Jamie Oliver

This guy is one of my weight loss homies. He is just a book of knowledge and facts about how diet relates to health and how environment relates to health. He is doing his part to make america better even though he is british. This presentation he gave is so interesting and eye opening that it makes me want to help change my community. I tried to contact him for interviews three and four but I couldn't, but I wish I had been able to. He gave me so many facts just from this one presentation.

My Sponge Activity Video

This was the video that made me really serious about my weight loss. I came across this video on my fitness tumblr at the beginning of the school year, and it left me in shock. Everything resonated with my memories, especially the hiding of the candy in his drawers. This video really put into my mind what I was actually doing to myself and it really made me want to change and work harder on my senior project. I wanted to show this video in hopes that it would have the same effect on my class.

Blog 25: Mentorship

Literal-

mentorship log
Erin Apregan-- (805) 807-3319

Interpretive-
I gained perseverance from my mentorship with Erin. It wasn't that I never wanted to give up, but she never let me and then eventually instead of her telling me to keep going, I started telling myself to keep going. I learned how to lose weight the healthy way because before her lifestyle change, Erin lost weight the un-healthy way by throwing up or not eating at all. She showed me how to steer clear of that path and persevere on in my weight loss.

Applied-
Erin and I mostly worked out and that made me realize that working out is definitely not as important as having a healthy diet. A healthy diet resulted in the most effective weight loss and I honestly believe that my workout sessions were not as impactive to my weight loss as my diet was.

Blog 24: Exit Interview Questions

• What is your essential question? What is your best answer and why?

My essential question is "What is the most important factor in healthy weight loss?" My answers are changing your diet, changing your activity level, and changing your environment. My best answer is changing your diet. This answer is the foundation of weight loss. I can actually say from my experience that I lost most of my weight from adopting a healthy diet. In my research, I have found that diet is usually the most important part of healthy weight loss.

• What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

Changing my diet was the first step that I took towards weight loss. Changing my diet instantly helped me drop 12 pounds in around two weeks. I couldn't believe that by just cutting back a little bit (I was on vacation in bar-b-que land so I did the best that I could) helped me lose such a substantial amount. I added in exercise just around a month ago, and it has helped me get past a sudden halt in weight loss, but it hasn't had as much of an impact as changing my diet has. Also, I changed my environment through my family and friends and I also educated myself and I would say that changing my environment was probably as effective as changing my activity level.

• What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?

One problem that I ran into was my mentor becoming a mom. Around Christmas time, my mentor told me that she was pregnant. I did not want to intrude on her time so I told her that she didn't have to be my mentor anymore, she was reluctant to let me go on my own but I convinced her that I could find something else. Well, I did for a bout two weeks. I joined a gym and was mentoring a personal trainer, but the sessions were way to expensive. There was no way else to go. I had tried asking to mentor for free and they told me no and then I tried Weight Watchers, but I could not make it to the meetings on a weekly basis. Eventually, Erin reached out to me after a few months because my sister told her that I was having a tough time getting another free mentorship opportunity. Erin said that she could still mentor me and it would be no problem. I felt really bad about it, but she understood how important mentorship was for my grade and she was more than happy to start working with me again.

 

Another problem that I faced was finding credible resources. I mean, yes I found them when I needed them, but at the beginning of research checks I had a really hard time finding good articles. Every article that I found was titled, "How to lose weight in 10 easy steps," or, "How to get rid of the holiday five pounds fast!" As you can see, these articles are basically the worst of the worst. They were hardly ever over the 750 the word count that was required and they were never very helpful at all. In the end, I just had to learn how to conduct a credible search. Instead of typing in weight loss or obesity, I started typing in more specific terms that had to do with metabolism and exercise. 

