Hydration is a key ingredient to healthy living that many people know about, but not many practice. Those signs hanging in the middle school gym locker room about drinking a certain number of 8-ounce glasses of water per day did little to influence kids, and that presents itself as a health issue due to the negative hydration habits that subsequently form. According to the New York Post, “A study of 2,000 people from the US found just 22 percent drink the USDA recommended eight to 10 glasses a day” (nypost.com). This is significant because it shows how widespread the under-hydration epidemic is.

So what are the effects of not hydrating? Well, mild dehydration makes you moody and tired (webmd.com). While these effects are not that bad, they still are a hindrance to daily activities and make you feel less than 100%. However, stronger symptoms appear with more severe dehydration. You can feel dizzy, nauseous, have an increased heart rate, and even pass out (webmd.com). These symptoms are scary and they also significantly affect daily life.

But what can be done to prevent this? Given the fact that most people are already dehydrated by the time they feel thirsty, it can be difficult to tell when you need to drink water (webmd.com). The middle school recommendation is great to form a habit of drinking enough water throughout the day, and that is key. Form a habit.

I know many people, including myself, often make attempts to drink excess water to stay hydrated, but after a few days forget about the newfound goal. However, if you can form a habit, you are far more likely to remain hydrated and drink your daily water quota. This has been one of my health goals for around 2 years, including many unsuccessful attempts.

Hydration ties greatly into exercise because both influence health. I have noticed that I don’t exercise well when I am dehydrated, so dehydration makes me feel worse, hurting how I exercise, and thus, hurting my overall health. My new strategy, however, has been to drink multiple bottles of water at the gym, taking a sip between each set. Interestingly, I notice a boost in energy after each water break, giving me a noticeably greater amount of strength compared to when I do not drink water between sets. This proves, to me at least, hydration’s benefits to exercise.

Overall, everyone should strive to remain hydrated. Whether that means carrying a bottle in your backpack or having a timer on your phone to remind you to drink, any small contribution to hydration helps.

A large effect of COVID that isn’t talked about too often is its impact on people’s ability to exercise. Remember during lockdown when we were stuck inside for 2 months? Well during those two months, unless you were fortunate enough to have a home gym, there was a large drop-off in exercise. I know for me, I put on a few pounds because of this, and I even tried to maintain some improv fitness.

One of my go-to exercises during COVID lockdown was running. This not only gave me the opportunity to be outside (a rare thing to have at that time) but it also helped me keep a little bit of fitness in my routine. It was literally a breath of fresh air getting out of the house and experiencing a small piece of normal life at that time. However, it was still quite a struggle to achieve sufficient exercise.

A funny outcome from the lockdown appeared in my football practices. Because we could no longer meet in person, my coaches decided to hold zoom calls where the team would workout together with whatever supplies they could find. We would do an exercise and figure out how to jerry-rig a weight to fit the exercise. I remember one of my teammates was using cinderblocks as his weight, and another used a bucket of concrete. Although very improvisational, these zoom workouts promoted fitness and creativity in a time where it was very tough to create sufficient workouts.

The pandemic, however, also had a large effect on fitness even after lockdown. I noticed that once gyms opened back up, they were very empty. You would think that people would be itching to get back in, but it was the opposite. Maybe it was the lingering fear associated with the pandemic, but it might also be the fact that many people decided to build home gyms during the lockdown. No longer needing a gym membership, these people contributed heavily to the lack of people in gyms. This made a major impact on the gyms. In fact, the gym I go to at home, LA Fitness, is planning on closing in the next year because of the lack of members.

So the pandemic has had a very large effect on people’s exercise and especially, how they exercise. Many of us took a hiatus during the two months of lockdown, and this hiatus brought lasting change.

Running is one of the easiest and oldest forms of exercise. It is simple, and you control how fast, far, and hard you want to go. But many people see it as something scary or intimidating. Any time running a mile is mentioned in a high school gym class, groans and disgust is everyone’s reaction. However, it does not have to be this way. The stigma surrounding a mile can be broken.

