FeralGoth’s BodyBlog

Whew… finally got around to taking the test and passed it on the first try! :)  Now comes the hard part - getting set up for clients - but I’ve got no fears (and a flexible day-job to keep me from rushing it)

Looks like I need to update this thing - new pix would be good too!   I also ran a 5k this past weekend to celebrate taking the test, I don’t train for cardio too much, so I was surprised at finishing 4th in my age group.  Here’s a link to a picture of me crossing the finish line:

http://www.beautifulyou.smugmug.com/gallery/6511740_ZLAFi#414812148_kXAGx

And starting out a little slow:

http://beautifulyou.smugmug.com/gallery/6511876_SrcPK#414942077_GyEzV

As soon as the British houseguests continue on their journey, I will be picking test date for the ACE certification and paying the fee.   I’m considering taking the online version of the test review as well - just to make sure I didn’t miss anything in that big freaking book.

Ordered the "Protein cookies" book from bb.com and tried the oatmeal chocolate chip ones - they are even "boyfriend approved" (he’s very picky about food and has eaten 3-4 of them voluntarily).  I modified the recipe to use Smart Balance instead of butter, and less of it by adding more applesauce.  Also, the only thing we had resembling chocolate chips in the house were 3 squares of baking chocolate, so I chopped those up into vaguely chocolate chip size chunks and tossed them in - it made for a nice bitter chocolate taste, which is something I like better than overly sweet chocolate.  I caught him spreading low fat cream cheese on one of the cookies this morning though….

So, there’s this small fiasco going on on the personal training forum, I posted a question asking how other trainers motivate their clients and nestled in with a bunch of good advice is someone telling me to "clean myself up" as if I am dirty or something?  (Dude, I gave up on that hippie deoderant YEARS ago… that stuff doesn’t work).  Some people continued to give some good client motivating ideas, while others chose to fixate on telling me things about how I look.   I know what I look like, and I know how people react to it… I’m 31 and this isn’t a freaking news flash.  The truth is, I’m not interested in the typical mainstream client, I may end up having a few, but the clients I’m most interested in helping are the ones who would never consider working with a barbie/ken looking trainer.  You know all those "fat girl" clients you don’t want?  Well, I don’t have a problem with them, and heck, I even want to help them improve their lifestyle.  They might not want to hire you because you’ll probably give them crap about what they wear to the gym… and since I won’t be constantly picking on them… they might do something crazy - like following my advice.
Which got me thinking… I was trying to remember why I hated P.E. back in school so much… it was because of the lame coaches always giving me a hard time about stuff NOT RELATED to my physical performance.  I would show up with a good attitude, never talking out of turn, never giving anyone even a slight bit of trouble.  For instance we had this one doofus who was supposed to be teaching us tennis, I had been taking private lessons on the weekends from a Dutch tennis pro and had developed a fairly wicked serve (he was not told about this), did he focus on teaching me other aspects of tennis?  NO, he gave me unending crap about the fact that I wore black socks to P.E.  This plus the blistering sun helped me to develop a rotten attitude about tennis.  Truth be known, I haven’t played since, which is a real shame, because I’m pretty ok at it and it may be a fun way to meet some new friends.   Socks aside, it seems like throughout my past, as long as there was some dang ex-football coach male teaching P.E. that same male was giving me a hard time about some aspect of my style (thanks for picking on my Chuck Taylors you jerk) which once again, had no bearing on safety or athletic performance.  I wasn’t even on a team for crying out loud, I was just fulfilling a graduation requirement.   At the same time, I sure *didn’t* have a rotten attitude about going to the YMCA and working out, or even participating in a step aerobics class (1993), no one gave me any bs at the YMCA…. and I got a better workout.
So…. what potential clients out there have had similar experiences?  As long as that client is wearing workout clothing that is safe, does not restrict their movement, and covers the legal areas then we’re good… I sure as hell will NEVER pick on anyone because of how they look when they’re my client, and if someone else does, I will support and defend my client so that they know I am on their side and want them to keep working out.  Would you continue going somewhere when you know that every time you went, someone would pick on you about something?   No wonder I keep meeting people who are afraid to ask others for help with fitness…

