Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Realistic Tips for Staying Healthy...

So, most incoming college students have the thought of gaining the Freshman 15 in the back of their minds, but most don’t realize just what it is going to take to keep these unwanted pounds off. I wrote a post earlier of some basic tips to stay healthy, but I’ve discover a few more simple ideas that will actually help make working out and eating healthy a bit more realistic.

First of all, know what you’re eating in the dining halls. Stick to simple rules such as only having one portion – about the size of your fist for entrees such as meats. I also discovered online on the on campus dining website that they have a calorie calculator for a lot of the foods served in the dining halls. Also, at the On-the-Go locations there is a piece of paper taped to the checkout counter that gives the nutritional facts of the foods offered. Even if you aren’t super obsessed with calories and what not, I would suggest checking this stuff out – that simple sandwich that you have for lunch every day that you thought was healthy quite possibly costs you about 600 calories – ouch!

Here’s a few working out tips that I have found to work fabulously for me. My first discovery was stairs. If you go to the football stadium its easy to find an entrance that has 2 or 3 flights of stairs right together. If you run up down these (or even walk down) for about 30 minutes you’re pretty much guaranteed to be sore the next day – unless of course you’re super fit in which case you probably don’t need to be reading this post in the first place. But for the majority of us, this can serve as a quick workout that actually makes you feel like you accomplished something – and something is always better than nothing. Another idea: do homework while working out on cardio machines in the co-rec. I have found it’s really easy to read assignments while working out on the elliptical. If you have an exam to study for, studying while working out is a great way to multi task. Studying takes your mind off working out, and before you know it 40 minutes will have passed; at the same time, working out for 40 minutes designates a focused time period to study in which you really can’t be distracted by much else.
That’s about it for the few healthy tid-bits that I’ve decided work well for me. I’ll keep trying to add to the lists as I can..

2 comments:

DumbFun said...

i definately agree with all of your tips to staying healthy. i personally am not that concerned with the freshman 15 (I'm actually trying to gain weight). I'm a pretty small guy, and since moving to campus i've been trying to work out quite a bit.
I go to the rec. center quite often. And if i had a tip to staying healthy i would definately recomment routines. Not so much a plan to work out a couple days a week, but more of an integration of a healthy act into your regular schedule. Find something that is fun, and continually do it. My friends and i are big fans of swimming, and free running (basically flipping and stuff in an urban environment)
But it really helps to find something that you dont really consider a work out, something that is fun and healthy, and just do it everyday. Hopefully you'll end up not thinking about it even.

ilovefootball40 said...

Thanks for your tips about working out! They were very helpful and I would have never thought of them on my own! I think that working out while studying is a great way to make the time go by faster, especially when you consider working out as a hassel.