The Intermission

Last Week

I took a quick break last week due to school piling work on me. During that time, I broke my no soda diet for a day because I felt like I deserved a treat. However, after the break I find getting back into the my routine again difficult, maybe next time I will take a shorter break so I don’t face these issues again.

This Week

This week I gained a little bit of my weight back just because I stopped for a week, which can easily be lost again, but it was a little discouraging. On a more positive note, I learned a lot by watching health related videos in my English class. I learned that a plant based diet is really something I want and is something I will work towards when I make a weekly income sometime near summer. There are many benefits from eating a plant based diet like: weight loss, better cholesterol levels, better mood, more energy, and etc. This is something I really want so that I can better myself as a person and better my self-esteem.

Next Week

Next week, I will be trying to get my current girlfriend to consistently go to the gym with me so that I can have a person to try and push me. Plus, she has been meaning to start going anyways so hopefully I can motivate her as well. The other plan is to check out my local farmers market to see the selection they have to choose from and maybe even make a rough estimate of how much will be needed to spent weekly to eat a plant based diet. Hopefully, everything goes according to plan and I will get my motivation back when I start going tomorrow. The primary goal, however, is to lose the weight I gained back from last week.

Improvement

Last Week

I started to weigh myself weekly and learned that I lost two pounds in one week due to my exercise and counting calories. I also earned money from my brother like I said (most of it is going to Valentines Day), and I will be going back sooner or later to finish the job and hopefully earn some more money for some healthy food. Furthermore, I figured out that even though my app says not to eat a certain amount of carbs, they are generally okay to eat if they are “simple carbs.” Most of these simple carbs come from fruit and similar items, the more complex carbs comes from things like rice or bread. Therefore, as long as I avoid the complex carbs I don’t have to worry about eating too much fruit, which I often do.

This Week

I lost even more weight! In total I have lost about 7 pounds since I started my diet about 3 weeks ago. This means I weigh 153 pounds and I am getting closer to my goal of weighing about 135 pounds. So far my regime is feeling natural and rewarding, I have been talking to my friends about it a lot and trying to get them to join me: I have gotten some. Sadly, my workout schedule is broken on occasion because I get more homework, study with friends, or there is a special event. To counteract this issue I am thinking that if I miss a day I will then go on one of my break days.

This is an example of one of my below average time of jogging a mile and a half. In this run I jogged the first mile and then walked the last .5, it is about five minutes slower than my usual.

Next Week

I will be weighing myself on Friday as usual, this time I will take a photo of my weight so I have some proof and hope that I get even closer to my goal. I will be going shopping for some fruit and vegetables to put into a blender, or i can try to use my neighbor’s juicer for a better smoothie. In order to get those groceries, I now should be able to go once a month to my brother’s or my sister’s house to clean and make some money and try to find some good fruit/vegetable combinations.

Information

Last Week

During Thursday last week, I was lucky enough to be a part of a free BMI (Body Mass Index) that tells a person how much fat compared to how much muscle a person has. This can be useful because the BMI can point out any major issues a person has and grants them the knowledge of what to improve in their body. I learned that my body is at a healthy weight but I have a couple of pounds more fat than muscle. I expected this, but, it is actually on the verge of being unhealthy. However, the worker at Fitness 19 told me about an app that can help me record my calories really easily and it even gives me an estimate of how many calories I should eat per day to lose one pound a week.

This Week

I plan to use this new app (My Fitness Pal) to plan out what I am eating in advance so that I can stay below my daily caloric intake. At the end of this week I will be able to talk to my brother about getting paid monthly so that I can afford some healthier groceries because again, it is difficult to buy healthy food with my current finances. I will also being talking to the person who took my BMI because he said he would be able to analyze my main issues with my diet and maybe even give me some pointers for free.

