How to Avoid the Freshman 15

Hello lovelies! How are you all? A new school year is rolling around, and I know some of you have already started. I dropped my sister off at her new college/temporary home last month and I'm so proud to see her start this new chapter in her life. She's been eating pretty healthy too. I remember the first few years of my college experience being pretty difficult for me to eat healthy. For many, the freshman 15 is difficult to dodge. Looking back, I feel like if I was more careful, I could've avoided it myself. I thought it would be helpful to some of you who are just going back to school if I made a post on tricks and ways to avoid the freshman 15 or weight gain in general that I have learned over the past few years. I hope you find this helpful in some way. Here we go!

Self-control
In college, I found it really difficult to develop healthy eating habits because I was around a lot of people all the time. In college, people eat when they want to socialize, when they are stressed, or when they are simply bored. Self-control is important in many different aspects of life.  In this case, it is important so that you don’t over eat. Some things that are helpful is to ask yourself, “am I really hungry?” if yes, “is this healthy?”, if no, “do I need this?”. Even though people around you are eating or snacking, asking yourself if you’ve had enough to eat today considering what time it is and are you really hungry will help you distinguish whether or not you really need to consume more food. If you’ve decided it is necessary to eat, asking yourself if it is healthy will furthermore help you decide whether or not you should actually eat.

Portion size

Much like self control, portion sizing is necessary so you don’t over eat. It is also important so you know how much to eat and of what. Here’s some helpful guidelines I found on Pinterest on how to construct a healthy plate. 

Treat yourself!

Don't punish yourself completely, it's totally okay to have an unhealthy treat every once in a while. Life is too short to completely cut out types of food from your diet. Having one day out of the week to eat unhealthy (I say this with emphasis on being moderate with portions and levels of unhealthiness) is okay in my opinion. My boyfriend and I eat out a lot when we're together, which makes it easy to eat unhealthy, but we try to give each other one day a week to have an unhealthy meal. Since we only see each other several times a week it makes it much easier. Now, I know some of you may say that eating healthy can be expensive, in which case it's important to spend your money on healthy foods that will fill you up and keep you full for longer, that way you're making your money worth the meal. 

Exercise

It is important to exercise whether or not you eat healthy. Today, approximately 35% of Americans are considered obese. Not only is this alarming but it's very dangerous. More and more children are being diagnosed with diabetes. Although eating healthy makes up about 80% of the work, exercising is just as important. Living a sedentary lifestyle is still considered unhealthy. Motivation can be difficult, but I find that getting cute work out attire or even a new pair of running shoes is helpful. I get really excited to go to the gym when I have new things to work out in! =^ㅅ^= Or even switching up your work out plan is fun because you have new things to practice. 
Try to get at least a half an hour of exercise every day, whether this is added up or all at once. Here are some simple ways to incorporate more exercise into your life if you don't have time for the gym:

• (If possible) Walk or bike to work (this will also cut your carbon footprint and help the ecosystem)
• Walk or bike to the grocery store or to do errands
• Park further away from your destination
• Take walks during your break
• Take the stairs instead of an elevator or escalator