When's the last time you ate fast food? Was it recent, like five minutes ago recent? When's the last time you went to the gym? Can you even remember?
If you're like me, you've been lying to yourself for weeks. I've been saying that I want to go to the gym, and I've also been saying that I want to eat well-balanced meals.
Yet day after day, I'll most certainly make the five-minute walk to the union for Chick-Fil-A, and I don't even attempt to put on workout clothes.
Is anybody else at this point in their lives? The Freshman 15 is real, people, and it's unavoidable. Here are 9 reasons why:
1. Two minutes beats ten
If there's a Papa John's two minutes away from your dorm and there's a healthier option ten minutes away from your dorm, you're probably going to pick the pizza, and you're probably going to justify it by saying you'll use the extra eight minutes you saved to study.
2. Speaking of pizza...
...it's everywhere you look. In addition to the Papa John's two minutes from your dorm, every club meeting or event on campus usually has pizza involved. It's a pretty convenient food.
3. There's a tendency to want to skip breakfast
Again, if you're under a time crunch (all college students are), skipping breakfast every morning might give you a couple more minutes of sleep and/or study time. But skipping breakfast means you're more likely to binge at lunch or dinner.
4. Healthy foods are too expensive
Most of us are too broke to be buying organic meats and cheeses. Meanwhile, ramen noodles are $0.25 a pack at Walmart...
5. "Walking to class is enough exercise."
Is it really? Then why is the scale still going up? Diet plays a major role in weight gain. Exercise helps, but it won't necessarily cause weight loss without a healthy diet to match.
6. Stress eating is a THING
If that pack of Oreos you bought yesterday is already gone, I'm assuming you must have a test or two (or three) coming up soon.
7. Late night snacking
When you stay up late, you're bound to get hungry. Not surprisingly, the only places that stay open late are the fast food joints--or if you're in Oxford, there's always Insomnia.
8. Water's just not enough
Who goes out on a Friday night and orders water? That's just unheard of.
9. Vending machines taunt you
They wait for you to get off the elevator in your dorm, or walk by between classes...and that's when they get ya.
