Mark Post #5

Our fifth week is over, and we are now done with our behavioral change project. I guess the remaining question is, did I succeed with my goal, or not?

I regret to say that I did not achieve my goal, YET. I weighed in at 184.5 lbs- 4.5 lbs short of my goal. I knew that this project would be over before the end of the month, and I initially set my goal to end at the end of the month; therefore, I still have a couple weeks to achieve it. I think that I can do it.

According to the project guidelines, the weight scale does not reflect a complete success for me; however, I still feel much healthier and more energetic than I did when I started the project.
I feel that the reasons of falling short of my goal can be attributed to my diet. I did not decide to incorporate a healthier diet until about two weeks into the program, after seeing my results were weak. I also needed more time in order to be successful.

I would like to thank my team for all of their support throughout the project, and I want you to rest assured that I will continue to strive for my goal =).

roxanne's 5th Post

The week leading up to this blog post was challenging.  With finals coming up, and group projects and essays coming to an end fast food is the easiest meal to come by.  I must admit that I am not showing great improvements with my self -change goal.  While I have not regressed I have only went from 4 days to 3 days of cutting back on fast food.  I realized that I eat fast food on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  I have not yet reached my goal of getting rid of fast food completely I push to work on it over the summer.  If I had to do this all over again I would change my work schedule or school schedule because I believe overloading the schedules is part of the reason I eat out.  Once school is out my schedule will be easier and I will be able to stick to a more healthy diet.

Tina's Post #5

So far with my progress, I think I doing well since I haven't given up yet. I'm proud that I'm still keeping up because there has been so many attempts where I have stopped exercising. With my cousin making sure I stay focus, I have motivation from him on being able to still stay on track. My team's feedback also encourages me to keep trying because they're working hard on accomplishing their self-changes as well. I have bought my own treadmill at home so I can use it when I have the time instead of resorting to my cousin's house. It's very convenient of having my own treadmill and saving time since I work out with 3 other people. I still try to increase my time running on the treadmill, but reflecting back from day one, I'm better than before. Looking back when I first started this self-change, I felt so sore and inactive, ashamed of how I didn't exercise before. Now, I still feel sore but it's not as bad as before. Regardless of the self-change assignment, I do plan to keep on going by being active. With Mother's Day weekend, it was hard to squeeze in time to exercise. I had to make up by exercising on days I didn't plan to exercise.

Hope you guys had a wonderful Mother's Day spoiling your moms!

Last Blog Topic

I got great feedback on my progress towards my athletic goal with the second place win at the triathlon. Next weekend, it is all up to me.

And the, after I finish the race on Sunday, I need to figure out how to keep myself motivated, keep the fitness behaviors going.

In your blog this week, talk about how you are doing, what you might change if you had to do it all over again, and how you'll keep these positive changes doing.

Mark's Post #4

This week, I achieved and surpassed my goals! I weighed in 4 lbs lighter, and my diet was clean all week (except for a few beers that I had). I not only did cardio workouts, but I also lifted weights for about 5 hours throughout the whole week. I did not skip any days, and I had the best and longest workouts yet. My shorts that used to fit are starting to fall off.

As we learned in class last week, our team is functioning with pooled task interdependence. We are all working independently of one another in order to reach a final result. It helps to work with other team members because they are able to motivate us to do better. I was able to receive processes gain from my partners when they told me that I have to begin eating better to help me reach my goal. Since I took their advice, I have been doing better. In previous weeks, I was experiencing process loss because I was not motivated enough to achieve my goal. With the help of my partners, I was more motivated in the past two weeks.

Although we are not achieving our potential performance due to process losses, I feel that our actual group performance is increasing weekly. I feel that it will continue increasing, and we will continue to come closer to our goal.

Nice job this week Team Tenacity!

Roxanne's 4th Post

Through process gain, I followed the advice of team members; I was able to change the food variety up within my home made diet and therefore reduced my fast food diet from 6 to 4 days a week. A process loss was when I tried cooking spaghetti before work and ran out of time, therefore decided I should cook them after work when the day was over, resulting in my time not being limited and I had food for the next couple of days.  Some other meals I tried were lasagna, Korean flank steak or broccoli chicken from my mom’s family recipes.  These meals saved me the worry of not having food for school or work.  Working through these goals with our groups would prove to be more successful because we help and push each other.  Our group would not allow each other to reach social loafing because each of us strive for the best grade and always work as reciprocal task interdependence.

