DEVELOPING 2KG OF MUSCLE MASS AND LOSING 6% BODY FAT

I’ve always been surrounded by a feeling of continuous insecurity of my unproportioned body, which means to say that though my figure appears skinny, I’m still considered fat. My body isn’t considered too far deep into obesity, but it also isn’t the fittest. In the past I’ve had numerous attempts in working out to eradicate these insecure feelings, but I’ve always failed due to numerous factors, like time-management and laziness. Because of this, there is only one big idea in my head for what to do for my Personal Project and that is to fix myself up. My personal project will be dedicated to improving myself by learning and executing knowledge on muscle building and fat loss. The specific learning goal of my project is to develop muscle mass and burn body fat. My target goal is to develop 2kg of muscle mass and to lose 6% of my present body fat. I believe these numbers are the ideal goal for me in such a short amount of time. I believe that developing 2kg of muscle mass is really difficult, especially for a beginner when it comes to working out, and losing 6% body fat feels very realistic because I know I can do it in the span of 3-4 months. I also feel like this learning goal is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and realistic in terms of time. My learning goal is specific because it details the exact amount of muscle mass I want to gain and the body fat I want to lose. It is measurable as well because my muscle mass and body fat can easily be tracked through an application called “MiFit” shown to me by my supervisor and my friends who work out. It is attainable because I believe that a growth of 2kg of muscle mass and a loss of 6% of body fat is possible for the span of about 4 months. Of course, it is relevant to me, because my fitness is very personal and it helps me not only live a healthier lifestyle, but also a good image of myself to others. Lastly, the learning goal is realistic in terms of time of completion – because as said before, losing 6% of my present body fat and growing 2kg muscle mass is possible to do in the span of 4 months.

Product Goal

I’m hoping that my learning goal will help me gain some new knowledge and skills not only in terms of workout routines but also in terms of video editing. My product will be a video about my body transformation. The video will have many details and moments from my 4-month body transformation, which includes my workout routine, diet as well as sleeping habits. I chose a transformation video as my product because I think it’s the best way to showcase my progress through evidence and notations. I also chose a video as my product because I’m pretty familiar with video and audio editing because I've done several video projects in the past for different subjects. I believe that the video may also serve as a motivation to other people who want to become more fit despite being in a pandemic. My product relates to my learning goal because it focuses on my progress and the implementation of my research.

Reflection

As my final remarks, I would just like to say that I am proud of my personal project. From way back, I’ve also wanted to start and make a change but I never pursued that goal. This personal project gave me a reason to push through and, in the end, bore fruit to satisfactory results. I think I pretty much succeeded, because I feel satisfied with what I was able to accomplish. I did everything I planned to - from research, working out, all the way to the diets.

Overall, what could have been improved was firstly, of course the success of transformation itself. I didn’t exactly succeed according to the rubrics and learning goal I set for myself at the beginning of the project, but I feel like I’m very much satisfied with the changes that I went through. What could be taken from my muscle mass depletion is how I balance out my eating habits and exercising sessions better. This could be achieved through further notation about my everyday meals’ exact nutritional value through an application like LifeSum. For the organization, I feel like I could’ve really made my video so much better if the orientation for some of my clips were in landscape, and if I could add subtitles to my product video. To avoid the video orientation problem, I could’ve set a recording checklist from the start to ensure that the clips were taken all in landscape orientation and taken with utmost quality. For the subtitles, I feel like if I could manage my time even better than I did, I could’ve managed to add subtitles, as it is a long process. If I stuck to my schedule from Criterion A, I could’ve completed the subtitle-making process, but as projects and assignments from school were inevitable - I couldn’t. Lastly, for the content - I feel really confident because I really took my time choosing the things I would talk about in the video. I feel like the content was really what I imagined it to be. It was able to tell a story to the audience, where all of my research, exercises, diets and even daily struggles were documented.

If I could go back - or if I could give some advice to people who would want to do a similar project is to be disciplined yet smart. Hard work is good, but smart work is even better. Be efficient with your working out and dieting. Don’t think that with hard work always comes results. You always have to consider the multiple factors and come up with a solution that can tackle all those factors - like sleeping habits, eating habits and schedules, in an organized and efficient way that doesn’t overly stress you out, but also doesn’t give your body any significant change.

Product Evaluation

After three long months, my project came to an end, which meant that there was only one question to ask: Did I do it? Did I complete my project successfully? Well, the answer for my project is yes and no. Although I did hit several of the goals that I set for myself, I still had some faults and hardships.

For the “Success of Transformation” success criteria, I believe that I did pretty well. Along my 3-month journey, the pictures I took at the start of every month showed my good progress. As the pictures progressed, the changes happening to my body became more and more noticeable. The fat that was concentrated on my stomach area had been lost and had developed into some muscle mass. When my first and latest picture are compared side by side is when you can really see the drastic changes my body went through.

I believe that I did a job well done and was able to create satisfactory results for myself. I personally believe that I did pretty well in the project, considering I only had 3 months to complete a body transformation. Though, I consider my project a successful yet a slightly lacking project. My initial learning goal was to gain over 2kg in muscle mass and lose 6% fat, and even though the monthly pictures I took seem to show drastic change, my body composition said otherwise. At the start of my personal project (26 September 2021), I had a body fat percentage of 23.6% and a muscle mass of 59.70kg.

