Tag: blog post

Life Update: Getting a new job + celebrating my 22nd birthday!

trulyraisaLeave a comment

Hello! It’s been a really long time since I’ve posted on here so I thought it would be best to give you all a life update! Shall we begin?

So I don’t know whether I’ve probably mentioned this to you before or maybe I just put it on my Instagram page but I got a job in the beginning of the year! I currently work as a Laboratory Assistant for a hospital. Because of this, I haven’t properly had the to sit down and write a blog post like this. It’s an amazing place to work and I’m really enjoying myself! But it’s been difficult to manage my time and that’s why I haven’t been able to write to you all 😦

I love my new job but it made me realise how much I sleep because even after sleeping 6 hours a day I always struggle to stay awake in the train. I work in a Clinical Research department and what our department does, is that it runs studies and Clinical Trials for new medicine or to compare medicines for people with various illnesses. The medicine could be for a patient with sickle cell disease or it could be testing treatment for people with cancer. So we use the patients in our hospital as participants in the trial and my job is to centrifuge and ship their blood samples off to a bigger laboratory that will analyse the samples. There are some nutrition-related studies but it is very rare but even just working in a laboratory and in a hospital is a great experience!

Also, last week I recently celebrated my 22nd birthday! It was probably the first time that I celebrated with my friends and had a day out! We went to an art gallery and then ate Korean food for my first time and then we just wondered around the city and took photos! I’ll insert some photos here:

It was so delicious to eat Korean food I ate bibimbap with glass noodles and tried Tteokbokki for the first time! I’ve always heard how delicious it is and now I finally got to taste it for myself! I want to eat it again 😂

It was such a fun day out and I wish I could do something like that again!

That’s all for my updates! I hope you enjoyed this blog post, please like and comment below.

Advertisement

Useful tips for university students and graduates!

trulyraisa2 Comments

Hello and welcome back to another blog post! This week’s blog post was a suggestion from a fellow blogger https://maisjohnson.com/ and today I’ll be giving some (hopefully) useful tips for university students and graduates! Shall we begin?

It’s never too early to start looking at career opportunities

If you’re someone who likes to plan ahead for the future then it’s never too early to start looking at career opportunities and what job role you might want to pursue. In fact even when you decide what you want to study, then start looking at what job roles are available from it. The last thing you want is to study a subject with a very small career field making it harder to find a job. If you’re someone who would like to make something yourselves and you see yourself as being your own boss then it’s also never to early to start researching about how to start up a business and then maybe start by creating a blog, or a website and social media accounts for your business? Gain an audience while you’re still studying and then focus on expanding your business more after you graduate!

Extra reading will help a lot!

If you are studying something at university that is new for you then extra reading is essential! I had never studied nutrition previously before and I often found myself feeling lost in the lectures. So I decided to do some extra reading in my first year and it helped me a lot! So I definitely recommend this! Even if you are very familiar with your major it’s still good to read and be well informed of maybe new studies or books out there that can help you!

Try to space out your assignments and prioritise them by deadline

Having more than one assignment due in the same month can be so frustrating and it’s so very common! So one thing that helped me a lot was spacing my assignments. For example if I had two assignments due in May, one in the beginning and during the end of May, I would probably start planning for the first assignment at the end of March and have the whole of April with a proper plan and writing out my assignment. While I am currently writing out my first assignment I would spend an hour on various days planning the next assignment so that once May comes around the first assignment it ready to be submitted and the second assignment is all planned out and all you need to do is write!

Why 'Study Girl,' Anime Star of an Infinitely Looping Video, Went Missing This Week | Muse by Clio

Sometimes your careers department help, sometimes they don’t

Every university has a careers department and every student has mixed feelings about them. Sometimes they are really useful for some people and for others they are no help. Regardless, you should definitely get to know your careers department better and they might not be able to help you secure a job but they can certainly help you fix your CV and job applications so that they’ll likely get picked for interviews! Remember, while you may think the careers department may be of no help, they are professionals in their job and probably know better than anyone else what an employer looks for so definitely send in your CV and job applications and let them help you with that!

