Finding Support with Coaching For Geeks

I knew earlier this year that I wanted to do something about my diet, so that I could lose weight and maybe be healthier (or some such nonsense). I also knew that I wouldn’t be successful if I just relied on me. 

I get super sidetracked sometimes. 

Also, I thought it would be clever to work with actual doctors or something. People who specialize in Weight loss and nutrition. So I totally linked up with some people who do that professionally. It was a pretty smart move, actually.

But that’s not actually what I want to talk about. 

So, in the midst of connecting with the professionals, I stumbled upon a Facebook group. 

Truthfully, it started as a thing on Twitter. Some group liked me, so then I liked them and then this guy Robin sent me a message on Twitter about his Facebook group. This “Robin guy” said they helped with “confidence, dating, health, careers, fitness, and image.” I figured it was worth a shot. What could I lose? The worst thing that would happen is I like.. unjoined the group if I hated it.  

I KNOW! I’m not supposed to talk to strangers! But that’s PRETTY MUCH what Twitter is. 

So yeah, I joined this Facebook group called Coaching for Geeks. 

It was a good choice for me because I mean, I’m pretty geeky. I like geeky things like video games, comic books, and D&D. I have a few fandoms that I follow (Doctor Who, Shadowhunters, Marvel movies and TV shows). 

My Office is a TARDIS for cripes sake!

Yeah, I said cripes sake. 

It also has become a great source of support for me. I post my weekly goals to the site every Monday. In fact, one time Robin didn’t post the thread for the Monday goals, so I just posted mine anyway.

Oh yeah, and Robin is the one who forced my hand into making better goals. 

If I need help or support, I can ask the group for advice. Or maybe just ask people to post a bunch of memes or gifs to make me happy. 

Yeah, I know. It’s not obvious that I pretty much love memes and gifs.

I’ve been able to network with a number of other people who have similar interests as I do, which is nice. I found some fun eye shadow and made a came up with a sweet sweet Halloween costume because of people I met via Coaching for Geeks. 

The 30 Day #LevelUp Challenge was also a Coaching for Geeks activity. There are even prizes!

Who doesn’t like prizes?

The thing I like most about this groups is that unlike other groups – even this real life wellness group I’m in – this group has the potential to grow with me. Once I am in a place where I don’t have to be hyper-vigilant about fitness, I’ll find a new thing to develop about myself. My Coaching for Geeks friends will still be there. 

Unless Robin shuts us down. 

I mean, right now that’s pretty possible because he just got like… sucked into the mainframe or something and evil Nega-Robin has taken over. 

LOOK! Stop trying to understand Geek stuff.

Okay, so I have a real point. 

The thing is, you might think – Coaching for Geeks sounds silly. That doesn’t suit me at all. Why do I care?

You don’t have to like my geeky group. 

The take away is -- Go find your own group!

Find that group of people who support you for who and what you are.

Who have similar interests and can relate to the struggles you are having.

And I mean, hey – if you are kind geeky, you could join Coaching for Geeks.

But make sure to say Sarah sent you, because I don’t know if we still do, but we used to get stickers on a sticker chart for stuff like that.

Setting and Keeping Goals

Monday morning, or at some point during the day, I figure out what my goals for the week are.

What…. Goals?

Right.

I set myself up for the week by determining what I’m going to accomplish and when. It usually includes when I’m going to work out, that’s the highest on my priority list. I do a variety of exercises, so I like to strategize. Which day is the best for just walking? What is my work schedule like and can I fit the exercise I want to do in when it’s available?

If I’m going to swim, I need to be sure I have my suit packed and ready so I can bring it to work. I also have to be free during lap swim, which is a pretty short window.

Treadmill day means I need spare workout clothes for work. And my sneakers.

Now that it’s getting colder, walking around campus might mean I need to bring a heavy coat, hat, and mittens.

If I think about it in advance, I’m much more likely to do the activity.

I also tend not to skip because I’ve planned it.

