Tessa - Blog Post 2

How to Obtain A Happy, Healthy and Cheap College Lifestyle

Eating healthy, as well all know can be difficult to obtain. Yeah, we all try and eat the best we can, but I know that this can be very hard in college. For a big majority of us, this is the first time we are off on our own without parents, guardians or siblings watching over us. There are 5 tips to take into consideration, though. These may or may not help you, but I do think we can all relate to them.

1.    Make Lists!

To begin, sit down and map out everything you absolutely NEED to buy each month or week, and how much those are. Next, make a list of the unhealthy foods you typically each every day or even quite often. Once that list is done, cross off each food item and write a new list of healthier alternatives around the same price range that are in that same food group. Just go slow, one-by-one. You can take your time on this one. You may have to refer to a food pyramid or even just research and look-up some alternatives. From here, you can make your final grocery list with the healthier foods that are in the same price range as the unhealthy ones. This is such an easy way to not only improve your overall health but keep the same exact budget as you have been ever since school started! Everybody wins with this one.

2.    Portion Your Meals!

Portioning meals is so important in nutrition. It can be dangerous to have way too much of one food group on all of your meals and you may not even know any better. For the most part, we all know bad carbs and sugary things should be limited, but there are so many other foods to consider. If you meal plan you can buy all of these items in bulk and save money! For example, there should be 5-7 servings a day of fruits and veggies, 3-5 servings per day of breads, potatoes, rice and pasta, 3 servings of dairy per day, 2 servings of meat, beans and nuts, fats and oils may vary, and sugar should not be every day. If you just look at the food pyramid or the MyPlate image, it will be so much easier to portion your meals and look out for the bad things.

3.    Do NOT Fight Stress by Stress Eating!

I am like, 100% sure that all of us stress eat due to our classes. I am definitely guilty of it. STOP DOING IT!!! More than likely, when you stress eat, you choose chips or ice cream or candy or maybe even pasta. When students our age are under a lot of pressure in school maybe because we have 2 exams in one day, or a project or whatever is may be, we turn to unhealthy foods. Usually they have some sort of comforting feeling to us. Those comfort foods are always so unhealthy. Unfortunately, stress eating happens way too much because school is beyond stressful and we can never really get a break. Whenever you feel like stress eating, choose one of the healthy foods that you have around. They may even calm you down more and tale that stress away

4.    Buy Your Food in Bulk!

Buying food in bulk can help save so much time and money. Your food will definitely last longer and it will be much cheaper than going to the grocery store over and over when your food runs out. You can buy at bulk in Costco, Sam’s Club, Walmart, etc. Buying in bulk is the best because not only can you buy healthier option in bulk and keep those around your room, it will also last so much longer and that saves you about 4 more trips to the grocery store. Another reason this is amazing, is that usually when you go to the grocery store, you pass all the comfort food and chips and it’s so tempting to buy them and always give in. If you aren’t going to the grocery store that much, you won’t have to risk buying those foods.

5.    Keep Healthy Food Around Your Dorm Room!

It is so easy and cheap to buy some chips, candy bars, soda and other unhealthy foods around the dorm room. Believe me, I know. Those are just some things to snack on if maybe you are neck deep in homework, too lazy to get out of bed, or even just cooped up in the room all day. We all grew up with chips packed in our lunch and around the house. Although companies purposely make these items cheap, you should consider buying more healthy alternatives such as strawberries or any type of fruit, lentils (these can go with almost anything like chicken and veggies. They’re delicious too and all you need is a microwave!), Greek yogurt, and maybe some trail-mix to treat yourself with the M&M’s. You can buy these each for a little bit more than the chips and unhealthy foods. These are all delicious choices as well. I know that they might be slightly more expensive, but it is so worth it, because of the nutritious values that come out of it.

I hope each of these tips helped you in one way or another. Maybe you learned something and maybe you learned nothing. Whatever it may be, I just hope these can improve everybody overall knowledge about easier, cheaper and healthier ways to live your life. J