August 31, 2017
Get Moving
Paddle Boarding
Last month, we talked about kayaking, which is an excellent outdoor activity for the summer. This month’s “get moving” activity will be focused on another water-centered sport: paddle boarding. It is a sport that goes back a long way, dating to the 1930s when athlete and inventor, Thomas Edward Blake created a more hollow version of the surfboard for rescue situations in large bodies of water. Now, paddle boarding is a highly popular way for lovers of the sea to tone their bodies and get fit!
Traditional paddle boarding involves the participant using their arms to swim great distances while kneeling or lying down on a paddleboard or surfboard. It is a low-impact sport, so the chances of you getting injured while taking part are very low. It’s also a full cardio workout, so this could be the perfect choice for your summer workout routine.
Now there is a new way to paddle board, which seems to be very popular among fitness nuts and water lovers alike: stand up paddleboarding. It works in a very similar fashion to traditional paddleboarding, except as the name suggests, it involves you standing up on the board instead of lying down. The sport began in Hawaii as an alternative to surfing, and its popularity soon spread throughout the country, becoming an outdoor sport with the most US participants in 2013.
Stand up paddleboarding gives you a full body workout, utilizing all muscles of the body. Your legs keep you balanced by tightening your core and lower body, while your arms, back, and upper body work to move forward with an actual paddle rather than your hands. The sport remains low impact, and it can even help you heal if you have bad knees or hips, due to the no-stress environment. It may take some time to figure out how to stay balanced, and you will most likely fall into the water a few times before you get it right. Do not let that discourage you, however, because like any other sport, it just takes a little practice.
If you live in the New York area, you have many options of places to go if you want to learn how to paddleboard either way. Manhattan Kayak + SUP is a good place to go if you want to learn stand up paddleboarding, and there are other places like A-team Paddleboarding and Kostal Paddle to sell you equipment and give you beginner lessons if you’re looking to only learn the traditional style. With the summer days dwindling down, you want to make sure you can hit the waves as much as possible, and if it involves working it into your exercise routine, paddleboarding may just be the sport for you.
Memories are some of the most important pieces of information that we can hold in our brains. They are proof that we lived through experiences, both good and bad. On days where we may feel a little lost, and we’re in need for some mental clarity, a memory to look back on can be the perfect solution. This explains why it is so common to take pictures of ourselves, as well as the ones we love on days where we feel our best. If you are a person that likes to take a lot of pictures, or if you are just looking for some peace of mind, then scrapbooking may just be your type of activity.
For this Product Pick, I wanted to do something a little different. Usually I review a product that I have tried, and although I did try this out, it isn’t exactly something you can buy from a store. Rather, you’ll have to buy the ingredients for this one and make it yourself. In our last issue of Mind, Body, Live, we talked about porosity and the importance of knowing how porous your hair is. Now, I’d like to share a simple hair recipe that can aid in high porosity hair. This Do-It-Yourself Avocado Deep Conditioner will definitely keep your hair moisturized and healthy.
August 31, 2017
More Than a Diet
The Pitfalls of Healthy Eating On Campus
We’ve all heard of it, we’ve all seen it, and whether it’s losing 15+ pounds or, more commonly, gaining 15+ pounds- we’ve all feared it. You get to school, eat the food and LOVE it… for the span of about a month, and then you start getting sick of it. That’s where gaining weight comes in, because aside from the amount of partying (that we may or may not still deny to our parents that we did), the amount of sleep we lost by staying up all night studying, we also spent a lot of money on ordering food/stocking up on junk food so that we could avoid those wretched dining halls that we loved a month ago. And this my friends is how we make our way into gaining the dreaded freshman 15.
However, there’s also the concept of losing the freshman 15. These seemingly lucky individuals are also up at late hours of the night studying, they may also be going out to parties, and could also be avoiding the dining halls. The only difference is the way they react to those situations. Instead of stress eating, they probably have less of an appetite throughout the week- which is why the junk food affects them in a different way. For the purpose of this article though, we’re focusing more on the gaining weight aspect of the freshman 15.
Stress, pigging out, and getting no sleep over the course of a few months tend to accumulate. Before you know it you’re home for Thanksgiving and are greeted by comments from your friends and family members on how much ‘fuller’ you got. And unless you’re extremely self-aware, it was probably the first time you were told anything about your weight. Now it’s Spring semester and a part of your new year’s resolution list is to be in the gym 4 to 5 times a week in between classes. Sometimes the resolution will stick, and other times, the resolution will be short lived, and that’s okay.
I’m here to tell you that unfortunately, as many of us may have realized, the myth may actually be a reality. With all things in life, it’s our job to combat it before or after it comes to life. Living a healthy lifestyle is difficult no matter what stage of life you’re in. College is a great place to find yourself, however in finding yourself, you might come to realize that under certain stressful periods, you might not sleep- or sleep too much, you might pig out- or forget to eat, you might be lazy or you might be in the gym every day and at the end of the day, it all comes down to how you prevent or handle the situation.