This is the end...

As we come to the end of our school year I have done A LOT of self discovery. My senior presentation went very well and I am pleased that I was able to share my personal experience and some powerful knowledge on the subject of Nutrition to my fellow classmates.
As for these past 9 months I know I can count on my interviewees, Professor Golandam Khayef, Yogi Genesis and Personal Trainer Karina, to help me on my journey towards a better health. It all takes time and one must be patient and I am very grateful for them having been there to guide me through the answers of my essential question.

Senior Project Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

I am most proud of the information I provided my class because they seemed very interested in it and were actually trying to comprehend the activity to help apply it to their own lives.


(2) Questions to Consider

a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Block Presentation (self-assessment)?

AE    

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?AE

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?
I got a lot of valuable information and I truly appreciate the fact that I was able to take a college class and met such an inspiring professor who was of great help towards my project.

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would have you done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?
I would have tried to get my thoughts more collected because there was still so much I wanted to talk about but when I got up to it I wasn't sure what I could say.
(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples.

My senior project has helped me gain knowledge on health and helped me improve my own health and self discovery of food. When I took my nutrition course I learned how to read nutrition labels accurately and which ingredients would benefit me the most. Also, my journey through the WHOLE 30M challenge helped me a lot in getting a new relationship with food and realizing how sacred it is.

Mentorship

    LiteralWith Dr. Torres Cancino, a chiropractor with his own practice in Ontario.

·      InterpretiveThe doctor has showed me some really neat stuff about how the human body works, he has demonstrated alignments and what they do to the patient. The most important thing I've gained from this is how important communication can be with anything, patient doctor relationship or any other relationship for that matter. Communication is key in order to get results.

   Applied     What I've done has helped me with my EQ because I learned more about how well people believe to know their bodies but in all reality people do not take the time to listen and care for themselves which is what cause illness and in my case causes you to overeat or workout in a noneffective way.

Yoga With WHO?!

Yoga with Adrienne has been my latest obsession. No not in a creepy stalker way but in an admirable way. She does YouTube videos and performs 10 minutes to a full 70 minute long yoga session through her videos. Her voice is incredibly soothing which is definetely necessary for an effective yoga practice. Please try out one of the following videos, and if none of these catch your eye then please go to her channel and find something you do like. I am sure you will find something. Happy Hunting.
P.S Do not push your body to limits it has not met before, take it easy and be kind to yourself.

Exit Interview

(1) What is your essential question and answers?  What is your best answer and why?

What is the best way a young adult female can obtain an 18-20% body fat?

1)By maintaining a diet consisting of 50%carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 20% fat while limiting sodium intake.

2)Have a physically active lifestyle which contains a mixture of strength training and cardio

3)Counting calories through a basic energy expenditure equation.

My best answer is my first, because you may work out all you like, and eat as little as you may "think" is helpful towards losing weight but at the end of the day if you want to slim down the key to a low body fat is the quality of nutrition you intake.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

I went through a 10 week Nutrition course at Cal Poly Pomona where an expert in the field was my very knowledgeable professor.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

I myself had to practice what I preached. I would present on how bad donuts were for you and then must show my fellow classmates that I believe in what I say,which more often than not meant I had to give them up. In order to not drive myself insane I'd take a bite of such indulgent foods if I felt like I really needed to and then gave it away in order to fulfill my satisfactional needs and not get any harm to hit my body.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

My professor Golandam Khayef at Cal Poly Pomona was so intelligent, I really looked up to her because she made the material seem like common sense and she would give honest answers, if she didn't know something , which was rare, she would figure it out for us by the next class. My second most significant source would have to be Cassey Ho, the resources she would have available on her videos and website really helped me get some valuable information on fitness.

I understand one was someone I worked with closely for 10 weeks and the other is an internet role model but these 2 ladies have truly extended my knowledge on the matter.

Independent Component 2

LITERAL
(a) I, Jacqueline Gaeta, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

(b) MyFitnessPal and Blogilates

(c) Provide a digital spreadsheet (aka log of the 30 hours).   

(d) Throughout the course of these last 3 months, 2 fellow classmates and I created an initiative to workout and eat clean everyday. I restricted the amounts of sweets we had and denied any soda for the duration of the three months. The real goal was to get us all to take a step back and take a look at exactly what we are putting into our bodies, therefore the myfitnesspal.com app was of great help, the three of us would write in our food diary daily which helped keep us focus. Also adding physical activity to our daily routine which made not only a difference in our health but in our state of mind.

