Have you ever woken up in an extra-large twin bed, a bed the same size horizontal to yours, and wondered what to eat for breakfast? Have you ever opened your mini-fridge, looked in the drawer only to see chocolate pudding and a packet of ham? Have you ever entered Walmart and picked hamburger meat compared to a party sized pack of combination Pizza Rolls? Well, I have.
Have you ever looked at yourself in the full-length mirror hanging on the back of your door and feared your roommate would open the door as your pulling at you're belly fat? Have you ever had to decide between reading another 20 pages of the chapter for your class tomorrow and going to the gym? Have you ever tried to do an ab workout on a rug surrounded by two desks, a mini fridge,and two beds? Well, I have.
The truth? You don't want to know the truth.
The truth is that I may be going about my health in all the wrong ways. I may be searching for excuses why I can't workout today or why I should just buy the Pizza Rolls. But the Freshmen Fifteen is a real thing and it doesn't stop after your first year of college. Sure, you walk to and from class, twice a day. You definitely climb more stairs than you'd like to think about. And who could forget the number of times you dance like an idiot in your room to a song that played when you were in the sixth grade?
But those things aren't enough. For the first eighteen years of my life, I was required to take physical education. Every day I would lift weights or play some sort of athletic game. Every Friday of my senior year of high school, we ran a mile. Every. Single. Friday.
I had played softball from the age of 3 until I graduated. I started playing basketball in the sixth grade. Those things definitely keep you in shape when you figure out how to take lazy days in the weight room or opt to run a slower mile for that particular Friday.
In college, I don't have that. I don't have a reason to run an eight minute mile consistently. I don't have a sport pushing me to strengthen my core or to build my arm muscles or to work off the half-gallon of ice cream I ate the night before after a terrible practice. That simply doesn't exist in college, when you choose to abandon the sports you've played for over half your life.
Sure, there are weight rooms on campus. But lifting isn't the same when the person you lifted every day with for four years is no longer in the same school as you. Sure, there are basketball courts open to the students. But basketball isn't the same when you're shooting by yourself with no one to block you and no one to block out. Sure, there are healthy alternatives to pizza rolls. But eating isn't the same when your mom and dad aren't footing the fifty dollar Walmart bill.
Sure, I could be healthier. I was once extremely healthy. Back in middle school. Back in high school. Back before everything became my responsibility. Back before someone told me to get on the line and run. Back before pop flies were hit short one time and then to the fence the next. Back before my lifting partner went to a school closer to home and I drove four hours away. Back before I had to pay for the food I eat. I was healthy once, back before I wasn't.
