Nutrition certification

So last weekend I did a 3 day course on nutrition and wellness. It was a course delivered by CAN-FIT-PRO and held at Ryerson University.

I had been planning to take this course since last year. I originally was looking for a general course to learn more about nutrition. I wasn't looking to be an 'expert' in nutrition or to get certified. But as it turned out, the CAN-FIT-PRO course was one that was available and reasonably priced.

I couldn't find the time last year to take the course given working and doing theatre. So this year, faced without a full time job or as much theatre involvement, I thought this was a good time to take some education. You'll see from past postings that I took a coaching course at George Brown as well.

So I looked back into this nutrition course earlier this year. I tried to get into the March session, but it was full and ended up in the July session.

I'm still not sure I want to get my certification. I mean I don't envision a career change into being a nutritionist or anything, but I do like to know that I have the self-confidence (and maybe a certificate) to talk amongst friends with a little authority.

The course was well attended. It had the requisite number of gym fitness trainers and few general interest participants.

The course tends to be more aimed at helping the gym folks pass the exam. It's not really about learning nutrition and wellness so much. We do go over the basics and from discussions I do pick up a few things.

But generally, I seemed to have most of this all covered. No big revelations on the nutrition side. Read Nutrition Action and Men's Health and you too will know most everything about nutrition.

I'm glad to know that I have a good grasp on this and that when I talk to others about this stuff, I'm not just making it up.

I just wish that with this knowledge came the ability to eat better and trim my waistline. I've eaten well for years, but still I haven't found a way to lower the amount of fat in body. And yes, I do go the gym and exercise. I think keeping cheat meals down to a minimum and having smaller portions may be the way to go.

But back to the course. Over the 3 days, I kept trying to determine if I should go for the certification. To get it, I would need to write an exam and update my CPR. Both cost a little more money. Now the course I'm in has prepared me to write the exam; I only need to book the exam and write it. There is a test and practical case exam too.

So I'm now trying to figure out if I really want and/or need to get the certification. It would serve to complete this little endeavour. I could tell friends to shut it when they start believing the fad diet stories. And I would feel a certain level of accomplishment. Ah, the accomplishment.

So I will likely go ahead and book the exam. Just another thing to put on my resume.

Balance

Do you have balance in your life? And by life I mean work and other endeavours during the day. Although it may seem that work takes up most of your productive time.

How many times have you gotten up at the crack of dawn, worked all day, actually late, then come home and just do not have the energy for anything. Not too productive on the personal side, is it?

We work to live, not live to work, or work for the weekends. Our jobs often define us, but is it the real you? Put your all into your job, don't get me wrong, I'm not going to promote working less or not as hard. Do your job to the best of your abilities.

But, find time to pursue happiness. In whatever form that takes.

For those us that are unemployed/searching for work or under-employed, it seems that I still have a full day of 'work' and feel tired at the end of the day. Why is that? Poor health or diet maybe?

Maybe. I haven't been hitting the gym as much lately as I usually do. Now does working out at the gym make me happy? Well, not 'happy' but happier that I'm on a path to bettering my health. I'm often asked if I love working out. No. But that achy feeling or tightness that reminds me that I have been working out, is nice.

First time I was laid off, I got in pretty good shape. I had a great routine for the work week: I hit the gym in the morning, planned a lunch date to continue networking, spent the afternoon job searching and reconnecting, and at night I pursued my real hobby, working in community theatre.

I find mindless working out good, but not really productive. I would go to the gym and do 30-45 minutes of either cardio or weights, but I never seemed to progress. And I certainly wasn't looking any better.

So, I had to get serious about working out. Start tracking my workouts and my eating. I currently have a Blackberry and use it as my MP3 player while working out (I can also check on work emails at the same time). So I needed something to build and track my workouts with. I finally landed on a great (Canadian built) site called GymTechnik. You can use it on your computer or on your mobile device. They have made some great updates and I find it very good.

So by putting some effort into planning workouts, I could start to see the changes and feel them. But one cannot stay in the gym all day. Got to put some time into the job search.

I would often found that if I tried to meet more than one person a day, such as have a lunch and a coffee in one day, I was overloaded! It's amazing how busy you can be when job searching. How do we ever manage full-time jobs, family, friends and fun?

Balance. It takes conscious effort to maintain it. And it's just not balancing the time, but the feel of what your body and mind need. Listen to your body - it knows what it needs. You'll feel better, really.