INTERPRETIVE 

With keeping track of our food diary we eventually started making better food choices and added workouts that would create more calories being burned than imputed to our bodies, eventually we felt better, stronger and happier with ourselves and our lives.

Here is an example of a day in our life (food edition)

APPLIED
This component helped me answer my essential question because it was much more difficult to stay focused this time around and I feel that this component has helped me answer the question of how does one exactly lack motivation? Why do people quit? What do the results do to your mind? etc. I have learned the ups and downs of this topic and feel that with this component I can relate a lot more to my audience, an audience that has a million things going on in their lives they feel they don't have time to think about their health.

Yummy... DEATH.

 The other day my mom came home with the order she made at my little brother's school, they had a fundraiser and were selling some baked goodies, at some higher prices than the ones you see at the store. I get it, it's a fundraiser but it still seemed a little far fetched. Then I came around to look at what they were offering, particularly which ingredients were they using...

• Soybean Oil,
• Canola Oil,
• Palm Oil Blend, 
• Powdered Sugar,
• Cocoa Powder, 
• Artificial Vanilla Extract
• Cocoa processed with alkali
• Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, 
• Salt, Nonfat Milk, 
• Xanthan Gum, 
• Guar Gum, 
• Polysorbate 60
• Sorbitan Monostearate, 
• Dry Milk Solids,
•  Cream Cheese, 
• STABLIZERS?!

Trust me this is only about half of the ingredients listed.. but can you believe this?

1. What is the point of using dry milk solids and then nonfat milk? What is wrong with Almond milk? Or even Soy?
2. Why are their strange names that I can not fully pronounce on this list? What the heck are sorbitan monostearates?
3. Why do they use so many artificial sugars? All these gums and sugars make me dizzy. Why can't they simply use stevia or even simple brown sugar?
4. WHAT IS WITH THE STABLIZERS, I am sorry but that word just screams wrong to me.

Can you believe not only how many but the quality of the ingredients used on these products, I can't lie and say they didn't look delicious but once I read the label I was sure that I was not going to put that trash in my body.

I hope this has opened up a lot of your eyes and now for a little challenge...
I challenge YOU to look at every label, when you are about to eat or when something looks tempting I want you to read the label fully, or question those around you what kind of ingredients are in the food you are about to consume. Trust me it will help make some wise decisions. Treat yourself, but treat yourself to the good quality foods that I know you can brew up in your kitchen. Get some friends together and get creative. Here is a recipe you can try out if you truly have a sweet tooth craving (basically me 24/7).

Ingredients: Bananas, Peanut or Almond Butter and Chocolate (Preferably Dark)

•  Slice up some bananas into coin shapes
• Add a blob of either peanut butter/ almond butter (whatever tickles your pickle)
• Melt some dark chocolate (you will get some antioxidants as an added bonus)

1. Add the nut butter in between 2 banana coins.
2. Put into freezer for 2 hours, enough for them to harden and not be slipping away.
3. Dip into the melted chocolate.
4. Add into the fridge for 2 hours for the whole product to freeze.
5. VOILA! 3 ingredients later and your sweet tooth craving is satisfied with some great and clean ingredients.

Third Answer

What is the best way a young adult female can obtain an 18-20% body fat?

• Counting calories through a basic energy expenditure equation.

1.) Many believe that just by burning more calories than you consume, you can lose weight.

2.) Calories are what make up the weight and mass of a body, food and physical activity incorporated into the body.

3.)Through counting calories you essentially take a look at the macro nutrients which also helps.

• The Atkins Diet by Robert C Atkins
• The 100: Counting Only Sugar Calories by Jorge Cruise

By counting your calories and burning 400-500 more than what we intake then we will become energy balanced and lose weight.

