Dr. Arrastía-Chisholm: Professor Mom

On my commute to work each day, I pass by not one but two donut shops. I'm not talking about Krispy Kreme or Dunkin. These are two distinctly homemade donut shops - one in Thomasville, called  Nanee's Donut Hole  and the other in Valdosta, called  Dixie Cream Donut Shop . Each morning I have to fight the urge to stop in and buy a donut, not once but twice on my way into work. Often I think that if I stop in and buy a box of donuts for my students that it is in some way more altruistic and maybe that will pardon the unhealthy decision. The truth is that many of my students don't eat sweets. It seems that college students are a lot more  health conscious  than they used to be. Whereas, I remember eating just about anything that was free on campus as a student, some of my students routinely decline the free pop tarts the BCM (Baptist Campus Ministry) hands out every Wednesday. But I digress... Back to the donuts... Nanee's has a few specialities that can't go unm...

Now that we are into the third month of the year, I wanted to check in with some of my goals. Today is the last day before the final Team Lean weigh in and cholesterol screening so I must be on my best behavior. Team Lean is an 8-week team-based weight loss challenge hosted by my local YMCA. In addition to weekly weigh-ins they tried to make it fun by hosting events and nutrition talks for extra weight loss percentage points. One of the events was an obstacle 5k trail run that involved a lot of mud. Never before had I scaled a wall of made of tires or run through the woods carrying a bucket of sand, let alone struggle through a mud pit. Here is a picture from the 2019 Red Bug Run: In addition to this 5k, I ran the Swamp Forest quarter marathon, the Chehaw 10-miler, the Tallahassee half marathon, and the Flatlanders 10k at Providence Canyon. Running these events was fun, but the most fun I had was probably biking 30 miles of red clay roads through North Florida and South Georgia wi...

Health, Wealth, and Happiness. These are three common wishes in the English language to use at New Year's. And these are the goals that I set out to achieve as a professormom who always "has a lot going on." Updates about these goals, parenting, teaching, and scholarship will be the content for this new blog. Thank you for reading. Health . In terms of health, I have signed up with my local YMCA  for Team Lean, a team-based accountability system. If you know me, then you know that I love physical activity already. The 8-week long challenge will push me to do better when making choices about what and how much to eat. I am hoping that social media will provide the platform for the social support that I need from team members. If I can even get the 5% weight loss that these researchers suggest teammates can help you lose through support, I'll feel healthier. Additionally, I have set the goal to run more miles this year. Specifically, I would like to double my mileage ...