About the Author

Mustafa Shaikh is an aspiring writer living in Berkeley, CA. Not willing to give up his college days just yet, he lives only a few blocks away from his beloved campus. He hopes to write a best-seller within the next couple of years and live off the royalties of it for as long as possible.

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Losing weight is something a lot of college males try to do over their time in school. After having to eat greasy cafeteria meals in high school, students now have a chance to finally cut the fat out.

A good amount of those motivated kids go about it the wrong way. Shortcuts are a way of life, but with your body, shortcuts don’t work. For every bad thing you do to your body, there is going to be some consequence.

Now that's a college champ

That being said, there are plenty of different ways to lose weight and I’m not going to write-up another one of those. Instead I’m going to give you a few basic guidelines for things that you should/should not do no matter what your weight loss plan is.

Protein Powder is not a Meal

One of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to lose weight is to substitute meals with protein powder based drinks.

At face value it seems like a healthy option. You need to intake fewer calories; a drink made up of protein powder definitely has fewer calories than a meal.

In actuality, your body has enough protein to operate. You don’t need to randomly give it an extra lump of it in the middle of your day.

If you want to ingest extra protein before or after a workout, that is a different matter. Just don’t have it be the centerpiece of a meal.

Eat Breakfast

College kids make a very bad habit of skipping breakfast. Given how late we stay up and how we try to squeeze all the shut-eye possible before heading off to class, it’s pretty east to disregard the first meal of the day.

For your body’s sake though, eating breakfast is an important step towards losing weight. While you sleep your metabolism goes down a notch. The way to ratchet it up once again is to eat something in the morning.

People who don’t get some nourishment into their body actually end up eating more throughout the rest of the day.

I’m not saying you need to create one of those balanced breakfasts you see on television, just something simple. A bowl of cereal or some instant oatmeal is definitely a start.

Worse comes to worst if you’re running real late for class, grab a granola bar and a piece of fruit. No matter how lazy you are, you can at least keep each of those stocked.

Grab a Partner

There are numerous times when I’ll get myself all ready for a run. I’ll charge my iPod, put on sunscreen, take a couple puffs from my inhaler and get dressed, only to end up not deciding to actually go running.

I’ll just tell myself, “Oh no I have too much to do, but I’ll definitely get it done first thing in the morning.”

Now throw a running partner into the equation. All of the sudden you can’t put off the run because then you look like a slouch to your running partner.

Same thing happens when you’re actually out on the run. When you’re by yourself there will be times that you feel a little taxed so you slow down and walk a few blocks. With a partner next to you, you’re going to be pushing yourself to keep up to make sure you don’t look like some out-of-shape sissy.

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