“Coursera is an education company that partners with the top universities and organizations in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. Our technology enables our partners to teach millions of students rather than hundreds.

We envision a future where everyone has access to a world-class education that has so far been available to a select few. We aim to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in.”

I have just graduated with my Bachelor’s of Science with an emphasis in Dietetics, but I am one of those kids that loves to learn. I thought I would share some courses that are coming up in the next few months that I am going to enroll in.

Sustainability of Food Systems: A Global Life Cycle Perspective
Taught by Jason Hill from the University of Minnesota

The course starts June 14th and is 8 weeks long. The workload is 3-4 hours a week

Course Syllabus

This course is organized around fifteen questions that span our world’s food system, its impacts, and its future.

1. What is food?
2. What foods do we eat?
3. How do we prepare our food?
4. How and where did our food originate?
5. How and where do we grow our food?
6. How do we facilitate the trade and transfer of our food?
7. How do we process and distribute our food?
8. How do we choose what to eat?
9. How does what we eat affect our health?
10. How does what we eat affect our environment?
11. How much food will we need in the future?
12. What challenges do we face in reforming the global food system?
13. How do we assess the sustainability of the global food system?
14. How can we provide more food more sustainably?
15. How can we each contribute to a more sustainable global food system?

Once again, these courses are FREE to take! Sign up here

This next one is really interesting to me because it requires you to cook at home and teaches about food and prepping/cooking!

The Science of Gastronomy
Taught by Lam Lung Yeung and King L. Chow at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

This course starts July 10th and is 6 weeks long. The workload is 3-4 hours/week

Course Syllabus

Week 1:
1. Energy Transfer
2. Hunger and Satiety

Week 2:
3. The Sense of Taste
4. The Sense of Smell

Week 3:
5. The Sense of Sight
6. The Sense of Touch

Week 4:
7. Fruits and Vegetables
8. A Perfect Steak

Week 5:
8. A Perfect Steak (continue)
9. Sauces

Week 6:
9. Sauces (continue)
10. Dessert

You can sign up here

Exercise Physiology: Understanding the Athlete Within
Taught by Mark Hargreaves from The University of Melbourne

The course starts July 22nd and is 6 weeks long. The workload is 4-6 hours/week

Course Syllabus

Week One: Review of excitation-contraction coupling in skeletal muscle, muscle fibre types, energetics and muscle adaptations to exercise training.
Week Two: The key fuels by contracting skeletal muscle during high intensity sprint exercise through to prolonged endurance exercise.
Week Three: Cardiovascular and respiratory responses to exercise that ensure adequate oxygen delivery to contracting skeletal muscle and the determinants of maximal oxygen uptake.
Week Four: Temperature and fluid balance during exercise.
Week Five: Mechanisms of fatigue during exercise and interactions between the central nervous system and peripheral factors.
Week Six: How do genes influence athletic performance – are athletes “born or made?”

You can sign up here

If anyone has used Coursera before, did you enjoy it? I’ll provide feedback once I get started with the lessons!

This will always be Fall Out Boy’s best album in my opinion.

And to commemorate the new sleeping with sirens album coming out in June. I hope it leaks soon.

To spend our last real day together we embarked in the things we enjoyed doing. This of course consisted of crafts, working out, eating and drinking. I love that we can relax now because the semester is over. We can reminisce about our college dietetics experience and the great times we have had together. Although we all live in different areas, I know we will remain friends. Plus, who wouldn’t want to go on vacation to Florida?!

Workout made by miss Angela:

1.5 mile run
3 sets of
bicep curls x 12 each arm
tricep dips x 15
pushups until failure for 30 sec on knees and flat so all of the weight of your body is on your arms
1 mile
3 sets of
bench press x 10 at 55 lbs
tricep pullbacks x 12 at 25 lb db
plank hold 30 sec
1 mile

She had a bit more weight than I did

Half price appetizers? Okay 10pm!

Who needs sleeping bags when you have mattresses?

And who cares that it’s 11pm, we want to make lemon cheesecake bars.

I would show my craft, but it’s a gift for my roommate, so it’ll have to wait to be revealed!