For all new graduates don’t be disappointed in yourself if you’re not doing well with job hunting at the moment

2020 has been a very crappy year for all of us and this pandemic has been nothing short of frustration and disappointment. The job market now is in a very tough situation, there are many unemployed people and it’s become the hardest for graduates to find a job. If you’re someone who’s recently graduated and looking for a job don’t blame yourselves for the situation you’re in, it is not your fault there is no way you could have predicted or even prepared yourself for this. It took me about more than 10 months of proper full time job searching to get myself a full-time job and to be honest I was just lucky to have met my manager because I can tell you now I was absolutely crap at that interview! But your time will come and it will shock and you will feel so happy that you finally made it after such a long and hard journey , but it pays off in the end and it just ends up as just another bad memory. So don’t give up and don’t lose hope in yourself, someone will come to realise your potential and offer you an amazing career opportunity!

Use Linked In to connect with employers

For those of you who may not know LinkedIn is a social media platform for employers, businesses and employees to connect and is a useful tool to have! With LinkedIn you can connect with employers and they can learn a little more about you. Now this doesn’t alwasy guarantee a job, but if you keep your profile up to date and if you connect well you may see some career opportunities heading your way!

Take some time out to have a break!

This last piece of advice is for both university students and graduates. It’s essential to take some time out to have a break! It wil be good for your mental health and it will remind yourself that you’re doing so well already and that you deserve that break! So close your laptop every once in a while and go out for a walk or eat something delicious!

I hope those tips helped in some way and if you have any other tips for people than leave them in comment box below!

My favourite Islamic podcasts!

trulyraisa6 Comments

Hello and asslamualaikum! Welcome back to my blog! Recently I’ve been following some certain bloggers that have inspired to talk more about Islam and being a Muslim and also how to embrace myself as a muslim hijabi on this blog! So, this week I decided to share with you some of my favourite podcasts. Shall we begin?

I have recently started to swap out listening to music with listening to podcasts and I didn’t want to listen to any podcasts that may not teach me anything, so I decided to search up some islamic podcasts! I specifically looked for podcasts that were hosted by muslim women as that appealed to me more being a muslim woman. The app I use to listen to podcasts is Apple Podcasts app but you can find all of these podcasts on Spotify as well.

The Aida Azlin Show.

Aida Azlin is a writer and a blogger currently based in Morocco. She is an inspiration to many and I love her for her Tuesday Love Letters that she sends to hundreds of women, empowering them and inspiring them! She talks to many inspiring and interesting guests and listening to their stories just inspires me to reflect and strengthen my own imaan. You can find the link to her blog and more information about her here: https://www.aidaazlin.com/

Salaam Girl podcast!

The Salam Girl podcast is hosted by two amazing women, Nicole and Monica! Their podcast was probably the first ever podcast I listened to and I enjoyed so many of their episodes! They interviewed so many amazing women and also told us so many inspirational stories and every episode will touch your heart as well as have you wanting to listen to more! Their podcast is based in Texas in the US and honestly after listening to them and their guests I wish there was a similar podcast here in the UK! (If there is, please let me know in the comments below!)

Mindful Muslimah Speaks

I have to say I am fairly new to this podcast so I have only listened to one podcast but it was such an insightful podcast about Hazrat Asiya (Radiallahu’anha) who was the wife of the Pharoah. She spoke about her story in Episode 202 if anyone would also like to listen to it. It made me think there are a lot of inspirational women out there but the most inspirational women are the women of Islam who I would like to know more about in the future inshallah.

Islamic History Podcast

After I started to listen to more podcast episodes, I decided I wanted to learn more about the history of Islam so I found this podcast that talks a lot about the history of Islam that tells us all about the history of islam in different parts of the world. Currently I’m listening to the Pakistan series and learning more about the India and Pakistan Partition. I thought it’s very interesting to learn more things about the country and culture I’m from!

That’s all the podcasts I had to share with you! Do you have any good islamic podcasts that you’re particularly enjoying? Please let me know in the comments below!

Life update: Getting back to blogging!

trulyraisa2 Comments

Hello! Welcome back it’s been a while. A lot happened since I was last writing here and I want to explain everything and also share with you some plans for this future with this blog! Shall we begin?

First of all I have some good news to share! After a good 10 months I think it is? Or maybe more, but anyway ever since summer 2020 I’ve been looking for a full time job and I finally got one!