My first experience with running a mile happened when I was five years old. My mom was an avid runner and knew its benefit to health. However, she also knew the stigma surrounding running a mile and how hard it can be to get people to do it. In an effort to fight this mindset in my and my brother’s minds, she took us all on a mile run while we were young. She wanted to show us that a mile really isn’t that bad and that once you do it, the prospect of running another mile isn’t as daunting.

The first attempt at the mile, however, was very daunting. It was a simple loop around my neighborhood, but the last quarter mile was a winding, uphill, torturous grind, and knowing this was ahead of me had me nervous before the run. Little legs are stronger than people think though, and I was able to complete the mile. The overwhelming feeling of accomplishment had me grinning ear-to-ear between each pant for breath, and it sparked my interest in running from an early age.

This interest continued into the present day as I am still an avid runner. I find it a relaxing and stress-relieving exercise that doesn’t take too long, yet gets me tired fast. One of my favorite aspects of running is exploring new areas through new routes.

In my first week at Penn State, I decided to go on a run and explore the campus. Running down Curtin, looping by Rec Hall, and making the trek up Bigler was a nice tour of campus, but I wanted more adventurous jogs. My next route was inspired by my brother. He told me to check out the running trails behind the Arboretum. It was a definite success. The foliage and exploring the area distracted me and made it feel like I wasn’t even running. By taking my mind off of running and instead allowing me to focus on the foliage around me, I got an even better exercise and experienced a new part of campus.

In all honesty, running isn’t that bad. Yes, sometimes it can be exhausting, but its benefits are superb. So I encourage you, run a mile. You will see that it really isn’t bad.

Something that I feel like we all struggle with in college is getting enough sleep. We all stay up late grinding work on the weekdays and then abuse our bodies by staying out on weekends. For me, I am always telling myself that I will go to bed early and get a good 8 hours, but the number of times that I have actually done that is sad. However, I can tell that this sleep abuse cannot be good for me. Especially, it is not good for fitness.

Sleep is wonderful. It renews energy, helps your mind focus, and improves your overall mood. I always think of it as closing the lid to a laptop after hours spent on an essay; it’s satisfying and also gives the laptop a much-needed break to recharge and not overheat. This idea applies to the human brain if thought of as a computer. Without sleep, the body begins losing control of itself. Your brain gets hazy and you do not perform to your normal standards. In fact, health.gov explains that sleep reduces stress, improves your mood, allows you to get along better with others, and helps you make better decisions (health.gov). These are all very important when trying to be a functional and pleasant person to be around.

But sleep affects much more than just your emotions. It reduces your risk of sickness, lowers chances of serious diseases such as heart disease or diabetes, and also, helps keep you at a healthy weight (health.gov). This is important for staying fit because you can’t exercise well while sick, and one of the main goals of exercising is to lose weight, so abusing your sleep could reverse that effect.

I have felt this effect numerous times while at Penn State. My most notable experience was after the Auburn whiteout game. Having stayed up late until roughly 4 am, I woke up at 8 to see a text from my brother asking when I’ll be ready for the gym. I had completely forgotten my agreement the day before about lifting in the morning, so I rolled out of bed with all four hours of sleep and headed over to the White Building. Now I’ll admit, this was one of the worst workouts I have ever had. While he was pumped up, I was tired, annoyed, and weak. None of this was good for my health.

I learned a large amount about the importance of sleep to fitness after this lift. The lack of energy sucked the life out of me, but the balance between fun and fitness is tough. So what is my advice?  You should make an attempt at getting good sleep, at least sometimes.

How can you eat well at these gross Penn State dining halls? It seems like the combination of overcooked meats and the tidal wave of starches is meant to discourage healthy eating habits. Meanwhile, the good foods (poke bowls at the hub, fresh fruit from the market) are overpriced and will drain any meal plan, whether it is level one, two, or three, in weeks. It is almost as if we are living in a quasi-food desert (I know I’m exaggerating… a little).

