Trying to lose 10 pounds at college!!

Hi there!
I've been a college professor for 20 years (which meant that I was a college student for way more years than I care to admit BEFORE that!).

From what I've seen and experienced, there are three keys to avoiding weight gain in college:
* time management: set yourself up a schedule that includes class time, study/project time, meal time, workout time, and sleep time (sleep is key!), and work time. Sure, you may not be able to stick to it every week perfectly, but the more you can manage your own time the fewer times you'll have to stay up late, pull all nighters, grab a sticky bun at the coffee shop on the way to class, and graze on 3-day old pizza crust you find in the mini fridge, or miss your workout. If you're assigned to a group project, be that person in the group that sets up the calendar and schedules the meetings and steers the conversation to setting deadlines so that YOU can control YOUR time rather than worrying yourself into a tizzy waiting on your classmates to come through.
* KNOW your food service options and plan plan plan!: Whether you're on a full or partial meal plan or if you have some sort of flexi-cash program for local restaurants, or even if you're responsible for all your own meals, ruthlessly inform yourself about what's available where and when so you aren't caught making bad choices just because it's what's at hand. Surely the campus cafeteria has a salad bar and some hot vegetable options so you don't live on a diet of pizza and burgers. There might be one coffee shop or pocket diner on campus that has hummus and celery sticks. May sound funny, but even check out the various vending machines on campus. You might find one or two that have some quasi-reasonable choices that you can use in a pinch (I used to head for the one machine that had unsalted peanuts. . . passing by four soda machines and two other vending machines on the way.)
* Give yourself a break. There is an uncertainty to life in college. And you WILL eat pizza at 3 am, and you WILL pull an all nighter because some slacker in your project group didn't carry his or her own weight, and you WILL get your schedule totally discombobulated during finals week, and you WILL discover that you just don't have time between your 9:00 a.m. class and your 1:00 p.m. class to squeeze in a workout like you originally scheduled because that was the best time you could regularly meet with your advisor. You WILL experience having zero cash and you have to figure out how to live on half a box of Altoids Mints and a box of Cheerios for a week (and this is when you start scouring campus event notices for those magical words "refreshments provided!"). When those things happen, give it your best shot, but don't beat yourself up and move on. It could be that learning some self-care and discovering the strength of your own internal resiliency may be among the most important lessons you learn in college!

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