1. For my plan I hope to prevent being lazy and falling off of it. I'm going as often as I can and doing the full thing without leaving early. This plan won’t affect my family that much in terms of major changes but we’ll have to go out of our way to buy different foods that are healthier/less sodium.
2. The things I'm monitoring are: Nutrition Less salt intake, limit to 1700g per day. General healthier eating
Physical Going to gym 30 minutes a day, mainly focusing on strength and cardio. Measure amount of reps in terms of “number in set : number of sets”. Work on basic cardio with treadmill, elliptical.
Mental health Do relaxation exercises/meditation before homework and bed to clear mind and help with brain power.
3. Fitness levels Musculoskeletal Fractured left wrist, slightly weaker Cardiovascular Average, though low levels of asthma are present Digestive Average Nervous Good standing
4. Plan measurements Begin date
Nutrition Asses prior eating habits and eliminate unhealthy ones Physical Strength/weight check (dumbbell lift) Mental Online stress test
Daily
Nutrition Sodium check on foods Physical Weight lifting, try to go for more each time Mental Calming exercises before homework/bed
Weekly Nutrition Review meals during week, fix if needed
Physical Weight check
Mental Stress test
End date Nutrition Review effects on body
Physical Strength/weight/appearance check
Mental Stress test
5. My goal is to lose 5 pounds and to be able to lift 50 pounds comfortably. I want to continue working out even after the project is over so I can keep feeling better and stay fit. As I continue to workout afterwards I want to lose 15 pounds and lift 80 pounds by June.
6. Since cancer is mainly a genetic disease there isn’t much in the way of prevention that I can really do except stay healthy beforehand so if anything does happen I’ll be more physically able to fight it better. However for helping against liver cancer I can eat less sugar so it doesn't work as hard and form cancerous areas.
Reflections 1
For the first week I was mostly able to keep to my nutrition plan of staying under 1700mg of sodium and do decently at it. I only had trouble on monday because forgot to read the nutrition label and it ended up being something like 1500 sodium. Other than that I was able to keep under my limit by not eating a lot of food and making sure it was low sodium. It is a bit harder because a lot of the stuff I didn’t think was high sodium actually was, like my favorite soup I like to eat often. To improve I plan to be more aware of my intake and make sure I read the label so I know if I can eat it or not.
I'm doing well with my exercise plan, although the first day I couldn’t get to the gym to record my baseline so that was a little bit of a setback. I’m doing reps with a 10 pound weight and trying to increase the amount I can do each day. After I do that I mainly focus the rest of my time on cardio such as treadmill and bicycle machine. The first time I did my reps I didn't know what to do for the rest of my time so I decided to rotate through reps, elliptical, crunches, treadmill, deadlift, and bike machine. My current goal so far is to be able to always do more and see a visible change in strength over the course. I also plan to try to keep going after we’re done.
As far as memory and relaxation methods are concerned, I’m doing rather well. I can usually keep to doing my memory most of the time although I do miss it a few times. I think I’ve got a really good method of doing so in which I memorize a few lines at a time and then I repeat it back to myself throughout the day to make sure it really sticks in my head and allow me to also get practice in reciting it back since I’m kind of mentally saying it back to myself. I feel the relaxation techniques I’m using are really helping me feel better during the day. I know that when you do so you set your mind into a lower brainwave state thats similar to the one you have while you sleep, which explains why my body tends to get very tired in the process of doing the relaxation.
2
I feel that my second week is doing a bit better. My nutrition count is more evened out and I’m already feeling better after going to the gym. I’ve also started losing a little weight and I can feel its easier to do activities like walking and carrying things. My nutrition habits are staying even though I sometimes eat rather unhealthy items, but I try to fix it by eating much less sodium the next time. I’ve also been in the way of sacrificing my taste buds by not adding salt like to a lot of the foods I eat like I usually do. It does tend to taste a bit blander but I know its the best way to go for my health.
I’ve been hanging on with my exercise plan and also playing around with my schedule to see if I can find any better arrangement of the workouts I do. I also seem to be reaching my limit with the ten pound weight since I can get much past 10:28. I think I will either lower to 5 pounds and do more, or move up to 15 and work at it a bit then switch back to 10 pounds to see if that makes a difference. Along with the lifting my main focus on the other workouts is cardio so I don’t feel tired as often and I can do better with endurance and pacing. I felt this was most important for me because I go on walks and hikes pretty often and they make me more tired than most other people so by doing so I can keep up with the others and still have energy for the rest of the day.
