College

As a freshman, do you get catered foods for all 3 meals of the day? If not, then you should meal plan and meal prep. Ever since I've started meal planning, I could count my calories ahead, as well as being able to ensure that I don't have food that will go bad.

If you do get catered food though, you may want to just eat smaller portions. It is incredibly hard to log since you don't know the exact ingredients, but try your best, and overestimate the calories just in case. Alcohol is also a big factor into weight gain, so you may want to cut it a little bit, try to drink less. I was a freshman myself a year ago so I understand your pain.

You don't have to workout to lose weight necessarily, just try your best not to go over your calorie goal really.

You should be able to look up nutritional information for your college's caterer on you college website. (If you can't, complain about that. All the major catering companies - Sodexho, Aramark, etc. have the info. You can even find a lot of it entered already on MFP.)

Watch your portions. Be aware that starches, in particular, will often come in very large portions (because they're cheap) with high calorie counts for the whole serving. Soup is your friend at lunch (especially if it's not a cream or cheese soup; those are fine, but you have to watch the portions a lot more carefully). With our last caterer, I would get chicken taco salad every Tuesday - which was yummy and full of vegetables; I held the cheese and sour cream and didn't eat the tortilla bowl.

Be active. You can walk a lot on a college campus, and it will add up. Going to the gym is great, but try to burn as many calories in "normal life" as you can by taking the stairs, walking a lot, etc. too

I'm in grad school now, and something that helped me throughout undergrad was trying to sign up for PE classes or intramural sports so that you're still getting exercise, since it's hard to control what you eat in the dorms

I am in my second year of college and I totally understand what you are going through. College is a much different way of life than we were all used to. You can't always have a great schedule and that can make it very hard to get yourself organised and find time to work out. As a person who is majoring two difficult studies I can recommend that you try to make a routine of walking as much as you can, especially after classes because sitting for hours kills and you will feel a lot better once you get your blood flowing. Once the exams arrive I suggest you do your best not to study during the night. Rather wake up early, work out (litterally doing any physical activity in the morning will greatly improve your life) and then go study. Even though studying for exams requires hours of sitting in the library and hitting those books you must get up at least every 90 minutes. Whenever I study at the library I keep that routine and after every 90 minutes I get up and walk from the ground floor to the 6th/last floor. You will feel better and and you will study better. As far as the food goes, do not let it bother you if you gain a few pounds your first year because everyone does and you can and will lose it as soon as you accomodate a little better to the new life. The other users have also told you very smart and useful things and you should definitely listen to them. I wish you the best of luck in your first year of college

If you are eating in the dining halls, watch portion size carefully And make sure that half of your plate is vegetables. Either raw or cooked is ok, but try to eat them without a lot of additives (butter, cheese sauce, sour cream, salad dressings, dips, etc).

look for lean protein & veggies in the cafeteria. Have some fruit, not sweets. Greek yogurt & hard boiled eggs. Whole grains can be hard to find but stay away from the super refined stuff as much as you can.

You are probably walking a lot. Take the stairs every chance you get. Learn where the stairways are and use them