Tina's Post #4

Today, I worked out instead of Friday as my usual plan since my cousin was busy. Instead of running on the treadmill, I ran around the neighborhood, including going uphill and I felt exhausted. With process gain, I was encouraged by my cousin and my boyfriend to keep trying. I had stopped several times from running, but thank goodness I didn't pass out! Also, with my team mates working hard on their self-change, there is process gain for me to not give up. I worked out more than I usually did before. I ran around the neighborhood, jump-ropes, weight lifting, ab workout, and sprinting. It was really tiring, and I did felt a process loss during the time I've worked out since I was worn out. While my team has experienced challenges on their personal goals, there is a process loss, but it is our goal onto encourage our team to work harder. With feedback and motivation from my team and my cousin, I felt the need to keep on challenging myself.

Blog Topic #4

Your assignment this week is to think about how, in working with your groups, you have process gain and process loss. True, you all of have individual goals, but as a group you may be more successful than as individuals - why is that? What aspects of your groups will help you succeed and what aspects might lead to process loss? Social loafing?

Here's my entry:

This weekend is the first test of my goals. Sunday morning at 10:50, I hit the water at the Wildflower Triathlon. I find myself a little bit nervous. But, that's good. That means that I've set a high goal for myself, and that nervousness will help me. It's a sign of stress, but it is positive stress, and as we discussed in class, some stress is better than no stress.

I'm worried about making my own goal time (I went 24 minutes last year, and would like to get under 23 minutes this year), but also about my team. A relay team uses pooled task interdependence. I swim, then my friend Jessica (a professor from the Kinesiology Dept at SJSU) will ride, then our friend Nancy will run. Our success requires that everyone do well, but on the day of the race, I can't really help them perform. But, there are still opportunities for process gain. During the training phase, I told them what I was doing and that inspired them to get up and train more, as well. And, knowing that we have other people depending on us, and that we are accountable to each other, will make us work just that little bit harder on race day. Of course, there is also an opportunity for process loss. When we transition from one person to the next, we have to make sure that we hand over the timing chip smoothly, that each person is ready when it is time for their leg, and that we can find each other in the transition area. We'll practice all of this on Saturday when we get to the campground.

I'm hoping our team can reach our potential performance level. We are a homogeneous team (all Chinese! All women! All awesome!). We are small. I've reinforced with my team members why I chose them (Nancy is a super fast little runner!). Our goal is clear and we are all motivated. These characteristics of my team will help us succeed!

If you are interested, here's the triathlon website:
www.tricalifornia.com/index.cfm/WildFlower2011-main.htm

My team is FFF 2.5a

Mark's Post #3

Last week, I focused on fixing my diet and continuing my workouts. I started doing a subway diet for lunch, and a lighter dinner. Overall, I think I am consuming about 2000 calories (except for Easter weekend), instead of like 3000 or so. I felt a lot better, until Easter weekend came by. I have a huge family, and our gatherings are generally centered around food. Long story short, I think I consumed enough calories for 2 to 3 days just on Easter :(. This set me back greatly. When it comes to eating at family gatherings, I have little self control.

When I stepped in the scale on Monday morning, I weighed in at 191.5 again. Considering the fact that I still felt full and didn't digest my Easter meal yet, I think I did a decent job. I would say I lost about 2 lbs with my diet and exercise. I went to the gym that week everyday that week except for Friday and the weekend. Since I am sitting at about 190lbs now, I would need to loose about 2.25 lbs a week to reach my goal by the end of May. I think that it is still achievable, and I am still going for it. You owe me a Double-Double from In-n-Out once I reach my goal =).

Mark's Post #2

Originally Posted on: Wednesday, April 20, 2011 (Proof can be provided)

Thank you for your comments, and I appreciate your advice on working on my diet as well. Sorry Sara, I guess this means no more Smoke Eaters after class :P. I generally eat a good diet throughout the week, but I sometimes indulge on the weekends. I am going to come up with a stricter diet plan soon and I will update you on it.

So far, I am completely failing with my goal! Last week I went to the gym everyday except for Friday and Saturday. I was tired on Friday, and Saturday was my birthday. Unfortunately, I ended up consuming enough calories for the whole week on my birthday (I might be exaggerating a bit, but you get my point). On Monday morning, I stepped on the scale for my weigh in..... 192 lbs. Awesome (Sarcastic). I am now one week in, and I am set back even further from my goal.

The easy way out would be to change my goal of 180 lbs, but nothing in life is easy and I feel like challenging myself. I am going to keep my goal of reaching 180 lbs by May, as I still think it is attainable. As for my workout partner, I decided to stop working out with him last week. I feel that I was less productive with him there, and we spent too much time talking. If I go to the gym alone, I am focused on only myself and I am more productive.

I have been thinking that it might be easier to set smaller goals to attain each week. It makes everything seem less overwhelming, and it keeps every week fun. My goal for next Monday's weigh-in will be 189 lbs.

