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  Health & Couns... Entire Geneseo Site

Hot Topics!
Eating Well & Exercising in College

Eating Well on Campus 

You would like to eat better and get more exercise, but lots of things keep getting in the way: classes, studying, parties, your budget (or lack of!), fatigue, significant others, and sleep. With careful planning, you CAN find a way to eat well on campus and to add some exercise to your daily routine. Check out the awesome sites below!

Nutrition

A great starting point for helpful nutrition information is the Mayo Clinic's Nutrition & Healthy Eating resource, which includes an expert blog. Also be sure to visit Wake Forrest Medical Center to find out answer the question How's Your Diet?, which includes a section to help you determine calories in fast food meals from McDonald's, Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, and 8 other national chains. Finally, check out how you can customoze the USDA nutritrion guidelines at My Pyramid.

Several great web sites have information specific to eating well while at college. College Eating and Fitness 101, which offers dining hall tips and alternative food choices, and Healthy College Food, which includes a resource list of college student cookbooks. Finally, read our because it's your health article on Eating Well at Geneseo and get more general nutrition information via the additional links below.

http://www.nutrition.gov/
http://www.eatright.org/
Nutrition for Everyone

Getting Exercise  

Your Basic Fitness Needs

Aerobic Exercise

• Includes any type of exercise which gets the heart pumping and uses up additional oxygen (i.e., you breath faster and heavier).
• Aim for at least 3 30-minute sessions per week. Interested in walking for fitness? Find out about knight striders, Geneseo's walking group.

Strength Training

• For adults (including college students), most experts recommend 30-60 minutes of physical activity on most days. However, you may benefit from as little as 20 minutes three times per week; you can further break down your activity into 10-minute intervals.
• Physical activity includes aerobic exercise plus strength and flexibility training.

Flexibility Training

• Stretching should be done after you muscles have heated up (view slide show demonstration).
• Also includes activities such as martial arts, ballet, yoga, and Pilates.
• Follow these animated How-To guidelines to try some Pilates beginner workouts or yoga stretches while you watch TV. 

Staying Active

You can participate in fitness activities on campus through Intramural Sports, the Workout Center, and recreational activities such as skating and swimming. You can even simple take 1-, 2-, or 3-mile walks around campus using these walking routes plotted out by our knight striders group.  Or, try this list on the Top 5 Ways to Include Fitness in College Life (scroll down to the bottom of the page). Using exercise videos is another easy, inexpensive way to get started on a fitness program; check out VideoFitness.com to determine whether working out with videos is right for you. (For even more inexpensive exercise ideas, try this Mayo Clinic article, Fitness for Less.) Finally, for information on using exercise to manage stress, read our because it's your health article, Exercise Your Way to Stress-Free Finals.

For more information on getting started, read this Mayo Clinic article on How to Select a Fitness Program.  Got an iPod?  Try this 20-minute "The Dorm Room Diet: The Workout," a free download from iAmplify.  If you already participate in regular fitness activities, test your fitness level via four quick easy tests which you can perform yourself at home.

Managing Your Weight

Are you worried about gaining the dreaded "Freshman 15" during your first year of school?  Check out the following articles:

• Top Ten Tips to Avoid the "Freshman 15", from the American Council of Fitness
• 15 Diet Tips to Beat the "Freshman 15" (at any age!), from NBC and iVillage
• Avoiding the Freshman 15, from MSN's College section
  
• Finally, be sure to read our "...because it's your health" article, Get the "Skinny" on Fad Diets
  (including Atkins, low-carb, andother popular diet plans).

If you want to start an exercise program as a means to lose weight, take this Fit or Not? quiz to determine whether you are currently at a healthy weight. This personalized assessment tool also calculates your body mass index and helps you design a safe plan for using exercise to lose weight. Finally, check out the Mayo Clinic's Weight Loss Center, which offers strategies for successful weight loss as well as information on adding pounds for those who are underweight.

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