Day 6

Morning
The end is near. This is the final day of class as the exam is all we have tomorrow. There is a different air to the room today. It could be that 2 of the ‘screamers’ aren’t here yet. But the group has now learned to compensate for the lack of others participating. But it’s still a little lower volume.

All that we’ve learned comes to this: how to help or hinder a group. I guess it was good that we had some issues during the week on how to form the group. As we disclosed more, the level of interaction increased. Certainly I felt more comfortable in participating when I thought it was out of contributing and not covering for others not talking.

The group experiences have been good this week for me. I’ve felt like I’ve balanced more between participating and observing. I’m not really as talkative as some would think from. I’m actually an introvert when it comes to behavioural assessments like Myers Briggs.

We discuss how bad group behaviours can be transformed into helpful behaviours. I know that as I look at the Shostrum’s wheel that I identify with the inner (bad) behaviours first; either in myself or others I observe in groups. But I think I’m just labeling the bahaviour incorrectly.

In a group, I sometimes think I’m being too bossy or trying to take over the direction of the group; when really, I only do this when the group seems unfocused on the goals. I consciously now take a backseat to see if a group can self-direct, and then step in when I feel I want to. I think that now I know how to try and balance the participation with observation, I can better serve at group or team.

I’m not bossy, just leading.

Afternoon
The end is here! We begin the process of closure. There are certainly a few emotions flowing. I’m glad we’ve reached the end of journey. I learned a few things along the way. And it will be somewhat sad that I won’t be spending more time with this group of people.

I now see that when a group or team is disbanding or finishing a project that everyone may be feeling something different. Some may be glad it’s over, others sad, and even others may avoid it entirely.

I will also ensure that I give ample opportunities for unfinished business. I liked the idea that a reminder half way through lets members of the group know where they are in the task process. This is a good practice whether the group is meeting for weeks or hours.

I have experienced that many times after a group has disbanded, someone mentions that they had leftover business. Or they just offer an opinion about how they wish it had gone. If the group is well balanced in its behaviours, then the members have many chances to offer opinions, suggestions or influence to help shape or refocus the group.

So hopefully, as long as the team members are participating fully, then when the team comes to closure, they can do it cleanly. This is what we as a group in the class go through. I have mixed emotions, but mainly feel that the week had helped me grow as a person and a coach.

I came in to the class almost a week ago and I was not sure what I would learn or how I might integrate it into what I do. I now see that I can use this in many aspects of my life; it’s not just for improving my coaching in my consulting work, but in personal relationships, in my theatre teams, and at home.

It’s been a good week.

Day 5

Morning
What really makes you happy? The warm up was to pick a page in a book of 14,000 things that make you happy. From 2 pages of options, it wasn’t easy for me and some others to find something that makes them happy. Are we that unhappy a people?

We jump into test anxiety. Flashbacks to school ensue. Feeling of dread washes over me as I recall exams and tests. School was never somewhere I was comfortable. Luckily I seemed to always do well.

Thinking about writing this exam recalls other techniques used prior in my life. Study till you have it memorized seems to be the one that worked well. But the retention was low or nil. I do the same today to learn lines for a play. Memorize and once you’ve used it, purge it from your memory – there’s something better to fill that space.

The presentations yesterday stick in my brain for certain things. The breakdown of information into smaller digestible bits is helpful. The acronyms and remembering the number of items helps to make sure I can regurgitate the information.

But to make this class really worthwhile, I need to practice what I’ve learned. Then maybe it’ll settle in my brain. It’s like muscle-memory when working out. Once you’ve trained yourself to do it a number of times, it becomes more automatic. It will spontaneously, or better yet, organically come out.

We also go over that you need to take care of yourself both physically and emotionally. The brain doesn’t work so well in a tired body. As I think about studying, I start to crunch up in a ball. I can feel the muscles in my neck tighten.

So I try not to stress about it. It’s just a test; my life isn’t on the line. I’ll do my best to prepare and that’s all I can do.

Afternoon
Do we make our own choices or are they influenced by others? We discuss how the choices we make are made by our values and by others around us. It’s interesting that although I may feel that I’m making my own choices, it seems as though many other things and even people have helped to shape where my choices have taken me.

Some believe they are in total control of where their life goes, but I have discovered this week that with changing values comes changing our decisions. In the exercise, I started out carefully, I’d say cautiously, making my choices. I observed others to see what they did and made my choices based on inputs from what I see happening around me.

I find this very true in my life too. I think of the expectations others had of me, the goals I had initially set upon and how I shaped my decisions. My environment and my goals were in flux early on and I adapted my choices to move me in a different direction.

I am where I am based on the decisions I made given the inputs given to me from all around.