Our lack of access to affordable healthy food on the meal plan is troubling. We pay roughly $2500 to have a meal plan and then fund that plan, and what we get in return is undercooked rice, overcooked chicken, and a smorgasbord of sweets and desserts. The menu entices gullible students with “tender steak” and “decadent chocolate cake”, but these adjectives describe the opposite and are only meant to entrap people into the grasps of a beat buffet. Offerings of some vegetables relieve the malnourishment on some days, but when given the choice between okra and jalapeno beans, the option is typically neither.

My discovery, however, was of the salad and fruit bar. This lifesaver gives me much-needed vitamins and minerals that do not come from fried chicken and mashed potatoes. The godsend of balsamic vinaigrette and chicken strips on my salad is the main reason my nutrient intake has increased.

However, I never realized how much dieting and the food you eat affects how you feel until I came here and went home. A couple of weeks ago I went back home for my mom’s birthday, and the two days of good eating made my energy rise. Once I came back to Penn State and began feasting at the dining hall, however, I began feeling the familiar lethargy. Now, I’ll admit, this could be from the lack of sleep and horrible eating patterns, but the buffet is still to blame for causing these eating patterns with their overpriced services.

So, you all must be wondering how this ties into exercise. Well, the success of your exercise depends heavily on your energy. And, as you’ve seen, energy depends heavily on the food you eat. Therefore, eating badly makes you feel bad which makes you lift bad. So I vote that we reform our dining halls. Get better food, such as sauteed peppers, stir-fries, and less fatty and greasy starches. When there is no choice but to eat bad food, bad health ensues.

Though, let me just say this, I still fully support wing night weekends.

Exercise is all about becoming fit and healthy. When you hear about it, you don’t consider that it may stab you in the back sometimes. Yet, it does. It is all too common that injuries occur while exercising, and while they may not be too bad sometimes, they are still hindrances and annoying. Often, injuries occur because of incorrect form or ego lifting (lifting weight heavier than you can do). Typically, these cause pulls or tweaks that, while uncomfortable and painful for a short time, will fade without much harm. The real fear, however, comes from unexpected and seemingly unprovoked injuries.

I’m sure many people have seen THAT video of the bodybuilder incline benching an absurd amount of weight, struggling to get the bar up. Everything was looking good; the bar was still moving; he was under control; he had a spotter. Then, in a split second, his chest muscle rips from his body, completely pulling from the bone in a terrifying moment. Horrible, right? Yet, not all injuries have to be that terrible, and many can be treated and quickly fixed.

My remedy is ibuprofen. This wonder drug for pains, tweaks, and soreness associated with the gym is my go-to for pesky injuries. Does your lower back hurt? Ibuprofen. Did you pinch a nerve in your neck? Once again, ibuprofen. Also, old-school ice packs do the trick, reducing inflammation and swelling. But who wants any of that? Wouldn’t it be perfect to take steps to prevent this pain in the first place?

Lifting equipment can prevent many gym injuries, the most common of which is lower back injuries. The lifting belt is a savior for many people. It is the most common piece of equipment brought to the gym. Try going and finding no one with a belt. I bet you can’t. This is because adding just a little external support as a supplement to the human body can work wonders for preventing those minor and horrific gym injuries. However, sometimes dumb things just happen, and I was fortunate enough to have this happen to me the other day.

No one thinks about their teeth when exercising. It seems like the one piece of the body that cannot get hurt too bad. But I have managed to injure mine. I smacked my jaw with a bar, jolting my bottom teeth into the top, and the automatic “oh no” flew through my mind. Feeling pieces of a tooth in my mouth, disconnected from their respective locations ON my tooth, was not a good feeling. While the pain was not bad, the shame was inevitable. So, avoid stupid injuries, especially preventable ones. Otherwise, that shameful text to the family group chat asking about dental insurance could be on your horizon.

We often hear about the next new diet trend being the “diet for all” and a “magic diet.” It might concern cutting out carbs or fats, or limiting meat consumption. One, known as the Carnivore diet, says to only eat meat. Polar opposite to that, vegetarians and vegans do not eat any meat. While there is a seemingly unlimited number of diets, many of which contradict the claims of other diets, the link between them all is always prominent.