I’m actually very lucky to have this job because the job market in London during this pandemic has been nothing short of chaos. People have been losing jobs, graduates are struggling to find jobs because of lack of experience. There are more experienced people now who are applying for entry level jobs aimed at graduates and leaving university graduates without any experience or a chance at a job. It’s been a month since I got a new job and to this day I still find it unbelievable that my manager picked me out of other candidates to give me a job offer. From my point of view, I felt like that wasn’t my best interview but I feel like the fact that I asked questions to the empoyer really impressed them!

So to introduce my new job, I actually work as a laboratory assistant for a clinical research team in a hospital! I’m loving it so far and although it’s not directly related to nutrition I still can work in a healthcare setting. It’s a really successful hospital that also has it’s own nutrition and dietetics department so if I wanted to shadow a nutritionist and gain some experience there is a lot of opportunities for me to develop my career! I’ve loved working there for the past month, I’ve learnt so much about working in a clinical environment as well as meeting some really nice colleagues and enjoying everyday there!

Although, I am loving my new job and learning a lot, I have been very very busy and I just can never seem to find the time to sit down and produce any content. So now, that I’ve actually settled into a routine, I decided to make some time (and sacrifice some sleep) to writing more blog posts and creating more content! I feel like I always write posts like this, explaining how I’m going to blog regularly and then I just stop but this time I am going to actually try and commit to it! I’m going to designate a day in the week where I plan what blog post I’m going to write, and one day will be kind of like a “marketing” day where I’ll create some instagram stories and work on promoting my blog. And one or two days actually writing out a blog post and then scheduling it to publish! So that’s how I’m going to plan out my week and hopefully inshallah it will work and I can finally reveal something that I’ve been contemplating about this blog on for some time! Until then, I’ll leave you with some photos that I’ve taken while exploring London!

Let’s take a break together

trulyraisa2 Comments

Hello! I’m back again with another blog post. This week I just wanted to take a step back and instead of writing out my usual posts I just wanted to share some of my favourite quotes with you all so you can feel inspired or motivated. Let’s take a break together.

To be very honest with you I just spent the past 15 minutes thinking about what kind of blog post to write for this week. Then I thought to myself why not take a break? I really didn’t want to end the week without a blog post but I thought of the idea of taking a break together.

So, I decided to just share some of quotes with you all that can help you relax or motivate you this week.

Has Blogging died?

trulyraisa4 Comments

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my site. Today I’m going to be presenting a lifestyle post and will be talking about blogging over the years. Shall we begin?

In this day and age there are many different forms of blogs. They come in the forms of “vlogs” or social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. But the first form of a blog was a website such as the one you are reading now. The first ever blog was created in 1994 by someone named Justin Hall.

Now everyone can be a blogger with an Instagram account and photos to upload! The thing is, photos and videos gain more attention than written words do, in fact most people don’t like to read many long passages such as this one. So that had me wondering if the traditional form of blogging had died? It’s easy to take a photo and write a short caption but what about spending time on someone’s website and reading the words that they have written out with care.

The problem is that no one has any time anymore, we are a generation who works and works and has no time to spend reading a good book or stopping to looking at the world we are living in and the time we are living in. Instead we’re all running in such a fast pace for our own personal goals without stopping to admire the view.

I started a blog back when I was in high school, I’m not sure what year it was but maybe 2012 or 2013? I didn’t have a WordPress blog at first and no goal or vision for my blog I just loved to write and wanted to write. Back then in high school I like to think I had so much time that I used to blog at least once a day. Now, as an adult I barely have the time to write one post a week let alone read anyone else’s blog.

Going back to the topic of this post I believe that the original form of blogging is slowly dying, however there are a great many people who still read blogs like this one. But the definition of blogging has changed and shaped into many different forms of social media and instead of bloggers we now have “influencers”. Let’s all hope that the future form of blogging will be one that we can all enjoy.

I would like to set myself some of my own personal goals with my blog and how I connect with other bloggers here on WordPress. I will try to create a blogging routine and work on some blog post drafts during the weekend and from there I will also try to set one day where I publish my posts however, from this moment it would just be once a week without a fixed date. I also have the WordPress app and will try to utilise it more by using it to read other blogs and interact with other blogs and bloggers. I hope that we can create a small community here on “TrulyRaisa”

I will see you next week with a new post!

Body image.

trulyraisa2 Comments

Hello! Welcome back to another post. This week’s post is going to be about something that is a major concern in our media today. It’s a lot to discuss so shall we begin?

