How to eat at university?

[NeedPerfection]

I'm going off to college next year and I really don't want to get the freshman 15. I can eat healthy at home, because I go grocery shopping every weekend and have easier access to healthy food at home. I rarely bought food from my school cafeteria, since majority of the food is unhealthy.

I checked the university menu, but they have no nutrition facts! Most of the food looks unhealthy for me. Basically they have pizza, pasta, and deli (except it's basiscally cheese) I would rather cook and prepare my own food (since I rarely like to go out to eat). But the problem is that I'm living in a dorm instead of apartment style living place.

Any tips on how to make healthy choices in the cafeteria (since I'm basically obligated)? Does anyone cook their own food in their dorms? I need to lower my body fat percentage and can't increase my fat percentage even more!

[jth16]

I was in the same boat as you three years ago. I ended up gaining ~20lbs from the food in the cafeteria, although the choices were mine, there weren't many healthy choices. I saw how bad my physique looked, got a doc excuse saying I couldn't eat the cafeteria food, because of the high sodium, got off the meal plan and went from 236lbs-185lbs over the course of 28 weeks for a bodybuilding competition.

I cooked all of my meals in the dorm. We weren't supposed to be able to cook in the dorms, but I had a lenient RA and he let me have a george foreman grill in the room, if he hadn't have let me I would have just hidden it. It's certainly not the easiest situation, but if you're willing to take the time to prepare all your meals then it can definitely be done if you have a small grill and a microwave available.

-Jordan

[rickymartinn]

don't eat foods that look unhealthy, thats the best advice as I can give you. Try and not over eat too, also, your friends will have an impact on what you eat. Avoid the dessert section as those dinner ice cream frozen yogurts can pack a punch on your diet. Eat a salad before eating a meal with a light oil or vin dressing then just try and eat healthy. Avoid fried foods and look for grilled meats to eat, drink like 2-3 glasses of water before each meal too, that will help fill you up along w the salad

[hrg217]

I went through the same problem as you and I learned to rely a lot on the deli section- I'd have a lot of turkey/lettuce/hummus on whole wheat sandwiches. There was always fruit at my dining hall which i ate and would take back to my dorm for snacks. Breakfast wasnt much of a problem, as i could eggwhite omlettes or just have oatmeal.
Bottom Line is this: It was hard the first few weeks, but I eventually I got used to the dining hall enough that I could manipulate it to fit my diet. You wont truley know the situation in terms of what the dining hall offers until you go there. There is alot the dining hall may have that they simply dont list.
If you want, you could post the link to the menu so people could see what is being advertised as being offered and make specific recomendations.
Best of luck

[blitzen25bm]

Keep a lot of stuff you don't need to cook, canned tuna, peanut butter, whole wheat crackers and trail mix etc. Eat some lighter stuff at the dining hall for breakfast, oats, cereal, scambled eggs or omelettes and fruit. Then for lunch you can prepare a sandwich or salad and take with you to eat between classes. Dinner can be vegetables and brown rice that you can cook in the microwave add that to a piece of rotisserie chicken you can can pick up from the grocery store. That chicken is very versatile, cheap and you can keep it for like a week in the fridge.

[eric30]

stack up your plate at the salad bar, and stay away from the grills..