Next Week

Next week’s plans are something I don’t know of yet sadly. Maybe I will post of what I ate that week so people have a general idea of what I eat outside of school to keep my diet. I am thinking I will go back to not eating past 8 o’clock at night no matter how hungry I am because if you eat past that time you gain weight easier than usual. This is because a person’s metabolism is slower at night when you are less active than in the day when you are moving and burning calories. Hopefully you all check out the app, it is super quick and easy, it can even scan bar codes so you can get that exact item down, I’ll see you all next week.

Schedule

Last Week

I started my new routine, just trying to make it a habit by going to really get into it. I also did my new best mile time of 8:40, which I provided a poorly taken photo of me achieving that time. Last week, I wasn’t really focused on what I was doing last week, I was more concerned that I just went, but now I am planning on what to do and when to do it.

This Week

I discussed with other people I know at the gym to get a better idea of how my routine should look like (I used them as reference because they have been going consistently and even have bought trainers to help them). I learned a good idea of what muscle groups to work out together, and I intend to incorporate that into my newly found schedule that goes as follow:
-Monday: 1.5 Mile run then arms/abs
-Tuesday: 1.5 Mile run then chest/deltoids
-Wednesday: 1.5 Mile run then back/glutes
-Thursday: 1.5 Mile run then leg day
-Friday: DAY OFF
-Saturday: Cardio for a hour
-Sunday: DAY OFF
This is schedule I came up with while talking to my friends who frequent the same gym as me, it make be tweaked as I continue with my schedule later on, but for now, it stands like that. I am hoping the nearly daily cardio will help me lose some weight and get me to the weight I was at a year ago.

Next Week

I will be researching more food to buy for next week, I found a good market to go to for some fruits and vegetables that seem reasonable healthy and fairly priced. I will attempt to make shopping trips there and to further my diet since that is what primarily makes people lose or gain weight. I have heard dieting is actually 80% of the battle when it comes to staying healthy. However, I can’t do both at the same time because I know it might prove too much for me to commit to at once. I will see if I can come up with a monthly income to use for food. I might already have a way to come up with the money, but I will have to discuss it with my brother starting February 3rd. Thank you for reading, hopefully you will join me next week!

Self-Improvement Plan

New Project, Again

My new 20-Time project is a self-improvement one. Recently over the past year I have gained 30 pounds due to my unhealthy eating habits and halted my progress at the gym by not going anymore. Once I realized this, I wanted to go back and get my body by to the way it was prior. Doing this sounds easy but it is slightly harder when actually doing it. Starting to work out again is practically making and breaking habits: stop eating bad food, eat till your content not full, make time in scheduling for a workout, and etc. It is just a lot of change done quickly. However, it obviously can be done and my goal is to lose around 20 pounds, get a better mile time, be able to run longer, and look fit like I did in the past.

This Week

I recently got a better mile time at Fitness 19, I achieved a 8:40, 5 seconds better than my previous best, I earned this through working out over break from when I started at a 10:00 mile. Sadly, this week I also drank some soda, which is my health nemesis at this point. I am addicted to this carbonated monster, I used to drink it all day but recently I drink barely any. Thankfully, on average I am down to one can A WEEK, it is honestly a miracle knowing my background with it and it constantly being bought in my household. However, food is a slight issue, affording healthy food is a bit of a difficult task currently, this is something I plan to work on.

This is a bad quality screen cap. of a video of me running my best mile time so far, it will be better next time, I promise.

Next Week

I plan to look for a cheap and easy way I can gather food for a week at a time and perhaps even get a meal planner if money allows it. My workout plan is also to be made, recently I have been just winging it and doing whatever feels right, with the exception of always running a mile before doing a more physical work out. So, the To-Do list for next week is: Buy/Make a food planner, research on how to find affordable healthy food in my area, and to make a real schedule for my daily work out.

