For those of you prepar­ing to head off to col­lege this fall, you will expe­ri­ence the unique din­ing expe­ri­ence of the dorm cafe­te­ria, or DC. Eat­ing at the DC is dif­fer­ent because it pro­vides you with a near lim­it­less array of food choices, and you don’t have to pre­pare any of it yourself.

If you haven’t heard of the Fresh­man 15, it refers to the 15 pounds that stu­dents gain dur­ing their fresh­man year due to a few fac­tors. If you want to avoid this per­sonal expan­sion, fol­low these steps.

Every meal doesn’t have to be a buffet

The DC typ­i­cally has at least seven or eight meal options of a vari­ety of cuisines, but you don’t have to eat all of them at every meal.

Avoid the temp­ta­tion of fill­ing your tray to capac­ity every time you go to the DC. This well help you avoid pack­ing on extra weight, as well as leav­ing you with less uneaten food going to waste.

Mind the food pyramid

At the DC, you will likely find that some food choices are there every meal. At my school DC, we had pizza and burg­ers avail­able every meal, and they were really good.

Alas, a diet of burg­ers and pizza alone is not suf­fi­cient in vit­a­mins and nutri­ents for one to sur­vive on. And this is not a chal­lenge; kids, don’t try this at home. Read­ers, please go for the well-balanced diet when you go to col­lege. Your par­ents won’t be there to push you to eat fruits and veg­eta­bles, the onus is on you to do it.

Why should you? Because you don’t want to end up like this kid.

Be active

This may seem like a no-brainer, but being active is another key in avoid­ing a first-year weight gain. Col­lege stu­dents are typ­i­cally a seden­tary bunch, espe­cially when in very close prox­im­ity to the DC.

In addi­tion, while a high num­ber of us played on school sports teams in high school, that num­ber drops dra­mat­i­cally at col­lege. With­out get­ting that reg­u­lar exer­cise, you may be on the path towards the Fresh­man 15.

So hit up the school gym, join an intra­mural sports team, or walk or bike to your classes instead of dri­ving. Just be active in any way you can; com­bined with a healthy diet, you can avoid being the next vic­tim of the Fresh­man 15.

If any­one else has good tips, or advice, please share below.