MFP dorm room help

stepharega
stepharega Posts: 211 Member
in Food and Nutrition
What do you eat? Do you eat in the cafeteria or do you eat your own food in your room?
If you have a mini fridge, what do you keep in it?

I eat eggs everyday. I'm gonna miss that the most!! But I'm bulking in the instant oatmeal boxes for breakfast everyday. Other than that, what does your food diary usually consist of while in college?

I'm thinking of bringing: Peanut butter, rice cakes, tuna pouches, crackers, bread, nuts chobani, oatmeal and fruit.

Any help is welcome, please!!

Replies

  • stepharega
    stepharega Posts: 211 Member
    anyone???
  • megan24209
    megan24209 Posts: 23
    I lived in a dorm room my freshman year of college. My roommate and I had a mini fridge and microwave. I brought a lot of the same stuff you mentioned peanut butter, fruit, bread, whole grain bagel, jam, carrot sticks, packet of spinach to make a quick salad if necessary, cherry tomatoes, cottage cheese, nuts, and some Lara bars.

    It was nice to have a fridge and my own food for the days when I didn't feel like going to the dining hall, it wasn't open, or I was up late studying and got hungry. Most of the time I did eat at the dining hall as I purchased a meal plan and wanted to make good use of it. Also, my school had lots of healthy options (tons of salad ingredients, grilled veggies, vegetarian & vegan options, etc).

    The thing I needed the most, in addition to most of the deals I ate at the dining hall, was snacking and breakfast food (I was often too lazy to get up in time to have a full meal). My school also had a little kitchenette that the whole floor could use. I'm not sure if you school has this but many do. A lot of people brought there own dishes and used the stove for making eggs, casseroles, cakes, etc.
  • stepharega
    stepharega Posts: 211 Member
    Thanks for answering! I hope my school has healthy options like yours.. all I see is pizza and burgers right now
  • SamanthaAnnM
    SamanthaAnnM Posts: 143 Member
    Hi! I had similar issues living on campus, not knowing what to eat and I gained a lot of weight because of it. So I wrote some blog posts on MFP about eating healthy on campus/ in the dorm. I'll just post the links so that I don't have to copy and paste, they are pretty long. They might be helpful for you! :)


    Part 1: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/SamanthaAnnM/view/surviving-dorm-life-part-1-the-cafeteria-333507
    Part 2: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/SamanthaAnnM/view/surviving-dorm-life-part-2-dorm-snacking-338517
    Part 3: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/SamanthaAnnM/view/surviving-dorm-life-part-3-alcohol-eating-out-and-exercise-344686
  • lmwfrosty
    lmwfrosty Posts: 16 Member
    I lived on campus for 3 years at Colorado State. I actually lost 15lbs my first semester. I'm guessing CSU's dining halls are not alone in this but they have lots of healthy options, you just have to pay attention. Every hall had a salad bar, there was grilled chicken at every meal and they had skim milk on tap (so to speak). Some halls even had healthy choices marked with stickers. Every year the residence halls gave out nalgene bottles, which was super nice for carrying water to class. I kept slim-fasts, juice boxes, and yogurt in my fridge for snacks. To be fair, I walked a lot (1-2 miles a day) around campus. The hardest part about the dining halls is avoiding all the delicious junk food, and there's a lot of it.
  • debussyschild
    debussyschild Posts: 804 Member
    I didn't have the healthiest eating habits when I was in college...

    Salad bars at the dining halls were AWESOME! I lived on campus for 2 years and meal plans were mandatory if you lived in a dorm.

    I recommend a rice cooker or a microwaveable rice cooker. Also a device to boil water that doesn't have a hot surface. It was my experience that if you lived in the dorms, you were not allowed to have any hot surface cooking appliances like a griddle or a GF grill. HOWEVER... There is a caveat to this. If you have a communal kitchen with a stove and oven, you could cook a lot of your food there and portion it out and store it in your mini fridge. All you'd need are a sauce pan and a sautee pan and a few cooking utensils (and dish soap) to cook your food there.

    If there's no way to cook anything, then I'd recommend fresh veggies you can keep in your fridge along with fruit (score freebies at the dining halls...). Milk will keep as will eggs. You could hard boil your eggs and store them peeled as an alternative to frying them up? Good luck!
  • eig6
    eig6 Posts: 249 Member
    My first year of college I lived in a dorm and I lost 15lbs :-) I mostly did it by eating small portions because its cheap and easy- makes food last longer. I had a 10 meal a week meal plan and I used it for breakfast mostly so I could quickly get a plate of eggs, potatoes, or pancakes (only 2 small ones) topped with fruit or with fruit juice and coffee. Lunch I made sandwiches, I would keep lettuce,tomatoes, and turkey deli meat in my fridge and bread in my closet and I would take extra mustard and mayo packets from the cafeteria. I would also sometimes have canned soup (lower sodium organic kind). Every once in a while I'd make a salad. Dinner I would have either leftovers from using my meal plan (after breakfast I had 3 meals left and each meal was usually enough food for two dinners for me, especially if I went to Chipotle) or I would have an Amy's, lean cuisine, or kashi frozen dinner. I kept a fruit bowl, granola bars, and mini popcorn bags for snacks. Hope it helps. Not the pinnacle of health, but convenient, cheap, and wont make you fat.

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