My Fitness Plan: Reflective Analysis

Fitness Program

My plan to improve my health and fitness is to try my best to stay consistent with my exercise and meal plan. Being consistent in any plan is very important because it allows you not to be so strict with yourself and teaches you how to do things in moderation.

I always find that if I jump into any meal plan or exercise plan too quickly, I never follow through with it. Therefore, my goal is to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and I can do this by consistently eating healthier and exercising more regularly. But the first thing that I need to do is develop the habit of a healthy lifestyle slowly so that I can get used to the pace and keep up with it. I plan to do this by having short exercise sessions and occasionally adding in a few longer sessions.

This plan offers many opportunities as it can help me to improve my mental health, my well-being and my fitness. However, there is a risk that I can become bored with the exercise that I do or even become lazy. It is also hard for me to eat according to a diet because I find it difficult to stick.

The main threat for me is that my days at school are so busy and I attend extra lessons and extra murals, so by the time I get home I am generally too tired to exercise, or I do not have enough time to do a lot of exercises. My goal is to make more time for exercising because it will benefit me and reduce my stress levels. I also want to try and mediate more often because it really does clear my head and help me focus rather than panic.

Interpretation of My Current Fitness Levels

After having exercised for 18 consecutive days, I generally feel like I have a lot more energy, and I am proud of my fitness progress. At the beginning of my fitness plan, my resting heart rate was 73bpm, and it has now decreased to about 70bpm on average. My maximum heart rate was always quite different, depending on how intense my workouts were. I noticed that my recovery pulse rate began to return to the resting heart rate a little bit faster. When I did low-intensity workouts, I did not compare my recovery heart rate to my high-intensity workouts because my heart rate did not increase a lot when I did these workouts.

How These Activities Improved My Stress Levels

I suffer from anxiety badly, so when I exercise, it helps me push out my frustrations and clear my head from all the pressure on my mind. Because I am a very busy person with a lot going on, I do not usually get the time to exercise and release all my stress. That is why these activities have been so helpful to me. They have allowed me to get rid of stress daily without building up and making me have panic attacks due to stress. When I exercise, it also helps me sleep much better and wake up the next morning instead of feeling drained.

Impact These Activities Have Had on My Emotional and Social Well-Being

It is proven that when you exercise, your body releases hormones that make you feel happy and these are called endorphins. As tired as I am after my workouts sometimes, I always feel content, and when I exercise, I feel more worthwhile. When I feel good from exercising, I feel that I have more purpose and that I can have more confidence and achieve more emotionally and socially. This fitness program has helped me realise the strain that is put on me emotionally when I do not get the chance to exercise. I become moody and anxious when I do not get the change to exercise, and I am happy that I have now realised what is important for my body. From now on, I will try to exercise as regularly as possible to prove my strengths and determination to myself and definitely to boost my confidence emotionally and socially.

The Success of Self-Set Goals at the Beginning of the Program

At the beginning of this program, I made sure to set goals that were challenging but at the same time, were not unattainable. I managed to complete my exercise program and will continue to record my exercise because I get extra motivated when I see and feel progress in my mind and body. I would do long and challenging sessions that were longer than an hour, but then the next day, I would do something with a low intensity that was not too difficult. I did this so that I would not get exhausted from all my workouts, and it seemed to have played off because I was able to finish the program and I did not get tired of doing it.

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