I am here to tell you a little story about accomplishing the impossible, beating the odds, what have you. You’re told before you come to college that two things are for certain—you WILL break up with your home-town sweetheart, and you WILL gain at least 15 pounds. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you those things aren’t true. They both happened to me, but what I can tell you is that one of those things is reversible! Hooray! At my heaviest last year, I weighed 155lbs, and while I definitely wasn’t fat, it was definitely a 15 pound increase from freshman year. A year later, I’m down to 135!
How I lost the Freshman 15 (and even 5 more after that AND counting!):
A) I became Vegetarian
Now I’m not going to tell you to become vegetarian. It was a very personal choice that I made for various reasons. I’m not someone that’s gonna jump in your face about eating meat—in fact I detest people who do that. I just mean to tell you how it contributed to my losing that dreaded freshman 15. Firstly, I educated myself on what a healthy and well-balanced vegetarian diet consisted of. Many people tend to supplement meat with extra cheese and fatty foods when they first become vegetarian, but I knew I wanted to avoid this, so I hit the books. A side effect of this was a general growth in my health-consciousness. I became aware of the caloric and nutritional value of common foods, so whenever I ate, I was aware of exactly what I was putting in my body and how much of it. This began to unintentionally change my self-concept. I became a “healthy eater,” and thus when I found myself wanting to make bad choices, it gradually got easier to talk myself out of them. That said….
B) I don’t always talk myself out of the bad choices
The number one way to epically FAIL at dieting is to deprive your body of what it wants. Trust me. You start depriving yourself of what you want and your body compensates by giving in eventually and indulging 10x more than it would have had you just given it what it wanted in the first place. Now before you call me a hypocrite because clearly I’m “depriving” my body of meat, it’s not deprivation at all…it’s supplementation…getting the same nutritional content that meat provides from other sources. I’m talking specifically about cutting out things like sweets completely. Don’t do it. This whole time I’ve been losing weight, I’ve been eating cookies, chocolate bars, and ice cream. I’ve gone on the occasional Taco Bell run at midnight. The keyword here is occasional. If I have sweets…it’s once a day, and it’s a relatively small quantity. My strategy is to buy one of those HUGE Hershey bars, and eat *one* square a day if I felt so inclined. Or buy a bag of your favorite “fun size” candy and make it last all month.
I'm in the pink being 20 pounds lighter!C) I never skip a meal
My first two years of college I never ate breakfast, and sometimes I’d get so busy that I would miss dinner too. DON’T DO THIS! When I skipped meals, and my body was constantly hungry, I would way over eat at my next meal. If you keep your body satisfied throughout the day with small but nutritious meals, you’ll end up eating less!
D) I get more sleep
To many in college, you’ll find this impossible. I know I did. I pulled 10 legitimate all nighters one semester. And while I did end up finishing my assignments and making the grades, I paid for it with my physical health. Not only did I get sick more often and stay sick longer, but also I gained weight. Many people will notice weight gain as a result of sleep deprivation, because most people turn to sugary drinks or junk food to keep them energized during these long nights. When you’re asleep, you’re not only rejuvenating your body and keeping your immune system healthy, but you’re also NOT eating. So when I made a pact with myself to always be in bed before 1am and get 7 hours of sleep a night, I noticed more and more weight dropping off! Of course you’ll have to break that some nights, but other nights it’s worth just skimming those last 20 pages to get to bed on time.
E) I did not step on a scale for nearly 6 months
Scales used to be the bane of my existence. Like a lot of girls I was obsessed. I weighed myself nearly every other day when I would try to diet or exercise, and guess what happened? I got discouraged and gave up every single time. When you are weighing yourself that often—even if you’re weighing yourself once a week, you’re not allowing for natural fluctuation or giving yourself essential wiggle room. If one week you’re doing good and you lost a pound, but the next week you gained it back, it’s easy to think that nothing is working and give up. Put it away! That way, you’re not worried if one week you have a birthday party to go to and eat like you’ve been starved—the weight you potentially gained there will come back off once you get back to your normal routine. No need to weigh yourself that week and get discouraged. Leave that scale at home!
Of course these are just the major things I changed, but I thought I’d share my experience with you in case it may help when you make it to college! Feel free to ask me any questions =).
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