I also schedule in other activities I’m going to do. On Saturday I sometimes, usually, often play Dungeons and Dragons. Unless we cancel. Sometimes that happens. One week I cancelled because when I looked at my week I realized I wasn’t going to have time to buy and load pellets for our pellet stove.

Calcifer, the pellet stove, loves pellets.

He also keeps me warm in the winter, so I tend to like to please him with pellets.

More importantly, when I looked at what I needed to do, and what I wanted to do, adulting trumped game.

I didn’t start out making such intricate goals.

I wasn’t even sure I wanted to make goals.

DON’T PRESSURE ME!

Simple goals are things like. I want to hit my step goal 5 times a week. Or I will exercise this week. I want to save money this week. 

Specific goals are “I will use the treadmill at work during my lunch (1-2) on Tuesday. I will hit my step goal on <insert days here>.” “I will save $30 this week by not eating at the cafeteria. Instead I will put the money into my saving money bank.”

"They" tend to call these SMART goals. You're supposed to make them specific and blah blah. 

I mean, I get it. 

I just,.... 

I mean, let’s be honest. I would rather make the vague goals. I don’t know what my life is like. What if something happens at 1 pm and I can’t make it to the treadmill?

Now don’t you fret.
Now don’t you frown.
I’ll go for a walk
Around the town.
Now don’t you fret and don’t you frown. I’ll go for a walk around the town.

Yeah, if you weren’t singing along right there, you obviously never went to summer camp.

I have backup plans. Walking is always a backup plan because I can do it anytime and it doesn’t have a schedule to adhere to. 

I worked in to making more specific goals. I had a lot of help. Or pressure.

Help pressure?

Pressure help?

Something like that.

Anyway, I did have assistance in moving my goals from very simple goals to more specific ones. Even though I very highly resisted the specific thing. 

I’ll also say that not all of my goals are specific. Work out goals, however, are fairly specific because they are a priority for me that often gets left out. I honestly can’t be specific with everything and function in my adult life. 

But I do like making them, now that I've started. Once I've written them I post them in a Facebook group I belong to. This is also the group that helped me learn how to make goals.

It was actually fortuitous that I found this particular group because it's been very helpful to me. Having a group of like-minded people who are working on not necessarily the same thing but similar things is nice. 

It was also pretty fortuitous that I started setting goals with my Facebook group because I'm also participating in an IRL group that focuses on making healthier life choices. One of their activities was making goals, and I was way ahead on that one.

Like, #SorryNotSorry but I already have the goals thing set.

Honestly though, having a support group of some kind is important and there is no "one size fits all" deal. The Facebook group works for me. Something else might work for you. 

Or maybe a different Facebook group. Mine is super specific. 

Also, do you like how I've been dancing around this whole Facebook group thing?

That's for the dramatic build up so you come back next time....

#SorryNotSorry

Motivation, Inspiration, and Commitment

One thing people frequently comment on is my motivation. How do you stay focused, even when it becomes challenging?

I’ve been trying to find the right word to describe it because I truly don’t believe this is a case of being motivated. Motivated implies there is some force that is compelling me to do something. Like I’m pushing myself to do this thing I don’t really want to do or an external condition (like diabetes) is forcing me to change my behavior. That is not the case.

I haven’t been struggling with food as much as a thought. I feel like I have plenty of food to eat and I have a load of options. The reason I drink a banana breakfast smoothie every morning isn’t because I make myself. It’s because I actually love those damn things.

Banana Smoothie:
1 cup frozen banana
1 cup milk of your choice. I use almond milk.
1 TBSP Peanut Butter (use the Teddy brand because once you have the good stuff, you realize everything else is crap)
2 TBSP protein powder of choice (you can also not do the protein powder, but I kinda wanted the extra protein)

Put in blender. Blend. Drink.

Same with exercise. I don’t struggle with dragging myself to do activities. I give myself lots of choices – I can swim, I can use the treadmill, I have some workout videos, I have that Wii I liberated from my mom (she wasn’t using it!). I can always walk if I’m not feeling any of those options. I have plenty of choices, so I don’t have any excuses.

