College Students Answer Please

stephchadz

Hey Everyone,

So I've been maintaining (by not logging/measuring everything) the past two months while at school, but I'm finding myself slipping into bad habits like fast food not going to the gym, etc. I still want to lose some weight but it is very difficult because my school provides very limited nutrition information and little to no healthy options (hence why I've been maintaining).


Thoughts? Any other students in the same situation? Any and all advice is appreciated.

ohmyllama

I don't know your situation, but why can't you cook for yourself, pack your own lunch, and force yourself to go to the gym until it's a habit? It takes me maybe 10 minutes in the morning to make a crock pot dinner and also to pack my lunch for the day. I force myself to wake up early for the gym whether I like it or not.

I gained so much weight with the overindulgence of fast food and college food.

KrisiAnnH

Hi, I'm also a student, however I don't have to rely on my University for my meals (I know some do, so I don't know if this is your situation or if you're able to cook for yourself?)
If you can pre-prepare your own lunches to take to classes with you, that's a great start If your meals are catered for and you dont really have anywhere you can cook, maybe you could just use ready prepared things; salads are pretty easy to make- just buy bagged salad, peppers and cucumber (precooked chicken etc are good things to add).

Other things I find helpful are to take a few '100 cal' snacks with me, so that if I do get peckish, I'm not tempted to buy things from Uni and can wait until I get home to eat. Low cal crisps, cereal bars, kitkats etc are all good, portable options

Another option, if you do have cooking facilities, is to make extra of whatever you cook in the evenings, to take with you the next day. We have a microwave at my studio so we can re-heat leftovers, but if that's not an option, things like pasta bake etc are still good cold

If your University is catered for, maybe getting the vegetarian version of whatevers on offer (although it's not always lower calorie- obviously it depends on the ingredients). Or the obvious answer of eating smaller portions of canteen food.

stephchadz

I live on campus and do not have access to a kitchen at all. I am required by my university to have a meal plan. I do think I might pick up some cold cuts from the grocery store and start making myself sandwiches for lunch though. I have a fridge in my dorm so it would be relatively easy. That would definitely help out because I never find any of the lunch specials appetizing.

As for the gym, it's not that I stopped going, I just don't go as often as I would like. I rock climb 3-4 times a week for about 1-3 hours each time I go which takes away from traditional gym time. So I guess I just shifted how I am working out...

booksandchocolate12

My daughter is in college, with a fridge in her dorm like you, but there is a common room with a microwave? Do you have microwave access? If so, you can get some canned soup and use the micro to heat it up.

She is not a breakfast eater, so she keeps Kashi granola bars in her room and eats one of those in the morning. She eats lunch in the dining hall and dinner in the school's food court, where she typically gets something from Subway. In addition to typical junk food snacks, she keeps granny smith apples and clementines in her room. (Her school has a free shuttle that goes to the local Target, among other places, so it's easy for her to pick these things up).

She uses the school gym rarely but she belongs to the yoga club. She also keeps her bike on campus and rides it every day.

jennifer_417

When I lived in the dorms, I had a little electric tea kettle, and you'd be surprised what you can cook in one of those. Anything that can be cooked by boiling can be cooked in one of those. (veggies, rice, pasta, etc). Protein bars are great for when you're on the go, and tuna doesn't need to be refrigerated or heated.

stephchadz

I hadn't even thought about using an electric tea kettle to cook food. Could it be used to cook pasta?

thingofstuff

Miso soup packs are very low cal and satisfyingly salty for snacking (if you use a kettle).

hayleebug11

I gained close to 30 pounds my first year of college and am struggling to get it off. My college offers no healthy food that I can eat. (I have a gluten allergy and its in almost everything my college serves) I started getting out of my habits of the junk food and started pre making my food or buying low calorie food from the grocery store that was I didn't have to cook. The Chobani flip yogurts are good for breakfast!

ciphering

Hello! College student here.

I also don't have access to a kitchen, but between myself and my boyfriend we've accumulated cheap small appliances (from target, mostly!), so we have a blender, a small rice cooker, a crockpot, a toaster oven, and a small egg cooker in addition to a microwave and fridge.

We also have a meal plan, but don't use it very often (brunch some weekends, otherwise mostly stealing raw veggies from the salad bar to toss into the rice cooker). If you're struggling with budget, maybe look into appealing to be removed from the meal plan?? My boyfriend and I eat cheaper off the meal plan than on (like 6-10$ per meal compared to 16$ per meal) and at my school a doctor's note could get you out of the plan.

Depending on your diet, I would 100% recommend some of these appliances! The egg cooker can soft or hard boil I think 6? eggs at a time and is very small if you're worried about space, and the rice cooker or crockpot are great ideas for quick meals (boyfriend and I made honey sesame chicken in the crockpot two days ago and it was amazing!). I got the blender for $20 and make smoothies pretty regularly as well, so if you're a smoothie person you might look into that?

In addition to that, we keep cold cuts in the fridge, smuggle fruit from dining halls, and keep snacks/quick breakfast items like granola bars, yogurt, oatmeal, fruit, and crackers and cheese.

EDIT: I noticed you asked about pasta and while I'm not sure about the electric kettle, that's definitely doable in a rice cooker. I make pasta in mine regularly!

Psychgrrl

Who runs your food service at school? Aramark and Sodexo are two of the major food service companies working on a college campus. Both have menus in MFP. And the information is online. Are you certain the information isn't available somewhere? Just because it's not obvious doesn't mean it's not available. Maybe ask a manager at the dining center? Nutrition info was posted by hand when I was in college more than 20 years ago.

If it's really not available, maybe you can work with your student government to get it posted. It really is behind-the-times for the information to not be easily accessible. Aramark even posts the water footprint and the carbon footprint for many of their items including posting the location from where the food is sourced.

niniundlapin

I'm not in college anymore but my sister is! She lives on campus and relies on her meal plan a lot...

Like many people have suggested, cooking yourself is a better way to control what you eat (at least know the calories). Cooking in a dorm (I'm not sure if it's allowed/ against the rule tho) could be very difficult and annoying, but I used to tell my sister she'll feel more satisfied with the food if there's a fridge, a small rice cooker (big enough that can fit in at least a bow), and a hot water bottle (maybe add a small, one-serving blender for juice) in her dorm. With these stuffs, you can store raw ingredients in fridge, cook them with the rice cooker (not just for rice! There are plenty of recipe online for various types of food), and prepare quick meals with the hot water (and/or juice blender).

For the food provided by school, I told her to take photos, send them to me, & we estimated the amount she ate together. It's actually too time consuming for her and her life was way chaotically busy than I can imagine, so we didn't continue doing that. I'm just thinking, it might also help if you can somehow estimate what you have on your plate. There are charts/pictures online telling you how to use your hand, fingers, or arms to estimate the amount of food serving. At least in that way you'll get an idea how much smashed potato (for instance) you can have in one meal and not exceeding your daily calorie allowance. Also, learning how different dishes were made/ recipe could help you understand what "invisible ingredients" were added even though you didn't cook that specific dish. Not just cooking oil but like butter, sugar, or soy sauce (things that increase the intensity of flavor).

These were the things I suggested my sister a while ago. Honestly, her mind was not on weight-loss at all, so I'm not sure if those I mentioned are doable/ effective for a college student living on campus... Just hope those could somehow be helpful for someone

jld1975

I second psychgrrl's reply. I work at a university and I actually love to eat there because all the food is Aramark. I can even use the salad bar scale to weigh things if I like. Our university also puts some nutritional info on the dining services website. My guess is you can find this information. Good luck!