Fighting the Fat with Fitness

Generally, being a college student is somewhat time-consuming to say the least, and I'm probably understating that. Granted, you normally have to go to class (surely, I hope), study (again, hopefully) and many of Ohio Staters are usually involved in something. With the way the economy is and the rising cost of being a Buckeye these days, I'm pretty sure a campus job of some sort is part of that good ol' keeping-my-head-above-water financial plan of the present, but this column isn't about that. No, actually one of the biggest concerns in America is the state of everyone's fitness, and it seems that while good habits can go awry early in life (with diabetes and obesity at record highs in adolescent children), many young people don't apply themselves further when they know that they can treat themselves better.

College kids can sometimes live a hard life, in the sense that their sense of time and organization isn't always on point. Parties, all-night study sessions, extracurricular obligations and for certain students, having demanding concentrations and majors can zap your time to the extent that you don't even think of hitting the gym for a nice little workout. 2008 OSU alum and current Arizona State University graduate student Dan Wandrey, best sums up his take on the difficulties of keeping a tight schedule with little wiggle room.

"My routines were pretty sporadic overall," said Wandrey. "I would generally go in late-morning before going to the studio, when I was the most regular. (My) biggest challenge was getting into a rhythm in terms of day planning. Some weeks I was extremely busy, others I had plenty of time for extracurriculars," said the industrial and graphic design major. "Honestly, it came down to discipline, if you really want to work out you will. Like most (OSU students), I wish I could have done more, but I have no regrets. There were way too many things to do in Columbus than to just be a gym rat."

The key thing to take away from Dan's words was that discipline was the main issue, not the fact that he would sometimes spend up to 14 hours a day in the studio. Planning has a lot to do with your keeping healthy, and allocating your time well with your scholarly duties plays a big part in being healthy.

Food also plays a big part in how well you feel. The MarketPlace and various Commons areas on campus, as well as Oxley's Café, are many times conveniently placed around the "hot spots" of the Columbus campus, but aren't always known for their healthy food that's available. Of course, the stereotype of the typical college student has he/she eating slop for the vast majority of the day, but it really it's about eating smart and knowing what eat and when to eat it. Because of how vast the campus is, there's something to be said about grabbing a bite to eat when you can get it, because students are many times far enough away from campus restaurants and High Street that when the stomach starts to growl, anything edible is the best thing to consider. While that's not true for everyone, it is true that the way you eat is somewhat dependent on where you live. Senior Amanda "Mandy" McCann has personally found that the difference between being an "on-campus" student versus living off-campus can be drastic in the way a person's dietary habits might change.

"My first couple of years, (I was on the) Meal Plan," said McCann, a film studies major. "One must go out of their way to get healthy food or better yet, healthy portions on campus. Once I moved off of the campus and started cooking for myself, I began to eat a much healthier, well-rounded diet. Similarly, I generally lacked motivation to work out, however this (winter) quarter, I have been factoring it into my daily routine just like work and class. Making it seem like a task I have to do makes it easier to go.

"Right now, (I'm doing) cardio three times a week for 45 minutes. If I'm feeling good that week, I'll throw in Pilates a couple of times, too. My diet is quite healthy, mostly fresh fruits and veggies. Fish twice a week, walnuts, spinach and blueberries are what I've been living by lately...and soy products."

What Mandy didn't say was that she lost over 20 lbs. a few years before cutting pop out of her diet altogether and instead, going with 100% juice to start out her days and keep good energy when she wasn't able to get to food at good times.

So you have time management in hitting the gym and good dietary habit in the bucket, but one other major component is a HUGE part of really hitting the point home in acquiring and maintaining good health and fitness, and that's sleep. Various studies within the recent past have showed that good sleep helps your body fully recover from stress, aids in good digestion and keeps your mind sharp; with respect to sleep studies performed across the United States, one negative point worth mentioning is that the lack of sleep actually informs the body to produce a certain chemical that encourages sleep-deprived people to eat more, which isn't such a good thing if you're already getting your 4-6 recommended mini-meals a day. In short, get your 7-10 hours and be merry, kiddies.

Sometimes, putting it all together-keeping active, managing your time effectively, eating right and giving yourself the necessary hours to sleep-can be a huge task to think about undertaking, but actually committing to what's in your best interests is probably the best thing to think about and do, instead of living on the false idea of being perfect when it comes to being healthy. If you have the right idea (and coincidentally, a fit-friendly discipline in college), you can achieve such a lifestyle, not unlike another recent graduate of The Ohio State University.

"I slept 7-8 hours almost every night, I ate a pretty balanced diet of 3 meals a day and 1 snack," said Andrea Keller, a Toledo native, who graduated in the 2008 autumn quarter. "I ate mostly fruits, veggies, lean protein, with the occasional goodies. Each quarter my eating would change slightly in terms of the times, and I did not always sit down and eat my entire meal; sometimes it would be a sandwich at noon and then fruit at like 1 p.m., it just depended on class schedules and such. In terms of fitness, I am an Exercise Science major, so I worked out every day either in the RPAC, riding my bike on the Olentangy trail, or participating in activity courses through OSU," said Keller, a former victim of several major knee injuries and a current outpatient rehabilitation patient.

"Obviously during exam weeks, the gym sometimes got skipped, as that was always the first thing to go when I was short on time. My eating would also change a little as I indulged in take-out, which I never normally do, but being short on time it seemed like the best option...most of my free time was spent being active. If I wasn't studying, I was playing sports, taking a walk, or just enjoying the outdoors."

Not so long ago, a slightly younger Sandy Dover was on the campus and getting up at 7:30 am to work out at Jesse Owens South twice a day, doing strength training and cardio sessions--not because it was easy, but because I knew it was great for my health and I worked it around my classes. Most of the time, I was doing it somewhat grudgingly and I was being playfully teased by my best friends for how I allotted my time-but I knew the payoff was worth it. It wasn't always easy to eat every couple of hours either, but keeping my metabolism up helped my energy levels and my general well-being (with much of my patience being tried at the aforementioned MarketPlace waiting for Asian stir-fry, for what probably amounts to days spent in line over four years. But I digress...).

In the end, if you want to feel better, if you want to be more alert, and if you want to have a generally improved disposition in life, I'd suggest that you take charge of your health. You might be saying, "I'm young!" or "Man, I don't have time for this..." or even "I've got bills to pay! And that's real!", but it's about keeping yourself well for the future, and in a world that's suddenly getting darker and even less certain in these present times, it's best to take control over what's most dear to most people later in life, which is your health, and to start as early as possible.

To life!

Sandy Dover, a 2006 OSU graduate, is now a novelist/writer/columnist and lay fitness consultant & trainer, and is currently shopping the rights to his two self-help books "The Reason Why America's So Bent Out Of Shape" and "The Way, The Truth & The (College) Life" to major publishing houses, as well as contributing to SLAM magazine. For more information on Sandy, go to http://community.writersmarket.com/youngdov3.