For those in college, or those quickly approaching it, beware!!! The Freshman Fifteen - the bane of college calorie counters everywhere - is ready to take a new group of victims on campuses nationwide this fall!

For those who have felt the pain of the 15lbs of cafeteria food, hanging out in the dorm, not having your highschool extracurriculars, and just being too darned lazy to get out and about, join me in losing that weight! :) As an upcoming junior in college, i'm still waging war against the last 10lbs - who's with me?!?

*EDIT*

August 4th, 2008

To anyone just seeing this topic, please know that you're still welcome to join us! There are voluntary weigh-ins each Wednesday if you're interested. Whether you're headed to college, in it, or leaving it we're happy to have you! :D

I am sooo with you!

I'm also going to be a junior and I'm transferring schools for the second time in the fall.  So, getting used to a new routine again might be difficult but I'll be at a big university with amazing exercise facilities and intramural sports and a wonderful, varied cafeteria, and will have my own kitchen as well. Hooray!

Right now I really am going to have trouble losing weight while at home for the summer, though.  It's hard to suddenly have a kitchen full of food... I'm constantly wanting to pick and eat everything in sight.  I just got a membership to the gym though, and my goal is to go at least 5 days a week.

That's great, eaturn! My school is huge too... lots of great exercise facilities... I'm hoping that over the summer, I'll get into the habit of exercising, so that I'll actually go and use them in the fall! Good luck with your summer workout routine! :D

i am SO with both of you.  i just finished my freshman year at school.  i went to a school in the city, and coming from the suburbs was not used to all the walking etc, and actually lost a good 5 pounds from my already skinny frame when i got there.  however, since second semester, i have gained about 15 pounds from the stress of finals, etc.  i am now 140, 20 pounds over my "normal" weight from before school.  lets do this!

I know how that feels, shiningstarrr - I've got to have my hardcore library time during finals. I just can't concentrate to sit on a bike or run and study... I'm one of those that has to be "in the zone". It's rough eating healthy on campus, but we can help train ourselves over the summer, so that we'll be better in the fall! :) Welcome to the group!

I'll be a freshman in the fall. Yikes! I'm moving to a big city. And I still have a lot of weight to lose!

Thank goodness my school requires all the students to either play a sport or take some fitness class. I plan to not only not gain 15 pounds freshman year, I plan to lose all the weight I need to lose by this time next year. :)

That's great! Sounds like a good way to keep the students involved and healthy. :D You go girl, be proactive and don't let it get you down :)

Ahh such a good topic, because it really affects so many of us! I actually had the good fortune to live in a residence that had no meal plan, so I actually dropped about 15 pounds in first year. My problem was turning 19 in 2nd year... suddenly I could afford alcohol and be involved in all the bar-hopping everyone else seemed to do. Hehehe yeah, lots of fun and good memories, but also much flabbier body from it =(

My school's gym is really really tiny and stinky. It's in a basement, and you're only allowed inside the cardio room for 30 minutes. Then the weight room has an extra fee on top of what's allowed, and it's FULL of the varsity athletes. I used to go at 6am just so I use equipment; otherwise, I felt like I was preventing my school's athletes from getting the training they needed haha...

Ah well, yay for student life! And it's so easy to be healthy. From my end, it's the alcohol that's gotta go. Beyond that, I'm trying to enjoy the few years of my life where it's fairly easy to lose weight, and I don't have any worries about baby weight to take off or slowed down metabolism, muscle loss, or any of the other issues that I know will come up in a decade (or two!)...

Bilaya- that's intense! Kudos for picking a school like that. I think it's a great idea for an educational institution to promote a healthy body as well as a great mind. That's fab

Hi Jeccababe! I know that that peer pressure is rough... truth be told, I probably only gained about 5lbs freshman year. Then I gained 10 sophomore year! I started drinking a little when I turned 20, but I never felt like I physically saw anything materialize because of that. I didn't make myself sick, I just only drank once every other weekend or every 3 weekends or something.

