The Passion Project
For my passion project, I created a lifetime nutrition and fitness and nutrition guide for someone that has a predisposition for diabetes. At the beginning of this project, I knew I wanted to complete a project that fueled my passion for nutrition and exercise. Even though that was clear, I didn’t know where I wanted to take it from there. After talking to my family about the project, my mom inspired me to do something a little out of the ordinary. She inspired me to create a project about reducing the risk for diabetes. As a daughter and a grand-daughter of two strong women with diabetes, I felt this was the perfect opportunity to educate myself and others on a disease that I will deal with for the rest of my life. Having a parent with diabetes triples my risk, and diabetes is something I will need to look out for and work on preventing the majority of my life.
By the end of the 3 weeks we were given to complete this project, I created 2 final products. The first is a more general lifetime guide for anyone who wants to reduce their risk of developing diabetes. In this guide, you will find foods to avoid, exercises to do and why the combination of a good diet and exercise will reduce your risk. The second was a sample guide that included three 1-week plans at different levels ranging from beginner to advanced. In the three 1-week plans I included meal plans for every meal of the week, (including snacks) along with exercise programming for every day of the week. I created and programmed the meal plans and exercises completely based on and around the lifetime guide I mentioned before. |
My passion project was a very “research and deliver” type of project. Unlike many of my peers, who created projects with their hands and artistic capabilities, my project really strengthened and showed the science and research part of me. While I love to get my hands dirty with projects every once in a while, I believe I really prosper when I have a lot of structure and content heavy project in front of me. I think that this stems from the future scientist in me. Ever since I was little, I have always been a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to the work I do. The aspirations that I have for my future have always pushed me to create the best work I can. The way I see it, every project and every year in school takes me one step closer to having the future I desire so deeply. Throughout my school career, I have found that to create a piece of work I am really proud of, I need to have heavy content and structure to motivate me, and I think this project was a perfect example of this.
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If I could do this project again, I would spend more time on the sample plans. Like I’ve said before, I have a huge passion for nutrition and exercise. And while I was able to fuel that general passion through this project, I didn’t spend enough time working on a more specfic passion: programming. As I have gained more and more knowledge about exercising and what specific movements help which muscles, I have loved learning how to program workouts for athletes. Whether that athlete is me, or a friend or just some random example I use to learn more, I love making workouts that reach the goals of that specific person. This is especially true for myself. As I’ve become more serious about fitness, I have made specific goals for myself and planning out my training in order to reach those goals, has become my favorite part. I think it really shows how much I’ve learned and it also is a great motivator for me throughout the week and throughout specific training sessions.