We’ve all heard of the dreaded “freshman fifteen,” the phenomenon in which college freshman reportedly gain fifteen pounds during their first year of living on their own.
While I’m not one to generalize, I’m won’t deny that some freshmen do gain weight. College life isn’t generally conducive to healthy living: late nights (studying or partying), cheap food (because college kids are poor), and just general unhealthy habits. But some college students are committed to healthy lifestyles, and they’re using social media to make it happen.
Knowledge is power
College is all about learning, right? So the students are learning how to be healthy using a variety of internet sources. Twitter, Facebook, and a variety of blogs are great sources to get information on how to be healthy.
However, make sure you do your research and you get your information from reputable sources. There’s a lot of bad information that can actually be detrimental to your health.
App it up
App store products are seemingly endless, and there are apps for all ranges of health issues. Need to track your water consumption? There’s an app for that. Track calories ingested and burned? An app for that. Find local running trails? App.
You see my point? There are apps for everything, and we’re all on our smartphones all the time anyway, so we might as well use them for good.
Connect
So once you find your running trail, it might be nice to find a group of people to run with, right? Or a bunch of online peeps to celebrate with. Online and in-person communities can be essential to living a healthy lifestyle. It’s important to know you’re not alone on your quest for a life that doesn’t include Ramen.
Manage your time
College is stressful. There’s no doubt about that. But managing your time is absolutely crucial to making your health goals a reality.
Why? Because better time management includes time to work out, and pre-planning can help you make healthy meals. People have a misconception that healthy food takes forever to cook and is complicated.
While that may be true in some cases, there are plenty of recipes that can be made ahead, travel well, and are really good. Adding in time Sunday night to prep meals for the week is a great strategy, or planning to get up early enough to eat breakfast and make a healthy lunch are smart moves.
Be accountable
Some healthy lifers are so committed to their journey that they really want to share it with others. Starting your own blog is a great way to hold yourself accountable to others in the Internet universe.
Leading a group or doing a foodshare in your apartments or dorm are also great ways to be accountable. The more people who know about what you are doing, the better. It’s a great way to make sure you stay on track. You don’t want to let the fans down, after all.
Budget
It’s true that eating healthy can be expensive. I mean, that Goji-berry detox can be a little pricey.
But using social media to help you find deals or coupons is a good way to make such goods more affordable. Buying produce that’s in season is a great way to make healthy food cheaper, and taking some of your friends (from your foodshare or runner’s group) to farmers markets is an awesome way to save as well.
Healthy eating can gibe with college life, but you have to be a little creative to make it work.
