I'm in College!!

rwethington654

So, basically I'm in college and I find it very difficult to eat properly (I usually just under eat). I would eat maybe a bit of yogurt for breakfast, one pack of oatmeal for lunch!, a salad for dinner containing nothing worth any calories. Also, I would have a few snacks and some fruit in a day but I don't really think I was eating enough the first semester. Basically, I need ideas of maybe some meals and snacks I could eat in my room. It's especially hard to have good sources of protein! Any advice on eating in the cafe?

Also, note that I didn't eat that every single day, but most of the time. I just don't know how to eat with being away from home. I want to eat as healthy as possible but I also want to make sure I'm getting in enough cals and such. Thanks!

kevinmacpa

If you really not eating enough, I would suggest take multivitamin for starters.

Snack with healthy nutrient dense food or fruit. I would recommend banana for fruit snack, nuts like almond, walnut are all healthy fat, fat also has higher calorie per gram than carbs and proteins.

It's much harder to eat enough protein if you can't plan ahead of time. I can only think of a protein shake if you can't eat enough meat on a daily basis.

dbmata

congrats on being in college!

PearlAng

I'm in college too and I did a 2 month program over the summer at my college. We got three free meals a day in the cafe, unlimited everything. I'd usually have Greek yogurt and oatmeal for breakfast (7:00 am) which would keep me pretty satisfied until lunch (12:30 pm) but sometimes I'd have a granola bar between classes. Lunch would be a small salad and soup, or half a sandwich at the build your own sandwich station and soup, sometimes I'd have a fruit too. The afternoon was hard because I had free time and so sometimes I'd snack in my dorm (we weren't allowed to do much else) but typical snacks would be some pretzels or maybe a handful of cereal. At dinner (5:30 pm) I'd have something similar to lunch. I'd usually come in anywhere from 1300-1700 depending on the day and whether or not I had a dessert. I would reccomend keeping snacks on hand especially ones with protein

mallory_2014

I am in College too but do not live in student housing. What appliances do you have access to? That would be a start to figure out what types of food you can make for yourself.

RoyalMoose11

I work in college settings and worked very closely with campus dining services for several years. I also had a meal plan for several years as part of my work compensation and ate cafeteria food during that time. Assuming you have a meal plan (and are most likely required to have it), here's some advice I give students.

Most colleges use a food vendor for their cafeteria like Sodexo or Chartwells. These companies generally are given offices on campus for their staff (GMs, cafeteria exeuctive chefs, etc). They are more willing to meet with students than you may think. You can ask for a meeting with the GM or a chef to ask for certain options, so they can explain to you what they typically have in stock, and come up with plans for easy additions to the stations. For example, you mentioned a lack of protein. It may be as easy of a fix as making a suggestion to add chicken, beans, lentils, eggs, or new cheeses to the salad line. In many cases it's easy for the vendor to order those, pop them in the salad bar, and charge you per pound.

Cooking in mass is different than cooking for smaller groups. This means that the service line options (like the buffet line) are going to be very different than the feature stations (made to order station). Typically I find that the made to order stations offer the best choice of healthy options.

Most schools have a nutritionist working with the health and wellness office or through the cafeteria/food vendor. See if this option is available. I used to do invite the nutritionist into the cafeteria and meet with students and do a walk through of the different options. Many students, afterwards, would set up one on one meetings with the nutritionist for follow up. This is a resource included in tuition.

Also, use your meal plan to buy snacks. This may be tricky depending on the style of cafeteria. If it is a la carte you can just buy whole fruit, yogurts, and other things to bring home or to eat in between classes. If it's all-you-care-to-eat, ask the cashiers if you're allowed to bring fruit back with you.

yoovie

time to go bonkers with nutrient tracking! yay! (its the OCD-lite part of me that loves tracking little numbers and cool math like that)

rwethington654

mallory_2014 wrote: »

I am in College too but do not live in student housing. What appliances do you have access to? That would be a start to figure out what types of food you can make for yourself.

I have a refrigerator and a microwave.

rwethington654

RoyalMoose11 wrote: »

I work in college settings and worked very closely with campus dining services for several years. I also had a meal plan for several years as part of my work compensation and ate cafeteria food during that time. Assuming you have a meal plan (and are most likely required to have it), here's some advice I give students.

Most colleges use a food vendor for their cafeteria like Sodexo or Chartwells. These companies generally are given offices on campus for their staff (GMs, cafeteria exeuctive chefs, etc). They are more willing to meet with students than you may think. You can ask for a meeting with the GM or a chef to ask for certain options, so they can explain to you what they typically have in stock, and come up with plans for easy additions to the stations. For example, you mentioned a lack of protein. It may be as easy of a fix as making a suggestion to add chicken, beans, lentils, eggs, or new cheeses to the salad line. In many cases it's easy for the vendor to order those, pop them in the salad bar, and charge you per pound.

Cooking in mass is different than cooking for smaller groups. This means that the service line options (like the buffet line) are going to be very different than the feature stations (made to order station). Typically I find that the made to order stations offer the best choice of healthy options.

Most schools have a nutritionist working with the health and wellness office or through the cafeteria/food vendor. See if this option is available. I used to do invite the nutritionist into the cafeteria and meet with students and do a walk through of the different options. Many students, afterwards, would set up one on one meetings with the nutritionist for follow up. This is a resource included in tuition.

Also, use your meal plan to buy snacks. This may be tricky depending on the style of cafeteria. If it is a la carte you can just buy whole fruit, yogurts, and other things to bring home or to eat in between classes. If it's all-you-care-to-eat, ask the cashiers if you're allowed to bring fruit back with you.

rwethington654

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and tips! This could be very helpful, and I really appreciate it!