Meanwhile, my body composition at the end of my project (6 January 2022) consisted of a body fat percentage of 18.5% and a muscle mass of 57.30kg. The most noticeable change from the comparison of the two body compositions is the major decrease of fat, which was about 5.1% - which missed the goal by 0.9%. Although, with all this loss of fat, the other part of my goal could not be achieved, which was to gain 2kg of muscle mass while losing that fat. I honestly am not sure about the reason that this was possible, but here is a chance that the reason for this muscle mass depletion was there being too much focus put on cardiovascular exercises, which capitalized more on fat loss more than muscle gain. Another adding factor as to why this depletion may be possible was because on top of there being a tad too much cardio, my eating portions - although healthy and balanced, didn’t increase from my usual portions, which could lead to my torn muscle tissues to not be rebuilt as more muscle mass due to their being insufficient proteins and supporting nutrients. What could be improved and be capitalized on in the future is to not focus on having a strict diet, but a smart one. I realized that I could’ve taken an easier route and chosen a variety of foods to fulfill the portions I needed but I chose the hard way and it just ended up being unproductive for me. By having a smart diet, I can enjoy working out even more, as eating habits are a part of the bodybuilding lifestyle. All in all, although I am pleased with the drastic changes in my body fat percentage and body appearance, I still give myself a 6 for my “Success of Transformation” success criteria due to the unexpected muscle mass depletion.

SUCCESS OF TRANSFORMATION SCORE - 6

Moving on to the next success criteria I had for my personal project: “Organization”. For organization, I defined my success in organization as having great audio and video quality, as well as great editing. This success criteria focused more on the video-creating part of my personal project, which is also an important part of the whole thing, as it helps me to express and deliver my experience well to the audience in a comfortable and enjoyable manner.

My transformation video topped off with a quick montage of my 3-month journey similar to that of the 16th “Naruto Shippuden” opening theme to lighten up the mood and make the audience excited. That was one of the things I was capitalizing on: Making sure that those who view my 11-minute-long video won’t get bored easily. And I thought that if I could edit the video in a fun and engaging way, I could captivate the audience. Not just the anime references, but also some of the creative transitions I made were all for the main purpose of entertainment in the midst of blasts of information. Another thing I made sure to include in the video to boost the audience’s enjoyment was the music. I put three songs in the video: Silhouette by KANA-BOON, Kamulah Satu Satunya by Dewa 19, and Tikus-Tikus Kantor by Iwan Fals. I felt like these three songs were unorthodox yet a good and fun foundation for the video to be built on. These thoughts clearly paid off, because based on a survey I conducted, it showed that people rated my “Organization” success criteria at an average level of 6.9 - or can be rounded off to 7, which means it’s safe to say that my intentions were fulfilled.

But like my “Success of Transformation” success criteria, this one also has its negatives. I think I lacked more in the video-taking than the video-editing, which basically means to say that my problems lay more on the recording process. The first and most obvious issue was the orientation for more than half of the clips. More than half of the clips were in portrait orientation, while the other half were in landscape orientation. Of course, having to compile these clips and pictures in different orientations and formats made it look very unpleasant and made it seem very unprofessional. The second issue was that not all the clips were recorded in top quality. Some of the clips got lost in translation and ended up going down so low to the point where the pixels were visible. Although they weren’t that many, it still ruined the momentum and rhythm the video was going through. The final issue that I had regarding achieving good “Organization” was the lack of subtitles, which this time was my fault, as it would still be possible to add in during the video-editing process. The lack of subtitles may seem fine, but if there were subtitles, the video’s competence would’ve been heightened even more, as it adds clarity and pleasure to the viewers. And the fact that I couldn’t add subtitles due to the time limit was really stressful. To overcome and prevent these issues from happening, I could’ve: Set policies and habits for myself when I am recording and documenting my transformation to ensure good quality videos routinely; and to manage my time well so that I could maximize the potential of the product. Although there were a few unpleasant touches to my video, like the quality of a few clips and the incongruent orientations, I still believe that I deserve a 5 for my efforts, especially because of the creative video-editing and engagement.

ORGANIZATION SCORE - 6

My final success criteria - “Content”, is pretty self-explanatory, as the rubrics focus more on the actual content of the video. What I meant by “the actual content” of the video is what is explained and what information is presented in the video. This success criteria exists to see if I actually had complete understanding of my learning objectives, and also to present it to the audience in a well-understood and engaging manner.

First and foremost, the video shows everything I’ve experienced in the body transformation process. From my diets, habits, all the way to my frequent struggles – everything is documented in the video. I even went and put just minor issues like how eating egg whites every morning managed to ruin my appetite and make me sick. I wanted to give my viewers the whole experience and what it would feel like when you’re going through a body transformation process. My research was also shown in the video, where I explained the knowledge I got from my personal trainer and even from my nutritionist, accompanied with visual aid specifying the nutrients and portions. I believe the only thing I lacked in achieving good “Content” was the fact that I was never really down to the very last details, but I thought that everyone has different bodies and different treatments, and my video was up just to give a feel of what changing your lifestyle feels like. Though, if I could be a little more specific with the grams and eating times in a short & concise way, maybe that could’ve made the viewing experience even better. With that in mind, I’d happily give myself a 7 for the “Content” success criteria.

CONTENT SCORE - 7

Peer Evaluation

As can be seen from my peer evaluation, I have a solid 6 in my “Success of Transformation” criteria and 7s for my “Organization” and “Content” criteria. I feel like the 6 for the “Success of Transformation” was deserved because it’s high enough to appreciate and recognize my efforts and results, but low enough to also acknowledge me not being able to reach 100% of my goal, although I'm still very much satisfied with the results. For the organization scores, I’m glad people appreciate my video-editing despite the incongruent orientations. Lastly, for the content scores: I feel like I deserve a high grade for it because of the engaging and fun way I delivered the information and details in my video – and my peers’ evaluation of it is even more proof that it is a good documentary.