We take on teamwork as the next area to discuss. It’s something we’ve been doing all week long, but now we take a look at what each of us thinks of it and what makes it work.

I seemed to remember that when not working alone, you should avoid the ‘I statements’ to avoid too self-centered. But from what we’ve been working on this week this is not so. We still need to express our point of view and give our personal opinions and not try to generalize or expect everyone is good with what we think.

At this point in the week, I had hoped I would be using the language more, but I find I still slip into my old ways. I think it takes more time and practice to get this to be second nature.

Day 4

Morning
So we voted someone off the island today. Part of the group experience is to participate and engage in the class discussions. When a group member comes late all the time it disrupts the group. Even the empty chair is disturbing. I keep thinking “they’re late again”, even when we’ve been talking about this non-stop.

Now we need to learn how to adapt to a lost member. We mourn. We feel sad. We wonder how we’ll do our group presentation! We lost a member and another one is off sick today, so there are actually 2 people missing. Lots of adapting going on. We have to learn how to do this as coaches, so it’s a good experience.

I feel bad for the person not coming back, but glad that the group dynamic may pick up now. It’s hard to feel bad when someone in a group isn’t coming in on time; there’s a lack of respect for the team. Now there may be some very personal reasons that she couldn’t make back on time, but that’s not the point. A major component of the course is participating and that means coming on time. This may have just not been a good time for her to take the course.

We spend the rest of the morning working on leisure. No we don’t laze around for the morning. We discuss the importance of leisure time. We need to identify and address our feelings around leisure time and how we value it.

Again there is the intertwining of other areas we’ve already discussed. Values, disclosure, etc. we use an exercise to identify what we currently do for leisure, what we’d like to do, and how satisfied with our current level.

I’m happy with the amount of leisure time I take. I’ve got much better balance with work and leisure.

Even my theatre time has dropped back to a level where it doesn’t feel like work. There is so much I could do at the theatre that it becomes too much and I don’t enjoy it. So I’m very conscious of how I spend my time there. I feel happier with this choice. Even if others at the theatre feel that I have pulled back a bit. I still give the best I can.

Afternoon
We work on our group presentations for a while after lunch to prepare for the 3 presentations. My team goes last. I’m not sure what to expect. I tried not to lead my team to choose what I wanted for the teach-back. In other courses, I’ve usually ended up writing a skit of some kind. I let the team brainstorm and I piped in too.

We decided to do a game show – the Family Feud. Guess who got elected to be Richard Dawson. With the loss of one of our team members we quickly come up with a new plan. We’ll ask for volunteers from the group to participate as a second team.

The first 2 presentations are great. Each team employs game play in it. Stealing our idea? They use skits, quizzes, cards, and audience participation.

I am genuine impressed by the other teams. I really never expected such creativity. It’s great. I’m having some great fun now. The group is really gelling together. One team plies us with candy. Sorry, rewards us with candy; I’ll be buzzing through our presentation!

After each presentation the group gives feedback to the presenting team. It’s tough for the presenters as they are just to sit and listen to the good feedback. We are to only give feedback on what the team did well in their presentation. Afterwards, the presenting team says how they feel about the feedback. It’s been all positive and they can’t argue the facts – they did really well.

The feedback we received for our team was great. I was thrilled that they got parts that I wasn’t sure would come through in our presentation. I mean I can keep the group entertained, but getting the information across is something different.

I don’t normally enjoyed presentation teach-backs, but with only 3 teams, and they were all good, it was easy to enjoy.

We did a practice test afterwards. I purposely didn’t study last night to see how I’d do on the practice test. The presentations helped a lot in that I could remember segments of the information based on the presentations. It helped reinforce that some parts of the presentations worked really well as a teach tool.

It also highlighted that I need to study for the real test.

Day 3 of the Course

Morning
So today traffic caused me to be a little later than I like. In fact I made it just at 9 to the class. Power walking most of the way. But most people seemed to get in on time today, after we discussed group respect for coming on time and not disrupting the class. I figured if I was late, I earned a little understanding, as I have been early other days. But I still hate being late!

So after group confirmation that we appreciated everyone’s efforts to come on time we do the warm up. Yes I am doing warm ups. In theatre, I’m infamous for hating games to warm up. I like warm-ups, games or ice breakers when there is a purpose. But generally, I hate them.

The topic this morning is Trust. What is it and how we feel about it. We do a group exercise to draw pictures about what trust looks like to us. We all have some common ideas of what trust is to us and how we expect it to be in the world.

