Hi, I'm new, and I would appreciate some advice

You've come to the right place.  We have lots of free advice and worth every penny.

 First off, 5'6" and 133 sounds pretty normal to me.  Part of the college 5, 10, or 15 pounds is just normal growing up weight.  The goal is to stay active and eat healthy.  

There is lots of information about what to do and what to eat but it is only a general guideline.  For you personally, there is an envelop of activity in frequency, duration, intensity and mode of exercise that you can do without getting injured or burned out.  There are different combinations within that envelop that are best suited for different events.  The ones that produce the best performance and greatest fitness are right on the edge of the envelop.  The goal is to find out what you body can do for the next 50 year so and start doing it. 

On the other side of the coin is the nutrition.  There are the macro nutrients, fats, carbs, and protein and various subdivisions under those headings.  Healthy people vary widely on what they choose to fulfill their need for nutrition.  One thing is certain, if the number of calories you put in exceeds the number you put out, you gain weight.  What you don't necessarily know is how big a pile of doughnuts it is that strikes a perfect balance.  So, you need to start a food log (got one here.  There is also a good one at Fitday.)  You need to log everything and tabulate the calories and breakdown into macro nutrients.  An endurance athlete (you definitely are one) needs a higher proportion of carbs than a more sedentary person.  If you are getting in 8-10 hours of exercise a week, you need maybe 60-65% carbs and a pretty high total calories per day, maybe 2700-3000.  If you are doing less, then less input.  The ultimate way to judge your intake requirements is to get a good solid month where you try to eat the same number of calories per day and do the same amount of exercise, you log everything and then you just watch the scales.    

I am mind-numbingly consistent about food and exercise:  oatmeal and juice for breakfast, sandwich and fruit for lunch, meat and two vegetables for supper.  I get about an hour of exercise a day most days.  I have held my college weight for 30 years.  This ain't nuclear rocket science, and I am a nuclear rocket scientist. 

Go get'em, kiddo.

TW

Hey Calypso,

All the talk of how many calories to eat is all so pointless if you don't know what you are really consuming.  Dieticians say that when they survey people as to what they eat and then put them on a strict diet of what they said they ate, the subjects invariably lose weight.  So write it down.  The act in itself will make you much more conscious of nutrition and eating the right things.   Once you develop good habits about eating you can pretty much dispense with the record keeping if you want to.

Try out Fitday or the nutrition logs here.  They will provide some automated calculations of the calories and breakdown into carbs, fats, and protein.  And they are kind of neat to learn how to use them.  You can assemble meals you commonly fix as a custom food and save it to reduce the labor of entering.  Then you just have to itemize the snacks.  The computerized food log is harder to learn but easier to use once you get it going.   I have never used them but some food logs work on a PDA.  That could be handy too.

Yes, I am more nuclear than rocket scientist.  I worked for a while on nuclear rocket project.  The project has been cancelled.   At age 54, I am right now finishing my dissertation for my PhD in mechanical engineering.   I mostly do math even for my hobbies:   running logs, food logs.  You get the picture.  I am a barrel of laughs at parties.

TW