[snowflake0408]

Does anyone currently battle the situtation of dorm food? If so what are some suggestions? I find it so hard to eat healthy when portions are way to large and salad gets redundant.

[teckeygirl]

whats the food like in general at your college? I went to a college that was 75% jewish (even though I'm not) so we had a very interesting selection of foods.

We had fresh baked bagels every day. At lunch they served a lot of ethnic foods like hummis, falafel, pitas, mexican food. You could always get sandwiches like subs and you could buy pizza by the slice instead of getting a whole one. At dinner it was more difficult, I admit. they had a very large salad bar - it even had tofu on it. Hehe. I admit I ate a lot of salads, but I also paired a small salad with something else. Ramen was big then and not just because its college dorm fare.. but because it was sold in the "convenience store" that you could use your food money on. I really lived on bagels and sandwiches and salads that year, to be honest.

something else we were notorious for was getting things you could take back to the room. apples, oranges, bagels, muffins. That way we had healthier snacks than chips and we made the most of our food money. If you have a small fridge in your room, maybe you could get some li plastic containers and put the excess portion of your meal in that before you even start eating. Save it for lunch the next day or something like that. It all depends on whether you think you'd be likely to snack on it. I can be bad about that sometimes.

[Eggers]

I know what you mean. I've been eating salads for a while, and I don't even want to look at them anymore. I've got low fat string cheese, lots of no calorie drinks, roasted nuts, low fat yougurt in my fridge.

In our cafeteria, I eat salad, and whenever they serve chicken breasts or anything that's not fried, I try to get a take out box, and fill it with stuff I can eat later on. But it's starting to get pretty hard. I'd buy frozen dinners, but my fridge's freezer barely keeps anything frozen, and it's really tiny.

[Turtle025]

I agree that salads do get old after a while. I follow the Atkins plan so I eat a lot of tuna and chicken salad, bunless burgers, etc. But it is definitely hard trying to eat well in a college cafeteria. Especially since all my friends seem to have racecar metabolisms and can have pasta and chili cheese fries every night and not gain an ounce lol. What is your cafeteria like and what plan are you following? I'm not sure what to suggest without knowing what your options are.

[snowflake0408]

We have a ton of fried things, rice, pasta, pizza etc and a pretty small salad bar the one nice thing is that we have a sandwich bar which i can get pretty god variety from. I only eat thier lunch or dinner there because I get sooo sick of the same things. So I have a fridge and keep yogurt and a few other things in there for breakfast and snacks, but same as above my freezer is sooo small and doesnt freeze well so it's hard to keep frozen dinner or such. Thanks for the ideas!

[caitietee]

I was more successful losing weight when eating in the cafeterias than in my off-campus apartment. I found that I took for granted having all of those chopped up veggies at the salad bar available for me every day. Now I find it so painstaking to chop up every thing for 25 minutes before I eat it, which usually takes the same amount of time.

I think the most important thing to remember in the college cafs is to stay away from desserts and fried food. If you want pasta or rice or something, take half of what you would normally want and fill the other half of the serving with salad or other veggies. Don't rationalize any of the desserts, including the frozen yogurts. I used to have tea with artificial sweetner or I would bring chewing gum with me. I also was not afraid to bring Light Bread with me to toast with spray butter and Equal for dessert. If people wanted to hate on me for that, then good for them! And me! I lost 50 pounds!!!