Depending on the day, having a meal plan can be good or bad. The dining hall is close, fast and has a wide selection of food. However, you always see the same people there, and the “wide selection” of food is the same every day. Here are some tips on how you can master the dining hall and make the most of your meal plan.

Take your Tupperware: If your dining hall is all-you-can-eat, then you should eat whatever you want when you go, but also stock up for later. Take cereal, cookies, fruit and vegetables.  There are going to be some mornings you don’t want to go to the dining hall because you’re just too hungover, and you’ll just want to eat cereal in bed. Or maybe you’ll be up all night cramming for an exam and need a few sweet, chocolate chip cookies to get you through the night.

Go Alone Some Days: If you go with friends, chances are you are going to sit and talk for an hour or so while you eat. That was okay for Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, but they never went to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Sitting among all of that food for two hours can be dangerous. You may tend to keep nibbling on food not realizing how much you’re eating, and then ten slices of pizza later, you’ll be sick. If you go alone, you can limit yourself to one plate and leave whenever you want to.

Explore other Dining Halls on Campus: Your campus probably has at least one dining hall, and if your campus is big, it probably has more. I know it’s convenient to go to the one closest to your dorm when you’re walking home from class, but it’s good to check out the other ones. They may have different food options or hotter guys than your dining hall.

Keep an Eye Out for Events: Some dining halls will have certain “theme nights”, which would be a fun change of pace. Instead of choosing between pizza, burgers or chicken and rice, you may get to choose between tacos, quesadillas or burritos for “Mexican Fiesta Night.” You’ll almost feel like you’re off campus at a real restaurant.

Sit with Someone you Don’t Know: It may seem weird at first, but you’ll make friends. All of the freshmen at the dining hall are in the same boat as you: they have no friends, and they’ve eaten the same food for the past week. Being a freshman is all about meeting new people so use the dining hall to your advantage and make a few friends.

As a freshman, you might have been awed by the mere expanse of food before you. Inspired by the hustle and bustle of upperclassmen milling expertly around the different food stations, you were elated to find that dessert is served at every meal. But come October, the honeymoon glow dimmed to a faint flicker, and your affair with the dining hall turned into something of a mess.

The economic, all-you-can-eat style buffet, serving food that is generally fatty, sugary, and over-processed, leads many collegiates to pack on the pounds as they struggle to navigate this danger zone. Whether you’re shoveling tasteless food as fast as you can to make a class in ten minutes, or leisurely enjoying a couple hours of all-access binging while chatting with friends, the cafeteria offers a wide variety of ways to overindulge. Here are a couple of tricks to help you avoid the pitfalls of college dining:

1. Survey the Scene. Make a tour of the available options of the day so that you don’t load up on all the stuff at the beginning of the line, only to have to nab a second plate for the food at the next station.

2. Use Your Head. You’re in college. You know that salad is healthier than a cheese steak. Make sure that you fill up on foods that are high in fiber, with good protein and complex carbohydrate content, like big leafy salads with lots of veggies, or a sandwich on whole grain bread. In general, limiting fat is a good idea, though there are such things as “good” fats (think avocadoes, or fatty fish, like salmon). Beware though: things that should generally be high in fat and sugar (like cookies or chips) but that claim to be healthier versions are generally just loaded up with sodium and artificial sweeteners, which are TERRIBLE for your body.

3. Subsitution When You Can, Moderation When You Can’t. What this little motto means is that, if you’re happy to enjoy an apple instead of your banana-split sundae, that’s a great way to cut down on sugar- and caloric-intake (obviously). But if you really just can’t make this switch, be sure to observe moderation, whether that means only eating half the portion offered, or maybe even just a couple of bites.

4. DON’T Deprive Yourself. If you’ve ever tried a diet that demands you give up all the “bad” (and often delicious) foods you enjoy, you know that these sort of cold-turkey routines fail. When they do, they leave you diving for the forbidden food, only to gobble up five times the amount that would normally have satisfied you.

This lesson is very relevant in a dining hall setting, where chances are menus will repeat on a bi-weekly basis. Don’t get caught up in the famine-mentality that tells you to eat everything you can now because you’ll never be able to eat this meal again. If you really enjoy a particular dish made at your dining hall, don’t deprive yourself. But if it happens to be a full-fat macaroni and cheese, or a double fudge brownie the size of your knee, make sure that you limit how much you allow yourself to indulge (see tip 3).