Fitness Project - Week 8

Many times throughout my Fitness Project, I've expressed my doubts about my flexibility. I've felt that perhaps I expected too much of my body in the time given. At the end of this project, I think that that has been an accurate assessment. From the beginning of the project until the end, I've certainly become more flexible, but I haven't reached the percentile rank I had originally envisioned.

It's a good thing, then, that life provides me with much more time then just 8 weeks to get my body in shape! If I continue to stretch, and I imagine I will, I will most definitely reach my original goal, but only with time. Still, it's better to participate in healthy activities then not at all, hmm?

Wellness Project - Week 8

Throughout this past week, I've been able to continue going to bed at around 11PM, with two exceptions, and getting up at 8:30AM. I haven't yet tried getting up earlier, but maybe I'll do that soon. Of course, anything that I do now in regard to my Wellness Project will be on my own time, but I'm thinking I'll be able to continue following through with it now.

Wellness Project - Week 7

Well, nothing really notable in my sleeping schedule happened this week. I've mostly been going to bed at 11:30PM, which I know is still too late, but if I get up at 8:30AM and I'm not tired enough to just fall in my bed at 11:00PM, maybe my body can handle going to bed a half hour late every night. Or I should try getting up earlier by 15 minutes. Maybe I'll try that one time and see how it goes, although I have to say I do get pretty tired in the middle of the day as it is. Overall, I've been pretty successful so far in keeping with my original goals.

As an addendum to my Fitness Project post last week, I will briefly go over the results of the “Meeting My Fitness Goals” activity on page 29. Basically, I am unable to meet my goals because my muscles apparently need more time to become as elastic as my final goal would have required. I've no doubt improved my flexibility, but not by as much as I had thought I would. So in an effort to make my final goal more reachable, I'll be lowering my expected percentile rank from 80 to 60; however, it very well may be possible for me to end up between the 60th and 70th percentile.

Fitness Project - Week 6

Not much has happened with my fitness project. I'm still progressing, but I haven't always been meeting my goals. My legs are getting better (less jerky), but I still sometimes have trouble. It's usually either that I can't hold the stretch for as long as I'd like to, or I can't stretch as far as I'd like to. It's one or the other; I can't do both at the same time, when I technically should be able to. I've actually been able to just about touch my nose to my knees for 20 seconds during the sit-and-reach stretch, though. I suppose that's an accomplishment.

Wellness Project - Week 6

This week I've been getting up and going to bed at various odd times. Initially, I simply tried to maintain my wake-up time of 8:45AM. On Tuesday, I experimented with getting up at 8:30AM, but ended up sleeping another half hour because I was too tired. Of course, it didn't help that I hadn't gone to bed around 11PM the previous night. The next morning, I tried again to wake up at 8:30AM, but I slept an additional 15 minutes. On Thursday, I woke up at 7AM to take my little sister to school, slept for a half hour after getting back, woke up again to get ready for my IV treatment appointment.

During this appointment, I slept a lot when I could, so I guess you could count this as the first time I've taken a nap during this project. Technically, there wasn't a whole lot else I could do, though. And that night, I finally went to bed at 11PM and woke up this morning at 8:30AM, without sleeping in longer :) Hopefully I can keep this up.

Wellness Project - Week 5

I know that I didn't officially change the time I get up every morning, but I decided to experiment a little this week. Starting Tuesday morning, I've been getting up 15 minutes earlier than usual, at 8:45AM. Surprisingly, this small change has been somewhat more difficult to adjust to than the previous changes in my waking time. I've had to ensure that I'm doing things that will keep me up—but even then, I have felt really tired. I'm hoping that this fatigue will go away, but at the same time, I'm not sure I'll be able to wake up any earlier.

This change has kind of forced me to go to bed a little earlier, though, so I'm getting to bed closer to 11PM than I used to last week. That's of course good, so I hope that I'll be able to keep getting up at 8:45AM for the remainder of this project.

