Career planning

Fourth semester is done! And I already had my first meeting for my internship on Friday last week which went really well. I basically have myself a career coach / mentor who's advising me on where I fit / will fit in the industry (being a consultant herself, she's worked in many areas of it). I know in my last post I said I was veering away from being a fitness specialist “because it was never the only thing I was interested in.” Originally, the idea of teaching group exercise and doing fitness assessments / prescriptions appealed to me because it was a way to get out from behind a desk and a way to cure myself of my own health issues. But as I've mentioned, my health issues actually elevated themselves in the last semester and came to interfere with my ability to do that exercise stuff I was originally gonna do. That's an additional reason why I started crossing over into health promotion. And while there may be a little bit of question as to whether I chose the right graduate degree, I can say that it was probably the only degree program I would've gotten accepted into. (And I was lucky I applied when I did because they've now upped the criteria to get in; I probably wouldn't get in if I applied now). So I don't have any huge regrets; my degree is kind of like a door opener that will allow me to pursue other certifications. Originally, I would've gone for the HFS from ACSM, but I'm scrapping that. I want to get my wellness coaching certification from WellCoaches. It does have a training program you have to go through instead of simply studying on your own like some certifications, but I do qualify for it because of my degree (they accept a range of health related degrees). Getting the specific work that that will allow me to do seems like the most immediate job search strategy for me – in other words, it's what I'd qualify for the quickest. The other interest I have, health promotion / education, seems a little further from my reach. Some of the job ads I saw for wellness coaches actually did incorporate that, though, which was cool. They were a combo of one-on-one coaching and implementing wellness programs. If I can do that, I'll be happy and fulfilling my goal. But some health education jobs require the CHES certification (certified health education specialist) which I don't qualify for. For that, I'd need some further education (like an MPH degree). And another upward move from wellness coaching would be licensure for counseling (there are actually a lot of different licenses out there related to behavioral health). But again, I have to focus on the now. It seems to be continually evolving, but I'm moving forward.

Post to procrastinate working on final projects for school

I am going to be interning with the person from whom I hoped to hear, which I'm really happy about! And I'm becoming more certain about letting go of the idea of becoming a fitness specialist in favor of becoming a health promotion specialist / wellness coach. It just seems like a better fit, I think. Wellness is a more global concept (of which physical fitness is just one aspect). While I definitely had an interest in fitness, it was never the only thing I was interested in. And it feels sorta repetitive for me to go into it again, so I don't know if I will too much. It's just on my mind, that's all. The idea of what makes us feel happy. Sometimes it's being active, sometimes it's being creative...but it's always about being in a state of 'flow.' When you don't have that, that's when wellness (be it mental or physical, because they're so connected) is impacted. I know this. I've been trying to find a way into it, trying to figure out how it fits/applies to my life at the same time. And I feel like I'm on the precipice of getting into it, of joining my interests with my work so they'll finally be merged. I hope!

And I want to form new relationships like the ones I formed in undergrad. I want to recreate that feeling I had upon joining a close-knit community (like theatre school) where simply being present gives you a sense of belonging and an almost automatic erasure of lines that divide professional from personal. Where you can just share everything. Because as adults, we have so many secrets and protective walls and it's kind of rare to break those down because we always have to be professional, ya know? But I can feel new opportunities on my horizon. They have to be there. It's funny, one of my best friends used to say that if people could read her, great – but she wouldn't volunteer information about herself unless someone asked. I often feel like I have so much I want to volunteer but it's the type of stuff you just don't. So you secretly hope and wish for someone to ask, lol. For that opportunity to arise where you can break down walls. I guess it's the old theatre person in me that still longs for that and still is obsessed with human nature. Obsession with human nature can manifest itself in theatre, literature, psychology...all the subjects I was interested in – and science. And wellness and health. Now that I think about it, I suppose there's some sense in grouping the terms 'arts and sciences.' (Universities often have 'colleges of arts and sciences.') They can go together. Maybe I'll have a unique marketing angle for myself as a wellness coach someday – 'background in theatre and exercise science.' Lol.

4th semester almost done!

Well, there is much to keep up with regarding my physical health, and I don't know if it's worth writing about except that it's interesting to me. Is 'interesting' even the right word? Maybe important? Relevant? I don't know. Anyway, I'm now taking four vitamin supplements because I was deficient in them. I didn't have anything abnormal show up from an upper endoscopy, but the doctor just now suggested I do the hydrogen breath test, which seems like it would target my symptoms a little better. (SIBO, intolerance to certain sugars, etc.) If anything shows up from that, the treatment I think would just be diet and probiotic (or maybe antibiotic) related. Which I'm kind of already doing, but I guess it never hurts to dig a little deeper. It's just that the digging gets expensive after a while. Like I really need medical costs right now, right? Another suggestion that had been mentioned before was a gastric emptying test to check transit time of food. That sounds like an interesting test because I've always been curious about it, but do I suspect any abnormality there? I think it's one of those things that can vary from day to day depending on lifestyle or hormones...but that's just my non-medical guess. So while it may be interesting, I don't know if it's actually necessary.

