Controlling calorie intake at the dining hall...

So I go to a school that has one of the best institutional dining halls in the country (alternately, has what was named the best institutional gym in the country by sports illustrated, but that doesn't help much when it is ALWAYS full).   The food is all you can eat style, and there is lots to choose from - but nowhere with specific calorie listings (other than the one smoothie station in one dining hall) - not even the website has them.  Then, even so, the calorie content on some things varies by who is making it - for example - there are omlette stations where you can order eggs with whatever you want in them, what type of grease they use on the pan (olive oil, pam, butter) and what type of eggs they use (whole, egg whites - from a frozen egg whites carton, and egg beaters.) but different people throw different amounts of everything in.

Beyond that, there is no real way to measure scoops of things or any of that.  Today, I finally decided to try to track some calories, and found that the burger that I ate at dinner alone was probably about 500 calories, and that is without cheese!

I've been doing salads with every meal, and trying to stick to water and black coffee for drinks, but does any seasoned campus dweller have suggestions (I already have 1 college degree, but this is new to me, I lived at home for my last school!)

Remember the basic portion rule: 1/2 of your plate filled with veggies/fruits, 1/4 with carbs, 1/4 with protein.  Use the smallest plates they have if you want to eat less.  Use portion estimation sites (http://www.ped.med.utah.edu/pku/pdf/portion.p df is a good one) and don't take anything too greasy.  Watch out for soup and mexican-type food, as they tend to be high in sodium.  Stick to poultry for meat if you can.

Which website has the menu?  If you post it, we can see the food choices and advise further.

http://www.uga.edu/foodservice/

Not that it'll help a whole ton... I'm pretty sure they only list the rotating menu.  But there is the norm -lots of junk, a salad bar (which I frequent but it gets boring) and though they have 'vegetarian' and 'heart healthy 30% or less saturated fat' foods, they are usually pretty calorie filled all on their own.

I read your post and thought, "That sounds like the dining halls of my school, I remember Snelling's omelette stations", and who would've known?  That's the one you're talking about!  I know how hard it is to eat well there, because there's so much variety and everything is so freaking good there!  They have sandwich stations there, and the students who work at them will usually be willing to build it the way you want.  You can go light on condiments and heavy on veggies, and you can even ask them to show you what kind of bread they're using so you can look up it's content later.  And they always have the salad bars (it does get boring I know, but it has some great variety...).  And the hot food bar usually has a good veggie side dish, and often a lighter meat option (than say, the grill).  I'm afraid you'll probably just have to estimate everything.  That's what I do whenever I go out to restaurants, I'll just look up a comparable dish on CC's database and use it, or log each individual ingredient.  I've been measuring everything so long, I've gotten pretty good at estimating serving sizes (cups, ounces, grams, you name it!).  

Ohh, I haven't really tried the sandwhich places yet..always so busy, but I did notice today that the East Campus commons (I think it's rather new) that they have soy wraps as well as whole wheat wraps.  I may try that tomorrow... and for breakfast I've been trying my hardest to stick to scrambled eggs and such things that I know I can count on being a certain calorie amount - and staying away from the oh so good waffles, pancakes, and french toast sticks (which I am pretty sure are fried... so I should really avoid them).

Oh, and the grill... always soo good but so unhealthy.  They do grilled chicken fillets... but then they shove them on huge buns - usually white because they run out of whole wheat... then I found that the buns alone are probably about 3-400 empty calories.  I've also been trying to avoid the desert areas... always hard because they have all the home made cakes and different specials everyday. I was in Vermont planning on them having nasty dining hall food that I could only eat enough to not be hungry... but I got way more than I bargained for.

I get the "grilled" chicken breast a lot. I just take off the bun and trash it. Then I go to the salad bar and get a bunch of veggies and chop up the chicken breast into it - then I have grilled chicken salad. It's one of my favorite meals. 

I also get hard boiled eggs from the salad bar a lot. They're a huge staple in my diet - I know they're always about 75 cals and they're so healthy and filling. I also will make "egg salad" with 2 hard boiled eggs and a few more egg whites and then a little dressing (low fat balsamic vinaigrette) - that's a good one. I eat the prepackaged yogurts a lot (we have chobani greek yogurt!) and cottage cheese (it's 2% in our cafeteria, I eat nonfat at home but oh well, you win some you lose some). I got whatever came from the pasta station a lot first semester becuase it was similar to what my mom would make at home - but the difference is, at home we normally didn't have pasta :-P She would make grilled eggplant with marinara sauce or seafood marinara but it was just soooo much lower in cal. I dunno, I avoid that like the plague. To me the best thing to get in the morning is cereal and fruit or I have oatmeal in my room and I mix a banana and skim milk into that. That way I really know what I'm getting. Even the eggs they put a ton of oil into it it's really ridiculous. 

Does your school have veggie burgers? They probably should and you can get that, remove the bun (or half the bun) and load up on veggies. You could even supplement from the salad bar.

Good luck. Dieting in college is hard.

They have veggie burgers, but they are always cold, hard, and nasty.  With the salad bar, I have been doing the hard boiled egg thing too, but we have some pre chopped so I put a bit of egg and a bit of turkey on my salads instead of any salad dressing.  I figure that cuts down some on extra cals (or at least makes them healthy ones).

I'm slowly but surely learning what to avoid... so true about the scrambled eggs too, they are a bit shiney at my school, but still way better than making them myself at the apt (especially with not having to do dishes at the hall).  We have yogurt in the salad bar, and I had thought about it, then I thought about what all could have fallen into it (ewww) so I passed on it.  lol

Also, if you want bread with your grilled chicken, the people at the sandwich stations are usually happy to give you just bread, so you don't have to use the bun.  At the grill, I know that a lot of people asked for no oil, and they would cook the meat on the grill with just water (or Pam if they requested it).

Don't forget about the cereal stations they have there as well, those at least are very easy to look up the calorie information!

I never got to try out East Campus, they were still building it when I graduated...I think they opened it up for use the year after.