College Health & Wellness: Tweetchat #CHWchat Tuesdays @9PM!

Did you know students that exercise at least 20 minutes a day around 7 days a week have a GPA of .4 greater than students who don't? We've known for a long time that exercise helps various aspects of our lives, but making someone more intelligent? (& More desirable post-grad?) These findings may be due to some or all of the following surprising exercise benefits:

Source

1. Exercise Stimulates Brain Cell Development
2. Exercise Improves Memory Retention
3. Exercise Increases Focus & Concentration
4. Exercise Boosts Mood
5. Exercise Relieves Stress

Despite these results, less than half of college students meet exercise recommendations.

At the same time, students have incredibly unhealthy eating habits:

Source

• 66% of freshmen don't consume the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
• 50% of all students don't get enough fiber.
• 60% eat too much artery-clogging saturated fat.
• 30% of college women don't get enough calcium.
• 59% say they know their diet has gone downhill since they went to college.

And we're not just talking physical fitness here:

• 32% of all students report a decline in their body image during their freshman year.
• 40% of normal weight college women perceive that they are overweight.
• 41% report a decline in their overall feeling of happiness during their freshman year.
• 25% of college-aged women engage in bingeing & purging as a weight-management technique.
• 27% of young adults between the ages of 18-24 have diagnosable mental health problems.
• Suicide is the #2 killer of college students ages 20-24.

Lack of physical and mental wellness is way to prevalent on college campuses. 

Obviously these facts aren't new, and most of the country isn't even getting their recommended servings of x, y, and z a day - but look at these stats and how close to 50/50 they are. While we focus on the students not getting enough exercise or eating healthily, there's the other half of the student body that are. These are the students who can help their peers start and maintain these healthy lifestyles, which is so incredibly important because the habits we make at this stage stay with us for the rest of our lives. 

So we created a College Health & Wellness Tweetchat. #CHWchat

To be completely honest, @MarissaMirabito, @Sarah_M_Webb and myself are required to host a few tweetchats in our Strategic Digital Community Management class. (Taught by the amazing @ejyoung67!)  

Source

When considering options for our topic we found we were all invested in our own and others' health and wellness - especially during the trying college years, which are supposed to be the best years of your life but seem to be intermingled with periods of pretty intense stress. We wanted to connect people who are super fitness oriented, or are awesome at cooking really nutritious meals, or really believe in the benefits of meditation, or some combination or no combination of the three to start talking and inspiring one another.

We're not trying to get people to lose weight or feel bad about their current habits. We're trying to make a stronger student community by promoting overall wellness and helping people achieve their health-related goals.

Our first tweetchat will discuss how to stay physically and mentally healthy during the finals season which is quickly encroaching upon us. If you're curious and want to be prepared (for the greatest chat ever), we'll be asking the following questions:

• Do you have any bad health habits during finals?
• What are healthy ways you unwind during finals?
• What foods do you keep on hand to avoid unhealthy snacking?
• What are your “junk foods”?
• Do you exercise to combat stress?
• Are there any meditation or de-stressing activities being offered through your college?

Everyone is welcome: you do not need to be a fitness buff or never eat potato chips. We simply want to promote overall health and wellness within the college community. We are super excited to be inspired by all of you, and hopefully vice versa.

So we will see you tonight at 9PM! Follow along under the hashtag #CHWchat. If you can't make it this week: no worries! We'll be tweeting next Tuesday at 9PM as well. See you there!

Me doing yoga at Montmartre in Paris during my study abroad

Sources:
5 Reasons College Students Should Make Time for Exercise
College eating habits are clogged with fat

College Students Do Not Exercise Enough

Eating Disorder Statistics
Exercise Boosts College Students' Grades
Mental Health: What a Difference Student Awareness Makes
Statistics About College Depression

Vegan Lentil, Spinach, and Wild Rice Soup

It's in the sub-zeros here in Burlington, so when I came across this lentil soup recipe from Cara over at Hipsterfood, I had to make it - with a couple substitutions. It turned out being my first meal of the new year, so let's hope the rest follow in its healthy and affordable footsteps!

Here's what you'll need:
Keep in mind, because this is a soup you can really alter all of this according to your preferences - I sure did!

