<p>I’ve lost about 25 pounds and still have about 40 pounds left to lose. Needless to say, I’ll do anything to avoid the Freshman 15!</p>
<p>Does Bama list the nutritional facts of its food either online or on a handout I could get somewhere on campus? Are daily menus posted online in advance so that I can plan my meals?Are there a lot of healthy options with on-campus dining? Where do you recommend I eat for healthy, flavorful food?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance. I can’t wait to be there next month. Roll Tide!</p>
<p>Congrats on your weight loss and best wishes for meeting your goals. </p>
<p>Have you visited the dining halls? If not, then this is how they are set up…</p>
<p>Each hall has “stations”…and each station offers a type of food…Mexican, Asian, Italian, sub sandwiches, Meat & Veggies, Salad Bar, American, etc. The menus for many of the stations change each day and those are posted on the Bama Dining website.</p>
<p>For someone who is dieting, I would think carefully choosing foods from the Asian station (such as grilled chix and veggies), the salad bar, fish offerings, etc would work.</p>
<p>Are you on a particular style of diet?? like WW? Atkins?</p>
<p>No, I’m not on any particular style of diet. I keep track of the food that I eat. I mostly count calories, but I do pay attention to other nutritional facts. I also keep track of my exercise, and I exercise 5-7 days a week for at least 1 hour a day.</p>
<p>Just a little post of encouragement. DS says he dreads coming home because he goes to UA loses 15 of those excess pounds he put on those HS years of hitting the books. At UA even though he’s still hitting the books there is the “mandatory” walking (to/from classes, meals, etc.) At home, food is close at hand, car travel to/from friends, etc. I’ve been warned to keep his welcome home treat to a cupcake or slice of chocolate cake NOT the monster cake from Costco. </p>
<p>Congrats on your success and I’m sure you’ll continue it at UA.</p>
<p>Here you go…at least it is a start. Bama offers vegetarian dishes at all locations and has the nutritional available too! Here is the link to get you started: </p>
<p>[Fresh</a> & Healthy @ UA](<a href=“http://bamadining.ua.edu/pages/fresh.html]Fresh”>http://bamadining.ua.edu/pages/fresh.html) </p>
<p>Best of luck. Sound like you have your head on straight. The freshman 15 is not for everyone!</p>
<p>Here’s the good news…University of Missouri calls their freshman year “Mizzou 22”. So 15 is better than 22.</p>
<p>Good job, grammargirl!! I log my food every day, so I understand that it can be difficult when there is no posted information. Once you learn with foods are cooked without butter and/or oil, you will probably be able to make some well-educated estimates of the calories based on your own experience and whatever databases you use. I do hope the nutritional information will be available though. </p>
<p>Keep up the good work!</p>
<p>fwiw…the salad bar is very doable at bama…may I suggest bringing your own dressing in? There are so many easy to make and delicious dressing recipies…I’m so excited for you op…eating at bama will work for you if you have the right attitude…which i think you have…</p>
<p>Most every item will have nutrition information posted on the sign above each food. Menus are also posted online, but may be inaccurate or reflect food that the dining hall has run out of. Occasionally I have run into some interesting food names on the online menus such as [Soup Name] Soup-DO NOT USE and Vegan Chicken Tacos, which took some explaining from the manager who was surprised that not everyone likes to eat meat and/or animal products. It turns out that the “chicken” in this dish is actually deep fried tofu.</p>
<p>I have found that people serving food in Alabama are often not the most knowledgeable about food ingredients and look at one strangely for when you ask to see the ingredient label. When asked what type of oil the Tuscaloosa Wal-Mart fries its deli foods in, the employee first told me “oil,” then “Crisco” (which usually means vegetable shortening), when in actuality it was Crisco-branded 100% non-hydrogenated soybean oil.</p>
<p>Some of the dining halls will fry boneless-skinless chicken breast pieces rather than grill them. Aramark (UA’s dining contractor) officially uses 0g trans fat per serving oil, but will often alternate between olive oil and liquid frying shortening (which may have trans fat in amounts less than 0.5 grams per serving). To the best of my knowledge, all of the bread products with the possible exception of pizza crust and pita bread (whose ingredients change from time to time) contain HFCS, as do the juice beverages (UA does not serve fruit juice).</p>
