Artis-Hampton 1

Celena Artis-Hampton
Deby Jizi
UWRIT 1102
8 April 2016
Inquiry Essay
Living a holistic lifestyle was something that was nonexistent to me until one day
a good friend introduced me to it. One day I was eating alone in the cafeteria and this guy comes
to sit with me. He introduces himself in a very respectful way and he explained to me what he
does, which is that he is a personal trainer and lifestyle coach. He was offering me free services
which I was very grateful of. He explained to me more about him being a lifestyle coach, which
was living holistically. Hearing how living this way changed him so much as a person, it made
me very interested because at the time I was trying to figure out what to change to feel better
about myself mentally and physically. On January 25th, I started the steps to living more
holistically. I ate only fruits and vegetables, I was working out every day, and I ended up losing
fifteen pounds in a month. I felt so much better about myself mentally and physically because I
realized I am capable of anything. Experiencing this feeling made me more interested in the topic
and made me want to know more specific things about this topic.
One specific question I wanted to ask about this topic is: how does living more
holistically affect people? All people are affected by living a holistic lifestyle in a positive way,
but to be more specific people over the age of eighteen who are living an unhealthy lifestyle and
want to better themselves are the people who are truly affected. After watching, Achieve a
Healthy lifestyle, I learned that it would make a huge difference in peoples lives because they
will feel better physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, occupationally, and intellectually

Artis-Hampton 2

(Achieve a healthy lifestyle). In the video they displayed what living an unhealthy lifestyle leads
to which is things like being tired all the time, feeling bad about yourself, obesity, and multiple
health problems. (Achieve a healthy lifestyle) They also included side effects of smoking and
drinking because that is a part of living an unhealthy lifestyle. Doing things like that definitely
will not make you feel better or like a clean person. This particular question is significant
because it can make such a huge difference to peoples lives if people would just learn more
about it. My friend who introduced this topic to me and I are perfect examples on how it will
make enormous difference in peoples lives.
One article I read by Elizabeth Renter has made some contribution to this topic
because she had an article about how to live more holistically in four ways. The four ways she
explained were to practice mindfulness, recognize and respect the powers of your body, eat clean
foods, and focus on positive relationships. (Renter, 1) This relates to my inquiry project by
including four things in a broad way to what I portray living a holistic lifestyle is. Especially
when she says eat clean foods because I personally noticed significant improvement in energy
and overall well-being after following Renters guidance for eating clean. (Renter, 1) I was never
bloated, I always had energy, and I just felt very light. Another source I felt that contributed a lot
was Tim Spector with his book, The Diet Myth. Some people believe that exercise is all you have
to do to feel better or lose weight, which is not the case. Reading a section in Spectors book he
explained how exercise is not all you need to do to lose weight, diet is key also. (Spector, 34)
Without having a diet, exercise is pointless. This relates to my inquiry project because it displays
that living holistically includes more than just exercising. Having a diet and exercising regularly
will contribute to all the aspects mentioned before. One last source that contributed to this topic
was Kelly D. Brownell in her book, Learn Program for Weight Control. When I am at home,

Artis-Hampton 3

grocery shopping was always the struggle for me until I read this book. Erik mentions three
simple ways to grocery shop effectively and for healthy foods. Going shopping on a full
stomach, making a list before you go and only buy foods that require preparation are the three
simple ways that can help grocery shop effectively and in a healthy way. (Brownell, 83-84)
When I did these three simple things it helped me stop shopping for things I really didnt need
like cakes and cookies. Shopping on a full stomach definitely helps with that because when I am
hungry I definitely crave the wrong things. Shopping for foods that require some preparation
lessens the intake of processed foods. This makes the diet very natural and clean and it makes a
big difference on how you feel. Some examples of healthy foods to shop for is apples, oranges,
grapefruit, spinach, lettuce, chicken breast, nuts, etc. One question Renters article raised for me
is, Will living holistically affect men and women differently or the same? This question came
to me because she wrote from a womens perspective on what a holistic lifestyle is. Maybe men
have a different perspective and a different outcome than women do. A question that rose for me
from Spectors book is Will there always be a myth to dieting? This question came to me
because his whole book was about myths about dieting, but some people might contradict his
findings. There is so much different research on what is good and bad for us, we will never know
what is truly good for us with all this research. One question Brownells book raised for me is,
Does it matter where you go grocery shopping at or are all stores good to shop at? This
question came to me because she only mentioned how to grocery shop, not where. Some grocery
stores dont have the same products as others. Also I have noticed some stores have better fruits
and vegetables than others. Hopefully someone has done research on that and will make all the
produce the same at all stores to make it more convenience for our health and us. Moving on to
the most persuasive article I had.

