Kayla Kilba
Contributor

tudents all feel the burden of midterms, group projects,
presentations, you name it. Sometimes it’s a struggle
for us to make it through the day only to go to bed, wake
up the next morning and do it all over again. From personal
experience, I understand how difficult it can be to balance all
the aspects of your life.

Iam currently in my fourth year of post-secondary education.

I attended UNBC for three semesters majoring in biology. In
my second year at UNBC I made some major life changes. I
was unhappy with my body and with the program I was in,
so I decided to switch into the nursing program, and to make
some huge personal health changes. That winter, I returned
home to work, and I began lifting. Although I had been
actively involved in fitness and sports my whole life, lifting
weights was a whole new concept to me. I bought fitness
magazines, watched YouTube videos, was a frequent visitor
of bodybuilding.com, and used everything and anything

I could get my hands on to, to try and educate myself.

I started eating healthy, which meant portion control too.
I won't lie--it was hard, as I am a bit of a carbitarian, but
it got easier and soon became routine. I lost a significant
amount of weight on my own just with eating healthy
and lifting weights, with added cardio here and there.
Then I returned to Prince George for my first year of the
nursing program. I was worried I was not going to have
time to work out or eat healthy, and fall back into my
old routine. Because it was important to me for personal
reasons and for my health, I kept up my good habits.

It turned out that I performed better in school too!

Most recently I competed in a bodybuilding competition

Culture

with the World Beauty Fitness and Fashion in October,
and it was one of the most rewarding experiences
of my life, and I cannot wait for my next one.

So why am I telling you all this? It’s because I can sympathize
with what it’s like when your days easily become consumed
with the post-secondary workload; schedules get tailored

to deadlines, instead of to your well-being. If nursing

school has taught me anything so far, it’s that self-care is
necessary for your emotional, physical, and mental health.

Self-care are the actions you take or implement in
your everyday life to promote your overall well-being.
This includes the food you eat, how much exercise
you get, how much you sleep at night, and having fun
with friends. In other words, it is all about balance.

So let’s throwback to first year physics for a second.
Remember how if all the forces acting on an object balance
each other, the object is said to be in equilibrium? Let’s

take this physics lesson and apply it to ourselves for a
moment. If we allow for balance between our diet, exercise,
academics, social, and relational aspects, we too can remain
at equilibrium, and in doing so we address self-care. However,
if we let one of these aspects significantly out-weigh one of
the others , or we neglect them or eliminate them altogether,
we become unbalanced, and we are no longer at equilibrium.

I have learned a lot about balance over the past couple years.
Everyone is different and may need to work on different
aspects of their life to find that equilibrium, for me it was
focusing on diet and exercise, but specifically the diet.
Remember when I mentioned I am a bit of a carbitarian?
Well, I would like to share with you a healthy pancake recipe.
The best part is you can make them the night before and
just warm them up in the morning if you are in a rush, and

since you may be rolling out of bed at 8:15 for your 8:30
class, this may be a great option. Here is what you'll need:

Blueberry Protein Pancakes

% cup quick oats

1 tsp baking powder

1 package of stevia (optional),
¥% cup blueberries

6 egg whites ( % cup)

1. Blend the oats, baking powder, and stevia
until a flour-like consistency is reached.

2. Add the egg whites and blend, and then let this sit for a
couple minutes to allow the oats to soak up the egg whites.

3. Hand mix in the blueberries.

4, Use coconut oil and cook just like regular
pancakes, sizing and amount may vary depending
on how big you make the pancakes.

5, Add some peanut butter, cinnamon, or plain
greek yogurt for a topping if you would like.

6. Congratulate yourself! You just made HEALTHY pancakes,
and got some of your daily protein intake to boot!

I hope you all take some time to reflect on self-care. I will
be submitting recipes and fitness tips every now and then
so stay tuned! Until then, stay humble and stay hungry.