A College Student's Attempt at a Healthy Lifestyle

  Home Gym Hacks    If you’re anything like me, it’s hard to motivate yourself to stay focused on anything at home, especiall y exercise. I’ve worked out at the same gym for years, but I could see how , especially in college  gyms ,  the fear of being watched or judged by  more experienced gym-goers  may prevent  beginners  from working out at all. I decided to cha llenge myself by working out exclusively at home for a week, and I ’m reporting  what I’ve found works to give you my 3 biggest home gym hacks.   1.  GET. A. MAT.   No matter what type of flooring you have in your  dorm, apartment, or house , I highly recommend a workout mat , which you can buy at pretty much any department store or on Amazon . Slipping and sliding on hardwood or tile sucks, but don’t think you’re safe under carpet, either. Rug burn sucks.   2.  Consider the kinds of exercise you want to do before you buy equipment.    As a fellow broke college student struggling to control my insatiable spending habit, I hi

Why MyFitnessPal Is Your Worst Enemy   MyFitnessPal, simply put, is an app that allows users to track calories with the goal of weight loss. Upon downloading,  a user is prompted to Input his/her age, weight, height, and amount of weight loss desired. Each day, users plug in the  number  of calories consumed and burned through cardio exercise to keep themselves on track with weight loss.  Sounds great, right?   WRONG. I downloaded MyFitnessPal and have been using it RELIGIOUSLY this month. I never saw a significant difference in my mental or physical health or even a lower number on the scale.  Instead, here’s what I noticed:   MyFitnessPal doesn’t consider a number of factors in calorie counting.    Calorie needs are based on more than just age, weight, and height, which are the only three things MyFitnessPal asks for. Things like BMI, medications, genetics, medical history, and even sleep, illness, and stress impact metabolism and indiv idual calorie needs. Calorie needs can even cha

Tricking Yourself into Enjoying Exercise I started trying different ways to stay motivated to continue working out when I lost some of my motivation in  college . These are some different thi ngs I tried, and I would recommend any to someone looking to find ways to me the gym a little more enjoyable:       1.  Make a motivating playlist.    I recommend picking songs to which you know the words for your workout playlist. This helps me focus on the words to songs,  so  I can align the m  to my runs or other workouts. Spotify has a TON of  exercise  playlists I’ve used if you need some inspiration.        2.  Find  an  accountability partner.   If you’re as competitive as I am, this will likely work for you. I refuse to  lose and  stopping short in a workout before my partner is something I would  consider   “ losing ” . On a more positive and encouraging note, I  believe having a gym partner makes working out more fun and motivating just through company in general.        3.  Focus on y

Debunking Nutrition Myths There are so many general nutritional trends I’ve learned to avoid in order to feel my best, and these are just two of the biggest ones I’ve tried  and my experience with them:     1.  Carbs are bad.   I never cut carbs completely  because  I  REALLY  can’t lay off the p asta and bread .  Instead, I  significantly  limited my carb intake for a week, documenting each day how I felt. T he biggest takeaway I had from this was the importance of moderation.  Limiting carbs,  I  was  constantly craving sweets and resisting the urge to binge.  S ignificant increases in my carb intake didn’t make me feel great either. Finding ways to  moderate  carbs i n  my meal s, such as eating a bowl of pasta with spinach instead of the same bowl with just plan pasta,  was the best solution for me .   2. You  have to  be in a calorie deficit  in order to  lose weight.   I struggled with   restrictive eating in high school and th e beginning of college,  eating WAY less than my  re