Since I’m in my last full-time semester at school, my life has been hectic. This weekend has been time for relaxation since me and the boyfriend adventured to St. Paul to attend a conference for my major. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) runs the conference and they set guidelines on physical activity for adults. I was required to go, but I’m really glad I did. Throughout the day I continually learned new information about health & wellness.

The conference took place at St. Catherine University in St. Paul. It was an absolutely gorgeous campus with beautiful brick buildings. I loved how small the campus was! Winona is a smaller campus too and I love that every building is within walking distance. We arrived at around 7:30 or so and just explored the building before the first speaker was supposed to appear.

In exploring the student union/Coeur de Catherine building, I found a Lucy Statue. The Peanuts hold a special place in my heart because the writer Charles Schultz is born and raised in Minnesota. There are various Peanut character statues scattered around St. Paul so if you’re in the area, try and find them all!

After finding our seats at the conference, we listened to the first two speakers talk about Interval Training. Research has concluded that Interval Training is as beneficial as endurance training. running or biking for an hour. So if running is exhausting and boring, try doing an Insanity class because you burn more calories and have plenty of health benefits.

The third speaker emphasized the dietary guidelines and how bacon may not be as bad for us as we were led to believe. There is so much we have learned about nutrition over the years. We used to think cholesterol was evil, but we are finding more research about how eating a lot of cholesterol doesn’t lead to heart disease. There is so much more research that needs to be done about nutrition.

It was a long day but it was cool to go to these speakers and comprehend all of the scientific information. Attending this conference proves to me that I’m in the right major and shows my passion for continually learning about physical activity and nutrition.