When going to college, you are told that you will gain the "Freshman 15." At first, you have no clue what it is until you look it up. During your freshman year of college, your lifestyle changes and meals become more simple and on the go. With all of that being said, it is easy to lose sight of eating like you did while in high school. This definitely happened to me even though I still lived with my parents in college.
Over the past sixth months or so, I have been trying to incorporate a healthy lifestyle. I'm taking baby steps, but I am making progress. I have found some useful steps to maintaining this change and lifestyle.
Fazing out bad habits
Starting a healthy lifestyle does not mean you have to go cold turkey on all the bad foods. What I started to do was take out the bad things little by little. Where I am from, breakfast burritos are the go-to and it doesn't help that a new place opened up right next to my work. I simply started to ask for the burrito without the tortilla and that takes out the unnecessary carbs.
Pinterest recipes
Pinterest has been my best friend when it comes to healthy alternatives. Being a busy gal you need to find easy and fast things to make that are also healthy. My favorite has been overnight oats. I just put the oats in a jar with some almond milk and it is ready to go for the morning. Its things like that where you can make one change and it is better for you overall.
Coffee
Coffee. Every college girl I know relies on their coffee and Starbucks like its water. It is so easy to get caught up in the sugary iced coffees and macchiatos. What I have done is buy the low sweetened cold brew coffee and mix it with almond milk. It can taste just as good, but without the extra calories and sugar.
Healthy lifestyle role models
A Youtuber I watch, Whitney Simmons, has a lot of good ideas for easy recipes. I like the ones she uses the crockpot for. You can mix everything together and forget it while you go on with your day. It is time minimizing and you get a good meal out of it. Whitney is my go to when it comes to workouts as well. If you recently bought a gym membership, she has the videos that will help you get through beginners workouts. She will breakdown her sets and how many reps she does which makes it easy for a user to understand. She keeps these workouts on both her Instagram and Youtube channel.
H20
Drinking water is essential for everybody. It helps you stay healthy and it also has a lot of good benefits to it. Such as better skin, and it will help you lose the extra weight. Yes, it can be boring but you can buy a cute water bottle to keep you motivated to drink more water. Trust me, I have a cabinet full of water bottles I change out.
Working out
Working out doesn't necessarily mean to go hard at the gym right away. You can incorporate small workouts in your busy day by walking to class instead of taking a bus. Also, signing up for different workout classes helps because it feels like you aren't working out, or even sign up for classes that your school offers that way you can get a boost in your GPA just for working out.
As mentioned before, Whitney Simmons is my go to when it comes to workouts as well. If you recently bought a gym membership, she has the videos that will help you get through beginners workouts. She will breakdown her sets and how many reps she does which makes it easy for a user to understand. She keeps these workouts on both her Instagram and Youtube channel.
Good music
In order to be motivated to do any kind of workout, you need a good workout playlist. Spotify has a bunch of good playlists just for this depending on your mood for your workout.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle isn't easy. It starts off slow, but once you get the hang of it it will be easy.