- 1 cup dry wild rice/brown rice blend
- 1 cup dry lentils (2 cups cooked)
- 1 Bouillon cube or vegetable stock (we used the bouillon cubes with herbs)
- A handful or 2 of spinach (or kale or any other kind of dark leafy green)
- 2-3 tablespoons thyme
- 1 tablespoon oregano
- 1-2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic (feel free to leave out if you're not a garlic fan)
- 3-4 tablespoons fresh chives
- Half a yellow onion, minced
(original recipe called for green onion, didn't have any so used chives and onion as a substitute! we will try with a large handful of minced green onion and less chives and yellow onion next time, but this was great too.)



Here's how you'll do it:
Start cooking rice at a 3-1 ratio water to rice for about 50 minutes. With about 30 minutes to go, cook lentils, 2-1 water to lentil ratio for about 30 minutes. During this time also begin chopping fresh herbs/onion/etc you have.

When lentils and rice are around 10 minutes from being done, put sautee onions until tender. Throw garlic in with the onions when they're a few minutes away from being done.

When everything's cooked, put it, the herbs, and pinch or two of salt/pepper into a large pot. Fill with water (or vegetable stock) a couple inches above the rice/lentil mixture, add in the bouillon cube if not using stock, and bring to a bowl then simmer for around 5 minutes or until your greens are softened.

This will cook around 3-4 servings, and I'd say each serving costs under $1.50!



Next time I may experiment with adding mushrooms and/or carrots as well, as I think they would go nicely in the mixture!

eat well,
xx taylor

a bit of reworking.

Happy New Year!

I hope it brings your desires and everything you work for.

Before I left for Paris, this blog was firstly and primarily a fashion and personal style blog with very little depth beyond reviewing fashion shows and posting specifically-coordinated outfits. When I went abroad, it became a travel diary. (- albeit one I ceased to update about a month into my travels.) Despite not learning about it via this blog, I experienced a lot during this time and like to think I've changed for the better from my European travels, and look forward to continue to improve myself now that I've returned - a general statement I imagine many are saying this very moment.

I want to record the old and the new in my life here in Burlington, Vermont as I begin my senior year in college and look forward to what the rest of my life will bring.

So this will become a mishmash of my life - food, yoga, health, fashion, marketing, music, et cetera et cetera. I sure don't know where it's heading right now, but that's truly quite fitting as it's in line with the rest of my life.

Stay tuned for recipes, reflections and photos from abroad and future travels, yoga poses, learnings, and routines, health smoothies and jogging achievements, fashion wishlists, songs of the moment, reviews, and anything else that happens comes to mind.

Live well and live happily,
xx taylor

fontainebleau.

A trip with CEA brought us to Fontainebleau - basically an old hunting town for royalty outside of Paris. After a couple hour hike in the woods, we had a really excellent lunch then explored the Château de Fontainebleau, which is actually the castle & lands the Château de Versailles was created to out-do. And compared to Versailles, Château de Fontainebleau is almost understated. 

de Croatie

So yes, I went to Croatia literally a month ago but I finally got around to editing all of the pictures and, due to the desire to procrastinate on finals work, totally want to write a blog about them! Long story short, Julia and I went to spend the weekend with Caitlin in Dubrovnik, and thus the roommates are back together again. Unfortunately, I never wrote a post about meeting up in Barcelona in early October so I can't put a link in to that... but here's Caitlin's!

Caitlin and me on Lokrum Island

I left Paris on Thursday evening with a layover in Zagreb (Croatia's capital). I'm just chilling, standing in line at security to get into my terminal, when I hear somebody shout my name and Julia is standing on the second level yelling down to me - pretty wonderful to see this lady's face smiling down at you.

Getting safe passage back to Dubrovnik someday!

Julia and me at Lokrum Island

We get to Croatia, meet Caitlin at the bus stop from the airport, climb about a million stairs (to be repeated many times), arrive at her apartment, and crash - though I will literally never get over how beautifully wonderful her apartment is. Ever. If you don't study abroad in a tiny studio shared by 2 people in France, you cannot understand. On Friday we go to Lokrum Island and hang out with lots of peacocks, then check out the pretty chill Dubrovnik bar scene.

versailles.

