EVANSTON – Calorie-counting is difficult with foods that don’t come with nutritional labels. Fortunately, NU Cuisine makes the calorie information available to all Northwestern students, like WCAS freshman Ashley Eaton. She is determined to take full advantage of those labels to not only avoid gaining the freshman 15, but to lose it instead.

“I’ve always wanted to lose the extra pounds and be the person I want to be in college,” Ashley explained. “And with all the healthy, low-calorie options in the dining hall, I finally have that chance. I never have the problem when I’m dieting now!” Ashley said enthusiastically. “I can eat all the zero-calorie foods I want!”

For lunch Ashley used to eat a healthy salad with a glass of skim milk. But now at the dining halls, her meals consist of several plates of tollhouse bars, or whatever dessert option is listed as zero calories that day. Sometimes it’s the blondies or the mocha raspberry chocolate cake. She never has trouble leaving the dining hall feeling satisfied.

“Sometimes they’ll even have a new meat option or an exotic-sounding pizza,” Ashley said. “This one dinner at Sargent, they were serving Provencal Ratatouille Pizza. I had an entire pizza.”

Sometimes the dining period doesn’t have a zero-calorie item. In this case, Ashley creatively makes her own zero-calorie options. “I’ll find the yummiest option they have. I really like hot cookie bar. So if that night’s hot cookie bar isn’t zero-calories, that’s when my Sharpie comes along and turns that 480 calories into a big, fat 0.”

When asked how the weight loss was going a week later, she responded, “Well, I’m getting a little bit of water weight, but in a few weeks, I’ll see some big changes. I mean, I haven’t consumed a single calorie since school started.”

Ashley likes to supplement her diet by going to SPAC every day to shower.