Bethenny Frankel: How To Avoid College Weight Gain

Bethenny Frankel has some advice for college students looking to avoid or drop the Freshman 15, or anyone trying to slim down.

She writes on her blog that it is important to choose just one fat in salads and sandwiches and to "pick your battles":

If you're craving fries, have them and a low fat salad. If you want the burger, great; then no fries. A salad wouldn't hurt here either. You decide what the lesser of evils is, what you REALLY want and make it work by making your other choices be healthy ones. I've been known to choose a shake from a fast food joint as my daily sweet treat, yet I've also chosen a plain baked potato and salad when everyone has fried sandwiches. You choose.

And beware of liquid calories, unless they come from Skinnygirl margaritas:

You shouldn't have more than two cocktails. Nothing is sloppier than a drunken college girl; be the wise, mature, respected one. Drink light beer or clear liquor drinks such as vodka or clear tequila or of course Skinnygirl margaritas. I think it's best if you don't drink at all. You will feel and look so much better.

You can read more of Bethenny's college diet tips, including recommendations for stocking your mini fridge, here.

Bethenny recently posed in a bikini for Life & Style just three months after giving birth. Her diet mantra as revealed to the magazine: "Taste everything, eat nothing."

Comments

[mitchpeter]

11:13 PM on 09/02/2010

I love her!
And I met her in a hammock!

http://www.gaynycdad.com/2010/08/wordless-wednesday-bethenny-frankel.html

[pgurlatl]

02:14 PM on 09/01/2010

Maye I'm mistaken but I could have sworn I read a quote from her right here on HuffPo where she was talking about losing the baby weight and she said "Don't eat".

[Holly B]

11:22 AM on 09/01/2010

Extend index finger
Jam index finger down throat
vomit guts and food up
rinse and repeat.
...... there you have her secrets. Now kindly send me the money you would have given to her ( yes .. this was sarcasm, in case anyone wondered)

http://midwesternmamah.blogspot.com/

[Ylmaz Kaba]

09:38 AM on 09/01/2010

so it's easy to avoid gaining weight (and actually losing) by working and putting yourself through college.
http://mercimex.wordpress.com

[ragtag]

08:01 AM on 09/01/2010

I didn't realize going to college made you fatter...maybe it's just kids' bodies maturing.

[semoto]

10:04 AM on 09/01/2010

Going to college doesn't make you fatter and it's not just bodies maturing. It's the things you DO at college. In other words, poor habits.

some poor habits are: Making poor food choices (because Mom isn't around to plan and cook meals), high calorie snacking rather than eating nutritious meals, eating too many carbs in the dining hall, taking in too many calories from beer busts on the weekends, not having any set bedtime so you stay up half the night and are too tired the next day to want to exercise, and so on.

[fahrenheit451]

06:52 PM on 08/31/2010

It seems to have a dose of common sense: eat less and exercise more. I wish I'd done that, along with drink less cheap beer and study a lot more when I was in college.

[JWW33]

06:25 PM on 08/31/2010

I was broker than broke in college, so it's easy to avoid gaining weight (and actually losing) by working and putting yourself through college.

[semoto]

10:23 AM on 09/01/2010

Uh huh, that should work for everyone. Right.

First, have you looked at the unemployment rate for teens lately? Or are you living in a different world than the rest of us?

Second, do you realize that in today's world working to put yourself through college is just about impossible?

The average cost, JUST FOR TUITION (not living expenses), is $10,000 a year. So let's assume living expenses run $500 a month for rent (counting the electricity and water bills), and $10 a day for food. For 9 months of school, that's $4,500 plus $2,700 = $7,200.

Therefore, the bare minimum of expenses to attend college is $17,200.

And let's suppose the student is working 30 hours at week for minimum wage -- $7.25 an hour. That's 36 weeks of work during the school year, or 1,080 hours of work at $7.25 and hour. That means you'd earn, GROSS, before taxes, $7,830.

Let's subtract 10%, minimum, for taxes, leaving just over $7,000 you've earned to pay tuition, room and board costing at least $17,200.

And yes, you can work in the summer too, if that unemployment thing doesn't bite you on the rump, but at full time that's only about $4,000 more, leaving a gap of at least $6,000, but probably more because you may still have living expenses, have to put gas in the car, have to buy some new clothes and shoes, etc.

[JWW33]

02:19 PM on 09/01/2010

I guess you're discounting the money received from scholarships, grants and loans. I worked 3 jobs my first 2 years of college, after that only 1 and part time. Wow, how could I have possibly done that and only graduated last year??? I went to a state school, my tuition was less than $1500 a semester and my part-time work-study job paid $10.00 an hour. You underestimated everything. Looks like someone overpaid for college. Oh, I also found a great job after being unemployed for only 4 months last year. I consider myself very lucky, but I worked my behind off getting where I am today. Hence, why I never gained any weight in college. Booyaa

[KataVideo]

01:37 PM on 08/31/2010

who is bethenny frankle

[Janis Moorhouse]

11:53 AM on 08/31/2010

This woman is Kardasian without the class.

[cgeorgan]

01:48 PM on 08/31/2010

Money can't buy you class...elegance is learned!

Makes me laugh every time.

[Nor Cal Mom]

04:05 AM on 09/01/2010

Me too. fanned!

[AfroGoddess]

03:42 PM on 08/31/2010

Kardashians have class? Clearly you've never seen the Kim/Ray J sex tape.

[Janis Moorhouse]

11:51 AM on 08/31/2010

Or, just drop college...

[silencedogooder]

11:34 AM on 08/31/2010

easy, lay off the natty light and take a gym class (they're at least one credit right?).

[Atchka]

11:32 AM on 08/31/2010

Wait, did anyone else notice this: "Nothing is sloppier than a drunken college girl."

Um, how about a drunken frat boy? That's pretty sloppy. Are drunk guys completely exempt from her criticism?

Peace,
Shannon
FierceFatties.com

[Ina Dolce]

10:09 AM on 08/31/2010

You can't quite call it Electra complex or negative Oedipus but this woman has that female personality where she harbors such deep-seeded resentment towards her mother that she tends to project those resentments/hatred onto other women around her and engage in intense rivalry. On her show there is not one woman that is her equal--not older, not employee--that this woman has a deep and caring friendship with.

It makes sense that her brand is skinny girl, and she's all for promoting the female rivalry of who can be the "skinniest," a pathology common in the heads of most women with eating disorders. It is also not surprising that she has a show on Bravo. Sadly, she will be beamed to households across America via NBC soon enough, promoting more of this cattiness.

BF is not a Sex and the City woman. She is not about female solidarity or camaraderie. She will transfer her self-centeredness onto her daughter and raise yet another catty female who can't get along with other women and therefore will never reach true empowerment.

If you are a fan of hers you probably suffer from the same pathology. There are a lot of you women out there and it's sad.

[Ruth G Gordon]

11:00 PM on 09/03/2010

You have clearly not read her books or even seen her in an interview. She has the most intelligent, empowering approach to maintaining a healthy body I've heard in ages. Maybe the "skinnygirl" tag is unfortunate, as it does not reflect her philosophy at all. Get real.....most women are totally obsessed with their weight. Bethenny's approach frees one from that pathology and encourages eating healthy foods with mindfulness. Read the book. Then you can comment.

[Elmos mom]

09:33 AM on 08/31/2010

Who is flagging all of these comments as abusive?

[1jadednewyorker]

08:17 AM on 08/31/2010

needs that skin under her arms tightened...the is a sign of an anorexia