Nutrition Tracker

             Looking over what I have eaten over the past three days, I realized that while eating more "healthy" foods I'm not consuming the basic calorie intake.While consuming the basic- protein, fruit and vegetables, and whole grains- I don't consume close to the "normal" amount of calories for how much I workout within a week. Considering that I have recently cut out most processed sugars- chocolate, candy, and soda- and started eating more healthy foods, now I just need to find a way to explore other healthy foods in order to maintain a healthy diet. On a day to day basis, it seems as though I consume more of one macromolecule than the other. The first day, I consumed much more protein and fruit rather than vegetables and whole grains; the second day,  I ate mainly protein and grains over vegetables and fruit; and the third day, the only main category that was significantly larger was fruit. Going forward, I will need to find a daily balance in order for my body to receive the necessary nutrients and minerals. In ways to improve my daily balance, I will need to watch and make sure that I'm not over consuming in one category over another; for example: day one, eating more whole grains such as brown rice, quinoa, or oatmeal, as for day two, simply consuming more fruits and vegetables- apples, grapes, or broccoli- would fix the balance, and finally day three consuming more of the others- protein, vegetables, and whole grain- will balance my intake of nutrients and minerals.
            If I had the opportunity to help someone with their proper health and nutrition, rather than telling them what to eat and what they "can't" eat, the most important thing for them to know is balance and moderation. Balancing and moderation are much more effective because not every single individual can swear automatically off of foods that they have consumed for years. Rather than consuming a large amount of unhealthy foods, consuming less unhealthy and more healthy will greatly improve their diets.

Health Collage

           In regards to the five pillars of health: nutrition, exercise, sleep, social, and stress, my strongest pillars would be exercise and social. These two are particularly my strengths because I love to exercise and have for as long as I could remember, partially because I have been doing a physically demanding sport-gymnastics- that demands a strong body in order to succeed. As for my weaker pillars-sleep, stress, and nutrition- it is more difficult to constantly make good eating choices, especially around friends, and as for both stress and sleep, those both go hand in hand. They both are dramatically affected by my academic life, and often times my sleep will be only four to five hours each night, and my stress can be overwhelming at times due to the tremendous amount of things needing to be done. In health in general, I am looking forward to finding ways to improve all of my pillars and live a healthy lifestyle. 

Unit One Reflection

Unit One Reflection

          This unit was about the relationship between the anatomy and physiology and the different levels of organization, such as molecules, organs, and tissues. The overall themes of this unit were understanding the different types of tissue and their functions within the human body. The essential understanding for this unit was truly going in depth with the shapes, functions, and location of the following tissues: epithelial, connective, muscle, and nervous. 

             During the duration of this unit, we learned about the different tissue types and their varying functions. Epithelial tissue, covers the entire body and protects the organs. Also, there are different variations of the epithelial, like simple, one layer of cell; stratified, which is more than one layer of cells; and pseudostratesfied, which is a mix of the two. The cells themselves come in different shapes as well: squamous, cuboidal, and columnar. Connective tissue binds together, supports, as well as strengthens other tissues in the body. They are made up of two main parts, extracellular matrix and cells. The cells of the connective tissue include: fibroblast, non-rigid fibers such as collagen and elastin; macrophages, cells that eat bacteria; adipocytes, fat storing cells; and mast cells, which release histamine in inflammatory response. Muscle tissue, has three different types: skeletal, which functions voluntary movement; cardiac, which propels blood into the circulatory system; and smooth muscle, which is responsible for perastalsis which aids digestion. Finally, we learned about nervous tissue which transmits electrical signals from sensory receptors to effectors. There are two different types of nervous cells: nuerons, which are excitatory cells, and supporting cells or nueroglial cells. 

              Sadly there were things that I struggled with during this unit. I was not very good at identifying the different types of tissues, like the simple, stratified, and pseudostratesfied as well as the cuboidal and squamous. Some of the images were hard to identify the clear difference and it made it harder to make a clear difference between the two. In the next unit, I will want to start quizzing myself in order to be able to make sense of the clear differences between two similar cells and study much more in order to fully understand the content being taught. In the real world, much of this unit relates to classes that I have taken before as well as surprisingly, sports. Learning about the tissue response to injury allows me to clearly sees what happens when swelling occurs and how common beliefs of icing may be affecting healing. 

    (Bone ground- connective tissue)                              (blood smear, human- connective tissue)

                                                                                                                    

                       




                 (epithelium, human-epithelial tissue)                              

Tissue Lab

             

 Tissue Lab

          In this lab, we explored the four different types of tissues: muscle, nervous, epithelial, and connective. When looking at the different types of each of these tissues, we found that nervous tissue, pictured below, was a peripheral nerve and they transfer electrical signals from receptors. Each one of the tissue types are all different based on their locations and structures. For connective tissue it was either densely packed and parallel, like dense regular connective tissue, or were dense networks of fibers like dense irregular connective tissue. Epithelial tissue was layered and formed columnar and squamous shaped cells, as for the muscle tissue, the cardiac muscle tissue is found in the wall of the heart, uni-nucleate, and contracts to propel blood into the circulatory system. The smooth muscle, human, that was observed was consistent with what we had learned during class being that it was spindle-shaped and arranged closely to form sheets. As for the nervous tissue, pictured below, it was a peripheral nerve that has a cross section of nerve fibers. The nervous tissue is used to control and transmit electrical signals.  

(elastic cartilage human ear- connective tissue)                                (Nerve human- nervous tissue)