Those who have been burned are more hesitant with trusting, and it takes time to earn or grow trust. I like to give a certain level of trust to everyone and then increase or decrease their account based on their interactions with me.

Disclosure is a big part of trusting. As I disclose it builds a little trust with someone else. They disclose it builds a little more with me. Give and take all the time. The whole balanced self determination kicks in again. BSD is where I want to live, but it’ll take time. I’m still catching myself not using I statements.

As I reflect back, I’d like to think that I was acting in BSD, but I was likely more Other Determined, OD. I let others decide the course. But, I do usually throw in a comment or two to direct it into something I would like. Guess that’s my SD, self determination, coming out.

The group is more energized this morning – likely due to the discussion at end of day yesterday to get participation up. The quieter people are engaging. I can sit back and enjoy observing a little more. I feel good.

Afternoon:
Topic of the afternoon is Values. Looking at personal values is very interesting to me; it’s like feelings. I know I have them; just not sure I can articulate them or describe them as well as I’d like.

Luckily there is a sheet of value words! We do an exercise to pick our top 10 from a list. As I read them over, they are all values I, well, value. Each one feels like it’s something I’d support or expect from myself or others.

Picking ten isn’t too bad. We discuss the process with a partner on how it feels to go through the exercise. I pick a mix of values that are self oriented and others that I think are socially good choices.

After we discuss further, we choose our top 5. Then our top 2! Tough to do. I balance my choices with one that is more personal and the other outwardly acceptable. The choices we make are learned, inbred during up bring, influenced by society, community or whatever other experiences impact our lives.

And the group shows me, or reminds me, that we all come from different experiences and shape our values in different ways. It’s all very personal. Are values shape our choices and our behaviours.

We look at how we prioritize our values. Again it’s all so personal. We talk about how we’ve shaped our values. I am amazed by the amount of sharing and disclosure. I love the amount of diversity that is in the room.

Day 2 of the Course

Morning:
The gloves are off; attendance and tardiness are noted. I can’t help myself but be early. Is that a bad thing? I think not. Note that I am speaking in the “I statement” mode. Of course, regardless of repeated warnings about the black line when showing up late, several people still came late.

We plunge head long into theory of life skills. The review of what the definition is is good; most of us remember too, it seems. The five areas that you apply life skills coaching are referred to as DACUM (designing a curriculum): self, family, community, leisure and work.

The ideas we’re generating about how to apply these new skills could be applied to one of the areas, but really they intertwine and blur across. This is good. It makes application easier as a coach and allows some different approaches to other areas.

For instance, if I’m looking to do a session on something work related, I can take a lesson plan to works on community as it will relate into work. Or even something about leisure. Who doesn’t like talking about leisure?

The discussion (or perhaps reminder) that these skills are best applied to adult education is good. There are some adults that won’t or can’t engage in group sessions and determining as a group is a good idea. No sense being the bad cop all the time as the instructor; let the group help decide where the group is going.

We have 13 areas of theory to cover. They are nicely broken into smaller digestible pieces, and we get breaks fairly frequently. I hate the feeling of head bobs as I get tired. It’s not the subject or speaker, just a room with oxygen being sucked out and sun pouring in. It has been a while since I’ve had to sit and learn for 8 hours a day.

Finding the sweet spot of the skills is working towards balanced self determination. Not too much about ME and not all about OTHERS. Somewhere in the middle where we can all win. Is there truly a win-win situation?

Afternoon:
We continue with a bit more theory. We talk about the philosophy of life skills. This covers all of what we’d covered so far and makes it all look cohesive.

Trust the process. So they keep saying. Part of what’s happening in the class is that we discover more about ourselves. The behaviours we discuss and practice help us so that we can model them when coaching.

Trouble is that when you aren’t quite at the right level to model all behaviours, it requires a little more thought to make sure you’re doing it properly. It’s like trying to make sure you use “I statements”. Practice makes perfect, I guess.

Same with trying to give effective feedback. I know I should discuss how something feels to me and its impact on me when trying to talk to someone else. We try to discuss topics by exploring how something ‘feels’ to us. Problem is that I don’t think I’m good at doing that (or others it seems).

When trying to express feeling, we tend to start statements with “I feel” but that is just a different way to say “I think” or “I believe”; not a true statement of feeling. So we now have a list of feeling words to use in the class. This should help when trying to describe a true feeling.

We also have been assigned a group project today. It’s a teach back session that we need to do on Wednesday. The team has some forming and storming to go through until we norm into a team. We get some good ideas together on how we’re going to do our segments and make it fun at the same time.