The 3rd installment of my Favorite Friday Finds is here! Check out these 7 things I was inspired by, learned from, and laughed and smiled at this week.

Would love to hear about the things that you were inspired from or laughed at this week. Share in the comments below!

Inspired

1. Emma Watson has long been a girl crush of mine. What isn't there to like about her? She's outspoken about her thoughts, all about the girl-power, has beauty and brains in spades, and isn't afraid to go against the tides of society.

She was appointed a U.N. Women Goodwill Ambassador earlier this summer, then in her latest badass move, she gave an earnest speech on feminism and overall gender equality at the NYC U.N. Headquarters last weekend.

I immediately declared myself a feminist at the age of 16, as I started to understand the larger scale of the gender inequality issue. Since then, like Emma speaks of, I've seen the label cast in a negative light and as "man-bashing," and other female celebrities denouncing the word, proclaiming that they love men so they couldn't possibly be feminist. Time to do some reading, ladies (and gents), and get your facts straight! Check out the transcript of the inspiring speech here.

2. This writer, Justine Harman, nails one of my favorite thoughts on the head with this article for Elle.com. You should really just read the article, but to share my favorite excerpts:

" For whatever reason, when I see other women casually brandishing these tools like mere extensions of their perfectly manicured hands, I feel a pang of envy. I, too, want to be effortlessly next-level glamorous...But in a world that celebrates perfect, is there room for practice?"

Learned

3. Zero-calorie sweeteners can raise blood sugar. I've long been an advocate of eating whole and real rather than "low/free" and artificial substitutes. This WSJ article just points out even more research done on that matter, when it comes to sugar. I'm all for cutting back on sugar (the average American eats 130 POUNDS OF SUGAR per YEAR. That's eating an entire persons weight in sugar...), but not by utilizing chemical substitutes- this is a very important distinction

First food swap I suggest if it exist in any of my training clients current diets are to get rid of diet sodas (sodas altogether, in fact), and anything involving aspartame or sucralose. Yuck.

4. I love WSJ's little quizzes they'll put out testing your knowledge on a particular subject- but this one actually tests your reading speed and comprehension. I've always been a pretty fast reader (I swear by my Harry Potters), and this test was interesting! 175 words per minute is a 5th graders level, 250 is average, and 650 is speed readers' average.

Mine heavily depended on the topic. My score went from an accurate 345 w/m when reading about ski resort tourism to an accurate 629 w/m when reading about....cheese. Oops. 

Laughed and Smiled

5. This dog knows where it's at! It's important to remember to stretch and move your body when you're traveling and cooped up for several hours on a plane, car, or train, and this pup is giving us the cutest reminder. Also, keep these 5 things about stretching in mind when you're doing it!

6. Because there are never enough baby animals in my world, here is a video of doxies with a GoPro I found on Mashable to help you make it through your Friday 

7.  Is it really weird that I want this dinner bell from Food52's Provisions shop as a birthday gag gift... I would actually love to use it with my training clients teehee. What, coaches get whistles, right? So this would just be my upgrade to that!