Artis-Hampton 4

The one article that was the most convincing and persuasive was, Holistic
Wellness as a Means to Developing a Lifestyle Approach to Health Behavior Among College
Students by D. Joseph Gieck and Sara Olsen. This article was the most convincing because he
physically has proof that living a holistic lifestyle will improve your health in six different ways.
They recruited 41 college students and put them through an eleven-week program to prove how
getting more educated on living holistically and actually doing it will improve your life
significantly (Gieck and Olsen, 29-34). after reading this article, I would add that they picked a
good group of people even though it was very particular on whom they picked. Narrowing the
group of people down to college students makes this article biased because it only refers to
college students not to everyone else. A limitation of this experiment is that half of the people
dropped out by the second intervention and those people consist of men. (Gieck and Olsen, 2934) Looking at the end results to this experiment, something I would want to say to the authors is
to add something more interesting for the men. Women are more interested in living more
holistically because we are more in tune to how we feel, nut men care more about how they look.
They should add more weight lifting information and include information on dieting when trying
to build muscle. One last thing I would like to say, is that I like how the people who did go
through the whole program, still stuck with living that way weeks after the program was over
(Gieck and Olsen, 29-34). This displays how living holistically is something permanent not
temporary.
Starting off researching this topic, I understood little about my topic which means
just basic things. Now after doing this project I understand the aspects of this topic so much
clearer and my discoveries will help me proceed to my goals in my life. My sources made me
realize what it really takes to live holistically and doing it with someone makes it ten times

Artis-Hampton 5

easier. The problem I had with living holistically was actually sticking with it because it was so
hard to do the diet I was on. I now realize that that diet is not for me because I was hungry all the
time and I needed to add more complex carbs to keep me full and energized. To my readers, I
hope they will realize how living holistically will make their lives better in so many ways.
Especially if their lives are very unhealthy right now. There is so much proof out there that
displays the positive effect of living holistically. Like I mentioned earlier, it is easier to do it with
a friend because from personal experience, I needed motivation and support to keep going.
Something I remain curious about is the reason on why this is not promoted in commercials or
on billboards. All these fast ways to lose weight are promoted but what people don't know is that
it is all crap. They just want to get people's money and people don't know it's easier to gain the
weight back doing it the easy way out. Living holistically is the best way and someone should go
and promote that on commercials instead of diet pills. Most of the questions I had were resolved
but if I were to continue more research on this topic, I would look at the chemistry side of it. I
would want to know why processed foods bad and what it does when it goes in our body. I would
want to look into chemically, why we feel bad when we eat foods that are not good for us. There
is so much more to learn about my inquiry, but what I've learned so far will help me with my life
goals now and I'm glad I did this for my project.

Artis-Hampton 6

Works Cited
Achieve a Healthy Lifestyle. Perf. Stephanie Capiron and Jerome Velinsky. Films on Demand.
Video Education America, 13 Aug. 2010. Web. 1 Apr. 2016.
Brownell, Kelly D. LEARN Program for Weight Control. Dallas: American Health,
1989,1990,1991. Print.
Gieck, DJ, and S Olsen. "Holistic Wellness as a Means to Developing a Lifestyle Approach to
Health Behavior Among College Students." Journal of American College Health : J of Ach. 56.1
(2007). Print.
Renter, Elizabeth. "4 Ways to Live More Holistically Today." Natural Society. 25 June 2014.
Web. 1 Apr. 2016.
Spector, Tim. The Diet Myth. New York: Overlook, 2015. Print.