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Wellness > Health

Lose the Freshman 15: Cooking off the Weight

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Ally Lopez

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Hey collegiettes™!

I’m pretty sure I can’t be the only college student that has no clue when it comes to cooking. Though I’ve given it a shot a handful of times for the Jump Start Diet, I wouldn’t call myself the next Rachael Ray.

Though some collegiettes™ may pick up a few cooking skills in their dorm kitchens, I’ve been too lazy to do so the past four years since I live at home. heart vegetables

Lucky for me, SELF did include a few fast food and microwave ready meal options, but I know I can’t eat a 6-inch turkey sub from Subway or pop in Amy’s Kitchen Light spinach pizza everyday. Well, I guess I technically could but (1) I’m poor and (2) this is a perfect excuse to finally learn to cook.

In all honesty, I used to think that eating healthy was just making a salad and eating as many fruits and veggies as possible, but I’m wrong!

From SELF‘s Jump Start Diet tip-a-day email, I learned that “cooking helps break down the cell walls of certain plant foods, releasing carotenoids like lycopene and beta-carotene, antioxidants shown to help prevent cancer and heart disease.”

What the heck does that mean though? Basically, some veggies want to play hard to get. To get the complete nutrients that they–like tomatoes, carrots, spinach and winter squash– offer, you need to put those puppies over the stove!

Have any healthy, yummy recipes to share with me? Let me know! Leave a comment below, e-mail me at allylopez@hercampus.com or  Tweet  me (@allylopez).

If you’d like to join me in my healthy, happy weight loss (and please do), go register for the Jump Start Diet on SELF.com and be sure to use the SELF logs to keep track of your daily workout and meals, which is an awesome way to keep track of your calorie intake and how much you’re burning off!

Have a great weekend collegiettes!

Love,
Ally

To follow Ally’s journey on the Jump Start Diet, check out her out on Twitter (@allylopez), and while you’re at it, follow the latest news from SELF (@SELFmagazine) and Her Campus (@HerCampus)!

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Ally is a senior print journalism major at the University of Maryland, College Park with a concentration in magazine journalism. In addition to blogging for the Her Campus and SELF magazine “Lose the Freshman 15” program, she writes for the sex & dating section of College Magazine. Her previous internships include being a UMD “style guru” for the Web site CollegeFashionista, an editorial intern for ARCHITECT and eco-structure magazines, as well as a copy editing intern for The Working Press, a daily tabloid that covered the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2010 national convention. Additionally, she has contributed to the USA TODAY College blog. When she isn’t in her bubble of journalism, Ally enjoys spending time with her family and friends, spending insane amounts of money at the mall, and watching every flavor of the Real Housewives.