on my lifestyle journey then you can connect with me on Instagram, tumblr, twitter or facebook!

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