This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s summer editorial intern Connor Hanrahan. Find him on Instagram at @hannerhansmh. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Growing up, our parents make most of our decisions for us. How we dress, what we do, where we go, and what we eat for our meals are all governed by our guardians. So it’s no surprise that when we complete our local matriculation and finally ship off to college we run a bit amok in our newfound freedom. We stay up irrationally late, we go to parties, we don’t quite study as hard as we should, and most of all, we don’t quite eat as well as we should. Every August and September, my TikTok “For You Page” is full of ‘Freshman 15’ themed TikToks and it’s about time we discussed how to avoid this sudden gain of weight that hits most of us like a bus.
We all have that one friend that goes to school and doesn’t gain weight, and frankly, those of us who DO resent them for it. And before we get ahead of ourselves, I’m not referring to those metabolism merchants who couldn’t gain a pound if they tried. I’m talking about the people who take care of themselves and aren’t gorging on autonomy. It’s impossible to eat whole, healthy meals on a college budget but what can we take away from what they did correctly while we erred?
A Healthy Diet
Dining halls and meal plans offer a lot of fried and processed foods that may make your taste buds salivate just at the smell, but make your digestive tract wince in horror. For me personally, it was the country fried steak every single Tuesday and Thursday for dinner and we had to walk right by the fruit stand to get to it. It was so popular and we were so blinded by its allure that my roommate and I didn’t even notice the fruit stand until the third week of school.
The first step toward freshman health starts with whole, unprocessed foods. If there is a dining hall fruit stand, take advantage of it and eat some fruits or even vegetables before your meal to make sure that the food you’re ingesting first isn’t too harsh on your stomach. The line of thinking here is to give your lower intestine valuable nutrients and ample lubrication before indulging in foods that probably aren’t helping your body.
When snack time comes around, try to avoid sweets or anything that’s too fried and salty. Eating too much salt during your, frankly sedentary, routine of classes, studying and homework can result in hypertension since your body isn’t sweating like it would be if you were being active. Salts, aka electrolytes, are crucial for active lifestyles but can be harmful if one isn’t frequently sweating.
Eating an excessive amount of ‘added sugars’ can also be bad for your body. It is known to be a contributor to type two diabetes in some severe cases but even in the minutia of the average day, it can increase risk of heart disease and chronic inflammation.
Inflammation happens when muscles repair themselves after workouts or any sort of intense physical activity. Chronic inflammation means that the natural inflammation never ceases and it flies under the radar of the better known effects of sugar, but it can last for months and sometimes even years, preventing the tissue from actually recovering.
Sugary drinks can be especially bad because they don’t trigger the body’s appetite-control system, leaving you still hungry even though you’ve just drank a few hundred calories. Sugary sodas and artificial juices can serve as the real tipping point for an already unhealthy diet in terms of weight gain. Sugary cocktails are also a known enemy of the college student. They’re typically the cheapest, but combined with the high carbohydrate levels already found in alcohol, they can add a surprising amount of calories over the course of a party or ‘dayger’. Luckily, Ash here at The Zillennial wrote a well detailed article on the best, skinniest drinks that both your taste buds and body will absolutely adore. It can be found here 🙂
The moral of this story is to avoid as much highly processed, salty, fatty, and sugary food as possible while still making sure you reach a healthy amount of calories for your body type. This sounds complicated, but the gist is really just, “Make sure you hit the salad and fruit bars as much as, or more than, the foods that smell like holiday cooking and burger joints.”
Here is the message I am trying to convey in bullet form for brevity:
- Eat natural sugars NOT processed or added sugars
- Limit your comfort food consumption
- Don’t salt your foods, pepper is OK
- Avoid sodas and other sugary drinks at all costs, but when you can’t, remember moderation is key
- Water is free and is an excellent choice of beverage at ALL times
- Partake in whatever non fried vegetables your dining hall or food source offers, no matter how mid they taste
Activity
Without daily, frequent physical activity, it will be impossible to stay in shape or keep your caloric intake in check. This activity can be anything from walking to class rather than commuting, or committing to working out for at least thirty minutes every other day. Many college students also utilize manual transportation like bicycles and skateboards and even these are suitable for keeping your body functioning properly.
I always advocate for going on a nice walk for as long as you are comfortable, but if you aren’t able to leave your room for one reason or another, here are some easy activities that can be done sitting on your desk chair or the side of your bed:
- Seated Leg Raises
- Arm Circles or better yet, this Alternative (if you are able)
- Shoulder Presses with whatever objects you have around (it looks goofy pressing a full HydroFlask, but I’ve been there and it’s well worth it)
- Bicep Curls with whatever objects you have around
When I was in school, my hyperactive roommate told me a good quote. He said, “Your body is like a car. If you use it every day, it will run every time you turn it on. But if you leave it for a few weeks without turning it on intermittently, there’s a solid chance it won’t turn on when you turn the ignition next.” This really hit home for me because it drove in the point that SOME exercise is always better than NONE. No matter the capacity.
That being said, some forms of activity are much more effective for burning calories than others. For example, working out your lower body burns calories at a far faster rate than working out your arms, per say. However, when living in a dorm room, we lack the space to do the types of workouts we might typically do at the gym. So here are a couple more rigorous exercises you can do in your dorm room that require so little space, even inmates do them in their cells to stay in shape:
- Squats
- Leg Lifts
- Burpees (Cardio)
- Jumping Jacks
- Single Leg Romanian Deadlifts (Sounds way more complicated than it really is, doesn’t require a weight)
I have embedded TikToks with the proper form for each one of these inside their respective bullets because proper form is CRUCIAL in ensuring you are working out in the healthiest way possible.
A Firsthand Account of Problematic False Solutions
I’ll be straight up. When I was a freshman, my roommate vaped. It was an appetite suppressant and I saw it as a good way to keep my gluttonous ass from snacking every waking moment so I went and bought one. I’m already a pretty lean fella and I stopped eating as much because I started vaping. Sure, I lost weight, but it was an unhealthy amount of weight. I’m 6’3” and when I’m healthy I weigh about 180lbs. I weighed 160lbs at the end of that semester and I was all ribcage.
I even thought I got the flu in December of freshman year but it turned out I had forgotten to eat for 36 hours. I didn’t gain weight, but my cardiovascular health became the worst it has ever been and my lung capacity dwindled. Heck, I even began having mild blackouts and heart palpitations. Vaping made me the unhealthiest I have ever been and the day I quit during Winter break sophomore year was the best day of my life, even though it took months and months of cardio training to even begin to remind me of my former self.
I beg, no, I implore you not to take up nicotine as an alternative to eating. No layer fat will ever be worse than the respiratory and cardiovascular damage you could do to yourself by vaping. I got carried away and it would make my year year if you learned from my error without making your own.
Please take a second to read about why vaping is NOT healthier than smoking, here.
It’s really easy to get carried away with the college experience. The stress of deadlines is immense, due dates loom like a thundercloud, and the allure of irreverence beckons us like sirens. But the last thing we want is to lose control of our health because it can even begin to affect us mentally and an extra source of stress is the last thing we need at the biggest fork in the road we ever hit. Not to mention that the stress of school can already cause health issues by itself. If we remember to keep our desires and whims in check, we can avoid turning ourselves into a personal Freshman 15 TikTok. These four years determine who we are so we can’t let bad health choices have a say in the rest of our lives as well.
What do you think? Did I miss any good ideas or tips? Have you heard better advice elsewhere? Let us know in the comments below!
Leave a Reply