So I've managed to lose 19 pounds so far this summer, because I've been able to purchase my own food and cook it at home, thereby controlling exactly what I put in my body and how much. This has been working out very well for me. However, in about 3 weeks I'm heading back to campus for the fall semester. I eat at the dining halls about 7 times per week, and the rest of the time I usually will go to an a-la-carte place on campus or eat out in Collegetown (bad, I know, but this is what I did in the past).
I was wondering if any of you are living on college campuses and eat at the dining hall often? How do you keep your weight under control? It just seems so hard when there's food all around you at the dining hall and you don't need to pay anything to go back for seconds or dessert... also the stress of school makes me tend to eat more/worse food. To top it off our dining halls don't provide too many healthy eating choices; just a salad bar and then it's greasy meat, starchy carbs, and overcooked veggies (I hate that they overcook them; it just discourages me from eating them at all ).
I'm planning on trying to buy my own food and cook it in the dorm on weekends, to try to balance out the junk I will inevitably be eating some of the time. Also I'm signing up for a gym membership. But how do you college dining hall frequenters manage to keep it together? I'd love to hear others' insights....
I know exactly what you're talking about!! My school is small and therefore we just have one dining hall, therefore it's the place everyone ends up at for most meals.
My advice is BE CREATIVE!! Try different combos of healthy foods instead of just eating them the way they are prepared, or plain. The salad bar is your best bet for a non-greasy meal; just be sure to stay away from the creamy dressings.
Secondly, you must watch your portion sizes (like a hawk ) in the cafeteria. It's so easy to mindlessly load up your plate with what looks good - then when you've eaten all/most of it, you realize how full you are and that you didn't need THAT much food! Take half of what you think you can eat. After all, you can always go back for more. You can't, however, go back in time and "un-eat" that entire hamburger you just wolfed down for lunch.
Check out the cheapest options for buying food you can make yourself - are there any grocery stores or anything near you? I live in a small town during the school year, but there is one grocery store and a healthy/organic shop a few blocks from the campus.
The gym membership is a great idea - plus, I'm sure you can walk/jog outside when it's nice out (which I know is not that often in upstate NY, but still...). Cornell has such a large campus that I'm sure you can find ways to add more exercise to your daily routine! What about taking the long way to class?
Oh well this is a problem.I never was able to maintain my weight in college I went from being about 220 when I started college to 300 when I graduated 5 years later. Yes I gained 80 pounds in 5 years and I ate almost every meal in the cafeteria or out. However, I was there the summer after I graduated and started to change my eating habits. Here are a few tips:
1. Be creative, just because they are serving on thing doesn't mean you can't make a healthy options, for instant I would take hummas, toubili, cucumbers, lettuce, and onions from the salad bar and but it on a flat wrap or burrito shell with a couple of slices of lunch meat and volia health sandwitch.
2. Grilled chicken breast - this was my best friend, you could eat it plain, on bread, in a salad, ect.
3. Try to stay away from deserts make it more of a treat then a regular occurance. Maybe make sunday your desert day or something like that.
4. Limit yourself to one plate, fill 1/2 with vegetables, 1/4 with protein, and 1/4 with carbs (in all reality if you were eating at home you would be only getting one plate).
5. Don't be afaid to ask, you would suprise how far people are willing to go if you ask. (When I was heavy and when I started losing) I was always asking for things if they didn't have food I liked, I would get meals cooked special for me all the time.
6. If all else fails look for healthy cereal and skim milk.
unfortunately there is no easy answer. Maybe adopt one of those eating plans (like south beach) where you can basically eat as much as you want in moderation as long as you eat healthy. These types of plans tend to calm cravings.
Don't let yourself get to hungry. The worst thing to do would be going into a dining hall starving and then smell pizza and burgers. Also you said the place has ala carte options...maybe theres a salad bar, stir fry, or sandwich shop.
Just do the best you can and try to eat foods that will fill you up. Don't let yourself get discouraged and simply give up.
Also I tend to do most of my damage 2 weeks before the semester ends. I'm stressed..everything is due and I end up eating a ton of crap. Don't do this.
I know how you feel... last year I put on 30 pounds alone, and that was not living on campus. This year I was accepted to a culinary arts school, as a baking and pastry chef... Urgh... the horror.
See if you're school offers a free gym membership, and bring a microwave and minifridge if possible. Try to keep fruits and veggies in there and steam them in the microwave if you can.
College is always tough on my diet. Best advice was the 1 plate rule stated above. Just will power and determination will get you through!
Ohhhhhhh, college Sophomore here! And I can appreciate the HATE of cafeteria food! I actually LOST weight my Freshman year! I always started with a cup of soup, finished that - then made salads every night. I'd ask for grilled chicken, or I would take lunch meat and slice it up and put that in my salad - and I went to the store and got those 5 calorie spray salad dressings and I bring it with me.
I live in Alaska, and I found that for me - most of my desire to inhale food as soon as I got there was because it was so COLD outside, that the faster the hot food got in me, the sooner I warmed up and felt cozy again. There's nothing worse than being COLD and HUNGRY! So that's why I start with soup. The broth warms me up and fills me up, so I don't over eat otherwise.
Only problem is I usually eat dinner around 5:30 and by 8 I'm STARVING again, and that's exactly when the late night grill opens, which only has greasy bar food! I can't afford both my meal plan AND a closet full of groceries so I'm hoping more options or good ideas come up!
