15 ways to gain your Freshman 15

As the semester begins to wind down and finals are just around the corner, you might be bogged down and feel unaccomplished or incomplete. If this is the end of your first year at USC and you have not yet achieved the Freshman 15, we’re here to help you out with a few suggestions to catch you up.

1) Binge watch and binge eat.

Starting a new season of Grey Anatomy or Breaking Bad? Start a new bag of chips or a tub of ice cream. To maximize effectiveness, try a chocolate or cookie dough flavor of ice cream and finish the tub by the third episode.

2) Enjoy a tasty breakfast.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s also the perfect time to pile on a tall plate of bacon and a stack of pancakes drenched in whipped cream and syrup. Fried eggs, donuts, danishes — anything with sugar or grease works.

3) Have Panda Express for the fourth time this week

It tasted good Monday, Tuesday and yesterday — might as well get it again today. Orange chicken and fried rice, please!

4) Spudnuts.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, 2 a.m. snack. Thank goodness Spudnuts is open 24 hours for us to enjoy.

5) Make a salad

Omit a bit of lettuce and try for one part lettuce to two parts ranch dressing and three parts bacon.

6) Go to Taco Bell and order one of everything

Chalupa, taco, enchilada, nachos — why pick when you can have it all?

7) Go to Blaze and make a custom order

Extra cheese, extra bacon, extra sausage and extra pepperoni sounds good.

8) Get a Cafe 84 crepe drenched in Nutella.

After a filling and nutritious dinner, you can’t leave the dining hall without indulging in a decadent Nutella crepe. And toss in a few sliced strawberries or bananas to get some nutrition in there too.

9) Stock your pantry with Mac & Cheese and freezer with frozen pizzas

Who has the time, money or effort to cook a healthy nutritious meal anymore? Chicken and veggies take way too long to cook. Have a homemade meal within 20 minutes with these easy and cost effective picks!

10) Breakfast at the dining hall — and for later.

What are they going to do with all those extra pastries and donuts on display once it hits the noon hour at the halls? Might as well not let them go to waste and toss a few in your backpack. Easy to snack on when you’re stressed or bored in class.

11) Enjoy nightly visits to CREAM. 

There are just too many cookie and ice cream flavor combinations at CREAM to skimp

on experimenting with as many as you can. To try and taste all combinations by the end of the semester, stop by each night after you’ve had your mac and cheese or pizza. Peanut butter cookie and chocolate ice cream today, chocolate chip cookie with salted caramel ice cream tomorrow.

12) Pop into Jack in the Box and order $20 worth of curly fries. 

Who needs a burger when you can get so much more for your money with fries?

13) Sneak a few pieces of pizza at closing. 

We all know the “no food is allowed to be taken outside” of the dining halls rule. But if USC can afford to put on this big concert and if I’m getting charged an extra 2K in tuition next year, I think USC can manage losing a few slices of pizza I’m going to eat at midnight.

14) Swirl a soft-serve cone one foot tall at the dining hall. 

Gotta get your money’s worth everywhere when it comes to food.

15) Can’t forget about your coffee.

A regular coffee with five packets of sugar, a venti white chocolate mocha or a double chocolate chip frappucino from Starbucks should all help you start the day, not to mention get through it high on sweetness. There’s nothing like a sugar rush that will give you that boost of energy.

Take up these suggestions and you’ll reach the Freshman 15 goal in no time, possibly along with diabetes. But if you’re trying to finish out the semester strong and healthy, omit all of the above suggestions. (Except for maybe Spudnuts and binge watching and eating — because what’s college without either?)