Freshmen 15

Are any college students out there familiar with the concept of "Freshmen 15"? Do you know why freshmen tend to gain so much weight in their first year of college/ have any suggestions to prevent it?

well basically they gain weight because now there on there own and they choose to eat bad foods usually.. maybe that or some other reasons. like for me at UH we have a cafeteria and most of the freshman eat there. its like 1 block or 4.50 and its all you can eat.. thats most likely why people gain weight. i don't ever eat there and i always cook my own food. if you wanna prevent yourself from gaining weight, just be aware of how much your eating. if you do your gonna be fine.

Not in college anymore but I did just graduate pretty recently.  I think the "Freshman 15" usually happens for a few reasons:

1. With class schedules and studying people tend to eat at weird times (2 a.m. while writing a paper due the next day) and skip working out (if you do that)  If you're a bored eater or you eat while you read etc. you can actually end up taking in a lot more than you intended to without even realizing it.

2. It's easier to order pizza, chinese, go to restaurants etc. than it is to actually cook and plan out meals for one person.

3. Partying and all of the interesting binges that go with it.  Hello McDonald's at 1 a.m.

The way to avoid it is really pretty simple.  Try to actually keep a handle on what you're eating and when.  Avoid snacking when you're not actually hungry or at least keep some healthy snacks around.  If you eat out frequently, try to choose healthier foods the majority of the time (nothing wrong with treating yourself once in a while).  If you enjoy working out try to make time for it.  It helps me to actually plan it into my day rather than just assume I'll be able to get a workout in at some point.

Don't worry, you're not doomed to gain it just because you're a Freshman :)

i'm not in college anymore, but i sure can recall back when i was ;)

i'm sure the concept was originated long before our time. things you do your freshman year in college:

Live in the dorms/apts, a new found freedom, no specific daily schedules- throws your sleeping patterns and eating habits out of whack, sleep late (if at all), procrastination causing crash study sessions, coffee drinking, soda drinking, alcohol drinking(under age drinking is bad, but it does happen), lots of partying, Pre-paid food causing you to eat what they serve you or have on campus, quick and easy food is preferrable to college students stocking up on microwavable, high in sodium, processed foods if not hitting up the fast food joints on or around campus, no physical education requirement in college ;)

all these things can add pounds. high school gives you structure...they tell you when you can eat, make you take physical education, you go the same time everyday, you sleep the same time, you know what's due and when to study...structure is good if you don't know how to discipline yourself.

so keep those things in mind. go to college, take it in, have fun...if you are concerned about your weight, don't do anything excessive. always do things in moderation.

Where I go the caf has a few sections where food is served or prepared for you. Wehave one of those custom stir fry spots, a sub station, a pizza spot (that serves dessert pizza as well) a grill, and a 'comfort food' section. There is also a dessert bar.

The healthy options are the salad bar, the soup of the day, or the vegan  bar generally.

Remember... this is all you can eat. Swipe your card and go. Most people will go for pizza or baked mac and cheese before they will go for turmeric seasoned eggplant and ginger wild rice with a side salad.

At the end of the week if people have left over meals they will often use them up rather than letting the money go to waste. You know what this means? Sundaes late at night!

I have also noticed that few people rate going to the gym as being important enough when a) they have too many readings and an essay to write or b) when they are recovering from yet another hangover. 

That brings me to the last major point... BEER. There is a reason we call it a 'beer belly'. Beer causes nice flat abs to form into it. Beer is the enemy. Liquors aren't much better- it is 80 cal/shot. Many a party involves lining up shots (usually 10) and getting one person to go one after the other. 800 calories. Yes... I have done this, once and decided that calories aren't worth it. You can party without being tipsy.

So how not to gain the freshman 15? Exercise, avoid junk foods, eat your veggies, resist dessert binges, and don't drink in excess. 

BEER for one. Don't drink beer.

For two, I agree with the rest. the Caf. For my (last year) it was like I felt I had to get my moneys worth every time I went. I usually left with about 3 cookies and ate two before I left. I'd start with cereal, french fries, pizza, maybe some other stuff... but all in all thats what made me gain weight.

