healthy eating

Four Meals I Should Have Done Differently

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Now that March has arrived, I’m beginning to feel the excitement for spring and summer months ahead. This is also the time of year when I realize how my poor winter habits have caught up with me. Specifically, how my love of comfort foods tends to spike during the cold winter months. If you’re like me, you might have put on a layer—or two—of “insulation” after giving into cravings for pasta, cheese, and warm chocolate chip cookies. It is difficult to choose to eat a salad for dinner on a freezing, snowy day when you could choose a warm, creamy bowl of pasta instead. Am I right?

When I was an Ohio State student using the meal plan, I found it difficult to make healthy eating choices when there were other seemingly more delicious–and often unhealthy–options right in front of me. After surrendering to my lack of willpower for most of my freshman year (circa 2007), I wish I could go back in time and knock some sense into my 18-year-old self.

Below I listed some of my favorite campus meals that made up my typical diet as a first-year student at Ohio State…yes, some of the same menu items have been around this long! Then I listed some alternatives that I wish I would have eaten instead. Shout out to this nutrition calculator for showing the nutrition facts for all of these campus meals! For the sake of this post, I included calorie counts for the meals below.

Breakfast at The Ohio Union 

(Although the Union did not open until my third year at Ohio State, this is what I likely would have eaten as a first-year student…)

My typical meal choice at Sloopy’s:

  • Two chocolate pancakes: 1,018
  • Orange juice: 110
  • TOTAL: 1,128 calories

What I could eat at Espress-OH instead:

  • Regular coffee with cream and Splenda: 80
  • Banana: 105
  • 1 cup of dry Cheerios: 110
  • TOTAL: 295 calories

Snack at the 18th Avenue Library

Typical snack choice:

  • Large frozen mocha: 738 calories

What I could eat instead:

  • Sliced apples & peanut butter: 209 calories

Lunch on North Campus

My typical meal choice at North Commons (based on today’s menu):

  • Parmesan crusted chicken: 420
  • Italian vegetable mix: 42
  • Chicken tortilla soup: 97
  • Chocolate milk: 232
  • Two chocolate chip cookies: 281
  • TOTAL: 1,070 calories

What I could eat instead at Oxley’s By the Numbers:

  • Pretzel club sub: 592
  • Water: 0
  • TOTAL: 592 calories

Dinner at MarketPlace on Neil

My typical meal choice:

  • Chicken pesto alfredo rotini, large (#8): 962
  • Sprite: 253
  • TOTAL: 1,215 calories

What I could eat instead:

  • Chicken Caesar Wrap: 680
  • Berry cup: 102
  • Water: 0
  • TOTAL: 782 calories

After a full day of making these “typical” meal choices, I would have consumed 4,151 calories, but an entire day of choosing the alternate meal options would have brought me to 1,879 calories total.  

I should also note another valuable resource here: this calorie calculator can estimate the suggested amount of calories a person should ideally consume per day based on his/her age, size, and lifestyle.  Maybe a 6’5″ athlete could survive on a 4,000 calorie diet…but I, standing at 5′ 0″, would not fare so well on this diet. After using that calorie calculator for myself, it’s no wonder why my 18-year-old eating habits impacted my body in the ways they did.

Disclaimer: Remember that calories are just one of many ways to measure the nutrition value of food. If you’re unsure about the meaning of the other items on a nutrition label, I suggest enrolling in Human Nutrition 2310 or doing some research on your own. This book is great, too.

Be healthy, Buckeyes!