This is NOT a 'how to stay on a diet' or 'how to keep losing weight' type of article. If that’s your journey, you do you, but you won’t find any advice on that here. I’ll focus on something much more important, which is how to keep eating healthy when you go back to college.
During summer break, you go home and probably eat home-cooked meals for the most part. That doesn’t guarantee that you eat 100% healthy, but it also means you’re not living on sandwiches and TV dinners. It’s pretty easy to eat healthy when you don’t have classes scattered all over the week, but if you do, it might seem impossible.
Well, it isn’t. Read on, and you’ll see.
Why Eating Healthy Gets Harder Once the Semester Starts
When you get back to campus, you have the perfect opportunity to fall back into bad eating habits. And who could blame you? Life gets busy, and you’re still settling in. If you don’t have a routine in place yet (and you can’t have it right away), then you have to think about every meal you eat.
And that’s tiring.
One of the biggest issues is the huge gap you have between meals.
If you have a lecture at 9 in the morning and you woke up 15 minutes before that, you don’t have the time to eat anything other than a stale granola bar on your way to the classroom, if you eat anything at all. Then you have a few hours of classes, and by the time those are done, you’re not just hungry. You’re HANGRY. You’ll eat whatever you can get your hands on ASAP, which is how you end up eating bagels for lunch.
Suppose you can even call that lunch. By dinner time, you’ll have a huge bowl of pasta in the dining hall, and maybe you’ll order some takeout later on.
It’s obvious what happens.
You go too long without food, and then when you get a chance to eat, you get frantic and eat everything. Unfortunately, 'everything' hardly ever includes broccoli or spinach.
Besides, how can you resist all those vending machines?
They’re full of sugary snacks and drinks, chips, and candy bars, and not only is it all delicious, but it’s also easy to grab. It’s not that anyone necessarily prefers a candy bar over a pot roast for lunch, but what can you do if that’s all you have the time for?
Basically, planning isn’t an option, and at the same time, it’s your only option.
Yes, you’re stressed and in a rush all the time, which is why you need to prepare in advance.
You may not have the energy or the possibility of cooking an entire meal the night before, but it takes less than a minute to throw a few healthy snacks in your backpack. Grab a handful of trail mix, an apple or a banana, and some French vanilla clusters, and you’re set for part of the day.
If you have an early class, prepare a chia pudding the evening before, chop some fruit into it in the morning, and wake up 10 minutes earlier to have breakfast.
How to Make It a Habit to Eat Better
Here’s how to make this easier.
Build a Plan for the Week
If you have to think about what you’re going to eat 3 or 4 times a day, you’ll get annoyed. Before you know it, you’ll be back on candy bars and bagels.
That’s why you should take a little time every weekend to plan what you’ll eat next week.
Think about easy options like oatmeal, yogurt, quick pasta with veggies and chicken, soups, etc.
Use the Dining Hall Strategically
Those portions you get in the dining hall could feed a small family, so they’re not exactly ideal. So, walk in with a plan.
Check out salad bars, grilled chicken, roasted vegetables, and fruit. It’s all there; you just never paid attention to it because you went straight to heavy carbs.
Keep Some Food Available 24/7
It doesn’t matter how good your plan is because it’ll fall apart on the day when everything is late, and the dining hall closes early.
That’s why you want a stash of food.
Get peanut butter, whole-grain crackers, canned tuna, instant oatmeal, Greek yogurt, hard-boiled eggs, baby carrots, and so on. Some of these options don’t even need a fridge.
I won’t tell you it’ll be easy to eat healthy when you go back to school, and I also won’t tell you that all it takes to stick to it is willpower. You already know neither of these is true.
But what I can guarantee is that it’s 100% possible to eat healthy when you’re at college if you make it easy for yourself.
And by the way, cookies and candy bars never killed anyone who ate them in recommended amounts.
It’s okay to treat yourself here and there, so go for it when you really feel like eating nostalgically.