"Much more than passion projects, 20Time projects serve a real purpose to meet the needs of clients, audiences, and customers. True passion follows purpose." (Brookhouser, 2015)
Setting the Foundation
As I began week 1 of my #20Time project, which is to get healthy and share that knowledge with fellow educators, I first went to the questions that inspired this project. (See brainstorming questions in post dated ) The first question was "How do we find time to take care of ourselves in a profession that emphasizes putting students first?" As teachers, this has to be the primary reason we tend to forget about ourselves. In addition to our craft and student responsibilities, lets throw in family responsibilities as well (quality time, finances, parenthood, etc). These responsibilities are time consuming, in a good way, because you're doing things that you love to do but how can we do all of this and take care of ourselves as well? Balance, planning and educating ourselves.
Calories, Fat, Carbohydrates & Protein
My first step was to find out how many calories I needed per day. I went to Youtube and entered "how to track calories?" I ended up finding a video introducing a free app for my Iphone called "Loseit!" ""Lose It" helps you set a daily calorie budget, track your meals, exercise, and to stay motivated and make smarter choices and achieve your goal." (First, you setup an account by entering your age, current weight and your personal goals (15lbs, 20lbs, etc). Based on this information, the app will give you an estimate of how many calories you need to take in per day. Your job is to stay under that. I also learned about macronutrients as the app helps with the tracking of this. Macronutrients are nutrients that provide calories or energy. There are three broad classes of macro-nutrients: proteins, carbohydrates, and fats." (Macronutrients, 2004) To keep it simple-proteins help you maintain muscle growth, carbohydrates give the body energy and fats can also give you energy but should be limited. For this project, I'm tracking and will attempt to diversify my macronutrients in the following way: 20% fats, 40% carbohydrates and 40% proteins.
The Balancing Act
I began my challenge on Monday (of course) as all challenges and diets begin on Mondays, right? In all seriousness, don't look at it as a diet, more of a lifestyle as these eating habits should be long-term. I began my day by spending quality time with my wife. We're early risers so we took a trip to the beach at 6am. This is part of the balancing act, sometimes we can't get to the gym because we have other responsibilities but taking walks on the beach burns calories. The key is to stay active and if you can spend quality time at the same time, win win. I decided to take the day off from the gym on this day anyways as I was able to go over the weekend so I decided to make sure I stayed active in a different way. Below, labeled "food intake", is an example of my lose it app and how I logged in my meals. My budget was 1,653 calories, which means I cannot go over this. I ended up eating 1,632 calories and lost about 400 calories by exercising. I believe I went for a jog. The second image shows my macronutrients (fats, carbs, proteins) breakdown for the day. As long as I keep the fats down and the carbohydrates and proteins somewhat the same, I met my goal for the day.
11 Comments
Michael A. O'Hagan
6/28/2015 10:00:43 pm
I believe that I am really going to enjoy following your project. Like most of us I put the needs of my students before mine. My goal is always to get to the gym at least 3 times a week, but during the school year that becomes once every other week, if I am lucky. Generally, sometime around the end of April I tell my wife that I need to get some new work clothes because I don't fit into them anymore, she tells me to deal with it until Summer and then we can go to the outlet mall when they have their Summer sales. Then Summer begins, I wait about two weeks, and I fit into everything again. I don't change my diet, the difference is I am able to get to the gym on a regular basis. I think that this year may be a bit different because we are scheduled to run the Disney Marvel Avengers 5K in November, then the Star Wars 5K (my wife is running the half marathon, but I'm not that ambitious) in January, so training is going to be required. I admit that I wasn't able to watchthe video you posted because my son is asleep and I don't need the terror that is he, when he doesn't nap long enough; but what app is it that you are using to track everything?
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Jaime Gonzalez
6/28/2015 10:58:11 pm
Appreciate the feedback Michael! That's awesome, I've ran a 3 half marathons and 1 full marathon. I decided to hang up the running shoes after the full, the most rewarding yet painful experience but I got my medals though. It's a great feeling to accomplish a marathon, the hard part is definitely the training. It's a sacrifice but a great way to get away and long runs is great therapy. The app I use is called "Loseit" you can find it on the app store, I have an iphone but I think it's available for other phones as well just in case you have something different.
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Jana
6/28/2015 11:55:46 pm
Jaime I am so pumped after reading this first post. I love the app and your video at the gym. Wondering if you could put together a workout snapshot where you model each. I am trying to get my husband to make us an area with Crossfit equipment so we can all as a family start going up there after dinner to meet and talk about our day and workout. Most of your routine looked a little like crossfit so I am really interested in your exercises.
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Jaime Gonzalez
6/29/2015 04:05:15 am
Hey Jana thank you so much for your comments and feedback! That's a great idea, I'll model a few and give some info behind each exercise/routine. Yes, I began adding a bit more crossfit routines because my goals are to lean out, cut the fat while maintaining muscle.
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Jana
6/30/2015 12:15:55 am
I made a Loseit account today. Wondering if you have some ideas for our crossfit area. Talked to my son a little on what to include. Definitely a box jump and big tire with a sledge hammer but wondering if we should have a pull up bar? Will take some pics to see what you think of the area.
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Jaime Gonzalez
6/30/2015 06:27:34 am
Hey Jana, welcome to the Loseit community. For sure, regarding crossfit-the box jumpers and big rig tire is a great start. There are so many exercises you can do with those. Yes, a pull up bar is essential and a great way to build overall body strength. I would invest in a medicine ball, jump rope, some dumbbells, and maybe down the line a barbell with weights for squats, deadlifts, etc.
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Jaime, you're project is very inspiring! I would love to have a scheduled diet and exercise plan, but I'm unable to be responsible for myself in that way. I do better with a coach. That's why I can do team training and sports (like dragon boating) better than individually (like the gym or running). It's great that you emphasize balancing of the two to have a healthy lifestyle, and I completely concur. I'm excited to see what other plans you have to manage it all, especially when I understand how responsibilities and distractions could stray one's focus. However, creating good habits does take time. Good luck!
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7/4/2015 01:29:13 am
I love your project. Seeing that you are using Lose It reminded me that I have a Lose it account that I have not used in a long time. Maybe, I should get back into it and use it. Thanks for the inspiration.
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Amanda Wallace
7/6/2015 11:50:11 am
I love lose it! Interesting about hanging up your shoes after running a marathon, do you miss running? I was an avid runner, but have found it difficult to motivate myself since the birth of my daughter. Thanks for sharing the fact that you aren't striving for "perfection", I think that's what often stops me, I make one misstep and throw the whole plan out the window. I look forward to following this!
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Jaime Gonzalez
7/6/2015 03:28:14 pm
I don't miss running like I thought I would. I go to the gym more so now and it gives me that mind clearing activity that jogging used to give me. I began reading about the effects of long distance running on our bodies and I kinda stayed away because of that. I have reconstructed right knee (tore my ACL) so I want to keep it strong and not pound on it like I used to in running.
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Jaime Gonzalez
7/6/2015 03:37:58 pm
No problem, thank you for commenting Polly. Yeah, lose it is a great tool.
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Jaime Gonzalez
This page is dedicated to my 20Time project for graduate class EDL680 at SDSU. Archives
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