Intro to Nutrtion= My New Tyra

I went back to school yesterday! :D After nearly a year long hiatus. Yikes. I'm glad to be back though. I jammed all of my classes into two days so I'll be going 9:30-4 everyday.

My first class is probably my favorite, Intro to Nutrition. My professor is a sarcastic man with a heavy accent and a very lax attitude. He first off clarified what the class was like and what he did and did not tolerate while saying "This class is very basic nutrition and people take it just for that reason. And that's understandable. But when people take this class having no previous knowledge at all about nutrition and the only reference they have is The Tyra Show, I hate hearing 'I saw on Tyra that...'" Then he picked up the book and showed it to the class and said "THIS is your Tyra now". It's gonna be a good semester ;)

He did say some things that really got me thinking. He brought up how much of our diet choices are determined by convience and nothing more. So for lunch, after I meet up with my friends, I tried to take this into account as I made my choices. I went off the beaten path a little of the convient cafeteria food and got a prepacked chicken salad.

It was a really good choice! Kept me full for the next two classes as well as the long line waiting to buy my books. Speaking of books....

Guh. $448 folks. Those books with the computer programs really screw you over. You can't buy them used.

So all of the money being dished out is really my least favorite part of going back to school. My favorite by far is seeing all of my friends by far. However, everything has two sides. As we also discussed in into to nutrition, we eat 60% more food in a group than we would alone! So if we would eat just a sandwich by ourselves, if we're with someone else that could turn into two sandwiches and a trip to the desserts! That's why we gain so much weight in college. We meet up in the cafeteria and just chow down with our friends. Having had gone through this myself, here are some tips on how I broke the cycle.
  • If you're turning eating into a social event, try to focus on both equally. When we get into catching up with our friends about how our summer was, we don't realize that we just gobbled down 3 slices of pizza. If you can balance them both, you'll realize you eat a lot less.
  • Don't put a lot on your plate. This is simple. If you put a bunch of brownies on your plate then sit down with your friends, your gonna eat them. Put a small amount of food on your plate and go back if you still feel hungry 20 minutes later.
  • Look at what goes on your plate carefully. If you pile on just what looks good because that chemistry test is really stressing you out, you're not going to be feeling drained. Certain meals and foods actually make you feel good and vice versa. Something like 1/2 of your plate being salad with veggies, 1/4 being a whole wheat roll, brown rice, or starchy vegetable, and 1/4 being a lean meat like salmon, turkey or chicken, you'll notice a difference in how you feel if you had eaten just some pizza and cookies.
  • Look carefully at the plate you pick up. Some of those dinner plates in cafeterias are twice the size of what you should be using. See the salad plates? Go with one of those. That's acutally what dinner plates looked like 50 years ago. See why we've gotten so heavy over the years? We have so much more room for more food.
  • Learn to graze. This is what really worked for me in the end. I'd eat a good breakfast like these egg whites (which you CAN make in the microwave and cook on high for about 45 seconds for those of you in the dorms! As well as you can with oatmeal. Saved my butt last year!) and stawberries-

Bring a snack to class like babybel cheese-
And then by lunch time, I don't even want more than that salad. So I can have my social time and not have to by a new pair of jeans next semester :)

So question... what's your biggest problem when you get back to school? And do you noticably eat more in a group?

5 comments:

  1. I'm so jealous. I want to go back to college. And be in your class. With a cool professor that knows about Tyra... sigh...

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  2. Haha I know right? What a rad professor. I'm excited for that class :)

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  3. Next semester check out Chegg.com!
    My first semester I paid nearly $500 for books. This year I paid around $200. You rent each sem!
    Hope you're enjoying being back! I'm taking a basic nutrition class this semester and it's really interesting so far :)

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  4. I was actually talking to someone in line waiting for books haha. Should take a look next semester. Prices of books are always the last straw for me!

    Really? Cool! I wonder if its gonna be similar to mine... can I read about it on your blog?

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  5. I probably eat a little more in a group, but the real difference is that I eat more indulgently in a group. I cook and eat a lot of healthy food, so, naturally, most times that I eat out, I'm eating richer food.

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Thank you so much for reading! You're comments mean a lot. I mean every single one :)