I’ve learned what situations to not get into and what situations are okay in the eyes of the world. Unfortunately, I don’t regret some of the situations I have got myself in, especially when they involve my true friends. I don’t regret the beliefs I have stood strong for, even if they resulted into things coming to an end, such as my collegiate running career. I will always fight for happiness and when I see people unhappy in a sport they once loved, I try to bring that love back to them. I will continue to stand strong against the people who use personal feelings and let them get in the way of professionalism. I lose respect for those who are older than you but still act as if they are in middle school or high school just waiting to tear someone down. I have found that line was crossed and professionalism was lost. And for those who think I’m okay with the loss of my collegiate running career, you would be wrong and It’s not okay to speak for me, because you don’t even know. It was an extremely unprofessional and immature situation of which I was never spoken to about and received the end via a voicemail. Professionalism at its classiest.

I have found myself and could not be happier with who I have become in my four years of college. I have found true friends and been able to witness kind souls in action. I have met some of the most incredible individuals and been incredibly inspired. I have found my life calling for my future career through the passion and love of nutrition and dietetics from Dr. Syler and the passion of sports nutrition through Diana Duncan. I have seen such strong women and how they succeed in the fields they are most passionate about. I want to hold that passion in my career and I hope it is as vibrant as the passion I can see in a few of my professors.

I want to take the passion, strength, knowledge and inspirations with me as I leave Southeast Missouri State University and continue my education at the University of Missouri. I am a true example of hard work and the position I received at Mizzou was because of hard work and not being afraid to put myself out there in the world and by going the extra mile. Success comes from hard work and I cannot wait to start the journey to continue my dreams.

So embrace this week with me as I reflect on the four years of college I have endured.

Run Hundred posted their top workout songs for May and here they are!

Q: What are you listening to?
Q: What motivates you?

We are throwing it back in this post. Throwback jams, that is.

Q: What inspires you?

Q: What have you been working out to?

As Google Reader is disappearing soon, I finally tested Feedly and Bloglovin’. I think I personally have decided to use Bloglovin’ for my viewing of blogs. Obviously, as a reader you can choose what you want to use. However, I’m providing a link on my blog to follow me on bloglovin’ if you would like. You can also subscribe via email on my blog as well as add it to any other reader you would like.

Please continue to follow my journey!

You can continue to ask yourself why, and what causes people to do this, but it’s an ongoing circle because I’ll never ever understand why people go forward or even think acts like this. The fortunate thing is that the explosions were at the finish line, and if you have ever ran a race, especially a big race, you will know there are tons of medical staff, police and officials. Normally we see people crawling, jelly legged and passing out from fatigue, exhaustion etc from the 26.2 mile race they just endured. April 15th, 2013, we saw images of a lot worse. The running community is one like no other and it showed. Mass General Hospital was filled with runners donating blood, even those who had just run the 26.2 mile race. Runners throughout the world won’t be scared away from this attack and will continue to train harder than ever before. To have the patience, time and commitment to train for a marathon and compete, takes a strong individual. These individuals are fearless as they compete the race and why stop now? What happened is devastating but I have a feeling the Boston Marathon 2014 will have more applicants than ever.

It has been asked for people to wear race shirts in dedication to Boston. It breaks my heart to know some people didn’t get the opportunity to finish their journey of their hard work in training. It also breaks my heart to those who may never get to run again and those who may feel guilt. I can’t even begin to imagine what those families and individuals are going through. But I can pray for peace and that is what I’ll do.

1. Know how much you’re eating.
          – Check the serving sizes
2. Know the marketing labels
          – Organic and natural definitions
3. “Free doesn’t necessarily mean healthy.
          -Fat-free, sugar-free, and cholesterol free
4. Don’t fall for deceptive claims.
         -Small serving sizes disguising fat
5. Know how much you should be eating.
         – Percent daily value
6. Look for fiber rather than whole grain
                                                  -Difference between whole grain, multigrain, enriched grain

I have broken down the healthy steps to keep in mind when looking at nutrition labels and what each section discusses. Please click on the article above to visit the actual article and read the wonderful information!

Healthy foods aren’t for the wealthy. Low-cost, low-sodium choices are readily available By: Shamona Harnett

Obviously, I like this article because I’m a huge advocate for healthy food being cheaper than you might think. There’s always the excuse that eating healthy is so expensive, but it’s really not. You just need to have an idea of what’s in season and what the healthy choices are. As a college student who loves fruit, I’ve noticed that produce can be expensive, but that’s if you want grapes 365 days a year. Like me. I love grapes but I have to realize I cannot get them cheap all year round and that when they are $5, I might need to decide to put the grapes down and grab the oranges for 1.29 a bag. Another great substitution is buying greens by the pound fresh rather than in a prepackaged bag. Think about it, the price is by the pound. A pound of spinach is A LOT! So 1.99 for a pound is nothing. I normally fill a bag and spend less than a dollar and get twice as much if not more than a prepackaged bag at the store. Read the article for some fun comparisons of alternative sources. Keep in mind it’s a Canadian article.

