How To Make Waking Up Early Less Painful

Winter - it’s cold and dark, so where the hell does waking up at the crack of dawn fit in?

Some of us have early classes… early meaning before 10AM! I had to wake up early 3 days a week last fall and I’m not going to pretend it was easy.

The first few days I had to physically throw myself out of bed. I cursed myself for having responsibilities and stumbled around my apartment like a wounded animal. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

Despite this rocky start, it wasn’t long before I began to recognize the many benefits of rising at a decent hour:

Breakfast: Let’s get real. Breakfast food is some of the best stuff out there. Bagels, pancakes, cereal, fruit- it doesn’t get much better than that. Having time to actually eat it is a precious opportunity. Not only is breakfast food delicious, it’s part of a nutritionally balanced diet.

Beating Traffic: If you’ve ever commuted anywhere between the hours of 8 and 10 a.m. you know that driving on any major highway near your house is equivalent to being in the fiery pits of hell. If you’re not lucky enough to be jetting to work at the alarming speed of 5 mph, you’re vehicle is probably in “Park”. Leaving a bit earlier will give you a head start, allowing you to avoid some of the disgruntled commuters who are willing to maneuver their vehicles in any way possible to make it to work on time. Read More »

Pay Attention when you are Stuffing Your Face!

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Watching television and cramming for tests are the two times when I know that I have the tendency to mindlessly consume food. But now, I will be paying closer attention to just how much I am eating due to a recent article published on msnbc.

The article discusses a study where a free chicken wing buffet was offered to 52 graduate students while they watched the Super Bowl at a sports bar. Hey now - who could pass up free chicken wings?

As part of the study, the waitresses were told to clear the dishes at only half of the tables. If people had their tables continually cleared, they continually ate. Each of these people ate an average of seven chicken wings apiece. The students who did not have their table bused ate less and had eaten an average of two fewer chicken wings per person, which is 28 percent less than those whose tables had been bused. Read More »

The Top 5 Sugary Cereals Of Our Childhood

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One of my favorite things to do during the weekend at college was stumble down to the dining hall after a night of partying and fill a cereal bowl with about 8 different kinds of cereal.

Through blurry vision and a pounding head, I would reach for one “good-for-you? brand (for the base), and then proceed to find every sweet option available, filling my bowl to the brim with enough chemically altered sugar to keep me hopping for hours.

You see, when I was younger, my mom never let us have sweet cereal. We’d go with her to the grocery store, beg and plead for something with a cartoon character on it, and she’d simply shake her head, reach for the raisin bran, and state, “filling your mouth with sugar first thing in the morning means the dentist is going to have to pull your teeth.?

She could scare us for a little while, but once I grew up and realized eating sugary cereal doesn’t really dictate how many cavities you get drilled (I was the healthiest kid alive and still had about 3 of them), I vowed to find my way back the bobble-headed cartoons of my youth and their bounty of sweet.

So now, for your consideration, I present the Top 5 Sugary Cereals Of All Time (or at least my childhood): Read More »