We believe that healthy eating and college can be combined. You can be a student, not eating all kinds of fast food out there. But this article won’t be one of those restricting you from all the pleasures and advertising eating raw vegetables in tiny portions accompanied by eight sport-bottles of water. We believe that to eat healthy, you need to establish a nutrition plan which is compatible with your personality and lifestyle. Otherwise, you won’t last for more than two-three days or will feel miserable all the time. So, let’s start on practical secrets of healthy eating in college, which you actually can make a part of your daily routine.
- Analyze your current eating style. The biggest mistake you can make, when deciding to eat healthier, is to pick the first available diet online and start following it. Even if your friend has tried it already, and is very satisfied with the results, don’t rush into it. We are talking not about losing some extra pounds here, but about establishing a better eating lifestyle. You need to analyze what and when you eat now, how many times a day you eat. If you ask a random person that he will answer that he eats 2-4 times a day, but almost all of us eat up to 12 times a day because every snack counts. Every snack turns on the digestive system and often makes you even hungrier than before. That is why we recommend first of all to analyze how many times a day you eat and what exactly you eat. Write down everything for a week or two.
- Define the top three bad habits you have now. It is very important that you write down habits as they are, not trying to look better in your own eyes for a week. Just continue eating like you normally do. By the way, a nutrition diary is the first thing any nutrition specialist would ask you to bring. Now, when you are done with noting down your eating routine, it is time to pick up three bad habits that stand out among others. Don’t do anything else; just define them.
- Define the top three good habits you have now. You cannot be that bad, seriously. We don’t believe that everything you eat is bad, so the second task related to your nutrition journal is to find three good habits you can pat yourself on the back for. Maybe, you don’t eat later than four hours before sleep? Maybe, you drink enough water, and don’t normally drink sweet beverages? Maybe, you choose small portions? Note down these habits, we will lean on them.
- Think with what you can replace two of three bad habits. We don’t need you to replace all your bad habits with good ones. It is impossible. You can’t even give up on 50% of your bad eating habits at once, so let’s not try doing something that would just exhaust you. Your goal is to work with these top-3 bad habits one by one. Only you know what they are, so only you can tell how to replace them or at least minimize their negative effect. One of the reasons for eating fast food is lack of time. We are not even talking about cooking — students don’t have time to buy fresh food and assemble it. If being overwhelmed with tasks is one of the reasons for your bad nutrition habits, it is time to delegate some of your writing tasks to a reliable and fast essay writing service, such as CheapWritingHelp.com which is committed to write papers for cheap.
- Analyze the menu of your favorite places. Often, we are pushed to unhealthy eating by the habits of our friends and menus of the places we visit the most. Also, we often order not looking in the menu, just some favorites we are used to. Next time, analyze the menus of the places you eat from and choose several more healthy alternatives for lunch or dinner. You also can ask for less grave and order water instead of soda.
- Read more about comfort food. Lots of things we eat, we eat not because we are hungry, but for a variety of emotional reasons — we want something tasty when we are stressed, we associate food with happy moments in our lives, emotional movies provoke our desire for chips and coke. Reading this, you should not label yourself as weak, because the entire advertisement industry works on making you crave for chocolate when dealing with a break-up, or look for an energy drink before exams.
- Define your chronotype and eat accordingly. According to the most recent research, there are four chronotypes — lion, dolphin, wolf, and bear. They have different eating preferences and patterns. For example, bears are allowed to overeat a little bit during breakfast but should stay away from the fridge after 7 pm. Define your chronotype and read recommendations.
- Don’t eat too often, unless medically required. Previously, doctors and nutritionists recommended eating every several hours and with small portions. Now, this recommendation stays valid only for people with specific digestion and other chronic conditions. It is proved that it is better to have three whole meals a day than to make the pancreas work all the time. Read more research on it.
- Give yourself a break from time to time. People cannot lead a perfect life, but they can lead a relatively healthy life. Making your nutrition more healthy is a step by step process, which should not be done in a rush. Give yourself a break sometimes, plan cheat-meals, don’t try to eliminate all the bad eating habits at once.
- Add light exercises before food when possible. Yes, it is another boring piece of advice, but we don’t insist on jogging for an hour before lunch. Just do five-ten minute’s aerobic gymnastics from time to time. For some reason, it works. You would think it would have made you hungrier, but it makes your body more ready to digest food properly.