Life Fitness Journal #2

 Life Fitness Journal #2

 1. What successes have you had with your physical health and fitness goals so far?

• What challenges or barriers have you faced?

           I have had some changes in my living situation which has caused some challenges in my fitness goal. I am currently not at my house anymore. I have been able to move into an on-campus apartment so that I can attend practice. For the first couple weeks after creating the fitness goal of increasing aerobic fitness in terms of mile time, I was able to do cardio exercises at home on the treadmill 2-4 times a week. I was able to drop my one and a half mile time by a lot. To attain my goal of getting into the "good" aerobic fitness category, I would have needed to run a mile and a half in 12 minutes and 25 seconds. The first time I ran it for the lab, I got 13 minutes and 58 seconds. The last time I recorded a time for this test I brought it down a full minute and got 12 minutes and 52 seconds. This was super exciting since I only needed to bring it down about another half minute. However, that all changed when I moved to Azusa. I currently do not have access to a treadmill, or a track, and I also do not feel super comfortable just running around the block by myself. I have been able to do some endurance work in terms of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and a little bit during practice, but nothing like running for a longer duration of time. 

2. What successes have you had with your spiritual health and fitness goals so far?

• What challenges or barriers have you faced?

        For my spiritual health goal, I wanted to read through a devotional book and create a time in my daily schedule to just sit and read. I was somewhat successful with this. I was doing really well for the first couple of weeks after making this goal. I was able to read through two sections per week like I had planned to. However, when I moved to Azusa, I had accidentally left it at home. I did have my mom mail it to me, but I had stopped having this routine. So even after getting the book back, I never really was able to go back to two sections per week. I believe this had to do with the broken routine and the timing of schoolwork and practice amping up. 

3. What have you learned about taking care of your physical and spiritual health and fitness?

        I have learned about where my priorities lie. I learned that I prioritize school and practice above others. I also definitely hold relaxation, or time to de-stress over physical and spiritual health. Although some can see working out or taking time out of your day to do a devotional as de-stressing, I still see it as more work. This means that I catch myself wanting to do activities such as painting or watching videos rather than doing things concerning my physical and spiritual health. I do find it easier for me to work on my physical health over my spiritual health. It's easier to work on physical fitness, because you can actually see the difference it is making. For example, I can actually see the drop in my mile time. But for spiritual health, it is hard to see any kind of change so the motivation is harder to create. 

        
4. Are there any Scriptural passages, spiritual disciplines or other faith-related motivations that have helped you as you've worked to make these changes in your health and fitness?

• What are some new ways your faith and spirituality can help with your motivation and success in achieving your goals?

        Throughout the bulk of these past couple months, I have not had any spiritual passages or anything like that to help with motivation. However recently, I stumbled across a verse when I had to prepare a devotion for my team. This verse is Hebrews 12:11 "For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." I have written this down on a post-it note and have it on my desk. I feel that seeing this everyday is very motivating.

                

5. Based on your progress and challenges so far, what changes do you need to make in your SMART goals (i.e., How can you improve your success?):

• Physical health and fitness?

• Spiritual health and fitness?

        I have seen some progress with both of my goals and also saw a halt once I moved to Azusa. I feel like my spiritual goal can stay the same in terms of how many days a week I read a section of the book. Because of the pause, I will not be able to get to the section I was originally hoping to get to by the end of this semester. In terms of my physical goals, I believe it is still doable but I will need to find other ways to incorporate cardio workouts into my week. I will still try and find someone to run with, but I will also start to jumprope and continue YouTube cardio workouts.