Once I moved into my apt. and started making my own food I'm baffled at how much I ate in the dorms! CRAZY!!! I only put on about 3 lbs in college I was up to 128lb. But now I'm at 120, I'd say it's my healthy weight.. I don't count calories or anything crazy, but at 128 I was getting a little pudge lol. I carry my weight strangely, I'm real tall but really slender so it's very obvious.

Go to the gym.

Thank you for all of your responses!

How do you think we should schedule our meals, make choices, and schedule class to avoid these problems you mentioned such as eating pizza at 2 in the morning?

Once gaining this weight, was it very hard to lose?

 

stick with liquor and cook for yourself.

In reply to your last questions.

For me the weight came of immediately. Like as soon as I stopped eating in the dining hall it came off.

And honestly, eating pizza at 2am is a drinking thing- my dorms aren't open that late so just don't eat then! And honestly, just because your in college the whole idea of food is the same. Eat at mealtimes. Eat when your hungry. Just make smart decisions and don't go crazy in the dining hall or playing beer pong all nights of the week.

Don't let your fear of gaining the "freshman fifteen" lead you to obsessing. I know that in college my roommate whom I had gone to highschool with was so afraid of gaining the dreaded freshman 15 that she actually ended up moving home because she developed excersize-bulimia/anorexia nervosa.

"freshman fifteen" -- i gained some of it bc it was easier to grab a donut in the morning than wait in line for something healthier (which honestly couldn't have been all that healthier) and my freshman year was spent on a small campus that didn't really serve fruits (ah, but I petitioned and changed that! baha!) So my first semester I gained a few pounds (i'd be willing to put the estimate at 15-20).  My second semester, I became paranoid and ate only from teh salad bar... it turned out that no one ate from there, so the line was shorter and I was able to be in and out a lot quicker.  I started working out too, doing pilates in my dorm room twice a day for forty minutes each, and that was a lot of fun.  My first semester of my sophomore year was just as good for this, but then I discovered chicken pot pie in a bread bowl, and I had it for lunch AND dinner with a side of mashed potatoes and mac and cheese.  I HAD gotten down to 170ish (still overweight, obviously) before such a discovery, but I eventually worked my way back up to 180ish.  OH YEAH, my starting weight in freshman year was 220ish! So I had lost fifty pounds before I discovered that oh-so-mouth-watering dish.

It's a lot easier now that I live somewhere where I don't have five roommates, a ridiculously tiny kitchen, and I don't have a meal plan.  My kitchen, although nowhere near teh caliber of kitchen i would WANT to have, leaves me space for my food scale, tea brewer, and my weird healthy foods (which when sharing an apartment with junk food addicts, had to be stored in my bedroom).  I'm down to what I was in sophomore year, and I plan on getting lower (obviously) ... so it's all about how you treat it.

Btw, the soups can be pretty high calorie in the soup and salad bar.  And don't go too heavy on the dressing! Or stuff like bacon bits and sunflower seeds. ANd what you drink (be it soda or beer) does add up! 

Okay this was a lame post. Good luck! :-)

btw, I find I have a lot more free time in college than I did in highschool, and hte awkward class schedules (oh how I love it) allow for working out.  If you don't live on campus, go to hte library, hit the gym, then go back... that way you're doing your studying and your working out all at one shot.  If you have to be on campus all day anyway, might as well use your resources!

Thanks. You are really inspiring and that soup comment was really interesting!!

Last year was definitely Freshmen 15 for me... more like freshman 25 :( But I have managed to lose it all by now :) I think it also gave me a food addiction/obsession though.

How it happened for me / things not to fall for:

-cake every night / after every meal - it was just a social event for me, and it was always good. I always thought, what can one piece of cake do to me! Now I know :(

-Also.... social eating!! This is a big one!! You have dinner, and than your friend asks you if you want to go to dinner with him/her.... and you go cause your a good friend, and end up getting more food.

-pizza almost everyday - just grab and go in between classes when your in a rush, the fastest thing, already made

-muffins for breakfast. I thought they were healthy. :( Now I know, at 10+ grams of fat per muffin and 300-400 calories....

-I never ate vegetables.
Towards the end of the year, I became very weight conscious and started eating salads. BUT I was still an idiot - I hate chicken ceasar salad w/ bacon bits, a ton of dressing and cheese. That's how they made it for me :( Again, now I know better and would never order that.

