Post 1: Questionnaire

 1.What are the specific areas of weakness you remember identifying in your fitness appraisals that you wanted to address with your exercise program?

- I had two major deficiencies that were highlighted in my fitness appraisal. The first deficiency that I noticed were Curl-Ups where I was only able to do 34 showing that my core strength isn't very strong. The second deficiency that I noticed was my cardiovascular endurance since my BPM after the endurance exercise was at 126 (below average). I want to focus on my core strength a little bit more because I've recently started exercising regularly and the main component that I am missing from my workouts is core exercises. I have other selfish reasons to workout my core because like any other teenagers I want abs for the summer!

2.What are your goals for this fitness program? (to have fun, lose weight, socialize, look better, get stronger, improve athletic performance, etc.) 

- My goals for my fitness program is to inch my way towards getting a body that I can be proud of. I know that your dream body composition doesn't happen without hard consistent work and because of that I have learned to temper my expectations. By understanding this I also want to create a more positive atmosphere while I workout. I want to do this because I have attempted to workout before but I didn't have fun this intern caused me to eventually stop at some point. This cycle of not enjoying myself and then eventually stopping goes against the regularity that is needed for someone to achieve their desired body composition. So I believe that on top of working out hard, if I learn to have fun I will be more willing and motivated to workout regularly and this will eventually help me reach my dream body faster!

3. List specific examples of what motivates you to participate in and stick to your regular exercise program?

- The major thing that I changed when approaching my workouts was that this time i was going to do it for my self. I've been playing sports my entire life and because of that I've needed to workout but the I would only workout because my coaches told me too. The problem with this approach was that the moment the season ended I would completely stop working out and this slowly made me develop an unhealthy relationship with workouts. I would only workout when I was told too and I would always look forward to the point where I didn't have to anymore. Eventually when I broke my hand and when covid hit I was no longer playing sports and intern I had no more reason to workout. I eventually stopped working out altogether. This caused me to gain weight and made me realize that I needed to reestablish the way I approached working out. I eventually came to the conclusion that I needed to workout for my self, to do this I set a goal. My goal is to reach a body composition that I will be proud of. Now that I'm working out for my self I feel so much more motivated and I truly want to workout. This goal is now my motivator when it comes to working out. Other secondary motivators I have is the fact that the men in my family have a history of diabetes and heart problems. This fact terrifies me because I have seen how their health has affected themselves and the people around them and I want to avoid going down that road. 

4. List the specific barriers or excuses which prevents you from participating in and sticking to your exercise program and possible solutions to overcome each barrier?

-The main excuse for not working out is my excuse of not having enough time because of school.  The only way I found to bypass this excuse is to manage my time like that 1 hour and a half of when I do my workout isn't available to me. By doing this I incorporate my workout into my life and schedule. This way I can manage everything else around my workout because I pretend like I don't have that time. Other excuses I used to have was that I was too tiered or I didn't feel good to working out. These were just excuses for me to not do a workout. this changed after I changed my approach to working out. Now I want to do workouts and eat healthy because I'm doing it for myself and no one else. Excuses that affected my exercise program indirectly was my diet. I've always had a habit of snacking but I was really lucky that metabolic rate has always been very good. My metabolic rate has been a double edged sword because it has helped always helped me not gain weight but it has also prevented me from visualizing some bad habits. This in turn has made me think that snacking was acceptable and actually was my downfall when I stopped working out. Snacking also made me feel bad working out because I saw the work i was putting in to workout but then would snack. I had to then chose to ether snack or to workout cause i couldn't do both. Before I had chosen snacking but now i have cut that out or replaced the snacks with healthier ones. This has helped me feel more energized and happy to workout.