Healthy Eating Tips for College Students

As a college student, you need to eat to fuel your body for a hectic season in your life, where you’re busy with classes, studying, and work (and some play too). But you may feel like you don’t have the time, energy, or even the nutrition know-how you need. And maybe you are worried about that “freshman 15″ you’ve heard about.

The good news is that you can build healthier eating habits, even on a budget and a busy schedule. Start with these strategies.

Know What a Balanced Diet Is

Eating a healthy diet means you’re getting the correct balance of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates (also known as macronutrients), along with the vitamins and minerals (or micronutrients) your body needs to function well. To get all of these nutrients you want to make sure you are eating a variety of foods and that your meals contain some carbohydrate, protein, fat, and fiber at each meal.

A good rule of thumb for eating a well-balanced meal is to consume about 1-2 servings of vegetables or fruit per meal, along with a serving of fat, a starch (such as a whole grain, legume, or starchy vegetables) and some protein (legumes, tofu, chicken, fish, turkey, eggs, yogurt, etc).

For example, you may have 1 cup of low-fat Greek yogurt with 3/4 cup blueberries, 1 tablespoon of chopped nuts and a handful of whole grain cereal for breakfast. Or you might eat 2 slices of whole grain toast with 1/3 avocado, lettuce, sliced tomato, and chopped egg. Each meal contains some carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber. This will leave you feeling full and energized.

A common mistake is not eating enough fruits and vegetables or high-fiber foods. Another pitfall is eating too much fried food and sugary snacks and sodas (or any foods that supply a lot of calories without many nutrients). This is the Best diet pills.

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Add a Fruit or Vegetable to Every Meal

PhotoAlto / Laurence Mouton / Getty Images

The average American only consumes around 1/2 of the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables daily. So add a fruit or a colorful veggie to every single meal you can. It’s easy—you only need to be more mindful of what goes on your plate.

Top a bowl of cereal or oatmeal with sliced fruit, or fresh berries at breakfast, or start your day off with a fruit and vegetable smoothie.

At lunchtime, choose green beans to go with your sandwich or grab some crunchy raw carrots. End your meal with an apple or banana.

Dinner works the same way. And even if you’re out for pizza with friends, you can order a side salad or opt for veggie toppings instead of meats on your pie.

One of the easiest ways to eat a balanced diet is to aim for 2 to 3 cups of veggies and a serving or two of fruit every day.

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Work in Some Extra Calcium Sources

Verywell / Alexandra Shytsman

Calcium is essential for all kinds of things—blood clotting, muscle and nerve function, healthy teeth, and strong bones. In fact, you’re building up bone mass until you reach about 30 years of age—then it gets tougher to add calcium to bone. So take advantage of this time and get plenty of calcium every day.

Milk and dairy products are well-known calcium sources. Try Greek yogurt with fresh berries, nuts, and honey, or drink a glass of milk with your meals. Cheese is an excellent source of calcium too. One serving of cheese is only about an ounce (about the size of two dice).

If milk’s not your thing, there are still plenty of calcium sources available. Dark leafy green vegetables, nuts and seeds, and fortified cow’s milk alternatives like fortified soy milk, rice milk, or almond milk will provide you with plenty of calcium. Tofu is also a good source of calcium, as well as sardines, salmon, fortified orange juice, cottage cheese, chia seeds, and some breakfast cereals.

 

A fog has rested upon us all.

We want to rejoice, we want to be merry and bright. Yet we find ourselves facing a largely unfamiliar solemnity, a collective ache, an inescapable undercurrent of pain. . .

Because their stockings are still hung by the chimney with care.

Because their gifts still lay wrapped tenderly beneath the tree.

And there will be no eager footsteps in their hallways come Christmas morning. . .

_______________

Felix’s brave momma, Jenna, elected to give birth to him at home. . . with the help of only a midwife and a few trusted friends. (Her husband, Brian, was away on deployment and took part in the experience via Skype.) When I arrived at the home where Jenna was preparing to welcome her son into the world, it was the middle of the night. The stars burned bright in the Scottsdale sky (I mention it only because it was the kind of sky you never forget your entire life through). The lights inside were dim, and there was a tangible tenderness in the air. A room full of women. . . Jenna in the middle. . . slowly, confidently breathing her way through the excruciating pain. As the night wore on, and Jenna’s pain increased, there were moments when it was nearly unbearable to watch. Tears spilled from my eyes, and I wanted nothing more than to wrap my arms around her. I would have done anything to help bear her pain, and I know my feelings were shared by every other woman in the room that night.