I was going through my bookshelf the other day and stashed inside the front cover of "Flex Appeal" by Rachel McLish were a collection of printout from May 5th 2003.  The first one was a body composition analysis done by a trusted trainer, and old school bodybuilder Raymond in DeLand who is still currently the only person on this planet who can call me "Little Lady" without offending me (it helps that he’s nearly grandpa age).  Anyway - that page has my body fat AND the mm measurements used to obtain the percentage.  I had been getting paranoid lately that maybe my calculations and measurements were way off since I’m approaching a (at least for me) low 16% while still eating the occasional cheeseburger.   Needless to say this should be accurate since I am willing to be seen at the pool in public on a weekend in a bathingsuit (the real test).   SO… here’s the comparison from then to now:

Then - 26 years old, 118.7lbs (clothed to workout) 19.7% body fat (and still not happy with the booty/cellulite issues)

Now - 31 years old, 123lbs (nekkid!) 16.5% body fat (significantly happier with rear end, thighs, upper body development, etc. etc. things are good)

Other fun things to realize is that at age 26 I had been a strict vegetarian for 3 years eating minimal cheese and having beans/tofu/grains as my main protein source.  Now I eat all sorts of things (steak burritos, eggs, turkey sausage, dark greens, broccoli like mad, brown rice, whey, yogurt, muesli etc.) - but not junk food unless its an "occasion" and that doesn’t happen too often. Yes, I will have the double cheeseburger and split the fries with you at 5 guys… but chances are its because I lifted heavy the day before… :)

The 2nd page is really interesting, it is a typed up mini report I did about my fitness goals at the time, and what I had been doing at the gym before going to see Raymond, and particulars of my diet.  I seriously need to find the old text file of this, because it is a complete 180 from what I do now.   I was doing loads of cardio, light weighted upper body exercises (12lb and 15lb dumbbells?!??! ! WHAT?????), yoga, belly dancing, aerobic kickboxing, tai chi (which I still do with some chi kung) not to mention loads and loads of crunches.

I can’t believe how far I’ve come when I look back at all of this.   Besides being so much happier with how I look now, I am so *significantly stronger* that its a little bit staggering.  This gives me great hope for my future personal training clients - I remember feeling so helpless back then about changing how I looked - like I would never get this sagging behind back where it needed to be.   Not everyone will respond to how I train now, but just knowing that there ARE ways to train that WILL make the changes you want to see is amazingly motivating.   I can’t wait to start helping folks on their way to fitness.   Ok, back to studying!!!

I was just poking around the internet and happened upon Gwineth Paltrow talking about her (and Madonna’s) personal trainer, Tracy Anderson and how she likes training for that "long lean look", adding that "that hard gym body look doesn’t look good on women" .  Why do so many women want noodle-like arms+legs?  To me that makes their waist, trunk, hips, etc. look so much bigger?  Has my perception been warped?  Is it because I think women with even a slightly developed muscular body should be the new ideal?  Or that I’m PROUD of my genetic propensity to put on a little bulk here and there?  Does Gwineth Paltrow think I should be ashamed of my new TOTALLY ROCKING SHOULDERS I’ve worked so hard on?  Or my superior ability to burn calories?  I think she can stuff it!  There needs to be some new "female ideals" out there, damn it.  I mean, I know who I look up to - and they lift heavy.
A note to noodle-appendage celebrities: shut up and look pretty.

On the flip side of this, I know, as someone who is studying to be a personal trainer that I am going to run into this many many times, and that I will be working with female clients who "don’t want to bulk up" etc.  And oddly enough, I’m ok with that.  One of my best friends is in that school of thought and we’ve put together a nice endurance workout that she can do at home with light weights.  I know I’m going to have several to many clients who "don’t want to look like me" and thats cool, I’m used to that, I mean damn I have facial piercings, over half my head shaved, and dreadlocks.  But I will tell you this - I think minds may be changing, when I show up at the club/around town in a totally hot dress, people are starting to think - hey, maybe muscles on a woman ARE attractive after all!