But I'm so glad that you want to join us and that you're doing something about it! :) That really stinks about not having decent facilities in your school =/ is there any outdoor recreational room? Intermural fields or anything of that nature? Could be good for outdoor sports/activities. (I used to try to do calesthenics on the bed in my dorm because there was just no room on the floor! hehe.

Ugh, I definitely gained like... the freshman 25. College food is so **** terrible for you - I refuse to keep eating it. I plan to stock my dorm next year with healthy food and avoid the crap on campus.

Nutrition in a lot of college cafeterias is horrible! The food is typically of a very low quality and the only thing not doused in oil and salt is salad. Lets face it, salad gets old when its the only thing you can eat!! Welcome to the group, amyru!

Hey, I'm so with you guys!  I'm just finishing up my freshman year (I'm on the quarter system...weird I know), and I gained about 8 pounds.  I didn't gain anything fall quarter, but then winter quarter came and it's really cold at my school, and studying always makes me want to eat because it's just so darn depressing, and food makes me happy!! Lol.  I plan on taking off that 8 pounds plus more this summer, and getting into a healthy diet/exercise routine before coming back to school in the fall.

Like many people have already said, I've found that dining halls have hoooorrible food nutrition wise!  Sometimes I feel like the only thing I can eat is salad, and they don't even have that many low calorie dressings.  For anyone living in a dorm, what's your favorite alternative to the crappy dining hall food??

Don't hate me, but I also had the "freshman 25," only it was more like the "-25." I was in the res halls my first year with no car, so I walked everywhere, wheras in HS (even though I lived literally a block away from my school) I would drive and park really close. The dining hall at my school is great-- better than home, in fact, because they are really dilligent about offering as many healthy/portion-controlled options as possible, as well as making sure absolutely everything was labelled with info on calories, fat, sodium--the works. They even posted menus with nutrition facts online, weeks ahead of time. It was like being at some kind of camp where you learned to eat reasonably.

Ugh - that sounds amazing!  Why can't my school be like that?? Lol.

Wow, ceyx! That's great though =) I wish all schools would advocate better health in their students by making ALL nutrition information available where the food is being served.

In my second semester, my school began installing 1 computer booth per cafeteria where you could look up nutrition information. (which is clearly not enough when you're combating a bunch of other students to get your food!) Having the information available BEFORE the food is being served is great! I wish they'd practice ANY kind of portion control at most universities too. And as for losing 25lbs? Congrats! :) Everyone here knows that that kind of weight loss doesn't just happen. It takes a lot of work!

Hi Carrie! :) I'm glad to see more joining our ranks! I think the thing about studying is that it totally exhausts you mentally... and since you feel tired, the answer is generally "Well, I must need more fuel!", which translates into more food, which translates into more weight!

With the dressing problem, my school is horrible about that too. I finally resulted to just going to the small on-campus (overpriced!) grocery store and picking up some Kraft FREE! Italian to take with me to the cafeteria. I'd just put it on a small side part of my plate and dip my salad into it :) Much better than whatever "diet" stuff is parading around the salad bar ;)

My favorite alternative? Well, at my school, they also have "meal equivalency" if you're on a meal plan which is $4.55 that can be used once during a lunch or dinner meal period to buy overpriced groceries from said on-campus store or at a few different dining hall restaurants (Pizza Hut, a burger place, etc.). I discovered that the grocery place would occasionally stock Lean Cuisines :) I would just go use my meal equiv. and get one of those (They were like $5.00, so it only cost me about 50 cents!) Yum :)

Yeah flexible meal plans are great. If you can pick a plan that has fewer meals per week, you can definitely eat elsewhere and make it healthy. At my school, they offer 19, 17, 14, 12, or 10 meals/week packages. Then you get a certain amount of cash to spend at the restaurants, much like hharris described. If you're lucky, you can use that cash to buy some goodies... the food court I know has sushi, sandwiches, lots of salads, even hummus and pita, veggie cups, and lots of fresh fruit. So if there are options like that, use them! They're more expensive than making those things from scratch (like, apples shouldn't be $1 each!), but it's money you're spending anyways... and better spent on something you'll eat than on some food that's making you feel miserable.