Uggh! I know how you feel.. last year the food was just.. terrible. Our provider was Aramark and some days the food was good, others not..
It is really tough to eat healthy at a dining hall, especially knowing you paid for it. I also ate when I was stressed and everything, but try to make healthy choices and keep in mind that even though it is "free" that doesn't mean you HAVE to have it, the same foods will be there next meal or the next day and there is a lot of variety of food but you will get to try each over every meal so don't try it all in one sitting. I used to get overwhelmed by the amount of food and the variety.. it definitely caused me to gain weight as well.
I'm actually lucky because during freshman year we all got suites but no kitchen, and we HAD to have a dining plan... this year, we are in a different building with an apartment-style suite, we get a kitchen, living room, bathroom and a little area to eat.. So.. I'm going to be cooking all this semester..
Good luck with it though, it is really tough, I can't handle that setting and frankly, it is a lot of money and I'd rather just cook.
I've got the same set up as Starrynight, both last semester and this one (the things we have in common always wow me, Starrynight!) - but it's manditory to have a meal plan at my school, and I'm really dreading the thought of paying 2,000 dollars for all this food I won't even eat, plus scraping up the money to buy healthy groceries too. And groceries in AK are definitely NOT cheap. I was absolutely SHOCKED that milk is under $3.00 here in Utah. And bread under $5? Amazing!
Ohhhhh, college. It's a love/hate relationship sometimes.
This problem got me in college too. I agree with the previous posters that suggested being creative with the things offered. At UCF we got to go to this amazing gym on campus for free and I loved the Kickboxing class. Try walking to all your classes. Get involved in an intrumural sport. As far as the dining hall goes, just be conscious and aware of everything you're eating. Choose the smaller plate instead of the dinner plate, so your eyes will trick your stomach into thinking you have a lot of food. You are prepared for it, so as long as you go in with the same motivation, you'll be fine. Good luck!
Need a gym partner? I'm starting as a grad student at Cornell in the fall.
I only ate in a dining hall for one semester, so I didn't have a whole lot of time to perfect my healthy-eating strategy. And sometimes I made questionable choices (enormous bowl of granola for lunch because I was stressed about a test, for example, lol).
I tried to fill up on low-cal stuff, even if it was the same boring salad ingredients or the same vegetable soup every day. Then I could have something "interesting" like a slice of veggie pizza or some pasta or whatever looked decent and not go crazy with the portions. Boca burgers or grilled chicken were a good fallback, with or without the bun.
They always had some fruit (and fruit-flavored yogurt) at the salad bar, so I'd go back up and get a tiny plate of fruit for dessert. Then I wasn't quite as tempted to eat the ice cream or whatever cake/pie/cookies they had that day.
Another suggestion is to go for vegetarian options they nromally are healthier then meat options.
On a side note I am in law school now and the cafe is terrible, I bring my lunch most days but we are currently working on trying work with the management company to add healthy items to the menu.
So these are all great ideas. I don't have a car at school, so I always walk to class, but I've found that's not enough (hence putting down the money for a gym membership). I like the one-plate idea; the plates we have at our main dining hall are a little smaller than your standard dinner plate, so I think if I limit myself to one of those and watch my veggie/carb/protein proportions I can probably stay on track. I also like the "dessert day" per week idea, because getting dessert was a daily habit for me in the past.
We have a mini-grocery across the street from my dorm, and also there are Target and Wegman's (farther away) if I want to get very specific groceries. I will definitely make it a habit to cook dinner in my dorm as often as possible. Guess I'd better buy some kitchenware!!
We don't have required meal plans, so maybe I could consider getting more on-campus a-la-carte money (which also works at the dining hall) to expand my options... somehow that possibility only just crossed my mind.
Do you have to eat at the dining hall? I hated my dining hall when I lived in campus, and I didn't eat a lot and didn't gain any weight that year. Sophomore year I gained I think 5 lbs, but the next year I lived with unhealthy people and gained 15 lbs, then started having thyroid problems and gained another 15 lbs. Just stick to your routine you have now. And eat small portions. Keep busy so you won't get bored and eat. And to be honest, I would skip the gym membership. Just buy a bike from Wal-Mart for $100 and start riding it everywhere if you live in a bike-friendly town.
I went to IC, so I understand the Ithaca dilemma about food/Collegetown!!
Wegman's actually has a LOT of healthy stuff, and you can find some stuff at Target as well. Even if you can only get there once in a while with a friend to stock up it would be helpful. You could buy healthier stuff to jazz up the dining hall food or make your own dressings (all you need is a jar...you can just shake it to make a vinaigrette!).
Also, if you have any friends with dorm kitchens (or if your dorm has one) you can cook food (bringing ingredients to friends' places) then freeze/refrig to heat up later to avoid the dining hall completely. Another solution might be to get your salad first so that that takes the edge off the hunger when you first get there, that way you might not be so tempted.
College dining definitely has to get a little more creative, but you'd be amazed what you can actually make if you don't just settle for what they give you. I used to make grilled chicken wraps -- just asked for a wrap from the sandwich station and would grab grilled chicken from where they made the burgers, etc. There's also frequently areas that have yogurt and stuff like that.
Dining hall dread...
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) in the cafeteria. It's so easy to mindlessly load up your plate with what looks good - then when you've eaten all/most of it, you realize how full you are and that you didn't need THAT much food! Take half of what you think you can eat. After all, you can always go back for more. You can't, however, go back in time and "un-eat" that entire hamburger you just wolfed down for lunch.