Fourth Interview Questions

1. How would you describe the mentality one needs to become "healthy"?
2. How long, according to your own personal experiences, is the time needed to make a complete body transformation?
3. What do you think is the best form of exercise and why?
4. Can you please explain to me your thoughts on yoga, could someone get tone/ or remain tone with the practice?
5. What are your favorite types of strength training exercises for each muscle group and why?
6. What are your thoughts on running, do you believe it targets every muscle group?
7. What do you believe is a healthy body fat percentage? (They look good, not sick.)
8. What do you think are the best way to stick to macro nutrients?
9. Can you explain how you divide your macro nutrients and why you have set it up in that way?
10. Do you believe that in order to loose weight one should limit carbohydrates dramatically?
11. Would you mind sharing on of your best success stories, how did they get to the physical and mental state they are in now?
12. Could you please explain to me why "cheat" meals/ day are a good/bad thing? 
13. Do you believe it should be practiced more in peoples lifestyle and why?
14. How do you keep yourself motivated towards eating right and working out?
15. Which of the three vegan/paleo/vegetarian is going way too extreme when changing one's diet?
16. Which diet would you most recommend for weight loss/ fat loss and maintaining, please explain within reason?
17. How would you go about starting a fat loss program, would you start with diet, physical activity or both? Explain.
18. Could you please share your thoughts on Obesity and how you think it has gotten to this point?
19. What are your most important everyday tools to help keep yourself on track? Is it a blog, a fitness tracker, fit bit? Why?
20. When you are really craving a sweet tooth what is your go to meal that helps you feel good and then gets your state of mind back on the goal?

Advisory Meeting #2

What is the best way a young adult female can obtain an 18-20% body fat?

Staying physically active for 60 minutes a day in order to challenge your strength and flexibility.

Yoga will help aid the mind to relax and allows your body to become flexible and strong.

Running will release a lot of stress and helps challenge your heart and body to reach new limits.

Strength Training helps lean out your body and allows you to build muscle mass.

The Female Body Breakthrough by Rachel Cosgrove (Book)

The Body Fat Solution by Tom Venuto (Book)

The best way a young adult female can reduce her body fat significantly is by implementing a physically active lifestyle in her day to day life.

Homemade PIZZA.

Today I stopped by favorite supermarket, Winco Foods, and bought some freshly made whole wheat pizza dough. I went home and knead it, took out anything that could possibly be added on a pizza
-Cheese
-Vegetable Tomato Sauce
-Spinach
-Deli Turkey Slices
-Salsa, Tapatio, Valentina
I called my 3 little siblings over and we got to work, we made 4 little pizza's and you know what, the house smelled amazing. It was definitely difficult because we had never made pizza ourselves before but it was definitely fun and it turned out great. 
I would recommend you make your own pizza rather than buying that greasy and (who knows what kind of ingredients are being added) pizza from a fast food joint. It's simple, inexpensive (the dough was less than $2 and it made 4 mini pizza's, fed 5 people well), and fast.
This way you can enjoy a slice of pizza without the guilt, of course all in moderation.

A 10 WEEK CHALLENGE...

For the next 10 weeks...
A couple of fellow seniors and I will be challenging ourselves by
-Not consuming any fast food, junk food of any kind. (candy, cake, taco bell, ice cream, yogurtland :(, popcorn, in-n-out etc.)
-Limiting our calorie consumption
-Working out for a full 45-60 minutes a day, alternating between cardio and strength training while allowing one break day where our main focus is stretching our muscles out with yoga.
-Measuring ourselves on a weekly basis.

The point of this is too see my project come to life, through this I will be able to see real results other than myself and it will help me understand how body fat works. I admire the people doing this with me because they didn't hesitate, they were up for the challenge and although we have just begun, I feel that they will follow through and make me proud to have asked them to join.

*If you would like to join us don't hesitate to contact me and I can let you in on all the official rules, doing this with fellow seniors may be the push you need in order to keep yourself on check?

In 10 weeks time I will do another blog where I will explain how the whole process went, and hopefully show some great results.

Independent Component 2 Approval

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.
I, as well as 2 fellow seniors, will work side by side throughout the next 10 weeks in order to reduce our body fat percentage. We will workout a total of 60 minutes a day, that includes workout videos(such as XHIIT and Blogilates on youtube), running and etc. I will provide a specific calorie count and macro count for each of us to follow strictly, while allowing one celebratory meal every 2 weeks, and get a myfitnesspal account to keep track of ourselves as well as each other. I have spoken to Sabrina about this before and she has always stated that she would be more than willing to help and I appreciate how determined she is to follow through.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.
I will log the hours we work out as the time of evidence and provide pictures of us as well as the diagrams on my fitness pal. I will also record our progress through graphs and pictures. We will set a realistic goal and hopefully achieve it by the time the 10 weeks are over.

3.  And explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.
This plan will help me see how different workouts affect body leanness and how in order to slim down you need to eat the right foods.

