College student weight gain

[channelly210]

Hello Everyone, it's been years since I've been on here. When I first started on here, I was heavily into health and fitness and weight training. But then, I got to college, and it's my 3rd year and I've gained around 20 pounds. Now, it's super hard for me to lose the weight. I feel like I have no idea what to do. Also, I think I've messed up my metabolism by eating too few calories during the week, and eating way too many during the weekends. Does anyone have any advice on how I can get back on track, transform my body, and stick to a healthy fit lifestyle??

[morgankerr]

The same thing happened to me :/ Honestly, when it comes to sticking to it, you HAVE to have self control and discipline. There's no one stopping you from getting to your goal except you! I started following a bunch of fitness tumblr blogs and instagram accounts, which bombarded me with motivational images of fit, healthy people every day. I also paid more attention to fit people around me. I didn't compare myself to them (NEVER do that because you'll just bring yourself down and start an unhealthy cycle of bad thoughts), I just thought, "Hm, they look great and I will too someday!" Also, condition yourself to like healthy things. Craving sweets? Eat strawberries! Craving meat? Eat some grilled chicken!

I gave up alcohol completely, but if you MUST drink it, I guess limit yourself to a drink or two with a diet chaser. Weekends are hard because there's a pressure to stay out late, eat terribly, and drink yourself to death, but is it worth it?

And then there's exercise. I had access to a gym for a while, but I don't now, so I just look up bodyweight exercises on YouTube and work out in my room. There's actually a lot more you can do with just your body than you think.

[Amanda76]

Actually, if you re-read your post, you know exactly what you need to do. Stop eating too little during the week and too much during the weekends.

It is unlikely that there is anything wrong with your metabolism. You just need to put the extra effort into following a meal plan. If you commute to school, keep a cooler in your car. If you take the transit system or your dorm is too far away and classes too close together for you to keep your food there, it sucks to have to carry food/empty containers with you all day, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Gotta go to work straight after? Make sure you're prepared for that, too. It's not difficult once you've changed your habits, but it can be a PITA to get started. And sometimes it's so tempting to get lazy (we all do that from time to time...).

I think the biggest issue people have is probably living in dorms without much personal space to store food and sometimes not many options to prepare food. But it normally can be done. If your primary source of feeding yourself is some kind of school meal plan, that can cause issues, too...but the trick to that is selecting the simplest foods (stuff that is least likely to have "hidden calories" due to preparation) and bringing leftovers home for another meal (bring a cooler for that purpose if you need to) if you know the serving size is more than you want at the time.

So far as the weekends go...the first few will probably be difficult as you change your habits, but once you see results you'll be more motivated. 20 lbs isn't too much to lose...you can get that done by the start of summer if you're dedicated!

Does your campus have a fitness center (better check into that because I can almost assure you, you are paying for it regardless of whether you use it)? What about commuter lobbies (there might be a fridge in/near a building you use where you can store, microwave and eat food, study, sleep in the corner, or whatever)? Your campus should have something along the lines of a student life office that can introduce you to amenities you might not be aware of to help you out. I went to a tiny little junior college that had a gym pretty much nobody knew about. It was tiny but it had a power rack and heavy stuff to lift. I wouldn't have known about it without asking around...