Here are a few tips for the college student who wants to maintain and keep a healthy weight; never skip breakfast, eat five fruits and vegetables daily, plan what you eat, drink lots of water, and exercise.
Between the hours a student spends in class and the hours spent studying and working, the average student is always on the go. This is why students make unhealthy choices.
“Often students grab what they see at the moment and many times it’s not the best nutritional choice,” said Gwen Cannon, a pediatrician with a Masters in Nutritional Biochemistry and Metabolism.
The most important key element for a student to keep a nutritious lifestyle is to always make sure to eat breakfast every morning. This is not to say students need to have the works like eggs, bacon, and pancakes. A simple nutritious breakfast would be a piece of wheat toast, fruit, and a glass of orange juice. Students also gain weight when they don’t eat breakfast every morning. Around 11 a.m. the body will start to feel hungry because the student had not had their breakfast, which will make the student grab anything to satisfy their hunger and usually it’s not the healthiest choice.
Eating breakfast will also help students do better academically as well. When students sleep at night, their body is fasting so their body needs to eat breakfast in the morning to refuel the brain.
Students must plan their meals. It’s hard to know what each student should be eating. If a student wants a healthy diet plan made specifically for them without consulting a doctor or paying a nutritionist, students can create their own diet plan by going to mypryramid.gov.
By eating five fruits and vegetables daily, students are more likely to maintain a good weight. Nutritional density is a principal of how many vitamins the body gets that come from how many calories the body eats. Fruits and vegetables are high in nutritional density. Fruits and vegetables also have the vital chemicals the body needs. Vital chemicals are like vitamins and they give the body extra energy and the ability to use the body in a more healthy way. The more a student eats fruits and vegetables, the less likely the student will eat unhealthy.
Students must exercise. With so many deadlines students must meet and the stress that comes from the loads of pressure of being college students, many students will say they don’t have time to exercise. If students tell themselves they don’t have time to exercise they are cheating their body. When students don’t exercise, they end up with less energy. Exercising gives the body the extra energy it needs for a healthy lifestyle. Students should try to fit an aerobic type of exercise five times a week for at least 30 minutes. The best and easiest way to exercise is walking or running. It may be easier if students get together with a group of friends to exercise as a way to stay committed.
“Bottom line is, if you want to lose weight, eat less and move more. Our bodies put on weight slowly so if we want to lose weight, we’ll have to lose it slowly,” Cannon said.
There are many diets out there and new ones developing all the time to lose weight quickly. For example, the new hCG diet. Although the hCG diet does work, when people stop using the diet, their body goes back to where it was. The reason is because this type of diet as well as many others, hasn’t taught people the basics of maintaining proper weight.
It is important to know what a healthy weight is. Healthy weight for each person is different and depends on each individual’s height, body type, and ethnicity, not what we see in the media.
If students are serious about losing weight, a good place to start is consulting a doctor or a nutrition center like Weight Watchers. These are the best ways to learn how to eat healthy and exercise because a dietician will guide a person through a program and hold that person accountable for their progress, or simply create a diet plan by going to the mypyramid.com website.