For my last blog post for my free inquiry I would like to recap my health and fitness journey. From the beginning of my journey, I set out to improve my health and fitness. I made this broad goal before knowing much about working out and what eating healthy was. I made a goal, to work out three times a week at Henderson Recreation Centre for an hour and a half each time. I also stated that I would focus my workouts on all parts of the body as I tried to strengthen my muscles and loose body fat. Over the past weeks and semester, I was able to stay true to my original goals and I made sure to go to the gym three times a week for the most part, except for one week, where I had a family emergency. However, to ensure I was sticking to my schedule the next week, I made it up by adding in more fitness. Throughout this journey, I did quite a bit of research, used a variety of resources and branched out of my comfort zone to accomplish my set fitness goal. I was able to learn a vast amount of different workout exercises, by researching different fitness influencers, by asking friends and by observing those around me, as I worked out. I also learned, that it does not matter how long you workout for, it is the quality of the workout that matters. If you are rushing your workouts to keep them under a certain amount of time, you are rushing your exercises and portraying quantity over quality. Ultimately, something I have discussed multiple times in my blog posts is breaking up workouts and dividing the part of your body, in which you are working out. Although this change was a bit difficult for me to make, I have learned and observed that I will further benefit from doing so. Ultimately, I can now happily say, that throughout this journey I have lost 8 pounds in body fat and I have turned some of my fat into muscles by strengthening them.

In regard to my goals to improve my health, I set out to change my diet and focus on eating healthy. As I stated in my first blog post of my free inquiry, I will begin my mornings by having a smoothie with a protein bar. Throughout my journey, I also stated that I will adapt and change how lunches and dinners into healthier options. At the beginning of my journey, I stated that I would like to eat healthy, however I never defined what healthy was. Here is a definition of what eating healthy means to me: Healthy eating means eating a variety of foods that give you the nutrients you need to maintain your health, feel good, and have energy. These nutrients include protein, carbohydrates, fat, water, vitamins, and minerals. Throughout my journey, I have stayed constant with starting my mornings off with having a smoothie and a protein bar. By changing my diet from starting my mornings off with having coffee to smoothies, I have really seen a change in my mood and attitude, not only in my health. Throughout my journey I have also adapted and changed my lunches from eating sandwiches to eating salads. By taking away a carbohydrate (bread) and adding in a protein (chicken breasts) has made a big difference. In regard to dinners, I cut out pasta from my diet again eliminating a carbohydrate also made a big difference. Ultimately, throughout my journey I did include a bit of research on different types of diets, however due to assumptions and biases I have decided to create a more achievable diet plan. However, I did use my research to accompany my changes.

Advice

• If someone was starting the same inquiry as me, my advice would be to use Trello consecutively, and updated it as soon as you finish/complete something. This type of inquiry can get a bit confusing, thus to be organized and on top of your workouts and diets and having a weekly plan will really help throughout the process.

Finally, as some of you have asked what I put in my smoothies. I have decided to include a video clip of what I put in my smoothies, therefore you may use the same recipe. Check out the link below!

Link: IMG_0448