Blog 12

Elevator Pitch Script

            Hi, I am Jorge Montoy, and despite my name, I don’t know Spanish that well. I have learned that people learn languages much easier when they are taught one at a young age, and the longer it takes for someone to try to learn a language, the harder it becomes. Therefore, to try and help people avoid this problem of having the difficulty of learning a language later in life, Spanish Club and I go to an elementary school every Friday to help kids learn some Spanish. Spanish is the second most spoken language in our country so it would only make sense to teach them Spanish because it will be the most useful one to have a skill later in life. Imagine how more efficient the U.S would be if everyone knew each other’s languages, that is the step we are trying to take. By having these kids become interested in learning another language at a young age, it will not only make them more intelligent, but it can open up opportunities later in life they never thought of before.

Last Week

Spanish Club helped the children learn how to say “Sun=Sol, Moon=Luna, World=Mundo, and Star=Estrella” in Spanish. In that process we had them draw and learn the vocabulary, this helped the children broaden their Spanish speaking skills because these words were unfamiliar to them and some aren’t said often. 
This was drawn by a 5th grader in Mentone Elementary named Ariel, this was used to help her memorize and to review for this week’s review. They will receive candies and other treats if they answer the questions we ask correctly.

This Week

Spanish Club intends to do a Christmas themed lesson. We plan to reward them with festive treats if they co-operate and memorize the previous week’s lesson and to teach them Christmas themed vocab. An example of this would be, “Stocking=Calcetin, Presents=Regalos, Christmas=Navidad, Lights=Luces, and Reindeer=Reno.” The activities that they will do is making paper Christmas stockings, filling their stockings, and Four Corners vocab.
This is what the stockings will somewhat resemble.

Next Week

The semester is ending next week starting Friday, which means, there will be a 3-week break from visiting the Elementary school. I will be continuing doing this during my second semester of senior year, but I will not be blogging about it anymore because I will be changing my project. I am changing it because I believe I can use this 20-Time to better myself, I will be trying a self-improvement blog. I used to go to the gym a lot, but I stopped going about a year ago. If I make it my literal job to go to the gym (school is my job), then I will definitely go to the gym. I gained 30 Lbs. this year and I want to lose at least 20 Lbs. by the end of the year and look better than I looked the year prior.

Week 11 Blog

Last Week

Sadly, my group couldn’t go and help the kids because of Thanksgiving break. However, the week before that, we had the kids make hand turkeys to take to their parents. Furthermore, we had them learn some keywords about Thanksgiving like how to say turkey and Thanksgiving.

This Week

We will be teaching the kids about the universe this week. I feel like it is a topic the kids would enjoy because who doesn’t like the vastness of space, and I feel like it is just common knowledge people know how to say in every language, so why not make it common knowledge for them while their brains are still malleable? The words they will be taught will be “World = Mundo, Stars = Estrella, Universe = Universo, and etc.” We will have them make some space-related arts and maybe spell their name out in little stars with planets around it.

Next Week

It will be Christmas soon by this time so we will teach them basic terms for Christmas and winter. We will have them learn how to say tree, Christmas, winter, and maybe some of the Christmas animals. We will have them make a tree ornament of their choosing with some paper and a paperclip as a hook. We are trying to find out what we should have them put on their ornaments or if we can find a better idea, but either way, we will have fun.

Week 10 Blog

Last Week

Last week there was no school on Friday because it was Veteran’s Day so we couldn’t teach the kids anything. However, it gave us a whole week to come up with ideas we can do with the kids. For example, we came up with some Thanksgiving ideas to do with them, we came up with ways to teach them about animals, and we came up with a way to teach them about plants/stars. Therefore, we bought most of the necessary supplies last week to be prepared for the upcoming weeks so we don’t have to make multiple trips to the store. In summary, last week was more or less a time saver.

This Week

This week we will teach the kids on how to say basic sentences that are appropriate for Thanksgiving, we will have them learn how to say silverware and which food they would use it on, and finally, we will have them make a hand turkey as a craft (and of course learn how to say turkey in Spanish “guajolote, pavo, chompipe= turkey”). Hopefully, the kids have a good time with this little project and learn something that they can just tell their friends and or family.

