Body Expansion and Sleep Deprivation

One thing my college friends and I have noticed about being a medical student, regardless of which medschool you go to or what year you are currently in, is this thing called body expansion.  I’m talking immense weight gain here, friends.  Fortunate are those who have the body metabolism of a hunky god or a skinny-ass goddess but, for the rest of us mere mortals, the sedentary lifestyle and the constant stress eating inevitably result to body expansion.

Perhaps one would ask, “Where do these medstudents get the money to buy food to binge on?”  One word.  JUNK.  You can buy junk food at extremely low prices.  Excess calories with no additional nutrients for the win.

I remember in first year, a lot of people were still going to gym or running around the parking lot at night.  But, as you get deeper into medschool, time becomes your enemy and going to the gym becomes a goal that is probably the fiftieth in your priority list.  A male classmate actually said something about this at the beginning of our second year.  He said, “When we were in first year, we had our uniforms made to fit our more or less okay-looking bodies.  This year, buttons are threatening to burst free and waistbands are being garterized.” Or something to that effect but you get his drift.  Such visual creatures, these males.

I read a study a couple of days ago that the human body can survive for a long time without food.    Jesus survived with no food for forty days and forty nights and, barring the fact that He’s the Son of God, He still lived in a human body that was susceptible to physiological weaknesses.  The study went on to say that what the human body cannot afford to lose in huge amounts is sleep.  Bear with me, I’m merely stating the obvious.  Of course, we all are aware of this.  My point, however, is this:  it is weird that, in medschool as well as in the hospitals, we gobble up huge amounts of food but we allow ourselves to go for days with very little sleep.  Who are we killing here?  It is so ridiculous to think that medical people go to extreme lengths just to save a life, usually of someone they don’t even know, at the expense of their own health.  Martyr much?

Or maybe it’s the Messianic complex working.  Me?  I’m sleeping my ass off and going on a diet… in my dreams.