During college you’re going to gain knowledge, life experience, skills, and if you’re not careful, an extra 15 or 20 pounds…in your first year alone! But before you give up and let Pudgy the Pig rule your college years and ultimately the rest of your life, try out these tips for keeping on your slim side.

Get a pedometer.

Using a pedometer will help you gauge whether you’re walking enough steps in a day. And when you’re in college—eating pizza, sleeping odd hours, and drinking energy drinks just to keep your lids open in class—walking as many steps as you can in a day may be the only way you keep your heart from turning 80 before your graduate. You should be shooting for anything between 7,000 and 10,000 steps per day. If you’re attempting to lose weight, you should be walking between 10,000 and 12,500 steps per day. Walking keeps your metabolism moving, your heart pumping, and your hips from sprouting muffins.

You are what you eat so eat healthy or healthier.

It’s not easy to eat healthy in college. Scratch that. It’s not easy to spend time cooking a healthy meal in college. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to eat healthy. Fruit and vegetables come ready to go. Try a veggie pizza with everything on it to make your pizza night a little healthier. Try a handful of blueberries with a yogurt instead of a blueberry muffin. Remember too that fatty, greasy foods not only make you bloated and add to your weight gain, they also slow down your metabolism, can make you groggy and depressed and also give you acne.

Saw that great new diet? Don’t do it.

If you’re in college and have already gained weight, don’t start yo-yo dieting. Every diet pill and diet plan comes with a set of restrictions that most college students can’t abide by due to time constraints or the mere fact that you need more than 500 calories to survive each day. Eating right and exercising are the only ways to ensure that your body will treat you right and not give out on you or let you down at your greatest moments. Not to mention, you could buy a gym membership or a personal trainer’s time with all the money you’re wasting on diet pills and plans. If you don’t eat properly your body will go into survival mode and store all of your calories as fat, getting you up to and beyond the dreaded Freshman 15 that much faster.

Get happy.

Being happy keeps the weight off. Depression keeps you from thinking about what you’re doing or seeing the consequences of your actions—at least the ones where you eat and sleep. Depression may also keep you from exercising. If you’re feeling homesick or down, do something to get yourself feeling better as soon as possible to mitigate what could be a serious problem for your psyche and your weight.

While college life comes with a lot of excellent bonuses—hotties around every corner, freedom from your parents and parties every Friday—it also comes with stress that can ultimately, for many students, lead to depression.

Varying levels of depression and stress have come to be a norm in college—MTV-U reports that more than 85% of students feel stressed and more than 42% feel depressed, down or hopeless on several days in a two-week period. With such “depressing” statistics, you probably think you’re doomed to be depressed in the dorms along with everyone else. Not if you know how to deal.

Talk to somebody.

The number one thing you should do when you feel depressed, down or hopeless, or if you’re thinking about hurting yourself, is find help. Every campus has a counseling center. Drag yourself and your blues out of bed and down to the counseling center and talk things through.

Remember that it’s okay to be depressed.

If you’re depressed, you have nothing to be ashamed of—that’s why you shouldn’t be afraid to talk to someone. Being in college is stressful. You’ll be moving away from home for the first time, most likely away from all of your friends and family; you’ll be starting a job, maintaining a dorm apartment or student apartment and you’ll also be maintaining your schoolwork.

Exercise and eat right.

Don’t roll your eyes and don’t use the excuse that college kids are supposed to be lazy and eat pizza every night. You have options for your diet and exercise—take an elective weight-training or aerobics class if you have to, but keep your body moving. A lack of exercise and a poor diet can mess with the chemical balance of your body and make you more susceptible to depression.

Get to know your family history before you go to college.

Ask your parents, your grandparents and your aunts, uncles and cousins if there is a history of depression in the family. If there is, see your family physician before you head off to college and get pre-drama instruction on how to handle and recognize the symptoms of depression should they arise. In fact, seeking advice from the family physician is never a bad idea anyway.

Avoid drugs, alcohol, bad relationships and drama.

That doesn’t mean you should stay locked up in your room forever—seclusion and being antisocial are symptoms of depression—but you should teach yourself to be strong enough to say no to drugs and alcohol and to be able to break up with your significant other, friends or roommates if they cause too much stress in your life.

Know the symptoms so you can shake them.

Depression isn’t just about feeling sad, down or in despair and never wanting to leave your room; if you lose interest in activities you love, feel like it’s never going to get better, have physical pains with no cause or severe fluxes in your appetite, lose or gain a ton of weight in a short time, lack motivation, feel tired and want to sleep all the time or can’t sleep, have low self-esteem or trouble concentrating, you’re probably feeling a little depressed.

The symptoms of depression have come to be related as the “symptoms of being in college” but the truth is, nothing in life should ever make you feel miserable. Feeling down? Eat an apple and call the school counselor. It’s time to literally turn your frown upside down.