Did ya like science class when you were in school? Do those black top tables with seats for two bring back memories of starting fires indoors for education?
Well, if you’re like me the memories didn’t stick in a way that made me want to try to follow a career path in STEM.
7 years removed from my last formal science education class, I do not own any Bunsen burners or know the effect lithium has on water vapor. But, in a way I’m still a scientist…and so are you.
Not in the should be conducting formal studies for humanity’s safety or trying to uncover the mysteries of the universe kinda way. More in the, we still gotta use the scietific method kinda way.
What Are You On About Kidd?
In our last blog, we talked about our diets and how “diet” is just derived from a Greek word “dieta” that means “way of life.”
When we start trying to find our healthiest diet, we have to go through various levels of self exploration, all trying to answer the simple question, “what diet works for me?”
Well the best way to do that is going to be using what we all learned in our elementary/primary school science class; the scientific method! Observation, Research, Hypothesis, Test, Analyze, and form a Conclusion
Observation
Okay, so this part seem pretty obvious. You realized you don’t feel the way you want and you want to make a change. Great! You’ve completed the first half of this step.
The other half? Well we gotta take a look at our current diet! We have to measure in some reliable way how much food and what we are eating! What we recommend is taking your hand and eye balling the amount of food with these measurements: handfuls of carbs, fist sizes of protein, and a thumb of fats. These can be half, 3/4, full, 2x, etc… you just need to be able to reliably observe how much food and what you normally eat.
Research
If you’re starting a new diet, chances are you’ve probably done this already! You might have done this by searching up diets to try yourself or by looking for a nutrition professional to help you.
Hypothesis
Now to take that research and apply it to a goal! When we have a weight change goal, we choose a weight we want to hit. If we are being efficacious in our goal setting we would hypothesize something like this, “If I stick to eating 25% less carbs per day than I did last month, then I will lose 3lbs in 30 days!”
Test
This is pretty self explanatory! Ya follow through on your goals and keep it going to your next measure date! (If this were a study we would be measuring in this phase b it for the sake of this we are going to shift it to the Analyze data portion).
Analyze and Begin The Cycle Again
You did it! You made it to weigh-in day and stuck to your change for 30 days. It’s time to step on the In-Body and… you lost .5 lbs and gained 2lbs of muscle.
Not exactly what you were looking for in our hypothesis but we saw some success in what we were measuring! So, what now?
Well we look at all contributing factors and make a new adjustment for the next 30 days. Maybe we lifted heavier than usual and because we just changed the carbs, we might have eaten more protein and didn’t realize it. Or, maybe, since weight loss isn’t a straight line, we are just on a peak weight period and will be dropping into a trough on a day where we aren’t measuring.
The point is that we ask questions about the data we have collected and start making new hypothesis off the observations we have made. We make a new goal for the next month, test it again, and see what happens!
Some months we will feel like a champion and others frustrated. The most important thing is that we keep trying and learning.
So, what are you going to test this summer? Are you gonna try a new diet? Change up your training focus?
Come in and talk to us about your goals in a No Sweat Intro! You’ll sit down with one of our coaches at a time time that works best to talk about what you want to accomplish and make a plan! Sign up HERE to schedule yours today!