Freshman 15

Hi. I am a college athlete and have always struggled with my weight due to family genes and having a muscular body type, which in this day in age is unheard of :). I have always balanced my awful eating habits with the fact that I was playing a sport but now that I have hit college, bad eating habits are fatal because of the cafeteria food. I was wondering if anyone has good alternatives to cafeteria food that I could try?

I'm a fellow college freshman who had a similar problem with the dreaded 15. The first semester I gained a bunch of weight from the cafe and from other weekend activities even though I was staying active at the gym and on the Ult. Frisbee team (we run ALOT). This semester, I've started only drinking water and green tea because it kicks up your metabolism and has ZERO calories so you can save your calories for the good foods and not the beverages. A lot I try not to go to the cafe when I'm starving. I'll chew on gum, or eat a cracker before I go in to the cafe so my eyes aren't completely dictating how much food I'm going to eat. I also start every meal off with a salad with low fat dressing. It allows the body to fill up on the low calorie food so you will eat less of the higher calorie selections. Hope this helps!! Good luck.

I'm a college junior, and I agree that its hard to eat right when you eat a college cafeteria.  There are alot of unhealthy choices there.  Recently, I quit drinking sodas and drink only water now.  That will significantly cut calories.  I only eat salad at lunch, and at dinner I eat the cafeteria meal.  And I cut out ice cream and alot of other sweets.  I started to go on a diet about a month ago, started out at 205lbs, and I am now at 199.

Thank you so much for your replies :). Congrats on your weight loss. Lately I have been eating a lot of tofu and veggies, open faced sandwiches and all wheat products, though i love my sourdough bread.

I am also a college freshman, i came to university to play on the volleyball team so i started training, conditioning, weight lifting, practicing and all that stuff, so I know I put on muslce weight, but i also know that the dreaded cafeteria has put on a few too, i was 155 the first weigh in right when i got here, i jumped to 170 but now im closer to 161, i dont know how much is 'weight' and how much is muslce from my new workouts... I dont know where to set my goal weight anymore, but im going to try 145? Does anyone have any other good cafeteria secrets? ( i go to school in MS,USA and every meal contains fried chicken, cornbread, grits, etc.etc.) I try my best to use the salad bar every single meal but i was wondering about any other good choices i might be missing??