Diets never fail to give hope to a group of people aspiring to lose weight. Then they rip that aspiration away after failing to work. And this issue arises because diets have a false notion surrounding them. When people hear the term “diet,” they think of eating specific foods or simply limiting their caloric intake. However, the focus on specific food limitations is where diets fall apart. Many people believe that they can eat as much as they want, as long as they are eating foods incorporated in their diet plan. But this assertion is completely wrong. In fact, I think diets are completely wrong.

In my mind, and the mind of many in the health field, weight loss is quite simple. To understand, however, you must also understand some functions of the human body. Think of food as fuel and our body as a car. Our body needs food to function, just like a car needs gas. Food gives us the energy to complete our daily activities. Yet our bodies have certain storage devices, fat cells, which can store any extra energy from the food we eat for use later. Thus, fat cells grow as we introduce more excess energy into our bodies. So, the logical solution to losing weight and shrinking fat cells is to consume less energy, forcing the body to tap into the reserves in the fat cells. The Mayo Clinic puts it quite simply by saying, “Your weight is a balancing act, but the equation is simple: If you eat more calories than you burn, you gain weight. And if you eat fewer calories and burn more calories through physical activity, you lose weight” (mayoclinic.org). So, in reality, there should be one diet. Eat whatever you want, just make sure you are burning more calories than you are consuming.

This is where exercise comes into play. Because exercise burns calories on top of your typical metabolic calorie burn, it allows you to eat much more food and resist gaining weight. Burning a couple of hundred calories by working out could mean another cheeseburger at dinner, or a second bowl of pasta. You can eat more because you have created a calorie deficit.

Now I know people are different. There are medical conditions that are outliers to this diet, and different metabolic rates make it harder for some people. But it is important to break the façade surrounding diets. My suggestion is to get active and start exercising. It makes sustaining a calorie deficit easier and less noticeable. You can eat closer to your normal amount and continue to lose weight, making it possible to be both a fitness and food fanatic.

Everyone already hears about the physical health benefits of exercise. It helps you lose weight, gain stronger muscles, have a healthier heart, and numerous other positives. However, I rarely hear anyone talk about the mental health benefits of exercise. Aside from the Instagram memes or Tik Toks saying that working out has given people body dysmorphia (which might be a mental health setback of exercise), it is proven to greatly improve people’s minds.

A large portion of society suffers from some form of depression in their life, But studies from Harvard’s School of Public Health show that even just running for 15 minutes a day can not only reduce the risk of depression by 26%, but also hinder the chances of a relapse. Because of these benefits, exercise is sometimes prescribed as a “medication” to treat mild depression. Although it may sound unorthodox, this “medication” makes sense because when exercising, neural growth is supported, activity patterns supporting calm emotions develop, and endorphins are released, promoting energy and happiness (helpguide.org). While some forms of depression certainly require medication, if the natural endorphin releases and the positives of exercise can be utilized as an alternative medication for milder cases, people can save money and cut out the negative side effects of depression medication.

Yet the benefits of exercise to mental health do not lie solely with depression. In fact, working out can ease symptoms of anxiety, stress, ADHD, and even PTSD. Even for people without mental health issues, exercise can boost memory, energy, productivity, self-esteem, and improve sleep.

While I do not have any mental health issues, I constantly utilize exercise to help with daily struggles. I find that whenever I feel unmotivated to do work (typically following a massive buffet dinner), I can go to the gym. Instead of taking a nap and feeling residual drowsiness for an hour after, the exercise gives me energy and makes my work afterward far more productive. On top of that, once I finish my work, I can fall asleep and stay asleep in moments, promoting a healthy sleep schedule.

However, its greatest benefit is that exercise allows me to clear my head of any overwhelming situation. To give a little background, my oldest brother suffered from epilepsy. While I eventually got used to the situation and learned how to handle it, the stresses associated with watching him collapse into a seizure caused a constant anxiousness for when his next one might happen. Yet, I began to notice that whenever I exercised, that feeling would go away for a couple of hours, and even stay dormant for hours after my workout was finished.

While my situation is not nearly as intense as other people’s, it shows that there is a large link between exercise and mental health, giving yet another reason for those who are undecided to give the gym a try.