And things went on this way.

For hours.

The intensity of pain Jenna was experiencing lasted all through the night and well into the afternoon of the next day. All the while, there was nothing any of us could do—except for love, encourage, support and stay by her side. All we could do was make certain she knew we loved her and that we weren’t going anywhere.

After Felix was finally placed into his mother’s eager arms, I listened to her genuinely and adoringly thank every woman for their presence through her pain. I listened as she told every one of us, individually, that she couldn’t have survived without us. We had done nothing to ease her pain. Nothing. She brought that baby into the world on her own. She suffered through every breath of anguish. And yet, somehow, our love, our simple presence had made a real difference for her. Jenna’s gratitude was unforgettable, unbelievable and extraordinarily sincere.

So, where do we go from here?

There are so many in this world who are writhing in emotional pain, laboring through overwhelming fear, sorrow, horror . . . and loneliness that cannot be described.  For many, and certainly those of Newtown, CT, Hell is a matter of every day life.

Where DO we go from here? I’m afraid I don’t have a perfect answer. I can only explore the question right along with every other member of the human family. . . But I imagine the answer lies somewhere near the region of LOVE. A love that is more complete, more open, more unconditional—a love that is not bound by pretext or restraint.

We need to be kinder with one another, more gentle and forgiving. We need to be slower to anger and more prompt to help. We need to extend the hand of friendship and resist the hand of retribution. In short, we need to love one another with the pure love of Christ, with genuine charity and compassion and, if necessary, shared suffering, for that is the way God loves us…. We need to walk more resolutely and more charitably the path that Jesus has shown. We need to ‘pause to help and lift another’ and surely we will find ‘strength beyond [our] own.’ If we would do more to learn ‘the healer’s art,’ there would be untold chances to use it, to touch the ‘wounded and the weary’ and show to all ‘a gentle[r] heart —Howard W. Hunter

May we come together, as members of the human family, irrespective of race, political affiliation or creed, and let each other know that we are here for one another in complete charity (love) —and we aren’t going anywhere.

 

 

THE QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEUR

 Business Success

Successful entrepreneurs have the potential to radically improve the world on multiple fronts.

Not only can they meet economic needs and please customers, but they can also help their employees achieve their full potential.

If you dream of making a difference in this way, you just might make a great entrepreneur. But first, it’s important to know what an entrepreneur is and the qualities that set successful them apart from the rest, Visit website.

Are You An Entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur takes an idea and makes a business out of it.

Successful entrepreneurs have a passion they want to share with the world and turn it into a business they profit from.

Because you set up your own business instead of working for someone else’s, you take responsibility for all the risks, but you also benefit from all of the rewards.

Most entrepreneurs venture into the unknown. They are innovative and hone important entrepreneurial skills to overcome challenges, fears, and doubts to become fearless, think big, and dream big.

Entrepreneurs set up their businesses with their own money, loans, or by partnering with venture capitalists to fund their dreams.

Aspiring entrepreneurs are often attracted to this venture because they get to build a career that aligns with their interests, talents, skills, passions, or beliefs.

Entrepreneurship allows you to have autonomy and the opportunity to improve your standard of living and quality of life.

You can often set your own schedule, connect with like-minded people, and have many opportunities to grow and learn new things.

Many entrepreneurs have the desire to change lives and a strong sense of adding value to their communities.

11 Qualities Of A Successful Entrepreneur

Aspiring entrepreneurs may have visions of turning their creative ideas into reality, having their own business or multiple businesses, becoming independently wealthy, or being great philanthropists. Whatever your ultimate goal, if you endeavor to be a successful entrepreneur, you must cultivate certain key traits that will set you above the rest and allow you to achieve real success.

Becoming a successful entrepreneur means developing entrepreneurial skills that help you create long-term success. Consider the following qualities that most successful entrepreneurs possess so you can start living your dream.

Goal Oriented

Successful entrepreneurs regularly define their business goals and come up with detailed plans to achieve them.

This allows them to focus their actions toward a consistent, positive outcome for the company.

A penchant for planning means you will always have a clear sense of what to do next and can better assess individual decisions based on how they fit into your broader strategy.

If you’re not used to setting goals, try setting SMART goals.

Conceptional chalk drawing – SMART Goals

Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer company by being an avid goal-setter. He set both long-term and short-term goals to achieve his ultimate goal of building an enduring company that prioritized people.