As for summer plans, they're still up in the air. I didn't get any of the corporate site internships which I was a little bummed about at first. But my professor gave me another lead and I got a 'possibility depending on schedule which I'll know by mid-April' response from the wellness person my classmate is interning with right now. I also got to thinking if I didn't get a corporate internship, maybe it'd give me a chance to volunteer a few hours at more than one place simultaneously?

I'm also not sure if there will be any wellness center training over the summer. The once-a-week training that was supposed to happen this semester got cancelled so the coordinator said she'd try to do some over the summer. Guess I'll see about that too. But so far I have my one online class, the task of starting to search the job boards for a real job for when I get done in August, and the rest of my medical appts which are still gonna be happening throughout the summer. Oh, and maybe studying for the HFS certification exam. See? I'm gonna be totally busy even without having a 40-hour a week internship. I still do want some practical experience, of course, but it's nice to know I could maybe take half a day off if I need to without worrying I'll miss something. I hope everything works out. Right now I need to get through these last few weeks of the spring semester. (At least comp exams are done, I passed those). Won't life be grand when I get a job in my field and I'm healthy and I'm paying for things and I can relax like a normal person? That's not to say I'm not normal now; it just feels more like 'life is on the line' or 'so much is at stake' or something. But even when things are like that, you can still sometimes step back from it in your mind, read a book, be with friends, pretend that everything is the way you want it. Technically, if you're doing something by choice, whatever 'stage' you're in should already be 'what you want.' Even if it's meant to lead somewhere else. It's about being in the moment I guess. And while my current stage is definitely challenging, it's where I've chosen to be.

Plans / update

I've had several more internship interviews but haven't gotten a 'yes' yet. Still waiting to hear from my top choice. Thinking about what to do if I don't get it (or any of the corporate wellness ones). Or what to do if I get one and discover afterwards that I might be better at promotion or coaching (the two things I like that don't include the fitness testing and teaching group exercise – which are duties in the corporate setting). I have to talk to my professor again and see if it's feasible to go straight into those things without first doing the corporate stuff.

I think in an old post I may have mentioned that I thought being in a new field of study (that I enjoyed) would cure me of whatever problems I may have been having with my body. And that it had turned out not to be true. But they say eating disorders are often a way of coping with some other issue. If my other issue wasn't being unhappy with my life direction (which I was), then what was it? I don't think there was anything else. I think the main thing is for me to keep pushing forward with the new career and see what happens. My eating behavior isn't as abnormal as I thought it was (contrary to what some may think) because I've been doing food logs with the nutritionist. I used to hate doing those, but now I find myself saying 'I should write that down' whenever I eat. (As if I didn't already have enough to occupy my mind, right?) But I feel like it's for a reason, so I do it. And it doesn't mean I'll have do it forever. If it turns out I have any physical/medical issues, then they're the only thing I think I'll have to deal with from now on. (And if I don't have any, I won't have anything to deal with). I know that sounds crazy and I'm not saying I didn't legitimately have mental struggles (everyone has some, after all). Just saying that they'd probably have to be worse in order for me to get anything more out of treatment. Which I guess is good. At least that's where I am right now, anyway.

Wellness center training & thoughts from workshops

I'm being challenged to reconsider how I think about energy balance. It only came to mind yesterday from the workshop I attended, but I think it's crucial. Somehow I got into seeing it as this exact science, where I wanted my body to be at this equilibrium stage all the time, where I wanted it to be the same, feel the same all the time. But is that really possible? Things are going to vary, but over time our bodies are more consistent than we might think. Or more consistent than I may have thought, lol. It will even itself out without me needing to control it so much. And control is a tricky thing, because health is something we can control, but we can't take it too far. So we have to learn what is the best thing for us to do that falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between lack of any control at all and too much.

Last week I also attended an orientation session on becoming a peer health educator for the wellness center at school. It sounds like something I definitely want to do, and training starts next month. One hour a week for 7 weeks plus some extra things in between, like shadowing workshops, volunteering at events, etc. But we will learn about giving presentations and doing health promotion stuff which is totally in line with my degree. And something I actually favor over the teaching group fitness and doing the fitness testing which are the other major components of being a health fitness specialist for corporate wellness. So I figure it'll be a beneficial supplement for me and / or something that will help my job prospects in the event I find myself veering more towards health promotion stuff (which I don't know yet). We shall see.