Healthy dorm snacks are things like nuts, or apples, bananas, granola bars, apple sauce cups, pretzels, peanut butter, etc. If you don't have a fridge, you can use any of those things. With a fridge, add some veggie sticks and hummus or tzatziki dip to what you keep. Some milk doesn't go astray, as it's a filling evening snack. I'm a fruit nut, so I always had fruit in my room. And I can replace a meal with a little peanut butter on a thin pita... yum!

I'm pretty excited about this upcoming year. I'm moving into an apartment building that has a fitness room, so while it'll be small, I doubt it will be as packed as the school one. I was thinking about playing rugby this year, but I've never been "tough", know what I mean? I've always been pretty weak, and I'm not sure how much headway I'll make over the summer! If all else fails, yay for running clubs :)

Wow, that's a lot of options! I've been getting the 10 meals/wk + 300 dining dollars (what the school-caf currency is called where I'm at). I'll definitely have to take your advice on some of those snacks! Hummus = delicious!

I'm sure you'll do great at rugby. Probably one of those sports where they "toughen you up" when you start. Maybe some weightlifting over the summer would give you a bit of an edge? :)

I'm definitely working on the weight lifting! I've got 4 weeks in, and I am mecca stronger than before haha... I know I'll have a much better chance for survival by the end, but I have huge steps to take before I get to the whole, tough point haha.

How are you finding the time away from school? Do you think it's waaay easier to be healthy at home? I don't think I'm as active on a day-to-day basis, because my parents think it's necessary to drive EVERYWHERE. I used to walk for groceries, walk to class, walk for coffee, etc etc. Now they do all that stuff, and they insist on driving. So the exercise of necessity (ex, walking 20 minutes to and from the grocery store) is now gone, and I'm just getting my intentional exercise in. It kinda blows! What's everyone doing through the summer to be more active, now that most stress is gone?

Well, honestly, I find that I'm MUCH healthier at home. At school, we had campus busses (I'm from the southern US) and it is either 40 degrees or 90 depending on the season. Its like we skip fall and spring! So, on the temperate days, I walked the very hilly campus to and from class, but the majority of the time, I took the bus. I didn't get much exercise in aside from those occasional walks.

Now that I'm home, I'm working a desk job for 9 hrs a day, which is rough, but I don't keep snacks around, so I'm VERY good about only eating what I've packed. (and I don't bring money with me, so that I can't go to the snack machines, lol) It usually consists of a 170cal peanut butter bar for breakfast, a 140-180cal grab bag of baked chips for a snack, and a 140-250cal Smart Ones frozen lunch. When I get home, I still have 400-600ish calories for a snack before the gym and whatever my mom makes for dinner. (She's pretty good about cooking something healthy since my dad is a diabetic and watching his intake too.) Actually, my dad works where I'm interning, and we both keep tabs on one another as sort of diet-partners. i've been trying to get him to use CC since i've been home to help him too! :) As of yesterday, I'm going to try to get myself to go to the gym for at least 1hr of exercise after work 5 days a week.

So the gist of that overly long answer to your question was: Home. I'm better at regulating and I actually have time for exercise! lol.

Hey, those are great snack ideas, thanks!  That's a great idea about bringing your own salad dressing too.  I normally keep some fruit in my room - stealing fruit from the dining hall is one of my favorite pastimes, lol.  Unfortunately, sometimes they don't even have good fruit, but when they do, I stock up!

I have a 13 meal/week plan, and about 32 "points" (1 point = 1 dollar) to use at a la carte places throughout the quarter.  Our meal plans aren't very flexible unless you have a block plan, which means you get a certain number of meals and points for the entire quarter all at the beginning, but I did the math and you get way less for your money with those plans.  So basically, I eat cereal for breakfast in my room, and I pretty much have to eat in the dining hall for all of my other meals.

I hope I'll be healthier at home, but honestly I'm not sure!  I won't be walking as much, but I want to start running every morning.  If I can convince my mom to buy some good low calorie stuff, I should be okay.  One good thing is that we normally don't have a lot of dessert stuff at home, unlike school where there's always dessert in the dining halls!