I am in college. How do I eat when all I am offered is junk?

Ladies in college. My beautiful cousin Erica asked me for advice on what to eat in college. It took me a while to get to this, but here it is. It's very simple. I assume most of you are eating at cafeterias with meal plans so I will go ahead and say that the prepared foods you are eating are most likely garbage. 

This is what you can do:

• eat all the fruit you can find
• eat the salads
• drink water instead of soda or "vitamin" waters
• buy mixed nuts, dried fruit, and apples/oranges/bananas and keep them in your room
• something tasty & healthy you can eat is hummus w/ cut up veggies
• absolutely do not eat late night
• do not eat fried foods or pizza

It may be fun now and you think you won't be one of the girls that blows up, but you aren't an exception to the rule. Speaking from experience, I thought I could keep up with the boys in drinking and eating. I gained a lot of weight in college. And guess what? I'm still working it off. I'm 29. 

Loosing weight sucks. It's much easier to stay slim than lose weight. It is actually quite simple. The more fruits and vegetables and whole foods you eat the better off you will be. What's a whole food? Something that still looks like it came from nature. Nuts, seeds, fruit, vegetables, brown rice, anything that is still in it's original form.

Here are some other facts:

• muffins are not a healthy option
• cheese is the best tasting thing in the world but if you eat a ton of it you will gain weight
• chips go straight to your hips
• most smoothies are sugar bombs unless it is made strictly with whole fruit
• late night eating is THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO
• the ice cream in the cafeteria is garbage

A few words about drinking. First of all, we all know drinking is an integral part of the college experience. If you are one of those that don't drink that much you are ahead of the curve. Alcohol is empty calories. Which means you are just inhaling calories that make you fat. Alcohol is a double whammy because you tend to eat more crappy food.

Here's the thing. The point isn't to be perfect all the time. The point is to be good most of the time. When you aren't partying make a point to be healthy. One or two pounds aren't that bad to get rid of, but 10-20 lb's will literally take you forever to work off. And you won't be able to do it while you are doing keg stands and eating pizza at 3am.

Women definitely have a disadvantage when it comes to packing on the pounds. But it can be easy to stay slim and healthy if you get in the habit of eating fruits and vegetables.

If you happen to be in college and have questions post a comment below and I'll do my best to get you answers. Stay beautiful ladies!