Thank you for following, and I will keep you posted!

Mark's Post #1

Originally Posted on: Thursday, April 14, 2011 (Proof can be provided)

In my Organizational Behavior class at San Jose State University, I was challenged to change a behavior and set a goal for myself to achieve.

This assignment lead me in several different directions, and provided me with a long list of behaviors which I would like to change. For the sake of my sanity, I will only focus on one topic which I feel is of great importance- Health. Coming out of high school, I was a division 1 basketball athlete. I was in great shape and felt good about my health. Since I did not make move on to become a college athlete, I lost my desire to stay physically fit. Through this project, I hope to bring myself back to a good fitness level.

In my case, I feel that a tangible way to measure fitness is through weight. In high school I weighed about 170 lbs, and I am now about 190lbs. I would like to bring my weight level down to 180 lbs by the end of this project. Although this goal may seem difficult to reach in 4 weeks, I still feel that it is achievable.

In order to achieve this goal, I will follow a strict work out plan. I plan on exercising for at least an hour on Mondays through Fridays. I will use the weekends as a break in order to recover and get ready for the next week’s workout. I will focus mostly on cardiovascular exercise with some weight training in between. My teammates will hold me accountable to my goal, and I have found a work-out partner to motivate me.

In order to judge my progress, I will weigh in every Monday morning and post my honest weekly results on this blog. I am confident that if I stick to the routine I will be able to achieve my goal. Good luck to my self, and if I seem fatigue you all know why. Let the torture begin!

Mark Farhat

Roxanne's 3rd Post

This self-change goal I chose is proving to be a little difficult simply because I don’t think I realized how reliant I became on fast food meals.  This semester is concluding and I could choose to change my goal to something that coincides with my schedule, but I know that in the long run, this will prove beneficial to my overall diet for the future so intend to stay motivated.  In the past, I have attempted this change before by attempting to cut back on fast food to save money, but sadly failed due to a lack of effort.  This could indicate how I would do on this project, but I know because I have set this as a self-change goal for a class project that it will encourage me to do well. Since this past weakened was Easter holiday, I ate with my family, but during the week days when I had school I unfortunately was only able to cut back one day more from the previous blog of 7-6 days a week.  I think with the stress of being late to work after getting out of class I rush to go eat.  I made a new step in my goal of making the sandwich before I leave for school and storing it in the refrigerator. Thank you all for your support and see you in class!

Tina's Post #3

As of yesterday, I weighed myself on an empty stomach in the morning. I'm embarrassed to mention my actual weight, but I was 4 pounds lighter. That's without food, so I may have probably lost about 2 pounds. 2 pounds of course isn't a lot, but I know if I keep up with it, there will be improvements. On Thursday, I worked out with different methods targeting different parts of my body. When thinking about time, I never know when to really stop when I work out. I feel like I can go on and on until I finally feel pain to give myself a rest. On average, I spend a minimum of an hour of working out with my cousin. I did sets of weight lifting in a pair of 15 pounds. This was challenging because I usually lift a pair of 10 to 12 pounds. My arms started becoming sore including my lower back. Friday was a busy day, so I had to skip Friday on working out.

Since it's the Easter Holiday weekend, things have been slowing down for me. I have a family member who recently made the move to America from Vietnam. To welcome her, my family planned on having a celebration this weekend in addition to Easter. My family's planning a BBQ today and I have been busy helping my family prep for today.

Happy Easter everyone!

Blogging Topic #3

It sounds like your team is working hard - it isn't easy to achieve these goals, and dealing with setback is part of the program. Think about increasing your efficacy as you overcome each small obstacle.

This week in class, we talked about decision-making and talked about different kinds of heuristics. In this week's blog, write about the heuristics you use in your goal pursuit.

For example, when I am training, I don't know what is the right amount of training. How much is enough? I look at the magazines and training guides on-line, but they don't seem realistic. When I anchor myself on those plans, I just feel like I could never do enough. But, when I compare myself to some of my friends, I feel like I am an awesome athlete. Whether I feel successful depends on the person with whom I am comparing myself (just like the fish in the lecture). This is why I've tried to make my goal measurable and to find some sort of objective measure of success.

This week I missed Friday swimming because I had to go get my son from my mother-in-law's house, and I'm worried I'm getting shin splints from too much running, and one aunt took me out for all-you-can eat sushi and another took me out for dim sum. But, I know that I made my goals for exercise on the other days this week, and I'll be back in the pool on Monday at 5:45AM.

