Fortune Nick Health 123.04 March 26, 2006 BCP Part 4 Goals: The goal of my behavioral change project is to lose about 8 pounds also to improve my cardiovascular endurance by improving my time in the mile and a half run. Journals: February 5, 2006 Today I went to the gym for the first day of my behavior change project. Since I am trying to improve cardio endurance and lose weight, I decided to start out by riding the stationary bike for 15 minutes. In this time I rode about 2.5 miles; after getting off the bike I rested for a few moments and got on the treadmill and ran for 10 minutes. Before heading back to my dorm, I decided to play a few games of basketball and they wound up being pretty intense and by the end of the night my legs were worn out. February 7, 2006 Tonight I went to the gym and played some more basketball. I played for about 45 minutes and the games were pretty fast paced. After I played basketball I went to the fitness center and rode the bike for about 15 minutes. I would have stayed longer but I had to go back to my room to work on some work and projects. February 9, 2006 I went to the gym and played 3 games of basketball. I was running pretty much the whole time in every game. After playing basketball I went to the fitness center to lift. I focused mainly on the upper body doing lat pulls and chest press and rowing exercises. My arms were pretty much dead after lifting because it has been a while since I lifted. February 12, 2006 I went to the fitness center and tonight for a warm up, I rode the bike for 10 minutes and then I got on the treadmill and ran for 10 minutes. After running, I went and played basketball for about an hour. The games did not start out very intense but picked up as we played more and more. February 14, 2006 Tonight I had an intramural basketball game. The games have 4 quarters of 9 minutes each and I played 3 and then half of another quarter for my team. After the game, I went to the gym and ran for about 15 minutes. I had planned on running longer but I had a lot of work to do and I was already tired from my basketball game. February 16, 2006 I had another basketball tonight at Reid Gym. I only played about 20 minutes in this game because we had more players available. After the game I went to the fitness center
and worked out doing chest press, bench press and tricep pulls. If I had more time I would have run some too but I had to get back to my dorm and do some work. February 19, 2006 I went to the fitness center and tonight for a warm up, I rode the bike for 10 minutes and then I got on the treadmill and ran for 10 minutes. After running, I went and played basketball for about an hour. The games did not start out very intense but picked up as we played more and more. February 21, 2006 Tonight I rode about 2.5 miles; after getting off the bike I rested for a few moments and got on the treadmill and ran for 10 minutes. Before heading back to my dorm, I decided to play a few games of basketball. By the end of three games of basketball, my legs were dead and decided to call it a night. February 23, 2006 I went to the fitness center and tonight for a warm up, I rode the bike for 10 minutes and then I got on the treadmill and ran for 10 minutes. After running, I went and played basketball for about an hour. The games did not start out very intense but picked up as we played more and more. February 26, 2006 I went to the gym and played 3 games of basketball. I was running pretty much the whole time in every game. After playing basketball I went to the fitness center to run and ride the bike. I rode the bike for 10 minutes and afterwards I ran on the treadmill for 10 minutes. I would have run longer but I had to go back to my dorm and work on homework. February 2006 28, I was not feeling very well tonight so I did not spend much time at the gym. I was only there long enough to run for 10 minutes on the treadmill and then I rode the bike for 10 minutes to cool down and keep the blood flowing without doing anything to strenuous. March 1, 2006 Tonight I went to the gym and played some more basketball. I played for about 45 minutes and the games were pretty fast paced. After I played basketball I went to the fitness center and rode the bike for about 15 minutes. March 3, 2006 I went to the gym and played 3 games of basketball. I was running pretty much the whole time in every game. I rode about 2.5 miles; after getting off the bike I rested for a few moments and got on the treadmill and ran for 10 minutes. I had planned on running longer but I had a lot of work to do and I was already tired from the games of basketball and riding the bike.
Achievement Chart:
Goals Weight 1.5 run time Baseline Date _______ 185 13:03 End of Project Date __________ 180
11:17
1. I accomplished part of my goals but did not completely accomplish them all. For my goal of losing weight, I had planned to lose enough weight to go from a size 34 to a 32. I did lose 5 pounds and my pants do fit better but it was not a big enough change to allow me to fit in pants that are two sizes smaller. I adhered to my plan for the most part but I think if I had been more focused on losing weight from the beginning instead of on improving upper body strength, I would have had a better chance of reaching this goal. The main barrier in the third week of this behavior change was being busy with school work. During this time I had a lot of work due and it was hard to balance time to go work out and get all of my work done at the same time. I feel I did a good job in accomplishing my second goal of improving my cardiovascular endurance. I improved my mile and a half time by almost 2 minutes. When I started my time was 13:03 and at the end of the 4 weeks it was 11:17. I think what helped me achieve this was not focusing on upper body strength and doing a wider variety of aerobic activities which required lots of running at different speeds and for different lengths of time. I could have had larger improvements if I had focused solely on this aspect from the beginning. 2. The obstacles I encountered during this behavior change project were the same as those I expected in parts one and three of this project. My friends and school all had a large impact of whether or not I went to the gym and played basketball or worked out. There were days when I was either to busy with work or my friends were not in the mood to go workout so I would take the day off, but at the same time I made up for this by going the very next day. 3. I did not really use any of the strategies I discussed previously to overcome these barriers. Most of the time I just came up with a response to a barrier on the spot. If my friends were not in the mood I tried to talk about how it would benefit both of us or offer a deal that if they went with me, I would help them out with something later. This seemed to be an affective strategy for both me and them. 4. I will definitely continue this behavioral change. And now that I will have more time to focus on different goals, I may now focus again on my upper body strength. Since the beginning of this project, I have felt much better and I can tell a difference in the shape I am in. Before I started, I got tired after one game of basketball and now I can play multiple games in a row without getting tired. If I were going to do anything different, I would make sure to choose goals that I was 100 percent committed to from the beginning so I would not have to make any changes during the project.