University is an exciting time in anyone’s life. For a lot of people, it means the first time living away from home and the first major foray into adulthood and living independently. First year is a hectic one, with trying to figure out how everything works at school and where you fit into the social scene. With these things going on in the background, it can be difficult to focus on one’s personal health—whether it be physical or mental. However, first year is a great time to develop some healthy habits to carry with you throughout the remainder of your university experience and, hopefully, beyond. With that, here are some tips on how to improve your health through diet, exercise, and attention to mental health.
Food and Diet
Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably heard of the dreaded “Freshman 15.” Though the Freshman 15 is really more of a myth (the average weight gain of frosh, if they do gain weight, is usually about 3 pounds), eating well is by no means a pointless goal. First year is a great time to start developing some healthy eating habits. So, here are some tips to help get you started.
Set your own goals: The best way to get healthier is through making lifestyle changes, not by dieting. Making your own goals—and not just following a generic diet or life-change plan—will be easier for you to maintain and improve on later. It can be anything you want it to be; do you want to cut out caffeine? Sugar? Eat more vegetables? It’s up to you to define what you need to be healthier.
Get real with yourself: Know your weaknesses when it comes to food. Are you bad at avoiding those tempting Burwash pastries every Saturday morning? Do you eat so much pasta you go back to fill your plate four times? Do you have trouble eating certain foods in moderation, even though you understand that you should? It is important to be aware of these things when making meal choices. If you know you hate eating vegetables by themselves, try them in another meal that combines them with something you like. Don’t try to force yourself to eat them by themselves and hate it! If you know you have trouble eating things like chocolate or desserts in moderation without binge-eating, you may have to try completely abstaining from the food instead—not everyone is actually capable of moderating how much they eat of something they crave. Know yourself and your habits, and adjust accordingly instead of following someone else’s model.
Plan, plan, plan! This works both if you commute or if you live on residence. If you commute, take time to plan out what and where you will eat for the rest of the week. If you bring lunch and other food for yourself, plan out some options that will be quick to make in the morning or the night before you have to head to class. If you know you’ll need to eat somewhere on-campus, consider where to go that isn’t too expensive and still has healthy options. Ned’s Café is a good bet, as is Sammy’s Student Exchange at Hart House.
If you eat on a meal plan, take a minute at the beginning of the week to glance over the meal schedule for your dining hall to make mental notes for that week. For example, if you are looking to eat less sugar but love desserts, use the schedule to decide when you should eat dessert. As well, make deals with yourself. If you want the chocolate lava cake on Friday, you can tell yourself you can’t eat any cookies or desserts from Monday-Thursday and use the cake as reward for your fabulous self-control. Using strategies like this can lessen the surprise that your favourite sweet potato fries are being served and prevent the binge-eating.
Quick tips:
- Keep back-up food. Don’t have enough Burwash meals for three meals every day? Buy some basic foods for yourself to keep in your dorm. Often get hungry even after everything is closed? Keep emergency granola bar stashes in your dorm or backpack. You can also sneak some bananas, apples, and cookies from Burwash and keep them in your dorm. You never know when late-night hunger can strike, and it’s better than a late-night McDonald’s run.
- Try time-delayed eating. Recent experiments conducted by Carnegie Mellon University revealed that people choose lower-calorie meals when there is a significant amount of time in between ordering food and the time of eating it. Doing this allows you to consider both the short-term and long-term consequences of your food choices.
Fitness
Though it has too many benefits to go over here, exercise is an amazing thing for your body. It boosts brain health, your mood, and prevents numerous chronic health conditions. Though you may have hated high school gym class, there is no reason to avoid exercise as you enter adulthood. UofT has a ton of different options for everyone when it comes to staying active at school.
Try out a new gym: You may not realize that your student fees actually give you access to <i>three<i> awesome gyms on campus. Want more of a chilled out vibe that’s close to Vic? Try the Hart House gym. Want to be around more intense machines and athletes? Try the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport, or the Athletic Centre. If you are nervous about what to do at the gym, feel free to take it slow at first while you figure it out, or ask any of the employees for help or guidance.
