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.