There exists an old Korean proverb that more or less goes something like this: To eat breakfast like a king, lunch like an aristocrat, and dinner like a commoner.
How is this relevant?
Well as college students, I’m sure we’ve all found ourselves being told to “beware the freshman fifteen” on a few too many occasions. Eyeing suspiciously the weekly nutritional tip perched on the edge of your booth at BD, wondering why you just had to have that double-dark-chocolate-chip-truffle-swirly thing from Cherry Tree. Resolving to finally get into club sports in the spirit of starting anew… before settling for a solo once-a-week trek to the gym. Probably not even Sumers at that.
And to combat this sad reality, I’m willing to bet that we’ve all become experts on dieting. Except not really.
After trying a combination of exercise, calorie-control, carb-elimination, meal-skipping, veganism, starvation, selling your meal points, scientific research etc, nothing really seems to work in the long run.
Let’s face it: We’re at the end of the line here. Maintaining your weight and healthy eating habits long-term, given such generous meal portions and the glorious double-dark-chocolate-chip-truffle-swirly thing, is not easy. Let’s not even get to losing any. At this point would you say you’re open to any and all suggestions?
Back to the old proverb. The moral of the story? It’s all about portion-control.
“Well duh,” you might say. I agree. So let’s all have another go at it! Instead of denying yourself that double-dark-chocolate-chip-truffle-swirly thing, go ahead and buy it. There’s no need to be impractical if you really crave something. But only eat half.
Whatever you eat, try significantly reducing the portions but eat more frequently than you might have before; if you consistently feed yourself tiny amounts of food throughout the day, wouldn’t you already be eating less than if you had had that entire wrap for lunch and that entire stir-fry for dinner, in addition to other snacks? And eating less more frequently would probably make you less miserable than eating nothing save your three meals.
I won’t pretend to really know what I’m talking about; I wouldn’t even call this a diet. But from one resigned student to another I just wish for us to eat without worry. However you decide to proceed, the key is to just be content!