I’ve noticed that the meditation is having a very good effect on my work. Since I do it before I start I feel like I’m a lot more productive and can be more in depth because I have a clear mind to think about extra details. I also feel like it makes me feel like I just woke up sometimes and it feels kinda weird when I’ve known I’ve been awake the entire time. Next I’m going to try doing it with my memorization to see if that has any better effect than doing it without.
3
I feel like this was a really good week for me. I’ve pushed myself a lot more with the
workout and am feeling stronger in general. I feel that in the way I’m doing it it seems more effective than other ways. I do kind of high powered workouts for a short time, then take a break, then go again, that way the muscle builds and can rest, as opposed to doing light workouts with no break since the muscle wouldn’t build seeing how light it would be. One night I went I had some kind of strength surge and I did a 50 reps without stopping and it didn’t hurt much. I want to be able to do this on a normal basis without help so I’m definitely going to keep this up afterwards because its easy, healthy, and I feel much better because of it.
I’ve also noticed I’ve lost about 5 pounds for doing so and I'm sure I’ll be able to lose more and be able to stay in shape by continuing. The only thing I’m fearful of is thanksgiving since thats certain to break my sodium goal by a lot. I’ll try to look after myself to get small servings and try to eat less during the day so it won’t add as much to my total.
Meditation has done very well for me. I find myself getting better sleep and being able to really have a clear mind when I have to think for doing my homework. I'm starting to do small bouts of relaxation here and there to try and produce the same effect over the whole day since I can’t go on doing that all day. Usually just a minute or two of breathing and trying to stay in the quiet, and I can sense its doing well for me since I really just feel better overall during the day. I’m going to keep trying to stay on my goals since sometimes they can be a little tricky to keep with but I know it will only help to benefit me in the long run.
4
Finally made it to the end of the health plan month, and I’m feeling much better than before. This is by no means the actual end for me as I plan to continue to go to the gym everyday if I can, or at least 3 times a week at the minimum. It was quite a bit different for me as I was quite surprised at how much sodium was in a lot of the foods I ate. I set the 1700 goal before I really checked how much I’d have to do to stay under that. A lot of the foods I’d normally eat I found to be around 600mg each, often just one serving as well.
Watching nutrition is much more strenuous then I would have thought it would be but going the extra distance to keep it down was hopefully worthwhile in the end. Before I set the goal I found that the daily average should be about 2200, but I set it at 1700 to try an counteract the amount I already had in my body. I’m gonna try to keep the sodium down after the health plan, but try to at least keep it to the 2200mg limit since leaving it at 1700 could actually hurt me through not having enough sodium in my body.
Regarding my workout fitness, I can say its been a very good experience for me. I feel physically better and stronger thanks to exercising and lifting. If I stick to this I’ll be able to keep getting stronger and be able to keep up with people on things like hikes and such. I do admit that a couple of times I really didn’t want to go but I had to push myself through it and I’m glad I did because each time I do it just helps me get better at it. In regards to my weight however, I’m not exactly sure what happened or what I did wrong but It seemed to fluctuate a lot for some reason. One thing I think it may have been is that each time I checked, I was probably wearing different clothes and that seemed to really affect the measure each time I did it. I’ll think of some ideas on how I can get a more controlled and accurate measure in the future.
I think its safe to say that the relaxation things I do throughout the day are a huge help not only to my stress, but to my mood and even to my energy level. I found that the probably the most relaxing is doing slow breathing and not have a lot of light on. Something even better with those is to have some relaxing nature sounds in the background such as www.noisli.com which is what I used. Doing these has really had a great impact on me and I encourage people to try doing relaxing techniques throughout the day because its a great help and you’ll really benefit from it.
I found that doing even just the small amount of exercise and workouts I’m doing can really make a difference in your overall wellbeing. My goals for holding 50 pounds comfortably were just a little short, but I was still able to lift 45 pounds comfortably. As for my weight, I’m not completely sure because of the strange inconsistencies in my measuring, but I’m confident I lost at least 3 pounds. I’m going to continue working so I can reach my goals and even move past them.
I don’t really know if this will help anyone other than me but hopefully others might learn from it and try to keep themselves healthy and able as well. I hope to stand as an example to others that you don’t have to wait to start getting healthy and that you should start as soon as you can.
