According to Lisa, concerning a study to be published soon, most students will not gain fifteen pounds during their four years in college—women gained an average of 8.9lb./4years & men 13.4 lb./4 years. I agree that most people do not gain the dreaded extra fifteen the first year, but this notion alludes to a healthier image about the college crowd, an image that it does not always ring true.
Many colleges offer all you eat cafeterias and usually a “healthier” pay by the meal choice too. Most colleges also require students to get a freshman meal plan because there is a fear that they will not eat—humans will not willingly not-eat themselves into their graves. Below are five reasons why freshman often do not gain that weight, but remember, weight is not synonymous with health.
#5 Exercise Fads
Everyone lifts, runs on treadmills, plays squash, or joins a just-for-fun sports team. Everyone does this, until everyone graduates and no longer feels the need to exercise as much, or maybe they just don’t have the time to anymore. What drives most people to exercise, oddly enough, it is usually the alcohol consumption—I lifted three days this week for an hour each day, that is enough exercise to rationalize a heavy consumption of alcohol on the weekend (or earlier). Exercise should not be rationalized, it should be a part of your plan to enrich your health.
#4 Access to Food
You may have an all you can eat pass to the cafeteria that is only minutes away, but you likely do not have access to readily available food whenever you want it. When you lived with your family or when you lived in an apartment, food was readily available (hopefully). All you would have to do is open the fridge—not a mini fridge packed with some brews and stolen yogurts. Eating has now become a hassle or even a chore and cooking is most certainly out the question. Unfortunately, this chore leads to resorting to your cell phone to have food delivered to your dorm which leads to another rationalized gym session. Quick and easy food becomes addicting and follows you after graduation, but unlike college, you are now employed and have the means to fund it.
#3 Stress
Almost nobody escapes college unscathed from cramming sessions that start four hours after the typical person would go to sleep and last until the teacher voices their last warning for all material to be removed from your desk while you slurp the last bit of your energy drink. College is not like high school and it is most certainly nothing like the good times in pre-school. You are expected to perform at a much higher level and it does not matter what the class is about, if you signed up for Ponies and Horses 101, you better damn well know your stuff for the upcoming quiz on Monday. With multiple stress sessions each week or so, you miss meals, you “forget” to sleep, and you make it through college. Stress is also another perfectly good reason to rationalize another exercise session, those who don’t, they gain a little extra along the way. Stress is maintained in college by an abundance of activities and unleashes itself fully when you become less active years later.
#2 Behind the Curve
This may be a tough one for some to chew on, but there is a reason being overweight and obese is becoming more common, especially among the young. Those who come into college overweight or obese, are ahead of the curve. Eventually, you do leave college and many do leave behind many of their activities (exercise & etc…), but they tend to bring the non-nutritional eating habits and consumption of alcohol with them. It is this powerful combination that makes grownups unrecognizable from their college self ten to twenty years later. Nothing ever dies instantly (usually), but with time, many of these enjoyed activities and hobbies do fade. In the years following college, many will join those already ahead of the curve.
#1 Peer Pressure
This is the big daddy of the pack because it is so nicely interwoven into each of the four previous reasons and your entire college experience in general. It is not your friends from high school or those you met earlier in life, it is these new acquaintances that will have the most profound effects on you. You have already been molded by your previous friends and now you will be molded by complete strangers and soon to be best buds. Molding is natural and there is nothing negative about it, as long as you do not let it change who you really are and blur your true identity.
Maybe your random roommate is a muscle-bound jock and you’re an artsy vegan or maybe your a pom-pomming cheerleader and your roommates consist of a goth, another cheerleader, and a total biotch (probably not so bad once you get to know her). I haven’t even thrown race, culture, sexual preference, political standpoints, and etc… into the pot.
Unless you are extremely confident, scratch that, if you are human you will try to get along with your roommates. Trying to get along with your roommates when you first meet them means being open to their ideas, actions, and lifestyle choices without jumping ship just yet. They will influence the way you eat, whether or not you exercise, your daily routines, and how healthy you will be.
If two ahead of the curvers are paired in the dorm, they will likely not get that much exercise other than an occasional walk to the cafeteria, but you better believe that artsy vegan is gonna pump some iron and that muscle-bounding jock is going to give those ingredients on his super whey protein one more look. At first, we do actively participate in making these different lifestyle choices, but eventually it molds itself into place.
They affect your lifestyle choices and you affect theirs, the cycle never stops. You can reclaim your original identity, you don’t have to, but you can. Most changes are not so bad and should be welcomed, but the good ones often fade when those four years are up and you no longer have those people around you.
Learn from your life experiences and always carry the things that mean the most to you, especially those things beneficial to your health and your overall wellbeing.
