The Life of a PA Student : April 2017

Today is April 23^rd and in a few shorts months form now (August, 28^th) I’ll begin PA School. As many of you may already know, the first semester of PA School in many programs has been said to be one the toughest. Undergrad is over and the pace and level of difficulty is clearly different. During the first semester, the days are long, the challenges are many, and just figuring out how to manage your time can be more difficult than learning the brachial plexus. I guess you could say, the full force of the proverbial fire hydrant can surely be felt.

Knowing that in a few short months the grind will be real, I have been doing some things to prepare for the great adventure that lies ahead and in some ways, preparing in ways that will hopefully help me have some “high yield” learning days. I figure that eating right and exercising are just as important as making sure you read material that you’ll be covering the next day in lecture. One thing I’ve spent some time and money working on is food prepping.

As a very busy graduate student (living on student loans) in the first semester of one of the nation’s top PA programs, time management will be essential. It’ll be just as important that I eat well to fuel my body for the long days that lie ahead, but we all know that going to the grocery store, figuring out what to cook each night, and then putting it into action can be time consuming and result in a quick stop at the Wendy’s drive-thru window for a bag of greasy, high carb supper. To avoid this I have taken some very simple, yet easy steps towards eating healthier, preparing food for the upcoming week, and maximizing my time and minimizing the stresses of figuring out what to do for food each day. One thing I have done is to buy a very nice steamer made by Cuisinart http://amzn.to/2q3NBwn

To pretend I’m already in school, I go to the grocery store on Saturday mornings and buy the groceries I’ll need for the week. I then cook them and put them in containers that are durable Pyrex glass containers with snap-locking lids, to prevent spills. These containers can be microwaved and are very easy to clean in the dishwasher http://amzn.to/2oi5J9v I typically will

buy from the produce section for my veggies that I steam to go along with meat that I’ll cook. Some vegetables that I have had success with are listed below.

Steamed vegetables:

Carrots
Zucchini
Squash
Asparagus
Green beans
Cabbage
Brussel sprouts

Another dish that is easy to make and one that can be mad in bulk, is a Ziti recipe I got from my Dad’s wife, Susan (which I will include in this blogpost). I make two dishes at a time and freeze one for later. One thing you must be prepared for when food prepping, is how to avoid becoming bored with eating the same dishes over and over. For that reason, it quickly became obvious to me that I’d need to have several recipes in my arsenal that are healthy, cheap, and can be easily made.

If you are considering food prepping for school or just to save time and money, I hope my post will be helpful or at least somewhat inspirational. One thing for sure is this; if I can do it, anyone can….trust me! Lastly, I did some research before I got started and one thing I found to be helpful and completely agree with is, make sure you spend a little extra and get really good storage containers. One blogger wrote that this would be a wise investment, and I couldn’t agree more. It makes the prep easy, storage is neat, heating foods up are a breeze, and most importantly to bachelors like me, the cleanup is a snap.