<p>You are free to request any item with or without certain items and the Bama Dining employees will grant your request. For example, I’ll order meats without the accompanying bread/other carbs and will choose corn tortillas or none at all when eating Tex-Mex.</p>
<p>My advice to someone trying to lose weight is to limit your intake of fried foods, sweets, and alcohol. In addition, don’t try to “eat your money’s worth” at the all-you-can-eat dining halls. Eating aside, walk everywhere whenever possible, exercise regularly, and get enough sleep. Beyond that, study hard, meet people that like you for who you are, and have fun.</p>
<p>Roll Tide!</p>
<p>Thanks for the encouragement, socal2bama. I hadn’t even thought of all of the extra walking I will do. I guess not having a car has its perks! I also find myself having to remind my parents that my eating habits are different, since I’ve been overweight literally my entire life. I enjoy special occasions more now even though, like your son, I will eat a cupcake rather than a huge slice of cake, because I don’t eat unhealthily all of the time anymore.</p>
<p>seekingknowledge, thanks for the link and the tip about bringing my own salad dressing. I tend to make my own because it’s easier to monitor the ingredients and the amount of sodium. I probably wouldn’t have brought it to the dining hall without your suggestion, though.</p>
<p>Haha, illinoisbamamom! You’re right about that.</p>
<p>lattelady, I like learning about the food that I’m eating, but I’m lost when there are no facts. I like your approach of basically figuring out the base food and going from there. As long as I stick to the foods I normally eat when there are no facts available, I should be okay using your approach. Thank you!</p>
<p>SEA_tide, that’s a relief to know that the nutritional facts are posted right above the food. It’s disappointing that the servers aren’t knowledgeable about the food, but it’s good to know that if there’s any doubt that I can just substitute or eliminate a certain option on a dish. </p>
<p>Thank you for the advice. Thankfully, everything you mentioned I am already doing. Eat well, eat less, move more. I also only drink water, and lots of it. One of the (hidden) blessings of having junk food in my house all of the time is learning to have willpower when faced with a lot of good-tasting food. </p>
<p>Roll tide, everyone! I feel a lot better about continuing my lifestyle at college.</p>
<p>grammargirl94: Congrats on your weight loss success thus far! I asked D about your question this morning, as seatide mentioned there is nutrition data in the dinning halls. D mentioned to caution you that serving sizes given out may not match up with nutritional info -something to pay a little closer attention to. </p>
<p>Below is a link I thought you might find helpful regarding services available at the Rec Center. <a href=“http://urec.sa.ua.edu/Documents/Fitness-Services-Nutrition.pdf[/url]”>http://urec.sa.ua.edu/Documents/Fitness-Services-Nutrition.pdf</a></p>
<p>D who is a student-athlete has had the BodPod done and found she had put on a good amount of muscle with the weight training program her team does but was feeling like like she wanted to lose 5 Lbs. by second semester. She wanted to do so without sacrificing the muscle gain…following working with a nutritionist in the athletic department -just getting some good tips on between meal snacking and tweeking meals etc., the Bod Pod was repeated and she had achieved her weight loss goal and continued to increase muscle mass from the prior test so she was really pleased. </p>
<p>The prices at the Rec Center for non-athletes seem pretty reasonable but you may also want to check with your parents/their health insurance to see if it covers visits w/a nutritionist for you in the Student Health Center if you did want to start out the year working with a nutritionist.</p>
<p>I can tell you the BodPod pricing at the Rec Center is really good at $20.00 as D had one done a couple weeks ago while home at one of our bigger hospital nutrition dept’s. to see how she was doing w/summer work-outs and it cost in the $50’s. </p>
<p>[Student</a> Health Center Individual Nutrition Counseling](<a href=“http://shc.ua.edu/clinic-services/individual/]Student”>http://shc.ua.edu/clinic-services/individual/)</p>
<p>Good luck and keep up the great work on your healthy lifestyle!</p>
<p>Thanks, trvlbug. I’ll look out for serving sizes. The prices of those services seem reasonable. I’ll look into them.</p>