Going into college, we all hear about the scary myth of gaining the "Freshman 15," ladies and gents that is no myth. Now, I am not saying every freshman strolls out of their first year as a college student with exactly 15 pounds of extra fat on them; some gain more than that and some lucky ones lose weight during that first year (don't ask me how). Gaining weight during that first year of a big change is perfectly normal.
Let's start with the notorious dorm food. We all had a love/hate relationship with it. I remember the first few weeks my plate was always stacked with the most diverse foods, I was so pumped about eating in the dining halls for every meal. And of course, how could you leave dinner without some of the soft served ice cream or a cupcake?
Soon enough, I realized how over salted and over sugared EVERYTHING was; but you had to push right through it. Late night dining hall meals were what really got you. After a hard few hours of studying your butt off how could you not reward yourself with some waffle fries, enchiladas, or some chicken wings dunked in ranch? I know I did. As freshman, our main source of food was from the dining halls, so we were all in this together.
You aren't doing college correctly if you don't binge eat at the local pizza places. If it's your designated drunkies destination or an appropriate studying snack, you are not normal if you don't ever eat pizza. Being in the dorms, I remember almost every Friday and Saturday night I would see the poor delivery guy trying to hunt down the stumbling drunk college kid that is desperately trying to tell him where they are located in the dorms.
College is our time to be young, dumb, and independent. During high school and before that, most of us were on a typical timed schedule. We would get home from practice or hanging with our friends and meals would be prepped and ready for us. Now, being the "free" students that we are we can eat and do whatever we want; at least we think we can. We don't have a bedtime either and staying up late always ends up in late night snacks. If you want to have 8 meals throughout the day, you can. Your mom and dad won't be there to yell at you. If you want 10 cookies as your desert every meal, you can do that too. But since we are so excited and new to this new food freedom, we forget that all this late night snacking and unsupervised junk food will catch up with us.
Partying can play a role in your college years, especially during your first. You're experimenting with different crowds of parties, different alcohol, or not partying at all (WHICH IS OKAY). No matter what type of alcohol you decide to drink, alcohol has a high amount of calories in it. Consuming those calories while drinking is inevitable, the only way to dodge it is to not drink. I am not saying if you decide to drink your freshman year you are going to become obese; all I am saying is if you decide to party, make sure you take care of those extra calories the next day. If that's a quick ab work out in your dorm room or pushing yourself to go straight to the gym. If you're not about the #gym life, that's okay! Just don't be alarmed when you start feeling a little bit "bloated."