Are food trucks safe? By Karen Cicero, Health.com

As the weather becomes nicer, food trucks are more the craze. This article is great to point out how to know if a food truck is safe and what to look for when ordering!

Some key points from the article include:

By law, food trucks have to have a license. Some are posted in the window, if not you can ask to see it. Inspection grades are also sometimes posted, if they aren’t, you can find them on the health department’s website. Gloves are a huge factor for helping hygiene and cross contamination factors.

Red flags include: dirty hands, dangling hair, lukewarm food, and messy sink.

This is a great article that breaks down each area for more information on what to look for if you are concerned with the safety of food coming from food trucks!

Portion distortion applies to children too BY GENEVRA PITTMAN AND MARIKA SBOROS

The key to smaller portion sizes is smaller plates and glasses. You can trick your mind that you are getting more by having a smaller plate. If your plate is full, you are limited in what fills it up. I love this area of nutrition because it really shows how crazy the mind works. This article breaks down some research studies that go into detail about observing 42 primary schoolchildren and they served themselves using child-sized plates and bowls and then adult-sized dishware that was twice as large. The more food on the plate equaled more consumption. Try it out and use smaller plates and bowls and then give a few minutes after eating. Are you full/content? I’m sure you will be and you saved yourself from overeating.

I also love this area, because first of all I love kids and second of all, I was a picky eater when I was little. Why do I bring this up? The whole “you cannot leave the table until you clean your plate,” area is something I will never tell my children. Why? Because it’s practicing poor eating behaviors. If your child is full then let them be done. If they didn’t like their vegetables, don’t force it. You don’t want to instill negative thoughts with eating because this will carry with your child as they grow up. I never liked vegetables, but as I’ve grown up, I have grown to like them more and explore different varieties and cooking methods. Try this with your kids and attempt to cook vegetables differently. Have them try one if they refuse to eat it, if they don’t like it, you tried. The more they try, eventually they might like it. Otherwise taste buds change overtime and they’ll make those decisions on their own.

Obviously, I’m not a registered dietitian and my own opinion should not be taken as a written law or rules. I have taken many courses and have developed my own opinions throughout my four years of dietetics at the undergraduate level.

Sunday night was internship matching and my fellow dietetic pals were told if they matched with an internship. This is probably one of the most stressful days, besides the actual application process, of the journey to become a dietitian. An internship is necessary to take the Registered Dietitian exam to become an RD. It isn’t as simple as calling someone up and finding an internship. Instead, a computer takes school’s choices and the applicant’s school choice and either matches one or none. Only 50% of those in the US that apply match with an internship.

Luckily for me, I was able to forego this entire situation, as I’m going to complete my master’s degree first. Don’t worry, I still stressed about the internship application process. If you know me, I’m the planner and want to plan out my life in advance. So when I found out we needed an internship, I started working on my application and resume starting my sophomore year of college and even had my choice picks of where to go and what I needed to do to apply, as well as networking with those who attended the internships and those in charge of them.

It just so happened there was another path for me to venture down and it is more beneficial towards the field of dietetics I want to practice. I was offered a graduate assistant position at the University of Missouri- Columbia to work under the Head of Sports Nutrition. Not only will I get to work in the field of dietetics I dream about; sports nutrition, but I will also get my Masters of Education: Health Education and Promotion. I was so blessed that I didn’t even need to think about this opportunity. All I needed to think about was the “what happens after that?” There it is again, my life planning. I’ve left it vague, in the fact that so much could happen with this opportunity and the ever changing world of nutrition and dietetics, that I know I will complete an internship and obtain my RD someday, but it can wait. Especially after hearing about the future changes that in order to take the RD exam, prospective dietitians will need to have their master’s degree. What a coincidence, because I will have my master’s degree which puts me right back in the playing field and not disadvantaged. So once again, this all happened for a reason and this path is ideal in my future plans.

I am so overjoyed with those who matched for internships and am positive that those who didn’t, will match second round or much like me, end up with other paths to take that will benefit them in more ways than they might think. So let us take in our last 5 weeks of school and open arms to the new adventures that are ahead of us in the upcoming years!