Unrealistic body image in the media has a huge cause to eating disorders and eating behaviours. We see a lot about body image in the media from books to movies to social media platforms like Instagram. We fall prey to the “perfect” body image we see on our screens and forget that we don’t necessarily have to look like that.

I was reading a journal that looked at some scientific studies linking social media, body image and food choice in healthy young adults. They looked at previous studies and found that social media engagement and specifically exposure to image-related content (Instagram can be a huge example of this!) can negatively impact body image and food choice in young adults. I will paste a link here so you can read the review in more detail. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1747-0080.12581

So who is body image in the media affecting the most? The main victim that falls prey to the media’s portrayal of body image is indeed females. I found another study that tests whether the increase in major depression in adolescent girls is caused by body image and eating disturbances. This was a study that lasted for four years and they found that after puberty major depression in girls was indeed caused by body image and eating disturbances. You can read more by clicking on this link. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0021-843X.109.3.438

There are many other studies like these that investigates body image representation in the media and how it can affect people. TV Shows, films, social media, books all of these things show one type of body image as the “ideal” body type and because of this representation it affects people to believe that they are obligated to look a certain way.

The fact is that every single one of us is not the same shape or size, think about it, how boring would this world be if we all looked the same? But because of the media’s representation of body image it affects mental health and ultimately eating behaviour. It can lead to eating disorders and poor health.

The main group that is largely affected by this is females as there is a lot of body image representation in the media that is targeted towards girls and this causes bad eating habits and affects food choice. That’s not to say that there isn’t a stereotypical body image representation for males too, I’m sure you’ve all heard the cliché “Tall, fair and handsome” that is thrown around a lot in the media. Isn’t that a stereotypical body image representation for males too?

The truth is the media is just a fantasy world that people create. In reality, we are all different in our own unique way and beautiful too. It’s time to put away stereotypical body images in the media and start being more practical about eating a balanced diet to take care of our health instead. Just remember you’re so beautiful the way you are and it’s time to start taking care of your health instead of chasing an unrealistic body image. So try not to skip meals and I’ll see you again next week!

Nutrition and Psychology

trulyraisa2 Comments

Hello! Welcome back to my blog it’s good to have you here! This week I’m going to be talking about a certain nutrition and psychology and how the two areas are linked! Shall we begin?

According to https://www.nutritional-psychology.org/what-is-nutritional-psychology/ nutritional psychology looks at the relationship between diet and eating patterns and it’s link with mood, behaviour and mental health. This area of study focuses on people’s eating behaviour and eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia and things such as stress-eating.

It’s a interesting research area as we all have varying eating behaviours and how simple things such as our mood can affect our food choice and what we choose to eat. For many of us so-called “unhealthy” foods can be comforting for us when we are going through a bad time. As you often see in TV or movies there is a stereotype of girls eating ice cream when they go through a breakup.

Another huge issue is body image representation in the media and this affects many people, particulaly girls as they see that they may not have the body image that is portrayed in the media and this can be the cause for some eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.

As many of you know and this is something I have written in my previous post is that I have become a Registered Associate Nutritionist. I would like to open my own practice in the future and for that I woud have to specialise in an area of nutrition. I would like to work with patients who may be struggling with eating disorders and have an unhealthy relationship with food.

I believe it is an area that needs to be worked on and I would like to work specifically with women as the rates of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are higher in women and a main cause of this is body image representation in the media.

I’m still considering about specialising in Nutrition and Psychology and it seems like an interesting topic so I’ll be posting more about it here and so I just wanted to kind of introduce the topic through this post. I hope you enjoyed reading and I’ll see you next week!

Becoming a Registered Associate Nutritionist!

trulyraisa3 Comments

Hello and welcome back to the Nutrition side of this blog! I have some good news to share and I’m going to be talking about some changes that are going to be made to “TrulyRaisa”! Shall we begin?

As you can probably tell from the title of this post that I’ve officially become a Registered Associate Nutritionist (ANutr)! In the UK the title “Nutritionist” is not as protected as the title “Doctor” or “Nurse” what this means is that anyone out there can give one piece of nutritional advice and call themselves a Nutritionist. So, the Association for Nutrition is an organisation of officially Registered Nutritionists who are professional Nutritionists that have completed an accredited course and has experience within the field.

