I actually lost about 20 lbs my freshman year. I walked to class every day AND I had a bike. I wasn't "careful" of what I ate, per se, but I did was mindful of what I ate. My junior year I gained about 80 because I was commuting about 1 hr to work and had fast food for my meals and exercised almost none!

I think as long as you don't gorge yourself on food and make it a point to do a little exercise per day, you can definitely lose weight!

The "freshman 15" happens for two reasons. First, kids away from home for the first time go out and drink a ton of beer. Beer, like anything other drink, has calories. So students can gain weight that way. Second (what happened to me), you're away from home for the first time and you can eat whatever you want without your parents or whoever giving you crap about it. Just be mindful of what you eat or drink and you'll be fine!

There was a study done that says that the freshman 15 isn't real. I don't know if it's valid or not, but I think there's a variety of reasons why someone can gain weight their freshman year of college.

The change in environment can really do it, but if you watch yourself you should be fine.

I didn't gain or lose weight throughout undergrad and grad school and stayed at 200 pounds the entire 5 years for both. I also lived at home though, so there's that.

well put it this way

beginning of my last year of highschool: 58kg
end of last year of highschool: 60kg
end of first year of uni: 64kg

That's a gain of 13 pounds since the beginning of 12th grade, and 9 pounds since graduating HS. Crept up even more in second year: had me at 66kg near the end of second year (thats when I decided to make a real effort to lose weight). That's 13 pounds since finishing HS! :(

Well, I guess what the thing with Freshman 15 is, you don't magically gain weight just because you went to college. You must be doing something different. :(

for me i think it was a combo of the following:

1. extreme lack of sleep (4-5 hours a night sometimes) made me hungrier and too exhausted to exercise
2. very long travel time was exhausting and caused me to eat late: I used to get home at 8pm some nights, which is when I would have dinner
3. all the cafes and food outlets at uni were tempting :/

Yes I did gain the freshman 15, more like 20 I would say. But I totally know why, wrong eating, sodas, fast food, chocolates and just munching.

I think its as real or as fake as you want it to be. If you are not watching your calorie intake, what you are putting in your mouth and partying then of course yours probably going to gain some weight. On the other hand, if you go into it watching what you eat and continuing with some sort of exercise then you probably wont gain very much. It all depends on your habits.

I gained three, but I looked gross because I stopped moving so much and was eating terrible foods, so I got flabby.

I yo-yo'ed for about a year or two, then midway through my junior year I buckled down (I wasn't really eating enough) and lost about 12lbs in just two months, putting me at the lowest adult weight I had ever been. I was wearing a size 12 in children's clothes and I had gorgeous muscles on my arms from lifting, and I finally learned how to run and would do four miles a day. I had a group guy friends who lived in my dorm and we would all go to the gym for two hours a day M-F at 4:30, then head back, shower, and go to dinner together. It was awesome because it was our routine and we all just encouraged each other to go.

I sometimes wish I could do it now, but as a single mom, I don't have the time that I had back then.

In college now and definitely some kids have gained, including me. I gained 60 lbs though, not just 15. However, I went from anorexic in high school to a binger so now that I'm eating relatively normal again, my body is much happier. Though my metabolism is still quite slow.

College was hard for me because I was lonely, I had trouble resisting temptation, and all I wore was sweatpants. Plus, I loved the free ice cream. I had no idea that my jeans went from baggy to can't even fit in them. But if you plan ahead and work at it, one should be fine.

I lost weight because I had to walk a mile to campus and back to the dorms every class. Plus I just started eating better in college. Freshman 15 is totally avoidable.

Real. I think part of my problem was being scared to eat around people... cuz I was already chubby. So there was this feast and famine cycle and when I came home on the weekends, I would feel SO free to eat to my heart's content.

I also didn't have a scale in my dorm until the second semester but the damage was done. I tried joining a gym too but that didn't work... I was simply stressed and self-conscious and it was BAD.

I should really count my blessings more, because I'm now a junior in college and I've been losing weight since the summer after freshman year. I now weigh less than I did before I entered college which is rather surreal!!

My "freshman fifteen" was actually a "college twenty". I probably gained most of that in my freshman year, and even then without realizing it, and then a couple more pounds towards the end.

In retrospect, I must've been eating an insane number of calories. Just thinking about a weekend brunch in the cafeteria, I must've consumed at least 1300kcal in one meal (my current daily intake!).

While the Freshman 15 absolutely can be real, I think anyone going in with a plan can avoid it (e.g., not being tempted by all-you-can-eat meals, continuing whatever exercise is already in your routine, continuing on whatever plan you've established at home). I wasn't ready for weightloss while I was in college, but had I been, I'm sure I could've done it, Freshman 15 be damned.