A summer of exposure and learning

I has been quite a while since my last posting on my blog so I'm going to fill blanks up to now. I finished my second semester of freshman year back in May and achieve a GPA of 3.53!! My parents and I were very pleased with this considering the second semester had a much heavier work load than the previous semester. I came home from school for the summer and started my new job as a barista at Starbucks right away, working about 30 hours a week, and even picking up a few shifts as a waitress at the Italian restaurant I began working at when I was 15. During my time off the job, I went on a few vacations too! I spent a week in mid-July in the Caribbean with my family and got to go to Disney for a week with my best friend from high school.

One of my favorite parts of the summer was being able to spend a couple days with sports dietitians. The company my mother works for works very close with dietitians in promoting dairy in the diet and chocolate milk as a refuel drink. I was able to be an intern for them this summer and got to meet some really awesome dietitians who are at the top of their field. The first dietitian I shadowed was Clint Wattenburg from Cornell University. He attended school there, was an All-American wrestler there, and now, started the sports nutrition program for athletes there! His resume is amazing and very extensive. He is an avid supporter of my mother's company and has brought their Fuel Up to Play 60 program to most of their varsity teams. We talked about what his average day is in the office, the meetings he does with many of the athletes to watch the dietary plans and how well they are fueling their bodies for the best performance, showed me some of the research he is doing there, and even gave me a tour of some of the athletic buildings and talked of his plans to bring a large refueling station in a few of the athletic complexes. Last year they put in a refueling station in the Crew club house and the athletes loved it! At the refueling stations they are able to grab a healthy snack like a banana, half of a peanut butter sandwich, apple or a nutrition bar before or after a practice or meet/match/game. They are also supplied with a large selection of regular white milk and chocolate milk that come right from their dairy on campus. The first refueling station went over so well that he is putting in more in some of the athletic complexes. Overall, the day was very interesting and I got to see an actual Sports Dietitian in action.

The second opportunity I had was with the New York Yankees, and it was a dream come true. I flew with my mom and her boss to New York for 2 nights and stayed in Harlem. Their company has a large sponsorship with the Yankees and with the summer meals programs for the 5 boroughs of New York, and also sponsors a summer baseball camp through the Yankees, which was where I spent my day. We arrived late Monday night, so we just had dinner and went to bed. But Tuesday, the alarm went off and I shot out of bed to get ready for the day. I was so excited. We got to the stadium around 9 in the morning, checked in at Gate 2, the offices entrance, then were sent up to the Audi Suite where I would meet Natalie Rizzo, a dietitian that works with the Yankees for their summer camps. Natalie was just finishing up her dietetic internship, part of which she did with the Yankees. She has been doing the nutrition segment of these camps for the past 5 years and really enjoys it.  She would come to every week of the camp and talk to the little leaguers about healthy eating and the right fueling to play. The talks went on for about 20 minutes and we did them about 6 times. The kids loved it! They were so intrigued the moment she started talking! It seemed like they were really getting what she was saying and really enjoyed it too. At the end of each session, the kids were given a carton of chocolate milk and they all left with a smile. It was great to see how sports nutrition is applied to not just collegiate and professional athletes, but to little kids too. We were also sent over to one of the borough pools to see how the summer lunches program worked. Anyone under the age of 19 is able to get a healthy, nutritious and yummy lunch for free, every week day in the summer. Everyone that was there was so excited to be able to get food, hang out and even hear former Yankee, Mike Torres speak about proper nutrition.  After that we walked around the stadium a bit and had lunch before running back to the hotel to get changed for the game. We had awesome seats, got a few autographs and had an amazing time!

This summer was very busy, but very fun and interesting. I am so happy I was able to get the opportunity to shadow people in the field that I working to be in, and I cannot wait to see what else will happen as I continue on my road to being an RD.