My university course is accredited and after graduating I was able to officially register as a Registered Associate Nutritionist (ANutr). This title is different from a Registered Nutritionist (RNutr) as I have the sufficient knowledge but I have yet to gain professional experience in the field. After one year of working in a Nutritionist position whether you are working for another company or you are taking clients and working for yourself, you can apply to become a Registered Nutritonist (RNutr) and that is a professional nutritionist title.

I hope that wasn’t too confusing! This week I was finally able to submit and have my application approved for a Registered Associate Nutritionist! I can now open up my own practice and gather some clients! However, before doing that I would need to find a niche that I am going to specialise in. After talking to my old lecturer she gave me the idea of maybe specialising in Nutrition in South Asian women. Nutrition in South Asian countries are quite rare and almost non-existent and the obesity rates there are high, therefore working with South Asian women and creating a presence for nutrition in those countries would be a huge achievement!

Another niche I am considering specialising in is Nutrition and psychology. Eating behaviours, eating disorders and things such as food choice and body image is a topic that needs to be worked on especially in women. It’s also a really interesting topic to go through and study what influences food choice in certain individuals!

Once I decide on what niche I am going to be working with I am going to be working on this blog a lot and creating more nutrition-related content that could be useful to potential clients and sharing lots of information in the process! So please stick around if you’re interested to learn more! For now I hope you enjoyed this blog posts and I hope you can help me achieve my dreams together!

Breakfast ideas for a homebody.

trulyraisa2 Comments

Hello! I’m back with a Nutrition post after a long time! I know I have done a post like this in the past so this time I’m going to try and include some different recipes and ideas that are good for people who are at home during breakfast time! Shall we begin?

Since I’ve pretty much been at home most days fixing breakfast just seems so dull at the moment. I don’t really have much appetite to eat breakfast anymore and so I decided to write this post so that I can find and share some recipes that are fun, creative and easy to cook in the morning.

Working from home has become more common among this pandemic and people are spending more time at home, thats why the recipes that I am going to share with you today are better suited for homebody’s who work from home!

The first recipe I want to share with you is French Toast. This si something I’ve been craving and have eaten for breakfast once or twice. I like to have my French Toast plain but this recipe will show you how to make a delicious French toast with all kinds of fruits and syrups that will make your breakfast colourful! https://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/french-toast/

I was curious about this so I googled and researched about the origin of French Toast and did you know the actual name came about in 17th Century England? Also the French consider this as a dessert rather than a breakfast and it’s called “pain perdu” meaning “lost bread” because the French would make it from stale bread in order to prevent food waste. I found this out from a website so I’m not sure whether this is true but if it is, it’s interesting to know!

The next recipe is actually something I talk about in literally every post when recommending foods. And maybe you guessed is but yes it is overnight oats! I talk about this so much because they look so good but I’ve never actually tried making them myself! I have a link that shares 6 different recipes for overnight oats! https://www.andianne.com/blog/6-overnight-oats-recipes-you-should-know-for-easy-breakfasts?utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest&utm_campaign=tailwind_tribes&utm_content=tribes&utm_term=922851144_40602310_333301

I literally adore my toasts and am always trying something different to make a nice toast out of! So this next link shows 5 healthy toast toppings! My favourites from this would be “Strawberry Yoghurt”, “Cucumber Hummus” and Avocado egg! All these toasts are high in protein so if you’re looking for a high protein breakfast then these would be the perfect toasts for you! https://www.liveeatlearn.com/healthy-toast-topping-ideas/

Energy balls or Energy bites were literally my favourite thing to eat when I was studying in University and they’re super easy to make! This recipe only consists of 5 ingredients which are peanut butter, chocolate chips, old fashioned oats, ground flax seed and honey! Read more to find out how to make these! https://chefsavvy.com/5-ingredient-peanut-butter-energy-bites/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest&utm_campaign=tailwind_tribes&utm_content=tribes&utm_term=955394690_42385942_157318

My last recipe that I would like to share is something you can literally bake a few days before and grab it and go! This is Healthy Banana Brekafast Cookies! I will probably try this out myself soon too! https://thecleaneatingcouple.com/healthy-banana-oatmeal-breakfast-cookies/

Which recipe is your favourite? Let me know in the comments below!