For as far back as I can remember, my health, fitness and overall well-being have been at the very top of my priorities, but so have school and my career, my mental health and my social life, and so on. When coming to LSE, I didn’t really know what to expect and, frankly, I didn’t even try to form expectations for what this year in London would look like, I just showed up. Close to 10 months later, I’d argue, holistically, my life is the healthiest it’s been, yet it most definitely has not been like that for the entirety of the year. But I’d like to think I learned a couple of things along the way.

I’ll be completely honest – the first semester was not one I look back on fondly when it comes to my physical health, I think I put on a nice seven or eight kilos – the pub culture really got to me. Yet, it was also arguably the best three months of my life – I wouldn’t change a single thing about it. Okay, that’s a little bit of a fib, but I grew more during that time than I could have ever imagined. It was truly special.

That’s the thing that’s taken me nearly a decade of fitness obsession to learn: health is a two-sided coin, mental and physical. And there are so many other factors in play. Especially today in a society dominated by instant gratification and influencer cultures, the standards for what constitutes “healthy” are blown completely out of proportion. It’s not about having a ripped six-pack year-round, it’s about balance, which is something I’ve struggled with a lot over the years – including this one. It’s not the schoolwork that affected my fitness journey, it was what happened after.

Exercising, at least for me, was the easy part. Because public transport costs can add up so quickly and I’ve been on a tight budget, I simply walk everywhere. My average steps per day over the last six months are over 15,000 per day. Couple that with my gym being between my place and campus, I definitely got my reps in. Sure, some days I would have to miss the gym because I was busy with work, or I’d take the tube to and from campus if I was tight on time, but that was perfectly fine. All that mattered was that I stayed consistent and didn’t let those become the norm. There’s always time to exercise, even during exams. It’s up to you.

Contrarily, my problems stemmed from what I put in my body, not what I did with it. I was wholly unprepared for the UK pub culture. Yet, post-COVID, I desperately needed it. That’s the flip side of the health coin – the mental side. Although I may have gone to the pub and went out to eat a few more times than I probably should have, the memories and friends I made were more than worth the extra couple kilos I may have packed on. However, there were certainly times when I could have stopped at one and had just as much fun. Yet, I may have lost the balance in my life just a smidge.

Since Christmas vacation, I’d like to think I’ve got my balance figured out a bit more. Five beers at the pub have turned into one or none and water, meals eaten out have turned into food brought from home, late-night sausage rolls have turned into popcorn, and so on. I’ve still enjoyed my life and had fun, it’s just about that word again: balance. Instead of eating out three or four days a week, it can be one or two, and it’s okay to go to the pub and have water.

Being fit doesn’t mean staying inside like a hermit crab and being social doesn’t mean you have to get drunk or eat unhealthy food – especially when school is a priority. Plus, when you’re doing those things all the time – they lose what makes them special, it then becomes normal. It’s about finding a middle ground.