We are a month into the fall semester… How are you feeling? How have your classes been so far? Are you taking good care of yourself?
Speaking with several students, I noticed how we are all handling the stress of online classes a bit differently. Some of us are scrambling to meet deadlines with little to no time to eat proper meals, while others of us are turning to food to comfort us through the overwhelming workload. Either way, neither under-eating nor over-eating are healthy!
To help manage this health habit, we can start meal prepping! Meal prepping is when meals are made and prepared in advance—usually at the beginning of the week or on Sundays. This helps prevent under-eating, since long meal-preparation times will no longer be excuses for missing meals! This also helps prevent over-eating, since the meals will be well portioned to ensure students are consuming the appropriate amount of calories, proteins, etc.
No matter how stressful classes get, it is important that we energize ourselves with healthy meal choices! Under-eating will prevent us from having enough energy to make it through each week, while over-eating usually doesn’t fuel us with the right type of energy!
Unsure of what types of healthy meal choices to make? Check out ODU’s Health Promotion Office and/or follow their Instagram page at @odu_healthpromotion.