Independent Component 1

• LITERAL
•   “I, Jackie Gaeta, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.”
•  Professor Golie, Nutrition Course at Cal Poly Pomona
• Throughout the quarter I attended a 2 hour class, twice a week for 10 weeks. I learned, extensively, the science behind the way our bodies work with the diet we provide. I passed the class with a B which goes to show that I did my work and tried to be successful in the class. I had a self study project in which I explored my own diet for 3 days and then went into depth for every single nutrient on why the nutrient is important, where it comes from and what foods can I consume in order to get a better intake of said nutrient. Also, my professor was very knowledgeable on the topic since she is an on site nutritionist at a facility that deals with eating disorders. I admired my professor very much for the stories she shared and the information she provided.
•  
  
• APPLIED
• This class helped me in so many ways, I learned to grasp a whole new level of knowledge on foods and the way they affect our body. I learned how long it takes a slice of pizza to go down the digestive system, I can name all the parts of the digestive system (I knew where my appendix was located before it even became a problem with my own health), I realized that there are some serious eating disorders out there and I was very close to hurting myself as well, this class helped me accept the fact that things take time and that the main focus here should be my own health. The science was very difficult, explains why I got a C on my second midterm but it was really interesting to understand how it all came together.

Lesson 2 Reflection

1. What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why?
      I am very proud of the information I gathered, I feel like the students really paid attention to what I was saying when I explained the importance of the macros. Plenty of students, I can think of at least 9, complimented me in my activity, they kept telling me I was "changing lives" and "you should keep this activity because it's actually useful" which made me giddy inside knowing that people actually benefited from my presentation and topic.

2. What assessment would you give yourself and why?

       P+/AE. My presentation connected to the students on a level people have yet to overcome, learning about nursing and sports is all very interesting but I feel that my topic actually connects to every student as an individual. I was able to help them realize what their very OWN dietary needs should be and that is a way to help them become more health conscious. The activity provided them with a lot of useful information that can be applied to their everyday lives and I gave a lot of real life examples of foods in order to help them ease into the transition of using cleaner ingredients when cooking in order for them to still get the chance to eat their favorite foods.

     According to the Lesson 2 rubric, I met all of the P requirements and feel that I went above and beyond with the information I provided for the students, the positive feedback justified the fact that it was a good activity.
3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?
My activity worked really well and I believe that the worksheet was very hands on and easy to comprehend because of the examples I provided.

4. If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?
I would have added more pictures to my slides? I personally like a more clean look to a PowerPoint but the feedback I got from the students was that they wished there were more visuals so next time I will be sure it's first on my to do list.

What do you think your answer #2 is going to be? 
 Activity level, how to add in cardio and strength training in order to burn the fat.

Make your life colorful...

Ever wonder how you can spice up your life with color? Well one way is to try something new, that includes food. Sometimes something so simple as vegetables can help your creative mind let loose. Personally I love to experiment with different vegetables and spices in order to make a new dish, sometimes I will add eggs, or some meat to give myself some protein but other times, like last night, I like to enjoy something light and comforting.

 All the ingredients I used. Bell Pepper, Carrots, Cabbage, Celery and some other weird looking vegetable that reminds me of apples. Garlic Pepper, Korean Hot Sauce and Grapeseed Oil.

Chop it all up and add it into your pan until the veggies are nice and crispy.


I love to play around with dishes like these, especially when there is a lot of produce at my house that hasn't been used up. My family isn't a hige fan of vegetables or really anything healthy for that matter so I like to make the most of every ingredient and put it to good use.

All the vegetables give your body plenty of great nutrients to make it feel good, it adds in major bonus points to your health, the Korean Hot Sauce is SPICY! I am terribly when it comes to spicy foods but I try my best to add it in to some of my main dishes because they help give your metabolism a boost. The grapeseed oil was used to help it all cook and mix well together, this oil is considered a good fat since it comes from a more clean environment. I definitely challenge YOU to try something NEW today, but here is the real challenge... you must create it yourself from foods you already have lying around. Good Luck

Third Interview Questions

1.) What is the best way a young adult female can obtain an 18-20% body fat?
2.)How exactly do you start at fat loss program with a client?
3.) What types of workouts are the most effective when you want to loose body fat?
4.) Which, if any, diet do you believe would be the most helpful when trying to remove body fat?
5.)Why do you think it is so difficult for people to generally loose weight?
6.)Would you say that genetics plays a role in fat loss? How, or why not?
7.)What is your biggest success story?
8.) How do you make sure that your client follows a diet that you have set for them?
9.) How do you go about explaining to your clients what is best for them, even when they believe that their method is better?
10.) What got you interested in helping people get healthy?
11.) Do you take your own advice and apply it to your daily life?