Fully back on track after vacation, I’ve even been to the condo pool a few times more - its funny, my friends have really noticed my upgraded look - and have asking stuff like HOW did you get those abs?!?!  Seems like I won’t have too much trouble getting some clients right here in the condo complex - how convenient for everyone would that be!!!

With a recent shipment of Nitrotech bars (which I am currently addicted to just a little bit - not sure why the "strawberry cheesecake" tastes as good -in a weird way- as it does) bodybuilding.com sent along a free magazine which had an article about putting random short fitness info podcasts onto your mp3 player when you work out - and then shuffling them between songs at random - the article implied that you are more apt to learn when info is interspersed between favorite songs.   I’m going to download a few podcasts, but most importantly I’m going to make a few of my own from my ACE personal training material to help me study - I’ll let you know if it improves my retention of info.  Sure can’t hurt! :)

Saw my "crazy MMA friend" at the club last night, and he’s doing quite well for himself, maybe has a fight scheduled for next month - might have to go and cheer him on.  We talk training at the club while everyone else is drunk, its pretty funny.  He’s doing this strange thing now sleeping in some kind of oxygen tent that approximates a higher altitude to try and increase his VO2max - sounds weird to me, but to each their own!

I can’t wait - its time to start practicing administering various fitness tests and such on friends and family.  At first I was a bit unsure about asking my boyfriend if I could practice checking blood pressure on him, but turns out his Dr. has been pestering him to monitor his bp regularly and he hasn’t (laziness), so its a win for both of us and he doesn’t mind.  He’s finally taking a good look at his eating habits and exercise, so I hope that over time he’ll be able to see an improvement in his general health and bp.  As for everyone else, I’m coordinating a little "track day" to administer a few submaximal walking/jogging tests.  Should be fun - I’m going to make sure that it will be for everyone… there will be participation prizes, and no, there will not be pizza!  Having grown up in a house where my Dad was always practicing new psychological assessment tests on me (He was a child/teen/family doctoral level psychologist at the time), its good that I finally get to practice testing other people, finally.  I should give HIM some of these tests just to even the score - he’s in good shape so he’d probably like having some numbers to be proud of.

I’ve been studying hard for the ACE personal trainer certification and after a very brief search online, discovered that there are a whole heck of a lot of well paying jobs for a certified personal trainer.  I don’t have the certification yet, but I poke around every now and then to keep the motivation going.  Here’s the catch… I look weird.. as you can see from my photo I am a 30 year old (but very healthy looking) woman with over half of her head shaved and the remaining hair dyed jet black - I have multiple facial and ear piercings - I’m fairly sure I would be able to get clients as an independent trainer, as a number of "different" people seem to identify with/and or be comfortable around me, but do I stand a chance of being hired at a club as is? (I can take out the jewelry during the job, thats easy)  I’m just wondering if I should even bother to try and get a "stable" job at a club, or just independently promote myself as me and see what happens.  From what I know, a lot of "different looking" people are intimidated by "personal trainer type" people and think that they’re just too perfect to relate to - I don’t think I have that problem - there’s plenty of imperfection here on me!

Seems a lot of Sir Mix A Lot’s big booty classic applies to me, oh well.  Looking to change that somewhat.

In other news, its super cool to see that there are a lot of what has been called "petite" (5′4" and under) women on here, I used to think that I was some kind of short weirdo.  WHERE WERE YOU GIRLS WHEN I WAS GROWING UP??!!!?  If there’d been more than just me being a little short growing up then so much of the picking on I got would have been diluted, or well, given that a lot of you gals look pretty tough then maybe we wouldn’t have gotten picked on at all.   It used to be a major issue - I don’t know what was making all those other kids so freaking tall.  No one gives me crap about my height anymore, but I guess that should be expected at age 30…

Still studying hard for the ACE personal trainer test - the anatomy section is proving to be challenging, but after I do some self-quizzing and memorizing then I shouldn’t have much to worry about - part of this is just remembering how the heck to study again - college graduation feels like it was a million years ago!

Its time to get my "study" on - this thing is about the size of the local phone book!  Here’s hoping I can call up my good study skills from the past - its been over 8 years since I graduated from college!  Looks like I’m going to need to make some flash cards for all of these cool new words too…..