Diet and Exercise

The biggest thing I learned from this unit was how unhealthy I actually am. From my lack of exercise to my poor choices in diet. I was also interested to learn that my weight and body mass index fall just above the under weight threshold. I will try to incorporate more healthy food options into my diet and try to decrease the amount of fast food and junk food I intake. Increasing the amount I exercise will likely be the harder thing to accomplish. I walk over 5 miles a day at work according to the pedometer on my phone but I don't really engage in any cardio. Following the suggestions in the readings I think I will try to enlist a friend to exercise with and hopefully we can keep each other motivated. I dusted off my hockey equipment in anticipation.

To assist me in tracking my progress I plan to use the S Health app that came with my phone. http://content.samsung.com/us/contents/aboutn/sHealthIntro.do It tracks activity and diet habits and charts everything in easy to read formats. To change my eating habits I've decided that I need to start cooking food at home more often and to incorporate more fresh ingredients and less processed foods. I figure the easiest way to do this is by starting with foods I like as well as those that are easy to prepare. Instead of deep fried chicken fingers I'm going to substitute grilled chicken breasts. My french fries I will be replacing with baked sweet potato wedges. This should greatly reduce my cholesterol and sodium intake. Chicken is the only lean protein I'll likely eat as I hate fish especially tuna fish. (shudders at the thought) The suggested healthy diet for weight gain in the text made me laugh as the portions seemed funny; "6 Tbsp. of Raisins" and "16 Animal Crackers" I'm not sure how to measure my raisin intake in Tablespoons so I'll use the Food Tracker portion of the S Health App to record my calorie intake.

The terms that were new to me were the types of stretching; static, active, passive,ballistic, and dynamic. I had no idea that there were different types of stretching. The only education I ever received on stretching was from middle school gym teachers who learned to strecth in the military.In the mid 90's when I was in high school I remember the girls learned yoga and calisthenics but we just played basketball. I plan on incorporating the stretching techniques into my new exercise routine to hopefully avoid pulling one of those muscles I haven't used since 1998.