Coming from a household with a marathon-running dad and gymnastics-coaching mom, the words "cake", "soda", and "French fries" were not in my vocabulary growing up. The norm was asking for grilled chicken and fruit instead of chicken nuggets and fries. Many people say moving away to college is when they truly begin to find themselves, but for me moving away to college meant finding myself in the all-you-can-eat dessert bar. I quickly became best friends with junk food and long lost cousins with vegetables. So coming from someone who gained the freshman 15, incoming freshman listen very closely because I have first hand experience on how it happens. If you want to keep that rocking high school bod, here is exactly what not to do.

Here's a breakdown of any typical school night of freshman year. You go to dinner with your friends at 7 and head straight for the salad bar because you have been warned about the dreaded freshman 15, and you think there is no way that it will happen to you. In the midst of eating your tasteless salad, you get up to go get a glass of water. On your way, you pass the grill and can’t help but want one of those juicy hamburgers, even though you haven’t touched red meat in over three years--and yes of course you’ll take fries with that. You then go back for three pieces of pizza because well, the pieces are very small. “AND, you have walked back and forth to the buffet three times now, so that burns off all those calories,” you say to yourself. Hamburger, fries, pizza...what's missing? Dessert. Thinking I should probably do my body a favor, I skip the ice cream and end up getting some mandarin oranges and canned pineapple. You finally put your foot down and decide you have made all the trips to the buffet you are going to make, so you stack your four plates, two bowls, and cup and take them to the dish return. You laugh along the way about how everyone is judging you for having this many dishes, but you shouldn’t be laughing at all because that belly you have put on is jiggling for the whole world to see. After an hour or two in the library, you run—okay quickly walk—back to the caf to grab two or maybe 10 cookies right before it closes. Finally, you head back to the library with a coke in your hand because an all-nighter is ahead of you and Lord knows you need the caffeine. About two hours into studying, you get bored and take a trip to the C-Store for some gummy worms and a milkshake. Finally, you study through the rest of the night and then head back to the caf around 7:30 am to chug about five cups of coffee and two cokes so you can stay awake for your 8 a.m. test.

This is freshman 15.

Here's a breakdown of any typical weekend night of freshman year. Around 5 p.m. the girls head down to the Mexican restaurant, El Vecino, for happy hour. Not the happy hour with $2 margs because we aren't of age, of course, but the kind of happy hour where the deal is “buy two tacos and get two free”. Why anyone would pass up this opportunity is beyond me. Then the group heads back to the dorm to get ready for a night out at the row. While getting ready, we consume our fair share of fruity, sugary drinks which adds up to about one thousand calories. We put on one last coat of lip-gloss and head to the apartments for the pregame around 10 p.m. Since it has been five whole hours since we went to happy hour, we are now starving. So without question, we break open the family size bag of Ruffles. Those are gone within 10 minutes. We take a couple of pictures for Instagram and hope our friends from home don't notice the obvious chubby arms and chipmunk cheeks. Finally we are ready to head to the row for a fun night of dancing and partying. After about two or three hours, all of that dancing and walking from house to house has made us hungry…once again. So we walk back to the room and cook whatever microwavable meal we can get our hands on: ramen noodles, mac and cheese, Chef Boyardee ravioli. You name it. We shovel in all the food we can until we pass out.

This is the freshman 30.

This goes out to all the incoming freshman out there with the toned legs and six pack abs: If you want to be a Barbie instead of a Beluga whale, steer clear of the pizza, chocolate cake, late night sodas, and those Friday night 3 a.m. snacks.