Student Diet... Tips?

Parawhore.xD

Hi all, I'm a 19 year old girl in her first year in college and living away from home.
Posting this to get some tips on where to improve my diet and whatnot (hopefully relatively cheaply too). I don't think my diet is necessarily bad but there is certainly room for improvement.

I currently weigh approx 60kg (was about 58 starting college and went up a bit but lost it again over Christmas break), am about 5ft 4" and train about 4 times a week in college; Monday morning and evening, Wednesday morning, Thursday evening and play matches Saturday (sometimes two) and occasionally Sunday. I also cycle into college each day (approx 20mins easy cycle)

A typical week day for me last Semester would have been something like:

Breakfast: Porridge with flax seed, honey, some fruit (banana or tinned peaches) and a coffee

I have a dairy allergy so this would be made with oat milk.

Lunch & Dinner: Often the same thing as I don't have much freezer space so if I batch cook I have to use it up fairly quickly.
So often one of the following: Chilli con Carne/Stir Fry/Falafel Wraps/Pasta or couscous with roast veg & Tuna tomato sauce/ Chicken with sweet chilli sauce or plumb chutney and various roast veg and spuds/rice.
I make soup from time to time too.

Would maybe get a lunch/dinner out once a week just through convenience/laziness.

I also bring some fruit, Bananas apples etc into college with me and a fruit&nut trail mix thing I make with some chocolate in it.

Unfortunately I also end up snacking a good bit, I don't buy bread so often have rice cakes or cream crackers with peanut butter, jam, nutella(trying to avoid buying this where possible), stopped buying biscuits to remove that temptation

On mornings where I train at 7.30 I usually bring in a wrap with scrambled egg, rasher, sausage, mushrooms and sometimes salsa and avocado which i eat cold after training.. I'm thinking of dropping the rasher and sausage and adding more egg and avocado.

My biggest weakness is probably going for coffee with people and getting a brownie or something with it, it's becoming more of a routine rather than a treat which I'm trying to cut out. Also my flat mate bakes so there's often cake and stuff floating around the flat

I go out once or twice a week, don't like beer so tend to just drink vodka with diet mixer so i know I'm not getting excess calories there.

My biggest question would be how do just improve my diet in general and maybe add more cheap protein or something? I mainly shop in Lidl and Aldi though also have access to Tesco and Dunnes..
I try buy a lot of fruit and veg based on Aldi's super 6 and what's on offer etc. I'm not a fussy eater at all and enjoy cooking when I've time(batch cook Sunday evening), just no milk/butter/cream etc.
For meat I'd usually buy mince/chicken things or legs or whatever's on special during a particular week.

Currently spend between E20-30 on food a week and can't really afford to spend much more.

Sorry that this is so long and seems a bit vague but any help at all would be greatly appreciated!
Regards,
Anna

thegreatiam

The areas you can improve in are the ares you know need improving cos you already mentioned them.

1/ coffee and a treat. limit it to more occasional treats and not habitual ones.

2/ snacking, while your choices are ok they arent great, minimise your snacks. Fruit is very high in sugar, peanut butter is high in fats While these arent reasons to avoid them they are reasons to limit them.

3/ booze, while alcohol and diet drinks are low calorie they do affect your body in ways which affect your diet. not going to say stop drinking cos thats mad, just be aware of it. Booze and diet drinks arent free in a calorie sense so you can't go mental on them.

Some suggestions.

1/ stop ordering brownies, or if you must order them, calculate them into your daily calorie and macro totals.

2/ Eat bigger meals and dont eat cos youre bored. If you still find you crave snacks then make a meal doubly big and divide it in to, eat half, then snack on the other half. Again, if you want to snack, just add it into your calorie total.

3/ booze, the main problem with booze is that after to or three you start to not care what goes in your mouth anymore, in every sense . And then you justify your choices. The main danger is drinking too much that you over do the calories, vodka may only be 100 cals but 5 vodkas is 500 calories, and noone just has one.

other than that get more veg, more meat and fish. nuts are good in limited quantities.

As a student you are limited through time, social life and I assume cash to have a perfect diet (not that a perfect diet exists) so work with what you have got.

Bulk buy meat and veg when its cheap and freeze it. Invest in cheap cooking gear, slow cookers are a big plus and about 15 euro.
make food for the week. maximise your meals and minimise your snacks and treats. Try to eliminate all sugar where you can.

Track your calorie intake and aim to be under it on a weekly basis if you need 1500 calories a day to maintain your weight then eating 10500 a week is fine.