Striking the right balance

As a Welcome Week rep, I get asked a lot of questions, from where the nearest washroom is to how to navigate the Arts Quad basement.

But I also get asked about staying healthy in university, namely, how to avoid the dreaded Freshman 15.

I entered university with a few set goals for the year. Number one on that list was to be a little healthier—exercise regularly and eat my greens.

The summer before I started at Mac, I read up on the Freshman 15 and made notes on how to avoid the seemingly inevitable weight gain that comes with starting university.

However, what began as a mild precaution about skipping fries and eating more kale morphed into an all-consuming obsession with food.

Essentially, my anxiety about the Freshman 15 nearly became an eating disorder.

I worried constantly about my weight. I counted the calories in every bite I touched, and when that wasn’t enough, I started skipping meals altogether, claiming to be too busy to eat or that I was worried about running out of meal plan money.

Exercise became a punishment for what I saw as lapses in self-control, and something I had always seen as a form of relaxation became a stressor in its own right.

This went on for a large portion of first year. It took a few reality checks and a lot of internal dialogue for me to finally abandon the calorie counters and feel okay about going out for a treat with friends.

I don’t mean to scare anyone — there are enough of those in univeresity. But there are still times where I can feel the urge to revert to where I was two years ago, hunched on my bed calculating the calories in a snack container of carrots and hummus. It felt shitty then, and it feels just as awful now.

Yes, it’s absolutely important to eat healthily, but there should be no shame about comforting yourself with an ice cream after a rough midterm either.

If you gain a few pounds, you gain a few pounds. It’s not the end of the world.