I've been feeling frustrated a lot lately. School has been a major contributing factor, particularly with getting Bs on my first round of exams (despite plenty of studying). I feel burnt out on my area of study (microbiology) and wish I were doing more math or physics instead. Not to mention angst over whether or not I want to go to medical school (and if not, what to do instead?) and other rapidly approaching life decisions.
And then there's the weight. I've struggled with maintaining my weight the past few months. At the end of spring semester, I was about 137 lbs, a weight I generally feel quite good in. Over the summer, a combination of slipping eating habits and too-frequent munchies have caused me some weight gain. Not a huge, way-out-of-control gain, but it feels larger than it is because I've felt helpless to stop and reverse it.
Within the past couple of days I've made efforts to change that. Starting to keep track of my food intake again and working on my mental st ate. Last night I had the munchies, but successfully talked myself out of getting snacks. I feel better today for it, and the little victories. I also felt a lot of negative feelings around my grades. I allowed myself to cry a bit and then calculated some "worst case scenarios." Realizing it's not the end of the world even if things go bad and mentally planning for the worst (while recognizing that it probably won't be that bad) makes me to feel better.
The scale read 142.6 lbs today, and I feel encouraged by that. Only about 5 lbs to get back to a comfortable weight for me. I know it can be slow going at my weight, but I'm still hopeful that I can get back into better food habits and get it off and keep it off fairly quickly. Or at least maintain. If it's too much stress to lose weight right now, I want to be happy maintaining.

My dying dad taught me one good thing: take each day as it comes to you. I know it's hard to do, but in the big picture of things it's a help. I understand college time can be trying - you got the weight off and now your having a bit of a hard time with maintaining. Small steps - if calorie counting was a help to get you there, go back to it. I am finding it to be a big help for me right now - maybe the accountability of what's going in my mouth.

As for school - I understand your fear and frustration. The problem is sometimes you get to the end when you are interning/looking at going on to school and feeling this isn't what I expected, not what I want to do etc. and then you feel it's too late to change (internships should begin w/the whole college experience so you know early on if it's a good fit). My DH is a good example of such and now does nothing in the field he studied in. I guess what I am trying to say is take the time to make a life decision that you feel is the right path for you. Do you want to be a doctor because of your own feelings and thoughts or is it something someone has encouraged you to go into? If you switched majors, how much course work would be added to what you have done? The big question for you, is what will make you happy? NOT EVERYONE ELSE, you don't need to please anyone but you. In my DHs instance he was trying to please his parents and grandparents because he was smart and he was good in math and sciences and excelled in these areas and they pushed him toward engineering. He kept saying I'd like to look into journalism and they weren't hearing him. To this day they still harp on it.

If this mom can offer advice: do something that makes you happy and something you find enjoyable. If it adds on more school, make sure that there is the good possibility of employ at the end. If becoming a doctor is what you want, then take the time to make sure you are ready for those challenges. But do what makes you happy. The rest will all follow. The weight you will figure out, you've learned what has been working for your body. Find different outlets for stress where you'd like to eat instead. You did well to walk. It sounds to me that you are stressing about the future. Take some time for yourself to not worry or look that far ahead - those plans always change anyway with life happening.

Good luck, I hope you find some peace in all your searching. You'll find the answer you are looking for.

Oh my goodness, you're perfect! Even skinny at your size and weight!! My DD was complaining about the Freshman Creep (Sophomore Creep for her b/c she isn't doing crew this year). But honestly, you are in the Sciences!! Just eat healthy and moderately and focus on your studies. You need all the bandwidth of your brain right now.

Doctor is a great goal, you make good money and help people, has to be very satisfying work, more of a mission actually, it is a lot of years work to accomplish this goal.an alternative is to go for RN, not quite as many hoops to jump through for that.my PCP provider is technically an APRN, which is really a nurse acting as doctor without the full on MD degrees. As far as I'm concerned once you get the power to prescribe meds, your a doctor. I wouldn't trade my nurse/doctor for anyone else. She is great for me. I am comfortable telling her any concerns about my health. She doesn't get on my case really hard about my weight since she is pretty plump herself perhaps 40-50 pounds over ideal weight, anyhow I'm just really comfortable with her . I should really weigh like 180-190 pounds of ideally but that will never happen again. I'm about 306 right now but can easily cut that back to 292 or so in like a week by just taking a hiatus from drinking for a week or two. I'd be ashamed to tip her scale at anything above 295 next time I see her, it would be like I personally failed her
I can't crack the 290 milestone, but was 340 not that long ago, she has a realistic goal pg 260 in mind for me. My nephroligist would prefer more like 220.