college student cafeteria constraints

banantail · Post by **banantail** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 7:59 am

i'm super interested in this whole no s diet idea. i think it's brilliant and i intend to start it first thing in the morning.

here is thing i'm having an issue with: i'm a college student. i live on campus. i eat nearly all of my meals at the cafeteria. and at the cafeteria, rather than being an all-you-can-eat buffet, most things are sold via a point system. so they have a hot food bar which has different entrees which are sold for set points, and everything from there is dished up for you on one plate. then there's the salad bar and the fruit bar, both of which are sold by weight. so they have to be dished up on a separate plate in order to weigh them at checkout.

obviously, i'm going to have to resort to a whole lot of "virtual plating". i wish there was a way around it, but there's just no way for me to truly follow the one-plate rule as long as i'm eating in the cafeteria and i want to eat fruits and veggies. so i'm asking for advice, i guess. is there anyone else who has been caught in a similar situation? especially during the initial difficult part of habit-forming?

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 10:00 am

I haven't been in a similar situation, but when I started No-S, I completely missed the one-plate rule and interpreted "No-seconds" to mean just that -- no second servings of anything.

I wouldn't worry too much about it and just choose reasonably sized servings of food.

~reneew · Post by **~reneew** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 1:19 pm

First of all, I gained 50, yes, 50 pounds my freshman year. I went from thin to a life-long battle. Be strict now. If I knew then what I knew now... I would put the food on one plate as soon as you park it at your table and cover up what didn't fit. Pour water over it if it's still tempting you. If they don't give you any plate at all, then fit it all together somehow in an equal area that a plate would take, like maybe a small plate and a bowl. Stick to your boundaries. I have run into problems personally imagining the virtual plate. It seems to grow as I eat.

resident0063 · Post by **resident0063** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 8:29 am

Agree with above. But for me it was also what happens outside cafeteria late night pizza, beer (might want to look into glass ceiling), chips between classes...if I was to go back I'd focus on eating meals. Figuring out items that are there consistently that you like but are reasonable might help. You have lots to deal with the more automatic but enjoyable you can make it the better. Good luck. Have fun. You'll regret not having fun more than any diet in 10 years trust me .

Anoulie · Post by **Anoulie** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 10:09 am

I'm also at university, and we get a "main course" and can then choose up to three side dishes with that. My boundary is: one plate of the main course (which may be just a piece of protein, or contain some veggies, or contain protein+veggies+carbs; it really depends on what's on the menu that day), one side dish (such as pasta) and one piece of fruit.
I'd say once you figure out what a normal-sized meal is for you, make that your standard (e.g. two things from the hot food bar + either salad or fruit).

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 3:37 pm

Are you saying the entree is served on a small plate, and all the sides are on separate plates as well? Is there no where there is a meal-sized plate that you could gather everything on when you sit down just to gauge it?

For lunch and dinner, I put a protein and/or starch, a cooked veg, raw veggies and a piece of fruit all on one plate. Sometimes, I put yogurt in a little bowl and add the fruit to it. The protein and starch together are about the volume of my two fists, or a bit smaller. The rest of the plate is covered with freggies.

It sounds like if you take an offered entree, one side, a salad and fruit that you'll be fine. The point is to have it all at once, though slow down and savor it. Then wait until the next meal for solid food.

If I were to do college over again, I would leave out any eating after dinner time (except on weekends). If I wanted to have pizza later, I'd supplement with cafe au lait or even milk in the evening. And no taking anything from the cafeteria for later. We all know people sneak food out. Hot drinks with the gang in the evening- no pastries or bagels. Gosh, what were we thinking?

The fun really comes from the interactions. You don't have to overdo it to have fun. I can tell you many naturally skinny kids went to all the parties and such. They didn't always eat. They just didn't like getting stuffed and no one could pressure them into it. They'd just say, "I'm not hungry. Maybe later." Then they got on with yakking and laughing.

heather42 · Post by **heather42** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 12:45 pm

wosnes wrote:I haven't been in a similar situation, but when I started No-S, I completely missed the one-plate rule and interpreted "No-seconds" to mean just that -- no second servings of anything.

I wouldn't worry too much about it and just choose reasonably sized sI completely missed the one-plate rule and interpreted "No-seconds" to mean just that -- no second servings of anything. ervings of food.

What does this mean as I thought no seconds applies to everything as well? Thanks.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 3:40 pm

heather42 wrote:
wosnes wrote:I haven't been in a similar situation, but when I started No-S, I completely missed the one-plate rule and interpreted "No-seconds" to mean just that -- no second servings of anything.

I wouldn't worry too much about it and just choose reasonably sized sI completely missed the one-plate rule and interpreted "No-seconds" to mean just that -- no second servings of anything. ervings of food.
What does this mean as I thought no seconds applies to everything as well? Thanks.

I don't know if this will help you or not, but I don't quite understand what you want to know.

For the purposes of No-S, no seconds means one physical plate of food. When I started I missed that and ate one serving of whatever was being served at a meal without any second servings. If something in a meal was served in a separate bowl or plate, I ate it. I didn't do virtual plating.

If a meal was meat, potatoes and a vegetable served on one plate and a salad served separately I ate it but didn't take seconds of anything.

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 5:25 pm

I think wosnes means that many people in the beginning of No S load their plates in such a way that they actually have two or even three servings of different foods filling the plate, but on NO S those aren't considered seconds. They are seconds only if you've finished eating what's there and then take more. Although I always ate a good amount of freggies, I certainly ate larger amounts of protein and starch in my first years. I'm afraid I wouldn't have lasted on wosnes' interpretation of the rules, though I'm there now most of the time. I ate in such a way that got hungry 1-2 hours before the next meal. More hours than that would have seemed like a diet. Now I have on which I naturally eat less than I might on a diet, but it's a choice from the inside, not imposed. I never really considered three meals a day imposed because I figured if I'd been born in France or Italy, I'd just do that as a matter of course. It doesn't mean it was always easy or that I am 100% compliant all the time now. It just means it feels like a reasonable way to negotiate almost unlimited access to food and keep it enjoyable.