Week IV

 WEEK IV:

    We made it! This project went by in a flash and I am honestly a little sad that it is over. I genuinely enjoyed getting to see Jaden and Bowen every day and being able to workout and cook with them. 

    During the project, I definitely achieved my original goal of becoming more independent in the gym. I learned a huge variety of new exercises that gave me great options to choose from for any muscle I wanted to train. I also learned a lot about different types of workout splits, such as the Push-Pull-Legs split or antagonistic split, which helped me to better plan my individual workouts. Lastly, I greatly improved on my mind-muscle connections, which is honestly one of the hardest parts of weightlifting in my opinion. Because of this improvement, though, I have been able to ensure that I am using the correct muscles in each movement and that I am not cheating myself out of any gains.

    As for the food side of things, I have also came a long way since the beginning of the project. Although I will admit that I didn't find a ton of entirely new meals / recipes, I did discover a lot of substitutes for food I was already eating. Some examples of these were replacing regular bacon with turkey bacon, using reduced-fat cheese, or having sugar-free condiments. I often couldn't notice a difference in taste when eating these alternatives, so I plan to continue eating them even after our project ends. Most importantly, though, I discovered Kodiak cakes, a multigrain and protein-heavy pancake mix that has become a staple of my diet and an ongoing inside joke between the three of us. 

    I would definitely recommend this project to another Catlin student if they enjoy working out and had a couple of friends to do it with. I really enjoyed being able to dedicate so much time to the gym and to researching different fitness-related topics. The experience I gained over this project will stick with me for years to come and I will definitely put it to good use while I am off at college next year.

    I think that the school should offer "passion projects" to those who want them, but still advocate for a more traditional Senior project. While I really enjoyed what we did, I think doing an actual internship and gaining experience in your desired field of study is an invaluable opportunity that I am sad I missed out on. One suggestion I would have, though, is for the school to be a bit more active in helping students land an internship. I tried this year for over a month at three to four different companies and had difficulty finding someone willing to take me on. I would have really appreciated if the school had provided a better pipeline for me to find an internship and possibly found alums who were willing to help.

    I think that working in a cohort was a great opportunity and that the school should definitely keep it as an option. I think being in a group really helped me stay motivated and not stray off of track. As I wrote about last week, there were definitely days where I was hesitant to go on our runs but the presence of others kept me in line.

[ 95% Lean Meat, 5% Fat Hand-Made Patty; Sugar-free Ketchup; Reduced-fat Cheese]