Roxanne's 2nd Post

After planning my self-change goal on April 13, I found it was more difficult to follow than I originally had thought.  starting Wednesday night I wanted to follow my plan of eating home cooked meals rather than fast food like Mc Donald's or togo's, but realized I had not yet went grocery shopping. Instead I was stuck with ramen...even though this is not really any better I was still able resist taking the easy road.  Throughout the past week I have calculated that I usually eat out roughly around 11 times a week.  It was disappointing to actually see how unhealthy my diet has become.  I found that planning my schedule around school in the mornings and work at night leaves me with only one hour in between sometimes.  Over the week I was able to cut back on the fast food diet from 11 times to 7 times a week. while this is still considered bad, even for a college student, I believe I am slowly improving which is my goal.  I went grocery shopping for sandwich and soup ingredients.  This should be quick and easy to make.  I still am looking for more of a variety to add to my diet that can be easily made. Hopefully by next week I will improve more.

Roxanne's 1st Post

I have been thinking about what my self-change goal should be for a while now.   I have many things that I need to work on like procrastination, drinking to much soda, staying up to late..and many more.  I have decided that while everything I decide revolves around improving my diet and health, I chose to stop eating out or at least minimize the amount of times a week I eat fast food.  Due to school and work schedules sometimes I don't have enough time to actually go home and make lunch or dinner and therefore resort to eating out in between my schedules.  This is both unhealthy and costly. Even though I do not have the time to make super healthy home cooked meals, I decided I could shop for healthier meals at the grocery store that can be made quickly.  My goal is not to lose weight, but to live a healthier life style.  Place's like fast food restaurants carry the most unhealthy, greasy foods even if some say they are better than others.  This summer I am planning to take a vacation to Las Vegas for my friends 21st birthday and even though people consider me skinny, I am definitely not in shape or toned.  This future trip will motivate me to eat healthier so I do not gain the unnecessary  body fat that would go to all the wrong places.  I would unfortunately have to admit that I eat out once a day and on some occasions twice a day depending on if I have work and school in the same day; this is including weekends. I realize I need to change my eating diet because this is not only embarrassing and costly, but unhealthy.  My goal is to minimize or cut out fast food from my diet starting today to improve my overall health.

Tina's Post #2

After 2 days recovering from the soreness, I was able to get back up on my feet to work out again. During those 2 days, I felt bad about myself since I was out of shape. My arms, upper abdomen, and legs were sore that effected me on having a bit of a hard time getting up and down.

I improved my jogging time on the treadmill by extending another minute from 15 to 16 minutes. Although a minute may sound nothing, but I'm slowly pushing the time up as each time I go on the treadmill. My 2nd time of working out wasn't as bad as the first. In comparison to Day 1, I was coughing up for air after I was done with the treadmill. I'm also having minor coughs myself which makes it worse. Day 2, I felt improvements, although my legs still felt wobbly when I was done with the treadmill. I was able to do jump-roping at a faster rate and slightly improved on doing sit ups. I'm still sore on my upper abdomen, but I am not sore like how I was after Day 1.

There might be reasons why I have felt very sore from Day 1 of workout. The possible reason was that it was because I didn't ate anything. I worked out at 8pm and my last meal was at 1pm. My cousin warned me next time that I have to eat 2 hours before working out. Otherwise, I wouldn't have the energy on working out. Another reason could be that I didn't stretch before exercising. Since I haven't worked out for awhile, I didn't thought about how much pain I'd experience from not stretching. After learning my lessons, I ate ahead of time before working out and I did some stretching before jogging on the treadmill.

Tina's Post #1

For my self change goal, there are many things I wanted to change about myself. I have many habits that I need to improve myself such as: study habits, sleep patterns, and being active. It took me awhile to narrow down to my decision on what I wanted to achieve as a goal. My friend’s wedding is coming up in October, so with this self change goal assignment, it would motivate me to challenge the goal on being active.

I haven't been physically active as I should be to maintain my health. The last time I ran was probably a few years ago, but it feels as if there's no time to exercise. I realize that I have to make time for it, rather than making excuses just to avoid exercising.

I just started yesterday and I can say that I’m definitely not in shape from the soreness I’m feeling right now. My cousin is physically active himself and he is willing to help me maintain in shape again by asking me to join him when he works out. I will start out slowly and eventually improve upon exercising. I jogged on the treadmill for 15 minutes and will add more time to it on the next time I work out as a challenge. Also, I did some weight lifting, sit ups, and jump roping.

After my first session, I felt really bad about myself because I didn’t exercise for awhile. Many people out in the public might see me as a “normal” body type, but I have been criticized for my body weight that has made me very insecure of myself.

My goal is to exercise 3 days a week, but I don’t plan to have an end date to my goal since I’m supposed to be exercising as part of my routine. It’s a challenge that I hope to achieve to a healthier lifestyle.