What I learned after this project in regards to my future health is to make sure you stay in shape because there are a lot of things that can happen with becoming overweight. You should at least be able to run a good distance without getting tired because you never know what kind of situation you could get into; and if you are unhealthy its going to be much harder to get through it.
Physical Going to gym 30 minutes a day, mainly focusing on strength and cardio. Measure amount of reps in terms of “number in set : number of sets”. Work on basic cardio with treadmill, elliptical.
Mental health Do relaxation exercises/meditation before homework and bed to clear mind and help with brain power.
3. Fitness levels Musculoskeletal Fractured left wrist, slightly weaker Cardiovascular Average, though low levels of asthma are present Digestive Average Nervous Good standing
4. Plan measurements Begin date
Nutrition Asses prior eating habits and eliminate unhealthy ones Physical Strength/weight check (dumbbell lift) Mental Online stress test
Daily
Nutrition Sodium check on foods Physical Weight lifting, try to go for more each time Mental Calming exercises before homework/bed
Weekly Nutrition Review meals during week, fix if needed
Physical Weight check
Mental Stress test
End date Nutrition Review effects on body
Physical Strength/weight/appearance check
Mental Stress test
5. My goal is to lose 5 pounds and to be able to lift 50 pounds comfortably. I want to continue working out even after the project is over so I can keep feeling better and stay fit. As I continue to workout afterwards I want to lose 15 pounds and lift 80 pounds by June.
6. Since cancer is mainly a genetic disease there isn’t much in the way of prevention that I can really do except stay healthy beforehand so if anything does happen I’ll be more physically able to fight it better. However for helping against liver cancer I can eat less sugar so it doesn't work as hard and form cancerous areas.
Reflections 1
For the first week I was mostly able to keep to my nutrition plan of staying under 1700mg of sodium and do decently at it. I only had trouble on monday because forgot to read the nutrition label and it ended up being something like 1500 sodium. Other than that I was able to keep under my limit by not eating a lot of food and making sure it was low sodium. It is a bit harder because a lot of the stuff I didn’t think was high sodium actually was, like my favorite soup I like to eat often. To improve I plan to be more aware of my intake and make sure I read the label so I know if I can eat it or not.
I'm doing well with my exercise plan, although the first day I couldn’t get to the gym to record my baseline so that was a little bit of a setback. I’m doing reps with a 10 pound weight and trying to increase the amount I can do each day. After I do that I mainly focus the rest of my time on cardio such as treadmill and bicycle machine. The first time I did my reps I didn't know what to do for the rest of my time so I decided to rotate through reps, elliptical, crunches, treadmill, deadlift, and bike machine. My current goal so far is to be able to always do more and see a visible change in strength over the course. I also plan to try to keep going after we’re done.
As far as memory and relaxation methods are concerned, I’m doing rather well. I can usually keep to doing my memory most of the time although I do miss it a few times. I think I’ve got a really good method of doing so in which I memorize a few lines at a time and then I repeat it back to myself throughout the day to make sure it really sticks in my head and allow me to also get practice in reciting it back since I’m kind of mentally saying it back to myself. I feel the relaxation techniques I’m using are really helping me feel better during the day. I know that when you do so you set your mind into a lower brainwave state thats similar to the one you have while you sleep, which explains why my body tends to get very tired in the process of doing the relaxation.
2
I feel that my second week is doing a bit better. My nutrition count is more evened out and I’m already feeling better after going to the gym. I’ve also started losing a little weight and I can feel its easier to do activities like walking and carrying things. My nutrition habits are staying even though I sometimes eat rather unhealthy items, but I try to fix it by eating much less sodium the next time. I’ve also been in the way of sacrificing my taste buds by not adding salt like to a lot of the foods I eat like I usually do. It does tend to taste a bit blander but I know its the best way to go for my health.
I’ve been hanging on with my exercise plan and also playing around with my schedule to see if I can find any better arrangement of the workouts I do. I also seem to be reaching my limit with the ten pound weight since I can get much past 10:28. I think I will either lower to 5 pounds and do more, or move up to 15 and work at it a bit then switch back to 10 pounds to see if that makes a difference. Along with the lifting my main focus on the other workouts is cardio so I don’t feel tired as often and I can do better with endurance and pacing. I felt this was most important for me because I go on walks and hikes pretty often and they make me more tired than most other people so by doing so I can keep up with the others and still have energy for the rest of the day.