So last Saturday we decided to take a day trip to Versailles. It happens to be the last stop on RER (aka train) C, which is basically like a commuter train to the suburbs of Paris. What that means is with our navigo passes (public transportation passes) we can go to Versailles for free on weekends, even though it's in a zone that isn't covered by our everyday passes. Anyway, so yeah: transportation to Versailles was free which was pretty sweet, and only about an hour commute.

When we arrived Jordan and I decided not to go into the castle - she had already been and I plan on returning with the CEA program later in the semester. Jamie and Jordan's friend from home Madelyn took a tour of the castle and met us in the gardens.

Before catching up with them, we went through a small labyrinth, almost rented boats to chill on the water, and hung out in the forest alongside the gardens, which for a Vermonter and Washingtonian, was pretty essential to our well-being. I actually cannot express how comforting the smell of trees is after a month in the city!

les villes de deauville et trouville

So last Saturday, CEA students awoke at 6:45am to make it to a train station by 8:20 to be lead off on a mystery adventure we knew nothing about. We arrive to learn that we were taking a train to northern France in the Normandie region to the coastal towns of Deauville & Trouville. A 2 hour train ride later, we arrive in Deauville with 20 euros to spend and about 7 hours to enjoy the area - which we absolutely did!

After a walk through the Deauville market, we got lunch (crepes, of course, because they're known for their savory crepes) and brought a bottle of hard cider we got from a nice man at the market (which they are also known for) to the beach and chilled for a while next to the ocean. 

CD& TD Reunion!

So Caitlin, aka college roomie bff is studying in Croatia this semester in the beautiful city of Dubrovnik. Before going there; however, she decided to visit her good friend Ségolène from Belgium who lived with the Douglass family for a year during a foreign exchange program. As I am in Paris, they obviously had to come to visit me! (& the city and sites I suppose, but mostly me.) It was actually even nicer than I expected to have them visit - I think the hardest part about studying abroad has nothing to do with "studying" or "abroad," it's really just being away from the people you love at home.



Unfortunately, while their trip was plagued with some awful pests, (find out more on Caitlin's blog here) we did see some of the classic Parisian sights, and I took my first trip up la tour eiffel!

 

les catacombes de paris

So this happened a couple weeks ago, but with school starting up life has been pretty crazy here in Paris! One of the things I was most looking forward to seeing while I was here ware the catacombs - aka 6 million skeletons stacked in old quarries underneath the city.



Long story short, the quarries had been dug for centuries to get limestone out of the ground for construction of parisian buildings. Those which were exhausted of their minerals were basically forgotten about until they started crumbling down and either had to be filled in or better supported.



Around this time, (late 18th century) cemeteries in the city began getting too full. This hadn't been an issue before because predeceasing the rise of Christianity in the country, people were buried outside of the city. However, hundreds of years after they had to be buried in sacred soil, there wasn't enough room for them anymore, considering Paris was already overpopulated by the living. And these full graveyards started becoming serious health hazards for the city. Transferring all of Paris's dead to the tunnels took from 1786-1788.



From 1788-1810 the tunnels were merely bone repositories, until a renovation rearranged the skulls & femurs into their current configuration and used tombstones as decorations.



So yeah, check it out! Also, check out the bar 'katacombes' in Montreal modeled after the parisian catacombs.

les Français contre les Américains

So there's obviously a reason that Americans and the French don't quite click right away and we get these stereotypes of the French being cold and Americans being obnoxious. And, of course, it all starts with the typical American mom and the typical French mom.

Picture an American mom going to the park with her child, she's probably wearing her yoga pants and lulu lemon jacket, while her baby is wearing bright colors (obviously never black or grey, why would you put depressing colors on a happy baby?). The stroller has the newest, greatest safety mechanisms with a 5 point seat belt for the child so he doesn't bounce around too much when the stroller hits cracks in the pavement, as well as lots of things the baby can play with and spots for mom to put her Starbucks. They get to the park, she takes him out of the stroller and says things like "we're here! oh we are going to have so much fun! you can play over there and over there and over there and just have fun! I'll be watching you and taking pictures for daddy!" So the child starts playing and after a little while he falls and comes back crying to his mom, who immediately says something like "oh sweetie it'll be ok!" and magically kisses the pain away, then sends the child back out to play because they have to leave on a 'good note' - he has to be having fun when they leave, they can't leave when he's upset over falling.