Fitness Project - Week 4

I've been making steady progress since two weeks ago. It may not be much progress, but progress nonetheless. My legs are certainly more stretchy than they used to be. Although it probably doesn't count for much, I'm able to kick pretty high now. I can't keep my legs up yet—probably because the leg muscles aren't strong enough—and when I try to move my legs in a circle, my movement is jerky. I'm not sure if that's because my legs still aren't stretchy enough to do that or not.

So, half of this project is over. I'm not sure I'd say I'm quite half way toward my goal, however. I still feel slight pain when I try to stretch as far as I should have been able to by now. I'm not sure I'll make my original goal by the end of the remaining four weeks, but I'll stick to it for now. I'm not ready to adjust the goal just yet.

Wellness Project - Week 4

Starting this week, I was supposed to have finally been getting to bed no later than 11PM. Well, things didn't work out as I had thought they would. I've still been going to bed later than 11PM, although usually not later than 12AM, so at least I haven't been regressing too much. Actually, I'm not sure if it would count as regression since I'd have to make progress first before I could regress.

I've still been getting up at 9AM, just like last week. Considering my difficulty going to bed earlier than 11PM, I might want to get up a little earlier each week, although I hadn't originally planned to do that. Maybe I'll first try harder to stop whatever I'm doing to make the 11PM deadline before resorting to that, though.

Wellness Project - Week 3

This past week I suffered a strange case of mild insomnia. Monday night's sleep wasn't consistent, and I kept moving around in bed, desperately trying to fall asleep. I found I would wake up every so often, which was really unusual. As a result, I slept in an extra hour, until 10AM. I have had episodes in the past where I couldn't fall asleep, but thankfully this episode lasted only one night.

I'm a pretty light sleeper sometimes, so my environment pretty much has been silent and dark for me to be able to actually get to sleep. It used to be that I would go to bed later than everyone else in my house, which actually helped me get to sleep since there weren't any distractions from them. Now that I'm starting to go to bed earlier than they, however, I sometimes have difficulty falling asleep from the lights and their noises.

Fitness Project - Week 2

Having started my fitness routine last week, by now I think I can say that things have been more difficult than I had originally anticipated. The problem isn't the routine I've laid out, but rather my leg muscles. They unfortunately haven't been as elastic as I'd hoped, so that's been an unexpected hurdle. I'm not sure what this means for reaching my end goal, but perhaps things will prove better in the coming weeks.

As it is, I've almost barely been achieving my target final stretch times. I've been reaching the point of mild discomfort prematurely, so I've been having to just hold my final stretch there.

I've had much better luck stretching my arms and neck, which of course doesn't help when my main focus is my legs. If this keeps up, then I'll have to revise my end goal, so I hope my legs can get with the program soon.

Wellness Project - Week 2

Well, this past Saturday was the worst of my sickness. For a part of the day, I felt really exhausted and tired even though I had had adequate sleep the night before. Regardless, I proceeded with going to bed (and getting up) a half hour earlier this week, as I had planned to. Nothing very notable happened; I'm still usually a little tired when I wake up, and I still haven't resorted to napping during the day. It's sometimes difficult to occupy myself enough to stay awake, though, so it's not especially easy.

Thankfully, I've been progressively getting better each day since then. I just hope I don't catch anything else. It's never fun :(

Wellness Project - Week 1

So I started my Wellness Project this week. Considering this, I've actually had great success in keeping with my original goals. I've been going to bed around 12:30 and getting up at around 10:00. I've typically woken up tired, but that effect usually faded after a few minutes before coming back a few hours later and lasting for a few hours. At those times, it's been tough, but I haven't taken a single nap yet―I've kept myself busy enough to stay awake. I haven't used caffeine or anything, either, so hopefully my body will naturally get used to this new sleep schedule.

Unfortunately, I've been getting sick lately―a sore throat. It's most likely to do with the rest of my family getting sick from their work, though, not my new sleeping habit. Here's hoping I get better soon.

Welcome!

Welcome to my PED 116 Course Blog! The purpose of this blog is for me to keep track of my physical fitness progress over the course of my PED 116 college class as part of my Fitness Project. I will be posting updates at least once a week to inform my instructor of my progress.