By Emily Thomas

10 Tips For Eating Healthy in College Eating healthy while trying to juggle the demands of higher education can be tricky. You have so many demands on your time as it is that it may be tempting to grab whatever is readily available and chow down while you are running to your next class or studying. It is possible to eat well during your time at college, and these 10 tips will hopefully provide you with some food for thought.

1. Know your options.

If you are going to a college with more than one dining hall, make a point of visiting all of them. It’s easy to get into a routine where you go to the same places and eat the same foods all the time. Different locations may offer different (and more nutritionally sound) choices. Once you decide that eating well is important to you, it doesn’t seem like such a chore to walk a bit further to get a better quality meal. Enlist your friends to do some nutrition recon and compare notes. You are more likely to eat the same kinds of things that your friends are eating, and if all of you are on the same page in the food choice department, it does make things easier.

2. Make a plan.

Let’s say that you check your schedule and you have to be in class at about the same time that you would usually be eating a meal. Take a snack with you. Dried fruits or nuts, a container of yogurt, or a sandwich are options that you can eat quickly. You avoid getting too hungry, which can make it more difficult for you to concentrate in class. Since you have eaten something, you are also less likely to grab a snack that is high in sugar and/or fat while you are on the run. You may also want to carry a meal-replacement bar or drink for times when you can’t eat a regular meal.

3. Get creative in the dining hall.

If you are on a meal plan while in college, you have lots of options at your disposal. You can ask staff not to include add-ons like rich sauces to your food. If there is a salad bar available, make a point of eating from there, but watch the amount of dressing you add. You can also mix and match foods from different stations. Go for lean protein and combine it with a salad or some vegetables. Pasta can be part of a healthy eating plan, but go for a tomato sauce with some added veggies over cream sauces. You can have dessert if you like, but choose one that you especially want and limit yourself to that choice.

4. Stay well hydrated.

Part of healthy eating is to make sure that you are getting enough liquids. The best thing to drink is plain water. Caffeinated drinks, like coffee and sodas, do give you a bit of an energy boost, but they also act as diuretics. Consuming a lot of them means that your body has a harder time hanging on to the fluids it needs to stay healthy. While you don’t want to be lugging multiple bottles of water around campus with you, having a refillable water bottle handy is a good idea. Remember to drink something before you feel thirsty to avoid dehydration.

5. Try to get enough rest.

Getting enough sleep when you have many things to do and there are only 24 hours in a day can be challenging. It may be tempting to cut back on sleep to keep up, but this strategy doesn’t help you in your attempts to eat well. If you are tired, you are more likely to reach for foods with a lot of sugar or caffeine to get a quick pick-me-up. While the caffeine jolt or sugar rush will help you feel more energetic and alert for a short time, it also means that you will have a crash that will make you feel sluggish. At that point, you may be tempted to go for the caffeine-and-sugar-thing again to get some more energy. You are better off getting a good night’s sleep instead, at least as often as you can.

6. Limit your intake of fast food.

Fast food restaurants have become a lot better lately about including more healthy choices in their menus, but most of their offerings are high in fat and calories. If you decide to go to one, choose something to eat that doesn’t have extras like sauce or mayonnaise. Substitute a salad or a baked potato for fries, if available, and tell the person you are ordering from to hold the cheese and bacon from your sandwich. Keep your toppings on your burger simple: mustard, ketchup, tomato and lettuce only.

7. Eat without distractions.

When you are already feeling pressed for time, you may be tempted to eat while doing some other activity. When we are distracted, it’s easy to lose track of what (and how much) we are eating. You need a break in your day to sit down, preferably at a table, and eat something. Eat slowly and give your brain enough time to signal to your body that you are full. This process will take 10 or 15 minutes, so allow yourself to have at least that much time to have a meal. Then you can move on with your day.

8. Take a vitamin supplement.

Most people, whether they are in college or not, don’t eat well all the time. Taking a multivitamin will help to ensure that you are getting the right nutrients into your body. This is not a substitute for eating well, but a way to complement your healthy eating habits. When choosing a vitamin, read the package label carefully to find one that doesn’t have a lot of non-medicinal ingredients in it. If you have questions about which one to choose, a pharmacist can provide you with information to help you get the right combination for you.

9. Drink alcohol in moderation.

What would college be like without alcohol? Pretty dry, for starters. If you choose to drink, keep your consumption moderate. This means one or two drink a day, if you drink at all. Beer, wine, and spirits just add empty calories to your diet, and make it more likely that you will make poor decisions about what you are eating. It can also lead to other bad choices, but that is a topic for another time.

10. Adopt the 80/20 rule.

Here’s how the 80/20 rule works: Eat healthy foods 80 percent of the time, and 20 percent of the time you can have a treat. Everyone enjoys having beer and pizza every now and then, or munches out on munchies at a party. Sometimes, a big, greasy cheeseburger with all the fixins’ is exactly what you are craving. Give in to these cravings sometimes, but don’t make them an every day thing. You can eat well while in college. It just takes some thought and planning on your part. If you adopt these suggestions, you will find that you are feeling better and it may even help you to learn more effectively. And that’s why you are going to college, isn’t it?