More like fourty. Maybe I'm exaggerating. Maybe it was only thirty. I was kind of stressed out during high school, and had gained a few pounds, but good lord, what one semester of college has done to me.

I'm only 5'1" and about 175 at the moment, which is beginning to be distressing, as I currently have two pairs of pants that fit, and they recently started showing signs of wear. And if there's one thing I hate more than shelling out $$ for new clothes, it's *trying on* new clothes.

I'm so frustrated. I don't know how I managed to gain at least 30 pounds in one semester. I don't drink. I am a very strict vegetarian (dairy only). I don't (as far as I think) eat too much junk food. I've never been athletic, but it's never been too bad before.

The only difference I can see is the whole college servery thing. It doesn't agree with me to ONLY be allowed to grab my dinner during a certain time period. In high school, I usually had a large snack after school, and then a small snack for dinner. But here, I usually go for a handful of crackers and a nap to keep me alive until the cafeteria opens. The food probably isn't too good for me, either. They usually have three or four meat dishes I can't eat, and then one weird vegetable thing that looks really unappealing, so I go for the pasta or rice, and a small salad. Though I can't say the salad bar is appealing either.

This semester, I've been really trying. I decided there would be no more sneaking extra cookies into my room, and I've been trying to go to the gym at least once a week. So far I've managed to not gain any more, but that still leaves me 30 pounds away from the majority of my wardrobe. What the heck am I supposed to do? It seems like I'm so hungry all the time. I tell myself each time that I'm not going to stuff myself at meals, but then I do because I'm hungry. I wish I could snack more, but I don't have much food in my room.

Sorry about the rant. I'm putting off patching up my jeans again. I'm afraid that if I buy another pair of pants, it'll just be encouraging myself not to lose that weight. But at the same time, I don't want to be showing off my undies through the currently increasing holes in my pants.

Thanks again, guys.

Hi Arlem, I know exactly what you're talking about because I gained a lot of weight in college on cafeteria food too, and now I'm trying to get rid of it. Do you have a mini-fridge in your room? After the first two years I stopped eating breakfast at the dining hall (because it was all pancakes, muffins, sausages, etc) and started keeping cereal (Special K) and milk in my dorm room instead. I'm not a vegetarian, but I did eat an overwhelming amount of pasta and rice in college, and because of the timing I ate a LOT at a time. Maybe you could try buying a mini-fridge and keeping some fresh fruit to munch on for snacks or a bag of salad mix or something.

Unfortunately, I think college dining halls put a lot of crap in the food. For example, the vegetables always had a lot of butter on them, the pasta had oil poured on it so it wouldn't stick together, everything else was fried, etc. This makes everything a lot higher-calorie than it needs to be. I think my biggest problem at the dining hall was that the best-tasting food they made was dessert, and it was available at EVERY meal, so I ate a ton of brownies and cakes and pies. Sometimes I'd have a bowl of rice with some soy sauce for dinner, and then a piece of cheesecake, a brownie, and ice cream for dessert! Eating a lot of dessert is definitely something to look out for.

Personally, I was unable to stop gaining weight while I was eating at a dining hall. I was really bad about exercising (b/c I was "too busy") though. During the summers, I'd cook for myself, and so I wouldn't gain any weight there, but the dining hall is murder. One summer I did the Slim-Fast diet and lost 30 lbs (though I don't think it was very healthy, and now I am staying away from Slim-Fast), but I gained it all back in ONE semester.

In general, I think the more food you can eat in your room and not in the dining hall, the better off you will be. And obviously exercising more helps too. I think it's especially hard in college because you spend so much time sitting around studying instead of doing something more active. Good luck! If you are interested in stuff like Slim-Fast, you can buy meal bars or snack bars and keep them in your room too, and they will fill you up really well while you're waiting for a meal.

If you are avoiding the unappealing-looking vegetarian entrees in favor of pasta and rice, ceral and cookies, you are probably not getting much protein. This is going to make you hungrier, lethargic, and cause quicker weight gain. Do you eat dairy? If you have a mini-fridge, I'd suggest stocking up on lowfat cottage cheese and fruit, fresh vegetables to much on, natural peanut butter, and stay out of the pasta, rice and cookies. Eat small, frequent meals. Learn about how to eat a balanced vegetarian diet, rather than just avoid meat. When I spent 2 years not eating meat in college to avoid food service meals, I packed on about 25 pounds in those 2 years. Buckets of brown rice, no matter how healthy, will do that!

Mel

Actually, I've been veg for a long time (was raised that way and can't really imagine being different). So I do always try to keep the protein in mind, and I keep veggie hot dogs in my fridge. I do also have some good natural peanut butter (I LOVE peanut butter.. mmm...) and lately I've been into cheese. May not be the best solution, but a string cheese now and then can keep me going sometimes.

Cottage cheese is a good idea. I think I may get some.

I don't eat breakfast at the cafeteria for the same reasons, paperclippy. All I ever ate was whatever deep fried potato thing they had. I usually take a yogurt at dinner and just eat that the next morning. I also love Kashi cereal. Haha, a friend of mine who's always "on a very strict diet" was complaining about how she eats this gross out cereal every day. "What? I LOVE that stuff!"

Ooh, cafeteria's almost open. I think I'll run and stock up on carrot sticks! Thank you guys, your "support" means a lot!

I am a flexitarian-someone who eats meat, but chooses to eat vegetarian a couple days a week for health reasons.

I think that eating a balanced vegetarian diet is also very important. But-I do want to add that if you are eating the cottage cheese, yogurt, cheese sticks, etc. that you try to get the lower fat versions. (not fat free except maybe in milk or yogurt-but lower fat in the cheeses.)

I would also like to add that you try some "better" sources of vegetarian protein-like edamame, nuts, soymilk, legumes like red or black beans, etc. rather than soy/tofu "junk food" like hot dogs and lunch meats. There is a lot of vegetarian junk food out there.

I hear you with the cafeteria food - I gained about 20lbs myself. For me the biggest problem was the restricted hours. On weekends, dinner was at 5pm, and "brunch" was at 11am the next day - no wonder we all ate mountains of popcorn etc! I was on a restricted budget and didnt have a fridge, so in desperation, I started smuggling food out the caf to eat for snacks (this was a big no-no since our caf was 'all you can eat" and the caf didn't want people feeding their roommates for free) - sadly, the easiest food to smuggle was muffins - more correctly called cakes! Things really did get better when I moved off campus and had more control over my food.