Try a new sport or activity: There is definitely no shortage of new activities or sports to try at UofT. The Victoria College Athletics Association runs some great teams and activities for Vic as part of the UofT intramurals. Here, you can join anything from soccer to basketball. Try some of the classes at Hart House or the Athletic Centre, or try out for a novice sports team, like rowing. There are also a lot of roundabout ways to get some great activity, like joining the UofT Outing Club. Outdoor activities are great ways to be active, since you also get to enjoy some fresh air in the process and meet some cool people at the same time!
Find inspiration: Were you amazed by our Canadian Olympians at Rio this year? Did you dream of trying out some of what these athletes were killing it at? Inspiration can come from anywhere, and it helps to have people to look up to when it comes to fitness, and they don’t have to be Olympians. Maybe it’s a YouTuber you follow who runs a lot, or maybe it’s your new friend from residence who just joined the soccer team and is super pumped about it. Seek out people like this to look up to, and you’ll find yourself much more interested in exercising—you may even learn some great tips from them in the process.
Quick tips:
- Make a schedule for yourself, and stick to it. It is much easier to actually go and do something when you make yourself do it by having no scheduling or time-related excuses.
- Set concrete fitness goals. Schedule yourself around a goal or an event, like running your first 5 or 10k run. Having something to work towards will make it easier to motivate yourself, especially if you had to pay to register for an event or told your friends about it!
- Don’t go too hard, too fast. Involving exercise in your life can be a major change for you if you haven’t been super active before. Feel free to take it slow; you have a lot of time to involve it more in your life and rushing into it can tire you out and make it a difficult habit to sustain.
Mental Health
First year is a lot of things: crazy, fun, exciting, and strange. But sadly, it can also be stressful, sad, and infuriating. Unexpected events and emotions can come about during first year that leave you feeling helpless and alone, which is why being conscious of your mental health and emotions is so essential.
Know your resources: If you are a student at Vic, you have access to our own personal counsellor as well as UofT’s, which makes it easier to book appointments. UofT’s Health and Wellness Centre handles all the appointments and can connect you with the resources you need, including assault counselling and cultural- and faith-based counselling. There are also a lot of great wellness events run by Hart House—for example, their Weekly Wellness program—and by Victoria College, with Wellness Wednesdays held across the Vic campus. Though it can be difficult, reaching out if you are having a hard time—whether to your residence or commuter don, friend, or someone at UofT Health and Wellness—can also be a great first step in improving your experience at school.
Don’t compare yourself to others: It can be really easy in first year to see your friends’ Facebook updates and snapchats and think they are having the best time at university while you are having the worst. This is almost always not the case, and though it can be difficult to disconnect from what you see online from your friends, it is important to remember no one has the same experience in university. It is really rare that first year is perfect. Everyone has their own struggles that aren’t always obvious, so it’s best to focus on yourself as much as possible in this regard.
<b>Don’t expect perfection.<b> A lot of what you hear about university makes it sound like it should be a constant party. “It’s the best time of your life!” people often say. University <i>is<i> an amazing experience, and certainly can be the best time of your life, but that doesn’t mean every moment has to be incredible. Go into first year expecting some mistakes, some crappy moments, and some awkward experiences. It isn’t the end of the world if you don’t make as many friends as you want, or didn’t end up enjoying the club you thought you would love. Learn from your mistakes and keep getting up off the ground, and university will treat you well.
Quick tips:
- Check in with yourself. Make sure you aren’t getting so distracted with school that you forget to take care of yourself and take account of your emotions and feelings. Reflect on the week or month and how you reacted to different events—whether positive or negative—and consider any lessons you learned from dealing with these things that you can remember for the future.
- Take time to relax. Even if it seems like you don’t even have enough time to eat, taking time to relax during stressful times is essential. Whether it’s by reading a new book, taking a nice walk around campus, meditating, or watching your favourite show on Netflix, find time to relax in a way that will refresh you so you can be more efficient and effective in the rest of your life.
- Exercise! Exercise is a great stress reliever and can also be a fantastic way to relieve feelings of depression and anxiety. Sometimes even going for a quick walk can make you feel much less stressed and much more in control.
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