-Donuts/muffins that stare at you all day long. In the main lobby of every building, they have a cafe with racks of that stuff. Or hot chocolate/french vanilla. How can I resist??? I didn't :(
Again, I didnt think a donut could be THAT harmful.

-The meals are expensive - ex: $10 for a plate of pasta. So obviously, they are BIG portions. And what this idiot here do? She ate it all.... (& the cake afterwards)

-Drinks: not just alcohol, but also with every meal - that coke or fruit juice or smoothie.
And alcohol - high calories. And if you are drunk/high - well depending on you, you might tend to go crazy with food like me. Speaking, talking, acting and eating with no inhibitions.

OK - I think I'm done my rant. I'm definitely bitter about those 25 pounds, but I've learnt a lot. And unfortunately, because I became so weight conscious - I became very health/food conscious... maybe overly conscious to the point where I wonder if I have a food obsession.

But seriously - if you are conscious about your weight already and aware of all this, I think you'll be fine. No worries. Its just the idiots (like me, back in the day) who fall for stuff like that.

C_jamie is right... I think that the freshman 15 only applies to those who don't know and or understand calories in calories out and the amount of cal per food.

I used to go down and get a huge bowl of granola, hey, I thought granola=good! Little did I know that bowl of granola I was eating had like 500+calories.

Just be aware, youll be fine!

Don't go into it feeling like you will gain 15 pounds. I, for one, lost 30 pounds or so freshman year. I still allowed myself to indulge occasionally, but I ate a lot of salads (lots of veggies, little dressing, with some turkey) and fruit and limited my desserts to maybe once a week.

It also helps if you have healthy foods in your dorm room (assuming you will be living in one). I ate a lot of oatmeal for breakfast and had soups and/or sandwiches for lunches pretty frequently. And I definitely didn't feel like I was wasting my "points" because the leftover points I had from not eating at the cafeteria I could spend at the little campus grocery store.

And just make sure you exercise! Sign up for a class if you need that extra motivation/incentive to do it. 

Thanks for that rant C_jamie! It had a lot of helpful hints.

Wow congrats k915! That is amazing!! That was a really good idea to use your extra points like that. Did you go in hoping to lose weight/worried about gaining?

While I never actually gained the "freshman 15" I am well aware of the phenomena. It is sad that kids going off the college are so oblivious to unhealthy vs. healthy food because for the past 17 years (+/- some) their parents have been making them meals!

Another reason for the weight gain could be from stress - and most people turn to food for stress

There is also the partying & binge drinking component & the staying up late to study & getting the munchies & ordering pizza

Plus working out sounds like Japanese to everyone who first starts at college because they are so over whelmed with the new environment!  

In terms of prevention: daily exercise, watching food type intake & NOT binge drinking is definitely the "cure" - good luck!

I didn't end up gaining the "Freshman 15" but I did gain some weight. Now as a sophomore, I'm working to get it off.

I work out 3x a week, try to eat salads for 2 meals a day (with some sort of protein on them) and have almost successfully cut out the soda from my diet. Those three things have done wonders for my weight loss.

i ended up gaining weight im sure i was on my way to freshman 15- im still a freshman and i really think its because of the vending machines and the unhealthy food served in the caf like all the fried food and i know at my school you pay 7 bucks to enter the buffet section and u have unlimited access to the drinks fried food junk food and ice cream and such

i also think its because we snack alot in college btw classes btw study breaks and such- and snacks for us usually is candy or cookies or things like this

and ofcourse theres the partying tht goes on

even tho i commute i still feel tht im out of the house so i drink coffee and eat from outside on the days tht im super hungry

but i think freshman 15 cud be easily avoided if we just actually made time to have a real meal and limited the junk food and with the dorms i completley agree just stock up on healthy food :)

There are many reasons for the Freshman 15:

1) Drinking

2) Meal plans -> many cafeterias offer much more food than you'd normally have at home: at my caf, we get three desserts, a full main course, and unlimited salad. I, for one, never ate that much at home. Then, of course, there are the ingredients used (making healthy choices sometimes isn't enough).

3) Being alone, bored, anxious and depressed -> in my case this brought on the binge

4) Lack of exercise -> we spend a lot more time just sitting at our desks studying and in class

It's because of all the excess drinking and pot smoking.. which happens late at night.. which leads to binging out.