I am a college student with a meal plan. Basically I eat in a buffet style dining hall. I have no idea what kind of stuff I should eat, and I tend to eat unhealthy. Does anyone have any ideas? I lost 30 lbs since last september, but ever since I've been back at school, the pants are just getting tighter!!!!
Hi and welcome.
Lean proteins and things that grow!
When my daughter was in college, they lobbied the caf for more salads ... green salads! It worked! She ate a lot of egg salad on brown bread with salad greens.
ugh, my college days were not so long ago, and I remember our horrible dining hall choices. We usually had choices like super heavy cheesy pizza, white pasta (not doubt cooked with plenty of butter/oil) with a red sauce, things like hotdogs and cheeseburgers and fries, a giant dessert selection (cookies, ice cream, pies, etc.), and a salad bar that was basically just bagged salad mix (usually with plenty of yellowish-brown spots), croutons, bacon bits, a few veggies, cheese, and heavy dressings. I typically opted for a sandwich on a whole- or multi-grain bread. I would avoid "salad" type sandwiches (egg salad and tuna and such), as they are typically made with tons of fatty mayo, and instead go for things like ham or turkey and cheese with lettuce (I also suggest additional veggies like tomato or onion if you like them) and a spread other than regular mayo (mustard is good if you like it--we did have a low-fat mayo as an option, so I usually got that).
It's hard--really hard. At least, it was really hard at my school. Maybe that's why I only GAINED weight throughout college (although I'm sure the excessive alcohol also didn't exactly help things ).
I totally sympathize. I live off campus now, but the time (and money) spent on the meal plan was ****.
I ate a lot of salad, fresh fruit. My caf had two different soups daily that were usually edible and pretty healthy except the sodium. I actually tried to avoid most cooked food because they seemed to add corn starch to everything. Make a sandwich or had a sub, wheat bread, no mayo.
they have sandwhich stuff...i usually get a spinich wrap instead of bread. Otherwise they have things like pasta, hamburgers, fried chicken, pizza, tofu stuff which ive tried so hard to eat but its disgusting
Eating healthy in university is hard work! Don't feel bad if you don't like tofu, it's definitely an aquired taste (I don't touch the stuff)!
Thanks to people in the Featherweights forum, I've recently discovered cottage cheese! Or "cc" as it's known by to those who I learned about it from It's high in protein and pretty low in calories and fat. It's available at the salad bar in my cafeteria (I'm in university too). Oh, and fat free yogurt and skim milk for protein and calcium...
Most importantly what I've come to realize about university eating is that you can't control the foods, but you can control the PORTION. The plates of pasta they give out here are twice as much as I would give myself and the slices of pizza are also about twice the size. I like to stick to things that *I* can moderate. And I always get condiments on the side.
Sorry this is such a long post (I seem to be making this a habit!) but I (apparently ) had a lot to say.
Also, I would love to chat more about college dining and stuff if you (or anyone) ever wants to, as it's such a strange problem (not being able to control your foods).
I spent 5 years in a college dorm with a buffet. I gained a lot of weight. Finally the last year there I started to make better choices. Here are some of my suggestions (They might be repeats of what other people said.
* Soup but watch out because it might have a lot of sodium. Also cream based soups are high in fat and calories.
* Salads. What I use to do is get whatever protein they had on the hot bar and cut it up (chicken breast, chicken nuggets, hamburgers), or add hard boiled eggs, or lunch meat (again high in sodium but not too bad of a choice). Then to jazz it up I would add dried cranberries or raisins. Fat free dressing.
* Sandwiches. My school had a good variety of bread and wraps so I would make them with lunch meat, get lots of veggies from the salad bar (cucumbers, lettuce, carrots) and add either fat free salad dressing or hummus. My school also had a panini maker so that you could heat them up if you wanted.
* For breakfast we had an egg station and I could get egg beater omelet asked to be cooked with low oil. When I didn’t have time for that I would get hard boiled eggs, eat the whites (I don’t like yokes) and toast.
* If you are getting pasta portion control and sauce control. Mine would give me a full plate (probable 3 cups) with 2 cups of sauce. Limit the amount and ask for light sauce.
* Fried Chicken, peel off the skin that will make it better for you.
* Pizza, blot off the grease with a napkin.
* Avoid the dessert/ ice cream bars (on of my vices)
* Juice lots of calories and sugar go for the real fruit instead.
* Pop - avoid or switch to diet, I use to get two 8 oz glasses one pop one water then I finally switched to one diet one water, and finally two water
Also my other vices in the café where spending tons of time in there talking which always meant eating the whole time.
College Dining
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) had a lot to say.
