Ways to Stay Fit While Living on Campus

The infamous “Freshman 15” is not an enigma; it is alive and well at college campuses everywhere each year. No one, female or male, looks forward to gaining such a significant amount of weight in the span of one school year. Luckily, there are many ways that you can combat the Freshman 15 and maintain your ideal weight while in college.

#1: Walk, walk, walk! For almost all small to medium sized colleges and universities, it is very feasible (if not expected) to walk to all your classes. If you’re a freshman, there is almost a 100% chance that you’re going to be living on campus, so walking to classes shouldn’t be a big deal. Rather than drive your car the short distance to where your class is on campus, walk! Kickstart your day with some casual exercise by going out of your way to burn a few calories. Now, for people who go to school at huge universities, this is not as feasible of an option when you may have to catch a bus outside of your residence hall to go to class. While that might be unavoidable, you can still ditch the bus between classes and walk everywhere until it’s time to come back across campus up to your dorm at the end of the day.

#2: Portion control! Some students go into culture shock when they arrive at campus and can essentially have all-you-can-eat food in the dining hall at virtually any time of day. Remember: portion control! Just because your mom isn’t there to tell you that you shouldn’t eat thirds doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t remember yourself. Ditch all the extra servings and make high-calorie and high-fat foods like ice cream, cakes, and fried options for special days like weekends or after receiving a great grade on an exam or paper. That way, your calorie splurges are more of a rarity and reward as opposed to a not-so-good norm.

#3: Treat going to the gym as if it’s a class! By that, no, I didn’t mean make gym workouts boring or dull. Instead, I mean that you should treat the gym with the same level of importance and commitment that you (hopefully) treat your schoolwork with. If you tell yourself that you have to go to the gym between Chemistry and Accounting, you will! And you’ll feel a lot better once you do.

It can be easy to gain weight when you’re in college. You have a lot of stressors, both negative and positive, which can cause you to indulge in poor eating habits. In addition, being homesick can evoke the same (over-eating, under-exercising) response from some college students. However, no matter how funny the “Freshman 15” jokes may be, making sure that you treat your body as well as you always have despite the craziness of acclimating yourself to college is of the utmost of importance.