I’ve noticed that the meditation is having a very good effect on my work. Since I do it before I start I feel like I’m a lot more productive and can be more in depth because I have a clear mind to think about extra details. I also feel like it makes me feel like I just woke up sometimes and it feels kinda weird when I’ve known I’ve been awake the entire time. Next I’m going to try doing it with my memorization to see if that has any better effect than doing it without.
3
I feel like this was a really good week for me. I’ve pushed myself a lot more with the
workout and am feeling stronger in general. I feel that in the way I’m doing it it seems more effective than other ways. I do kind of high powered workouts for a short time, then take a break, then go again, that way the muscle builds and can rest, as opposed to doing light workouts with no break since the muscle wouldn’t build seeing how light it would be. One night I went I had some kind of strength surge and I did a 50 reps without stopping and it didn’t hurt much. I want to be able to do this on a normal basis without help so I’m definitely going to keep this up afterwards because its easy, healthy, and I feel much better because of it.
I’ve also noticed I’ve lost about 5 pounds for doing so and I'm sure I’ll be able to lose more and be able to stay in shape by continuing. The only thing I’m fearful of is thanksgiving since thats certain to break my sodium goal by a lot. I’ll try to look after myself to get small servings and try to eat less during the day so it won’t add as much to my total.
Meditation has done very well for me. I find myself getting better sleep and being able to really have a clear mind when I have to think for doing my homework. I'm starting to do small bouts of relaxation here and there to try and produce the same effect over the whole day since I can’t go on doing that all day. Usually just a minute or two of breathing and trying to stay in the quiet, and I can sense its doing well for me since I really just feel better overall during the day. I’m going to keep trying to stay on my goals since sometimes they can be a little tricky to keep with but I know it will only help to benefit me in the long run.
4
Finally made it to the end of the health plan month, and I’m feeling much better than before. This is by no means the actual end for me as I plan to continue to go to the gym everyday if I can, or at least 3 times a week at the minimum. It was quite a bit different for me as I was quite surprised at how much sodium was in a lot of the foods I ate. I set the 1700 goal before I really checked how much I’d have to do to stay under that. A lot of the foods I’d normally eat I found to be around 600mg each, often just one serving as well.
Watching nutrition is much more strenuous then I would have thought it would be but going the extra distance to keep it down was hopefully worthwhile in the end. Before I set the goal I found that the daily average should be about 2200, but I set it at 1700 to try an counteract the amount I already had in my body. I’m gonna try to keep the sodium down after the health plan, but try to at least keep it to the 2200mg limit since leaving it at 1700 could actually hurt me through not having enough sodium in my body.
Regarding my workout fitness, I can say its been a very good experience for me. I feel physically better and stronger thanks to exercising and lifting. If I stick to this I’ll be able to keep getting stronger and be able to keep up with people on things like hikes and such. I do admit that a couple of times I really didn’t want to go but I had to push myself through it and I’m glad I did because each time I do it just helps me get better at it. In regards to my weight however, I’m not exactly sure what happened or what I did wrong but It seemed to fluctuate a lot for some reason. One thing I think it may have been is that each time I checked, I was probably wearing different clothes and that seemed to really affect the measure each time I did it. I’ll think of some ideas on how I can get a more controlled and accurate measure in the future.
I think its safe to say that the relaxation things I do throughout the day are a huge help not only to my stress, but to my mood and even to my energy level. I found that the probably the most relaxing is doing slow breathing and not have a lot of light on. Something even better with those is to have some relaxing nature sounds in the background such as www.noisli.com which is what I used. Doing these has really had a great impact on me and I encourage people to try doing relaxing techniques throughout the day because its a great help and you’ll really benefit from it.
I found that doing even just the small amount of exercise and workouts I’m doing can really make a difference in your overall wellbeing. My goals for holding 50 pounds comfortably were just a little short, but I was still able to lift 45 pounds comfortably. As for my weight, I’m not completely sure because of the strange inconsistencies in my measuring, but I’m confident I lost at least 3 pounds. I’m going to continue working so I can reach my goals and even move past them.
I don’t really know if this will help anyone other than me but hopefully others might learn from it and try to keep themselves healthy and able as well. I hope to stand as an example to others that you don’t have to wait to start getting healthy and that you should start as soon as you can.
What I learned after this project in regards to my future health is to make sure you stay in shape because there are a lot of things that can happen with becoming overweight. You should at least be able to run a good distance without getting tired because you never know what kind of situation you could get into; and if you are unhealthy its going to be much harder to get through it.
joshdesaire-brutonhealthplanwriteup.pdf |