Behavior Change Project

Andrew Lysy

October 23, 2013

Behavior Change Project

Professor Bullard

Week 1: My goal for my Behavior Change Project is to maintain my current weight during the fall baseball season. During the past few seasons I lost around an average of 15 pounds. As a pitcher I cannot work out daily, like I would during the off-season, during the regular or fall season because I am always throwing. Throwing and lifting weights makes my arm sore which results in poor performances. I am going to do everything in my power to maintain my current weight of 175 pounds by eating healthy and trying to work out once a week.

Week 2: Our fall season starts on September 20 and will go until around October 20. From the day I move back into school, September 1, until the end of fall ball, I will try to consume around 2,500 calories a day with little to no unhealthy foods so I maintain as much weight as possible. We usually have inter-squad scrimmages on Friday and Saturday so I can probably work out every Monday. I will only do leg and core work outs and everything will be between 8-12 reps to help maintain. My girlfriend will help me with eating healthy because she is trying to lose weight, so both of our goals will be reached by the same process.

Weeks 3 - 6: During the first week of our fall season we didn’t really “practice” per say, but instead scrimmage each other. As a pitcher, my role was to throw 1 inning then do 10 60-yard sprints. I was able to maintain my weight without any problems during the first week because of the light workload and because I added a few more healthy calories to my dinner, such as a 4 oz. piece of chicken and half a cup of mashed potatoes (Baseball was from 3 pm until dinner time).

The second, third and fourth week was harder on my body because it was the start of actual practices. During a regular practice, everyone is always on the move. The 10 60-yard sprints became 20 60-yard sprints or even 20 minutes of jogging 3 or 4 times a week. I noticed that during the first week, on practice days I would consume a significant amount of less calories, especially on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s because I went straight from baseball to night class. I immediately had to make a change. What I did was I prepared my meals for those days on Sunday and kept them in my refrigerator so when I got done with baseball I could just grab the food, warm it up, then head to class so I was not late. With my change in habit during week 2, weeks 3 and 4 of fall ball became less of a worry if I was going to lose weight or if I was consuming the right amount of calories for the day.

I feel great about my behavior change and am excited I chose this as my behavior because it will help me understand what I need to do to maintain my weight over the next 3 or more years on the baseball field during the fall and spring seasons. The strategy is used was just playing everything by ear. I didn’t really know how to maintain my weight before I went into this project so I had to make changes on the go; if I needed more protein I added more protein. If I needed to eat more carbs before practice, I ate more potatoes, and so on. My goal of maintaining my weight of 175 pounds from September 1 to October 20 were met, and I maintained 90%, if not more, of my lower body strength because of my eating habits, which I am extremely happy about. The most difficult thing about trying to make this work was not knowing what I was going to have to do but instead to just go with what needs to be done in that moment. The easiest thing about this behavior change was once I found out what I needed to do it was smooth sailing from there. The most satisfying this about this change was because of how I ate I maintained most of my strength. This makes it easier to train in the off-season right from where I left off instead of having to start over.

I, Andrew Lysy, agree to I will begin on 9/1/2013 and plan to reach my goal of maintaing my weight of 175 pounds by eating balanced, healthy meals, all added up to 2,500 calories per day by 10/21/2013; 7 weeks later.

To reach my fitness goal, I have devised the following schedule of mini-goals. I do not intend to reward myself.

1. Eat only healthy and balanced meals

2. 2,500 calorie minimum, possibly more on days that I work harder in practice

3. Do not consume alcohol during this time period

I have gathered and analyzed data on my target behavior and have identified the following strategies for changing my behavior.

I will need to be extremely dedicated to this change in behavior and that I need to think of the benefits that will be associated with the outcome of my behavior change

I will use the following tools to monitor my progress toward my final goal:

Calorie Counter app on my Droid HTC DNA

I sign this contract as an indication of my personal commitment to reach my goal:

Andrew Lysy9/21/2013