So now let's look at the French mom. She's pushing a stroller, potentially smoking, wearing normal clothes for women - aka has gotten back into her skinny jeans and is wearing an outfit to compliment the fact that she is a woman. When a French woman becomes a mother, she still remains a woman, while when an American woman becomes a mom, she has to become Supermom! and loses the sexy side of her womanhood.

So anyway, she's dressed well, maybe a little sexy, and her child is wearing an outfit - not necessarily conducive to running and jumping and playing like American clothing for children is. When they get to the park, the mom undoes the seat belt (which was just for show anyway) and says to the child, "we're here. You can play there but not there, over there is for kids bigger than you and you will fall if you play there. I will be here watching you." (note: watching them to make sure they don't do something wrong, not watching taking pictures for daddy or grandma.) So the kid plays and goes over to the big kid area and falls. When he comes back to mom crying, she says something along the lines of, "mom was right, huh?" or "I told you so" and waits for acknowledgement from the child that she, obviously, knew best. After that has been established she will take care of cleaning/bandaging whatever needs to be done. If the child keeps crying and making a scene, she will first make him sit and calm down. If that doesn't work, they go home because it is entirely inappropriate for the child to be crying in public.

In France, children bend to the adults' world. In America, adults bend to children's needs. (AKA toys for kids to play with in stores/restaurants, it being inappropriate for a salesperson or waiter to ask a customer to leave because of the noise their child is making, etc.)

So based on these childhoods, they compare Americans to peaches



& French to coconuts


Americans always feel the pressure to be outgoing, outwardly happy, welcoming, and always having fun, whereas the French are more reserved and tell it like it is. e.g. France has excellent customer service - for the French. They don't want a waitperson to come over all "Hello!! My name is Meghan and I'll be taking care of you tonight. Our specials are...... and I really love the ......... and please let me know if I can help you in any way!!" They want them to simply take the order, bring the food, and leave until the check needs to be paid. They would hate that person returning every 5 minutes to make sure they are doing absolutely A-O.K.

Americans tend to have a lot of surface friends; we meet people and within 5 minutes of talking add them on facebook and like their statuses, but we have very few close, close friends. We find it easy to communicate with people on the surface level (like how a peach is soft on the outside), but find it difficult to talk about personal matters and get emotionally close to people.

The French have very few surface friends. Because they are colder and more reserved on the outside, they find no enjoyment in hanging out with lots of people they don't know well, whereas once they do become friends with someone, they are friends for life - you know, because they're all soft and milky on the inside.

One final distinction is the fact that the French have a little 'm' and a big "M" looking out for them - their biological family(/mother), as well as the government. Because the French government is so involved in its people's lives, the French feel much more secure with maybe not getting a job right after school and moving home with the parents instead - hell they don't have $100,000 of student loans to pay off so why not? There is not at all the same stigma here about losing a job or moving back in with the family, they don't always have to be moving forward and achieving things in their career to feel content and successful.

So yeah, this is totally not as well explained as it was to me but maybe this will help you as it did me in understanding the French and why peaches and coconuts don't always brush up against each other without some bumps & bruises..

Orientation.

So this whole week we have been going through orientation, which for us early-starters has seriously been a week long review of an orientation we had in 1 day, so it hasn't been too eventful. However, today we had a bus tour around the tourist sites of Paris and I (of course without my camera) got these snapshots with my iphone:

Mon anniversaire, rock en seine, et 'La mécanique des dessous, une histoire indiscrète de la silhouette'

Alors. After my post on Thursday I went on a wonderful champagne tasting cruise along the seine departing from the eiffel tower, thanks to Forrest: the best boyfriend ever. The champagne was amazing, obviously the views were spectacular, and I met this wonderful couple to enjoy the experience with - and get some tips about where to visit outside of Paris.

first glass!

our champagne expert - who was actually sweedish & came to france to study wine!

the love bridge! lovers place locks along the sides.