Next Weeks goals

Our plan for next week is to teach the kids about stars and the planets. We will most likely use some art pieces of the planets to teach them what they are in Spanish. Also, we will teach them how to ask some basic questions in Spanish like “como se dice…?= How do you say…? ” and things similar to that. We want to teach the children this kind of stuff because it is basic knowledge to everyone, even though it seems not important it would be funny if a person ended up learning Spanish fluently and couldn’t say, “Mars” in Spanish (Mars=Marte). We are currently coming up with a craft idea they can take home and show to their parents, but we still hope they have a good time while making/learning Spanish.

Changing My 20Time Project

Last Week

During the last couple of weeks, I had a debate on whether or not to continue my, now old, 20Time project. I had to get a job in order to attempt my idea of investing in stocks to help people, but having 2 AP classes and looking for colleges proved to make that idea difficult. However, I already did something nice every week and a friend of mine pointed that out to me. Every Friday, I go to an elementary school with some friends from Spanish Club (I am basically Vice President/Co-President), and we try and teach the children Spanish with arts and crafts. There is even an Instagram account that is already made for it that we will now post our project ideas on.

With all of that said, last week we taught kids from grades 1st-5th grade about the origins of the piñata. Did you know the idea of breaking a paper mache ball with goodies in it came from China? The only difference was that China had rice instead of candy. The idea was noted by a man named Marco Polo, who then made his way down to Spain and shared the idea, except they made the ball into animals and put candy in the piñata for celebrations. Then, we taught the children some of the colors and basic terms that related to the piñata (EX: dulces=candy, amarillo=yellow, rosado=pink, and etc.).
(This is Gracey, she is holding a cup piñata that she and all the other kids made last week)

This Week

Now, since there is no school this Friday due to Veterans Day, we can’t teach them this week. Despite that, we are currently coming up with some new ideas to use for the next couple of weeks and buying materials for the kids to use and enjoy themselves with. Furthermore, we already did buy some pipe cleaners this week, along with some more colorful paper. Currently, we only have about 2-3 projects for the kids but that covers a 2-3 week span which nets us plenty of time to follow up with more projects the kids will, hopefully, enjoy and keep.

Next Week

Our most relevant idea for the project is for them to make animals with pipe cleaners, glue, colored paper, and a pencil for details. However, I am scared that the project will be really messy, but if the kids have fun with it and they have something to show their parents, all will be good in the world. An example of the words we can teach them would be a cat, a dog, a tiger, a bird, and whatever animal they really want to make.

Week 4 of 20-Time Stock Project

So far in my stock funding adventure, I have only done research on how to push money into the vast world of the stock market. Sadly, I have been caught on a hitch and it will be a longer waiting period before I can even attempt to fund my project… Of course, to do this I need money and a reliable way to get money is to get a job, that is one part of the hitch. I need a job and I need it ASAP, but in order to even do that, I require my birth certificate and SSN to get my California state ID. After that is when my plan can commence, for now, it is more research.

Example ID from, https://mliesl.edu/2016/03/19/how-to-get-your-california-id-card/

Research done

Stocks are a lot more complicated than most might think. One can’t just get a credit card or savings account and then invest in a couple of minutes. So far, what I’ve learned is that most people who are serious into stocks hire a “broker” this person helps by buying and selling stocks for the person. Basically, a person will give money to a broker and with that money, invest into what they think is the best. However, there is a way to do it by yourself and it will save you money, but you will lose out on expertise and it is much harder. A person also can’t invest however much money they want, depending on the company a person is trying to invest in it costs a different amount per stock. This makes things more difficult for people who try to invest with little money in the stock market because if a company is doing well then a lot of people will invest in it raising the stock price.

Credit for Photo: http://windgatewealthmanagement.com/the-up-side-of-down-stock-market-declines-annual-returns/