What to do in college?!?!

Since you will be living in a dorm there should be a gym there or somewhere close by provided by the campus. Also walk to your classes ALL of them if you can. As for food, you can use the fitness app if you have a smart phone to try and keep track of what you eat. Just remember what things have a lot of calories and what doesn't. If there is a cafeteria on campus try to eat the fresher foods and avoid the high calorie and empty calorie fillers that don't give you much fuel for your body. And no wild party drinking!!!!!!

Congratulations on going to college! My oldest son is at Purdue University. First, are you planning on being on the meal plan? If so, that will dictate mostly the WHERE you are going to eat. College campus' have tons of restaurants around. If you are on a plan though, you will mostly eat at campus cafeterias. Most times there are more than one cafeteria and they can differ in what they offer. Try going to the one that has the best salad and fresh food selection and just make the best choices you can. In your dorm room, if you can, have a small refrigerator, microwave and toaster oven. They come in handy. My son takes alot of classes so he doesn't have alot of time to actually go someplace to eat. He's also in a fraternity (Sigma Pi!) and has use of the kitchen there (he is not on their meal plan, so we purchase his groceries, which is cheaper than the plan) Something else that you might want to look into....my son works at a Sorority house for the cook. He helps with serving and clean up and he always gets a free meal every evening, plus he gets paid to do it! Anyways, being that the cook is cooking for mostly girls, the girls want to eat healthy, my son gets a good balanced meal. Though he does say he is getting tired of steamed vegetables! LOL So if it's possible for you to work, you can look into that option. Good luck with your education!

At my college, there was a student health center where they provided nutritional counseling for free. Also, in several areas they had listed the calorie/fat/etc contents of EVERYTHING served on campus. I know many colleges do that these days due to an increase of concern for nutritional content. I actually preferred to eat on campus because I ALWAYS knew the exact nutritional content of what I was eating. During orientation you can ask about where to go for nutrition information (if it is not already being advertised) or you can search their website!

Good luck! I just finished my two undergrad majors in 5 years and I'm looking at graduate school.

Congrats on your weight loss and college. I work with on a college campus and most all campuses have so many resources for students. Does your campus have a fitness center? Most do, and most of the time students have free access. Also, check with the staff at the fitness to center to find out what other resources besides just the equipment they have. Many have free consults with a nutritionist or free personal training sessions or free group fitness classes. When eating in the campus cafe, you just need to make good choices and eat in moderation. Sure they have tons of unhealthy things like burgers, fries, chicken nuggets and desserts. But they also have fresh veggies, salad bar and fresh fruit. So you have to chose wisely and resist temptation when eating in the cafe. Freshman usually gain so much weight because of the unlimited buffet style dining offered in most campus cafe's. If there is something prepared, like BBQ, ask them how it is prepared, so you know if it is fried or baked, skin or skinless, ect. You can still do a pretty good job of estimating your calories on MFP. And check their website, most campus cafes are managed by an outside vender and you can actually get a listing of nutritional content for all items served. Make sure the snacks you keep in your dorm are healthy snacks, keep fruits and veggies in your room. Watch out for the late night pizza. You can still have pizza with your friends, but eat one slice of pizza and then have some veggies or a salad instead of having 2-3 slices of pizza. And walk to your classes. Parking is crazy on campuses, make the most of it and burn some extra calories by walking to your classes. As a student you have to find out what resources are available to you and USE them (health wise and academically!!) and you will do awesome!

all great advice above so far. Another tip would be to just look into clean eating. Not that you will be able to follow clean eating to the T when you are in a dorm, however it will give you some ideas of better choices when you are out...such as brown rice instead of white...or none if they dont have brown, veggies over fries or even a salad (because most restaurant salads are NOT healthy lol) and that sort of thing. Protein Protein Protein will help! Good luck in school and congrats on your weight loss so far! feel free to add me if you want support!:happy:

Hopefully you picked a college with a great campus that's perfect for walking and ideally has an awesome gym (my alma mater UCF has a rock climbing wall and resort style swimming pool!) If not, there are lots of things you can do to avoid the freshman 15. I actually lost weight in college because I was able to dump the eating habits I learned from my parents (late night snacking, Southern fried dinners, canned vegetables, etc...).

1. Keep healthy snacks in your dorm room. Lots of them. If you have access to healthy foods you will be less likely to binge on the junk food.

2. Meal plans can be your friend or your foe. Most meal plans offer healthy options like salad bars and custom sandwiches but they also offer fast food, burgers, pizza, and fries. Choose wisely. The meal plan helped me avoid eating fast food which was available on campus in the form of Taco Bell, Chik-fil-A, Sbarro, etc... But it did help that our meal plan cafeteria was run by students in the Hospitality school.

3. Drinking; and I don't just mean alcohol. Binge drinking is abundant on college campuses but it can be easily avoided. Be more concerned with allowing yourself to drink sugary sodas and coffee drinks every day. Not only are they calorie busters, they are budget busters too. Carry water with you on campus and fill up at the water fountains. A coffee here and there shouldn't be too bad but go for a tall (i.e. small) non-fat, sugar free with skim and no cream or sugar!

4. Stay active. Join an organization or a fraternity/sorority. It will give you a connection to your college as well as a pool of people to hang out with and make friends with. Plus on many college campuses these organizations are active in the school intramurals league (sports like softball, basketball, soccer, etc...). Our Greek system sponsored competitive dances and philanthropy events at least once a month. Try out a few different organizations during your first year to see where you fit in. Oh and my sorority sisters were great about organizing daily trips to the on campus gym.