Leila Durmaz is a journalism freshman and Mustang Daily freshman columnist.
As we prepared to leave for college, we endlessly heard the two words that none of us wanted to be true. We promised ourselves that once we got to college, we would come up with an exercise routine (and actually stick with it this time) so the weight of those two words would not turn into the weight we’d carry.
The two words, as I’m sure you have figured out by now, are “Freshman 15.”
The Freshman 15 is infamous. I think we can all agree on that. It’s on the list of worries that we have for beginning college — those worries, if you must know, also include living with one (or more) people, public bathrooms (might just be me), navigating your way through campus, making friends, not eating your mom’s food anymore and a hundred other things.
But to help lessen your worries, I have some lovely information for you. The Freshman 15 is a myth. No, I’m not kidding. If you don’t believe me, you can Google “Freshman 15 news,” though I’m not sure how many of you will actually do that.
There’s no need for you to worry about gaining 15 pounds your first year of college — unless you’re deliberately trying to gain it by stuffing yourself for every meal at the all-you-can-eat buffet at 19 Metro Station in addition to having waffles drizzled with syrup and sprinkled with powdered sugar at Late Night at Vista Grande.
Of course, no one is immune to gaining 15 pounds in a school year (unless you’re the type of person who tells him or herself that you have a fast metabolism and won’t gain that much weight … once again, me). But stressing about gaining the “15” is only going to add to your weight because — most of the time — stress equals eating chocolate — more than you usually do — to make yourself feel better. Maybe this is just a girl thing, and guys just blow off stress by running around the track and lifting weights? I’m not exactly sure, but if that’s true for you guys, then good for you.
Just because you now know that you’re not likely to gain the Freshman 15 does not mean that you should eat whatever you want and have Nutella and Cup Noodles every night for dinner.
With every meal you eat, make sure you have a colorful plate and not just a plate filled with brown, tan or beige colored food. Add some greens (salad, peas, cucumbers, celery), oranges (carrots, oranges) and reds (tomatoes, bell peppers) in addition to any other types of food of differing colors.
Obviously, it’s harder to eat healthier in college because it’s basically the first time we need to be conscious of our own food choices: our health is now in our own hands. Plus, with all the food around us that’s available almost whenever we want it at Vista Grande, the Avenue, 19 Metro Station and more, it’s hard to balance our food with healthy things, but we need to.
These food choices affect our bodies, and we only have one body for the rest our lives (was that a bit too dramatic?), so make good choices with food and go running or hiking here and there. Go bike on the stationary bicycles I recently discovered in the main lounge of Sierra Madre and Yosemite (sorry Red Bricks, I don’t know about you guys). Work out, eat healthy and feel free to snack on some chocolate once in a while.
By the way, just as a side note, did anyone else hear from friends, online freshman/college articles or TV shows that you would be living off of Cup Noodles in college? Because I did, and that’s exactly what I was expecting. However, it’s not true at all, at least from my perspective.
My younger sister even told me to buy a box of Cup Noodles from Costco so I could “survive college,” and I have friends who literally have three Costco-sized boxes stashed in their dorm room, but it’s more like a once-in-a-while snacking kind of thing. I don’t know, maybe college freshman have Cup Noodles all the time, but maybe the media just makes us think they do. Something to think about.