Walking through the winding sidewalks of East, gym bag on the back, workout clothes on, and my lifting buddies by my side, I was excited to check out the incredible IM building. My hopes were sky-high for my first time in the IM. Rumors of squat racks as far as the eye can see and a mountainous rock wall filled my imagination. As I closed the distance on the front doors, however, my hopes faded away.

Just the scene visible through the window showed a madhouse, with every machine and piece of equipment in the workout area taken. It was a sea of sweaty bodies competing for anything that might give a workout. As I walked in, I dreaded the search for a bench press—normally a hot-ticket item, but now even more valuable. My two workout buddies had already lost all hope and turned around to leave. However, I was determined to at least attempt a workout.

Managing to grab a squat rack at the very far end of the gym, tucked in the corner and overlooked by the people around it, I completed an hour-long workout on one piece of machinery. By some miracle, I left the gym tired, but still disgruntled.

The next day, I heard rumors that the gym was so packed because the other two gyms on campus were closed. I figured this would make sense and that I should give the IM building another chance. So I waited until the other gyms opened on Monday, and strategically planned the perfect time to fight the IM building mayhem. Thinking that lifting in the morning might solve my issues, I arrived at the IM at 8:00 sharp, and as I had hoped, the gym was normal. The bad news, however, was that this fueled my gym-timing cockiness.

I felt that it must have been just the one day that had a packed crowd, meaning I could go whenever I wanted now. Wrong. The next day, I once again approached the IM building, this time in the evening, around the time when I had first gone. To my shock, the gym was a replica of the first night, overflowing with people. I swore to myself that going in the evening was a mistake I would not make again.

I learned from my first three times at the IM that timing is everything. I would have to cope with the painful wake-up at 7am if I wanted a positive workout experience. Even though I would be groggy, moody, and battling a hungry stomach, my displeasure with a busy IM building transformed a night owl into an early riser. While it may not be fun, I am not angry with the IM building, but I can certainly say I am not loving it.

The sounds of clanking metal and loud grunts, and the overpowering smell of body odor is all too commonly associated with gyms and exercise. Maybe it is the stereotype portrayed in movies and on TV, or maybe it is someone’s first-hand experience. Either way, this can be a turn-off for many aspiring lifters. For many, even the thought of this scene prevents their exploration of exercise; this inhibits the most important part of exercise— going to the gym for the first time.

People experience their first time in many different ways. It could be going with a friend who has similar health goals, meeting a personal trainer, or even going as a requirement for a high school sport. While they are different paths, they all have the goal of fitness in mind. In my instance, I went with my dad and brother when I was eleven.

As an eleven-year-old, looking eight, walking into a gym that only allows fourteen-year-olds and up, I felt out of place and largely intimidated. Not only did I have to remember a fake birthday in the case of a worker asking my age, but I also had to learn every lift and its correct form from scratch.

Surprisingly, the stereotypes associated with gyms did not affect me, and in fact, were not very present in the gym at all. People were not pouring sweat. The air smelled fresh. Popular pop songs were being played instead of loud groans. The stark contrast to my anticipated view of the gym made it feel much more welcoming, and I’ve also noticed this aura in many other gyms.

While my first-time story is not identical to anyone else’s, most people’s stories have similarities. It is natural to feel intimidation and anxiety when approaching something new, and my intimidation is shared by many other first-timers. Furthermore, many people feel motivated to continue exercising after getting through their first time at the gym. Even though the soreness the next day hurts, the feeling of accomplishment helps ease the pain.

However, it is important that people do not give in to intimidation and anxiety. While initially scary, after facing my first time I felt motivated to keep pursuing my fitness goals. Ideally, gyms should support those aspiring to achieve their exercise goals by being inclusive. A great example of this is Penn State’s IM building. By requiring masks in the gym, the IM building allows those who are more fearful of COVID to still work towards their exercise goals while feeling safe from sickness. Also, it allows those with compromised immune systems to have a safer environment to exercise. Though it may seem like a small detail, these steps towards greater inclusiveness in gyms will help exercise appeal to more people and therefore create healthier people.