Entrepreneurs require vision and a business plan that includes steps and reachable goals to get them from the idea stage to their own businesses that are fully functioning and thriving.

Passionate

One of the most important elements of successful entrepreneurship is loving what you do.

This means not just a love for doing business but also a passion for your specific field.

Not only does loving your work make it easier to carry out your daily duties, but it can make those actions seem like they aren’t even duties at all.

You are likely to spend your free time brushing up your skills or thinking of ways to attract more clients.

Those who love what they do are also more likely to deal with failure constructively, learning how to do better rather than getting discouraged.

To be a successful entrepreneur, know your purpose in life and then strive to achieve it. When you enjoy what you are pursuing, you will have greater resilience to overcome failures that inevitably come and continue striving forward.

Oprah Winfrey has become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in our modern time by cultivating self-awareness. She believes everyone has a calling and that it is vital to take the time to find out who you are and why you are here. And then go for it.

Successful entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, counsels, “Some 80% of your life is spent working. You want to have fun at home; why shouldn’t you have fun at work? You are far more likely to be inspired and have great ideas if you love what you do, and can instill that spirit of fun throughout your company.”

Takes Initiative

Effective entrepreneurs and business leaders spend every moment of their time taking productive actions.

They constantly look for opportunities to enhance their business and act decisively whenever they find one. A very important quality for successful entrepreneurs is the ability to take initiative.

Constant action doesn’t mean deciding without thinking; careful thought, after all, is a necessary action in business.

What it means is remaining productive so that all you do contributes to your goals.

Elon Musk is currently the richest man in the world, with an estimated net worth of nearly $152 billion. He has made billions by being extremely decisive. He thinks quickly and takes action without hesitating.

As the co-founder of PayPal, Tesla, and many other business ventures, this famous entrepreneur advises, “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”

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Flexible

As important as it is to make plans, commitment to a long-term vision or strategy should not come at the expense of flexibility.

Sooner or later, something will happen that you did not expect, and you will have to respond to it without hesitating.

A successful entrepreneur is able to adjust her plans when they prove impractical, quickly making the changes necessary to deal with any new development.

When you are taking on new opportunities, you will inevitably meet roadblocks and even failures. If you do not, you are not being innovative enough.

Expect difficulties on your road to becoming a successful entrepreneur, and have the flexibility to change course when it means greater customer satisfaction, increased sales, better service, or greater long-term success.

Self-Disciplined

To start and build your own successful business, you need special discipline. Self-discipline is practiced by all successful entrepreneurs and self-made business millionaires as it helps put you on the fast track to accomplishing your goals.

Learn and practice self-discipline early in your entrepreneurial career. The sooner you incorporate self-discipline, the sooner you will create positive outcomes for your business, including higher sales, a higher rate of accomplishing your goals, and keeping life-long customers.

Being self-disciplined means avoiding distractions and staying focused on your goals. Envision your long-term goal and stay laser-focused on it so that all of your actions will lead to your success.

The fourth richest person in the world, Bill Gates, revealed that when he was a student at Harvard University, he had a terrible habit of procrastinating. While it seemed comical to his classmates for him to cram the night before each test and not even attend his classes, he found that this did not translate to success in the business world.

Through self-discipline and additional key entrepreneurial skills, Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen, traded this habit to become one of the most successful people on the planet.

Has Integrity

Honesty is not just a moral virtue; it is also a practical necessity in the business world.

Employees, suppliers, customers, and regulators all have to know that they can trust you.

If they learn that you misrepresented yourself, they will refuse to cooperate with you, dooming your business.

You have to have a reputation for honesty and integrity to be a successful entrepreneur, and there is no reliable way to secure that reputation other than by actually being honest.

Warren Buffet, one of the most successful entrepreneurs and investors with a net worth of $118 billion, says, “Look for three things in a person: intelligence, energy, and integrity. If they don’t have the last one, don’t even bother.”

At the early age of 20, Sir Richard Branson became an entrepreneur by starting a mail-order record business and then running a chain of record stores within two years. Eventually, he founded the Virgin Group and today controls more than 400 companies. He is known as a man with high integrity, valuing people and their unique, creative ideas.

On the topic of building a successful business and integrity, Branson says, “Building a business is not rocket science, it’s about having a great idea and seeing it through with integrity.”

Emotionally Intelligent

Emotional intelligence is indispensable in the business world.

