Two dreaded words await every freshman on campus and conjure up nightmares for everyone else: Freshman Fifteen. Its cause can very easily be pinpointed. Incoming students, required to enroll in a meal plan, see themselves face to face with some of the nastiest edible substances on the planet with little choice but to force feed themselves. The meal plans vary from school to school, but at this particular fine institution, the maximum any student can get is three square meals a day during the week and two on the weekend. Over the past year, my disgust for this type of structure has grown. This forces the student to binge, impeding the metabolism.
Imagine yourself as a six-year-old little runt doing quantum physics on the swing set during recess in elementary school. What kind of meals did you get? Most likely, your mother made you breakfast, some eggs, toast, cereal and orange juice. Then you got your snack at recess and then the school lunch: some delicious sloppy joes! After the day was over, there was another snack in the afternoon before the family dinner. It all added up to six meals per day, none of them particularly large.
This type of eating fuels your metabolism incredibly well. Think of it as a burning fire. If you put 10 logs on the fire three times a day, it'll burn hard for about an hour and then nearly be extinguished by the time you put on another 10 logs. However, if on the other hand, you put five logs onto the fire six times per day, about three hours apart, a nice steady glow would persist all through the day.
But I'm in college, you cry. I don't have the time to prepare six meals every day. It isn't that hard when you think about it, just as if a three-part 10-page paper isn't that hard if you split it up in three sections rather than one.
The most recent issue of Muscle and Fitness has an excellent article outlining options for the person on the go. A combination of any of the meals provided can do wonders while making as small of a dent in your free time as possible.
On the shopping list they suggest, the brands that appear most often are Healthy Choice and Lean Cuisine. This comes as no surprise, since both are prepared with low calories and are very nutritionally dense. Now you say to yourself, that stuff's disgusting! Okay, go ahead and eat the Wolman buffet.
If you tend to have enough free time on your hands to solve the Middle East crisis, other options may be considered. Various types of meats are the best sources of proteins, which serve to repair and rebuild your muscles after they've been taxed by that grueling set of squats. The best proteins come from fresh chicken, turkey, fish and eggs. With the modern day advances in technology spawning the George Foreman grill, even those bunkered down in the AMRs have the ability to grill up a delicious barbecued chicken. Just take care not to burn down the building while you're at it.
Carbohydrates and fats play an equal role in proper nutrition and are just as important as proteins. People tend to ignore their significance and try to cut down consumption, but this is the wrong method because they supply energy and lubricate the joints, making them an integral part in exercise. Carbohydrates are divided into three categories, starchy (complex) carbs; simple carbs (usually fruits) and fibrous carbs from green vegetables. Fats are divided into two categories: saturated and unsaturated. A balanced consumption of the three carbohydrate categories and of the unsaturated category of fats is crucial.
All in all, the ratio of caloric consumption of the three groups should run about 30-60-20 proteins-carbs-fats. One gram of both proteins and carbohydrates equals four calories while one gram of fat equals nine calories.
If you have any questions or are confused, e-mail me at cobbossee@aol.com . The subject of nutrition can be a very complex one.
In college, it really isn't hard to eat well. Simply ignore most of your urges and eat like our primitive ancestors did.
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