• What are your two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

My two most significant sources would have to be my first interview with Erin Apregan and "Winning by Losing" by Jillian Michaels. Erin was such an amazing interviewee because she was so knowledgable and she had so much personal experience to speak from. I don't think we addressed it in the interview, but Erin used to battle with eating disorders for her teenage years. She changed her entire lifestyle from really un-healthy to one of the best diets that I have ever seen. She talked about how she motivates her clients and how she eats and exercises. She talked about how she got into physical training and she gave me so much advice that I could use in my own weight loss journey. She talked and talked and never held back which in the end helped my word/page count and the over-all quality of my interview. 

"Winning by Losing" by Jillian Michaels was the first book that I looked at for my topic. It is my bible and I have read it at least three times. Jillian is one of my favorite personal trainers because she approaches her clients from not only a trainer point of view but a psychologist point of view. She goes into a session with the expectations of her clients' walls and with the intentions of breaking those walls down. She knows that a client will never lose weight if they are not ready for it and if they aren't ready, then she prepares them for the long road ahead. In this book she addresses the diet portion of weight loss and the exercise portion. She covers all of the important parts of any weight loss journey in a small and easy to read book. She knew that beginners would read this book as their first step and I think it gives the best layout of weight loss out of every other weight loss book that I have found.

• What is your product and why?

When I look back in ten years at my senior year of high school, I will say, "I lost 60 pounds, and I am proud of that." I can't believe that I have done what so many, including myself, have tried to do. I feel so thankful for senior year, because without senior year, I would probably still be 235 pounds and not confident at all. In just one school year, I have gained self confidence, a healthy lifestyle, and the assurance that I won't gain this weight back. My product from my senior year isn't just what I lost, but also what I gained.

Blog 23: 2014 Interview

1. Xena Perez West House
2/3. I really don't know. I am looking towards marketing, but it's because I know already what I want to do for my career and I want to do sports medicine, so I 'm trying to get into hospitals. I found one in Claremont and it is called "Casa Colina." They help firefighters who have been injured seriously like with brain damage. If not, the I will probably do pediatrics.  I really just am interested in medicine and nursing and stuff like that so that is why those are my two top options.
4. I am not really expecting much. I just want to watch them to get an idea on how to do mine. And if I see something interesting that somebody else did then I may be swayed to change my topic
5. I want to know if medical related topics are something good to go into or if I would have trouble with those.
Me: Well, I can tell you that if you are going into the topics that you said you are interested in, then you should be fine. There is plenty of research and scientific knowledge behind all medicine related topics. You will never be scrounging for three articles for the next research check and I think that is something that a lot of seniors struggle with. And plus there are so many different sub-subjects that you could research in medicine. You should be fine.

Blog 22: 3-Column Chart

My 3 Column Chart

Blog 21: Independent Component 2

Literal

1. I, Natalie Najera, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
2. Weight Watchers.com and "Hungry Girl to the Max" by Lisa Lillien
3. IC 2 Hours Spreadsheet
4. I made a 20 page scrapbook with 44 recipes. It took a lot longer of a time than I thought it would take. I thought that it would be an easy way to get 30 hours fast. I was wrong. Scrapbooking takes a huge amount of focus and time. I explained in my spreadsheet a lot of precisely what I did each day.

Interpretive

These pages took so long to complete. There were so many elements that went into making each page different and trying to get a variety of recipes. Cutting everything, drawing everything, writing everything making a layout for everything was very tedious. Each drawing was made up of different parts on different colors of construction paper. Then I had to cut out each piece and connect them like puzzle pieces so that they fit perfectly. Making the mini windmills and flowers from tutorials on pinterest took a really long time in itself. I am so proud of the book that I made. I think it screams Natalie with all of the pastels, florals, and prints. I put a lot of effort into this book and I think it really payed off. 

Applied

My independent Component supported two of my answers. It helped change my family's environment because instead of having cookbooks with not a lot of healthy options, now my mom and I have a cute cookbook that has all guilt-free options. I changed my diet with this book. Now I can switch up what I have for dinner, lunch, and breakfast instead of just having a chick salad for lunch and dinner basically everyday. My weight watchers leader says that it is really important to keep on changing what you eat. She told me that this cookbook will help me shed even more weight than I already have.