Your own emotions can easily get in the way of decision-making, causing you to view an incorrect choice positively or overlook a correct one.

You must recognize your emotions but not be controlled by them.

It is also important to be sensitive to your employees’ and partners’ emotions, understand how your decisions impact them and strive to keep them happy and healthy. By following these steps, your success as an entrepreneur is virtually assured.

Larry Page, co-founder of search engine and company Google–which is worth nearly $1,200 billion–is known for his emotionally intelligent leadership style. He says, “My job as a leader is to make sure everybody in the company has great opportunities and that they feel they’re having a meaningful impact and are contributing to the good of society.”

Risk Tolerant

To be a successful entrepreneur, you must be willing to take risks.

Without taking risks and venturing into the unknown, you will remain where you are instead of accelerating toward something better.

However, you must understand how to take intelligent risks. You do this by assessing your options, thinking through the possible outcomes, making a plan to meet challenges and deal with a potential worst-case scenario, and taking action.

Andrew Carnegie, founder of the Carnegie Corporation and one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs of the early 19th century, risked losing his family’s home by investing in an express delivery company. The risk paid off, leading to multiple subsequent investments and an eventual fortune.

Steve Ballmer took the risk of dropping out of Stanford University to join a new technology company called Microsoft. He eventually became CEO and has a net worth of $78.6 billion.

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg shares, “The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”

Two weeks ago, I photographed the funeral of a beautiful, strong, sensational 16 year old girl. “Coincidentally,” she died 2 years after my sweet son, to the day. I arrived to the funeral early and had the opportunity to spend some time “with her” in private before the family arrived. I looked into her radiant, peaceful face, and I asked her to find my brother. To please find him and to tell him I love him and that I’m doing my best to really LIVE my life for him. I held her mother in my arms as she cried. I comforted her in a way that only a mother who’s “been there” ever could. It broke my heart wide open. SHE broke my heart wide open. I learned so much from this girl. This beautiful girl I had never met. I left the funeral that day knowing, deep in my heart, that I had been exactly where I was meant to be.

Exactly one week later, I stood helpless and watched a man die after being struck by a truck while riding his motorcycle (without a helmet). I held the man who hit him in my arms while he cried, over and over, “I don’t want to kill anybody; I don’t want to kill anybody.” I prayed with him as they covered the victim with a sheet and loaded him into the ambulance. Then I took his face in both of my hands, looked him squarely in the eyes and told him, with all the energy of my heart, “THIS IS NOT YOUR FAULT. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING YOU DID. YOU ARE GOING TO GO ON WITH YOUR LIFE, AND YOU ARE GOING TO REMEMBER, THIS.WAS.NOT.YOUR.FAULT.” We held each other tightly as I offered one last prayer. . . and then I got in my car, and I drove away. Changed. Knowing that for whatever reason, I had been in the right place, at exactly the right time.

A day shy of a week later, I found myself here, watching Chelsea give birth to her first child. A beautiful little girl. She was born 5lbs 6oz, with dark eyes, and a beautiful head full of hair. It was awesome—in the literal sense of the word: as in, I was full of awe at the beautiful miracle God was bringing to the Earth. After Baby J was born, she experienced a bit of distress, and Chelsea wasn’t able to hold her for long before they whisked her away. At that moment, Chelsea and I locked our tear filled eyes and she thanked me, in very few words that were full of every ounce of her heart. Again, I knew, there was nowhere else on Earth for me to be in that moment but there.

I don’t share these things from a base of egotism. Quite the opposite. I am humbled by the gifts God has given me in such quick succession. Gifts that have changed my heart, completely, and reminded me that THESE are the moments that life is all about. Moments of true, significant love and contribution. Moments where we let our guards down and simply love one another as God so freely loves us. Moments where we are able to see into the Heavens and to KNOW that somehow, someway, this is all part of a greater plan.

I hope these images touch you as much as they do me.

Like I said, when Baby J was born, she was quickly taken away from her mom to be checked by the “nursery team.”

She didn’t love them. Obviously. ;)

My favorite image of the day (times a million):

Chelsea simply watched her new daughter from afar, with so much love written all over her face you could smell it in the air.

Her mom showed her cell phone pictures of Baby J, so she could see close ups of her new daughter! I love this image, so much. Look at Chelsea’s face! RIGHT?!

I did a guest post on Kitchen Corners! Candied Pecan Salad. Check it out here.
My Making Things Happen post is up: The ART of Living. Read that here.
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