JOURNAL ENTRY #5

Although information is readily available people still neglect informing themselves on certain diseases that pose a high risk of being contracted and at the same time extremely deadly, one of these are cardiovascular diseases.  Cardiovascular diseases account for 30% of  total deaths and anyone can get one.  However they are not unavoidable, there are many ways you can strengthen your body to strengthen your immune system against these types of diseases.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/heart-disease-prevention/WO00041  is a website that I found that helps to provide information on preventing cardiovascular diseases.  Some of the methods that you can use are what some people do everyday, eat moderate amounts of healthy foods and exercise enough.  However some people do not do this and become overweight which puts strain on their body and increases their chances of contracting one of these diseases.
Another subject that we learned this module was about cancer.  Cancer is an extremely serious problem these days because at this current time the methods of removing it is not quite guaranteed and it is also dangerous.  The longer you have cancer the less likely your chances are that it can be cured through methods such as surgery and chemotherapy because as time progresses the larger it becomes.  However in the lectures one thing I found interesting was the video of dogs being trained to smell cancer that is inside of people.  I did not realize that dogs had that good of noses to the point of smelling cancer on someones breath.
One thing that I learned this semester that I will be able to use in the future is how to cite my sources more appropriately because in the beginning of the course I was not linking all the resources that I used from certain websites and it lost me some points in the early modules.  I also lacked in submitting all my discussion questions during the beginning of the semester, however I have made better attempts at correcting this throughout the class.

JOURNAL ENTRY #4

As someone who did a ton of sports during high school I went through at least 100+ hours (no joke) of lectures about how to maintain a healthy body and how to avoid and deal with physical injuries.  Most importantly when people say that they want to get "buff" or want to become an amazing runner you do not simply just go running, your body uses alot more muscles than you might know for just a simply activity.  When I go running I also do various activities to help build my core, it also helps reduce fat in those areas and it also prevents cramps since they are stronger.  As stated in the book on page 174 that if you overuse a part of your body beyond its physical limits it will cause injury, the trick to avoiding injury is to listen to your body, "Pain is a signal to stop!".  If you do get an injury it is best not to do any workouts that involve using that body part, say you injure your leg, you can still do push-ups and pull-ups and possible run on an elliptical because it doesn't put the same stress on your leg as running would.  You should also follow the RICE wellness guide featured on page 175, it is an acronym for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation,  the basic and in my opinion the best ways to relieve yourself of an injury.
However some people are so determined to train or compete in an event they are willing to use drugs to block the pain to the area so they can perform as if they did not have the injury.  Little do they know the pain is a signal telling them something is wrong, by overusing an injury they will only make it worse and it will take longer to recover, they also run the possibility of it becomes so injured that they may run into a bigger problem such as a stress fracture.   Additionally people also use performance drugs that alter your bodies chemistry to make it perform better in certain areas, yet at the same time it can cause serious side-effects.
Quite possibly the most important part of maintaining a healthy body what goes into your body.  I eat a majority of the food stated in the lectures with an exception to the salmon because I am allergic.  The chilies, beef, black beans and carrots are typically put into my chili and I usually get my whole grain from my cereal in the morning, with an occasional banana tossed in there to spice things up.
Two words that I did not know was 'Metabolic equivalents' (MET's) and 'Physical fitness level' (PAL).  These are standards for how the body uses energy and I found it very useful because you can actually better track the amount of energy that you are burning throughout the entire day throughout all of your exercises if you also add in how much energy your body burns through its normal metabolic activities.
I believe I have improved in this course quite a bit, mostly in the referencing my sources type of way.  In the beginning part of the course I tended to forget to mention the book and get points taken off for it or I forget to reference an internet source. (In this Journal I felt it unnecessary with the amount that I knew about the subject of physical fitness)  However one area that I could/need to improve upon is remembering to finish the participation assignments on time. Besides that I have learned and used much of what i have learned in this course to help better my everyday life.