Update

I had an interview for the internship I applied to which went pretty well. This week I applied to a few others and have a second interview lined up (via phone). It's a little scary to think about doing real-world stuff with what I've learned in class, but is there really a reason I wouldn't be able to do it? When you frame it like that, it helps, I think. And on the flip side, there's excitement in the idea of getting to have a job that's more than 'just a job.'

How goes the effort to improve my own health? I thought the answers I was seeking would lead to some revelation and/or contribution to the field, but I think that's kind of lofty. To think that I'd know / figure out something no one else knew? Lol. Actually, to have that desire is not shameful. Who wouldn't want to do that? But I'm sort of toning down that expectation / ambition in favor of figuring out what other people may already know that I don't. Maybe the answer is already in existence. I think I have to believe it is in order to start working in the field, period. (I know this is very abstract and vague, but I know what I'm thinking about even if no one else does right now, which is okay).

The week of 2/24 is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. I'm gonna try to attend some of the workshops at my school that are being held in conjunction with that. A 'Fit Body and Mind' one about exercise and self esteem and a 'Eat Smart, Live Smart' one about healthy eating and nutrition myths. You'd think that being an exercise science major, I'd know everything already. Like “exercise is good. Do it.” Lol. It's common sense, right? But I'm hoping it will sort of go beyond that. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. I just have to do everything I can to educate myself.

I'll be having some more diagnostic tests in the near future to determine if there are any physical issues impacting me (malabsorption of nutrients? malnourishment?). But I am having a tiny bit of improvement with probiotics. And mentally / psychologically, it's still a grayish area. The fixation on my body (which is more a fixation on how I feel physically rather than how I look in the mirror) is still, I think, maybe a side effect of other things. What other things? That's what's really hard to define. You'd think if things were going well in life, that would decrease the fixation, wouldn't it? I guess life is very variable. I'm curious to see what will happen when my daily routine changes after this semester and what kind of impact that will have. It's all about discovery and moving forward and staying busy!

New year, 4th semester, goings-on so far

I'm glad I don't have a demanding job while being a student because it means I can devote the time I would've spent at a job to studying and have a little extra time for myself. For pleasure reading, maybe?During my previous three semesters I mostly reserved pleasure reading for breaks and didn't mix it with classes. I felt I was too busy / distracted to read, and there's sometimes a measure of guilt that goes along with it too. But here I am coming up to the fourth week of classes and I'm on the last book in a series I started last month shortly before finals. Living dangerously, hehe. But honestly, a person should have some free time, right? I'm kind of a work-a-holic in the sense that if there's something I know I could be doing to be productive, I want to just do it. But you learn to compartmentalize things because otherwise it'd be easy to drive yourself crazy working endlessly on something, even though you might feel like you actually could. It's about balance. 

But having said that, I should at least mention my classes I'm taking now. Legal aspects of physical activity (with the professor I had for health promotion last semester who I really like and who usually doesn't give us too big a workload) is one. Another is Fitness assessment and prescription which, so far, is pretty much like the undergrad testing & prescription class I took last spring. One thing that's different is that we're gonna have to do a project where we come up with our own fitness plan or something (the details are still being worked out). It wasn't one of my most looked forward to classes to be honest, but it was a requirement. And I should really try to retain some of it considering how my own fitness issues are being addressed in another arena outside of class (which I'll get to later). The last class is Lifespan fitness, a subject that is somewhat interesting to me but which happens to be taught by my most intimidating professor who always gives the biggest workload and who makes even a subject of interest to me seem so hard it might as well be rocket science. Seriously, the studies she makes us read are still filled with physiological stuff and obscure numbers and facts and statistics and I always feel like a kindergartner trying to make sense of it all. But whatever.

So reading and classes I covered. In addition to doing what it takes to pass my classes this time around (why is it always a scary thought?), I have comprehensive exams right after Spring Break in March. I think that might be a time when I'll have less time for pleasure reading and when time management will really come into play. I always fear not having enough time, but I think fear happens only when I look ahead. Sometimes it's better when I'm in the midst of something and don't have to worry about it because I'm too busy concentrating on what it is I'm actually doing.

So classes and exams. The final two things I have to mention are applying for internships and the counselor/nutritionist/physician action plan I'm on to get well. (Might as well mention it instead of beating around the bush). I sent my resume and cover letter to one internship (my top choice) so far. This was done under the assumption that I will be well enough to do it as planned over the summer. The other alternative is that I won't be well enough and will have to put it off until after I graduate – which I'm hoping won't be the case. But the only reason I even think it is because getting well is a process that takes time. I haven't seen the GI doctor yet (but will soon), and I've had a couple counseling sessions so far to address the head part of being underweight. It is both physical and mental. It's still too early for me to answer any of my own questions that I posed here in previous posts, but I hope soon that will change.

I guess that's all for now!