Freshman 15: Top 5 Reasons They Don’t
News Story
According to Lisa, concerning a study to be published soon, most students will not gain fifteen pounds during their four years in college—women gained an average of 8.9lb./4years & men 13.4 lb./4 years. I agree that most people do not gain the dreaded extra fifteen the first year, but this notion alludes to a healthier image about the college crowd, an image that it does not always ring true.
Many colleges offer all you eat cafeterias and usually a “healthier” pay by the meal choice too. Most colleges also require students to get a freshman meal plan because there is a fear that they will not eat—humans will not willingly not-eat themselves into their graves. Below are five reasons why freshman often do not gain that weight, but remember, weight is not synonymous with health.
#5 Exercise Fads
Everyone lifts, runs on treadmills, plays squash, or joins a just-for-fun sports team. Everyone does this, until everyone graduates and no longer feels the need to exercise as much, or maybe they just don’t have the time to anymore. What drives most people to exercise, oddly enough, it is usually the alcohol consumption—I lifted three days this week for an hour each day, that is enough exercise to rationalize a heavy consumption of alcohol on the weekend (or earlier). Exercise should not be rationalized, it should be a part of your plan to enrich your health.
#4 Access to Food
You may have an all you can eat pass to the cafeteria that is only minutes away, but you likely do not have access to readily available food whenever you want it. When you lived with your family or when you lived in an apartment, food was readily available (hopefully). All you would have to do is open the fridge—not a mini fridge packed with some brews and stolen yogurts. Eating has now become a hassle or even a chore and cooking is most certainly out the question. Unfortunately, this chore leads to resorting to your cell phone to have food delivered to your dorm which leads to another rationalized gym session. Quick and easy food becomes addicting and follows you after graduation, but unlike college, you are now employed and have the means to fund it.
#3 Stress
Almost nobody escapes college unscathed from cramming sessions that start four hours after the typical person would go to sleep and last until the teacher voices their last warning for all material to be removed from your desk while you slurp the last bit of your energy drink. College is not like high school and it is most certainly nothing like the good times in pre-school. You are expected to perform at a much higher level and it does not matter what the class is about, if you signed up for Ponies and Horses 101, you better damn well know your stuff for the upcoming quiz on Monday. With multiple stress sessions each week or so, you miss meals, you “forget” to sleep, and you make it through college. Stress is also another perfectly good reason to rationalize another exercise session, those who don’t, they gain a little extra along the way. Stress is maintained in college by an abundance of activities and unleashes itself fully when you become less active years later.
#2 Behind the Curve
This may be a tough one for some to chew on, but there is a reason being overweight and obese is becoming more common, especially among the young. Those who come into college overweight or obese, are ahead of the curve. Eventually, you do leave college and many do leave behind many of their activities (exercise & etc…), but they tend to bring the non-nutritional eating habits and consumption of alcohol with them. It is this powerful combination that makes grownups unrecognizable from their college self ten to twenty years later. Nothing ever dies instantly (usually), but with time, many of these enjoyed activities and hobbies do fade. In the years following college, many will join those already ahead of the curve.
#1 Peer Pressure
This is the big daddy of the pack because it is so nicely interwoven into each of the four previous reasons and your entire college experience in general. It is not your friends from high school or those you met earlier in life, it is these new acquaintances that will have the most profound effects on you. You have already been molded by your previous friends and now you will be molded by complete strangers and soon to be best buds. Molding is natural and there is nothing negative about it, as long as you do not let it change who you really are and blur your true identity.
Maybe your random roommate is a muscle-bound jock and you’re an artsy vegan or maybe your a pom-pomming cheerleader and your roommates consist of a goth, another cheerleader, and a total biotch (probably not so bad once you get to know her). I haven’t even thrown race, culture, sexual preference, political standpoints, and etc… into the pot.
Unless you are extremely confident, scratch that, if you are human you will try to get along with your roommates. Trying to get along with your roommates when you first meet them means being open to their ideas, actions, and lifestyle choices without jumping ship just yet. They will influence the way you eat, whether or not you exercise, your daily routines, and how healthy you will be.
If two ahead of the curvers are paired in the dorm, they will likely not get that much exercise other than an occasional walk to the cafeteria, but you better believe that artsy vegan is gonna pump some iron and that muscle-bounding jock is going to give those ingredients on his super whey protein one more look. At first, we do actively participate in making these different lifestyle choices, but eventually it molds itself into place.
They affect your lifestyle choices and you affect theirs, the cycle never stops. You can reclaim your original identity, you don’t have to, but you can. Most changes are not so bad and should be welcomed, but the good ones often fade when those four years are up and you no longer have those people around you.
Learn from your life experiences and always carry the things that mean the most to you, especially those things beneficial to your health and your overall wellbeing.
Did you gain the ‘Freshman 15′?
What about your friends or family?
Why do you think you or they did or did not?
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