Truthfully, sometimes when I don’t feel like doing exercise, and I do it anyway, I realize that it kinda feels good.

So if I don’t feel like it’s motivation, what is it?

I thought maybe it was Inspiration. I’m inspired to make better health choices. That sorta fits. Inspiration is something that uplifts us and gives us hope and a sense of possibility. This is definitely more of an intrinsic feeling, so the word fits.

Inspiration still doesn’t feel like a perfect match to me. I can inspire someone, but it feels weird to say that I’ve inspired myself.

If that works for you, take it. Everything I’ve read says that it doesn’t matter what makes you do a thing. Inspiration. Motivation. Whatever pushes you – you use that. It’s different for everybody.

So, motivation. Inspiration. Not quite there. I looked for a hot minute at Influence (a directive force that provokes change), but no. Not it.

Then I found it.

Commitment.

I committed myself to change.

Because I committed myself, I am determined to follow through.

You might say, …. Wait for it…. That because I have committed, I am channeling my indomitable spirit. 

Yeah, I stole that from Tae Kwon Do.

It’s not that every week or day is perfect either. Sometimes I eat the cake. Sometimes I skip the exercise.

But it doesn’t happen often because I want the results.

Also, fun fact, if you cut out lots of sugar from your diet, cake is too sweet.

But I digress.

Commitment works because it is intrinsic. It comes from me. No doctor said I had to. I choose. It’s also a bit sneaky because if you commit to a goal, what happens when you hit the goal?

You have to make a new goal.

Oooh.. did I say goals?

Yes I did.

That’s a whole different post...

App It Up, I'll Take it! - MyFitnessPal

I’m not going to lie. 

I was excited to see how many people read my impromptu blog post. It’s inspired me to write more. Apparently people are more into what I’m doing than Shadowhunters.

Although,.. Shadowhunters. Still a thing.

Shadowhunters

I’m still fleshing out what I’ll post on exactly. If you have a topic you would really like me to cover (I mean, not just ANYTHING, but related to the overall wellness journey) feel free to drop a comment. I would love to know what you think would be interesting for me to share.

One of the things that has been super successful for me is Food Tracking. I use an app called MyFitnessPal. I don’t do the paid version because I am way too cheap for that. (I’d rather spend my subscriptions on streaming programs like Alpha.)

MyFitnessPal talks to my Fitbit app, which is super sweet. They both gather different information that processed together gives me useful stats.

As much as I hated math as a child, I like tracking numbers.

Shhhh! Tell NO ONE.

This image is for Mr. Bill.

MyFitnessPal helps me log calories. I worked with a Nutritionist who helped me set a calorie limit,… goal. (Whatever you wanna call that to make yourself feel good about it.)

I log what I eat throughout the day. Honestly, on any given work day, I tend to eat the same foods.

You know what I don’t have time for at 6:30 in the morning? Creativity around lunch and breakfast.

It’s just easier when to know which things to grab from the fridge for lunch instead of standing there with the food tracker going,… “if I eat this tuna fish, and then that leftover jelly roll, will that be enough calories for lunch?”

Yeah, I said jelly roll. I wanted to make sure you were paying attention.

For dinner, I backwards count how much food I can eat and then I only give myself that much.

I also don’t ask myself if I am still hungry.

I also like MyFitnessPal because it can import recipes from the Internet and determine the calorie count.

Yeah, like that time I checked out a Facebook recipe and it was like 1,000 calories for one serving.

Nope.

It also means I can adjust recipes quickly.

Recipes!

Oh, I see you want three tablespoons of olive oil. How about we just use one.
M'kay, thanks.

I can save recipes I really like in the app so I can easily use them again. It also knows which foods I frequently eat, which saves me having to input salad and peppers again.

Frequent Foods

At the end of the day, it talks with my Fitbit and gives me a ball park guesstimate of what I will weigh in 5 weeks based on how many calories I ate and how many I burned that day.

 Okay, yeah, I probably shouldn't look at that but it helps me stay focused. Like hey, see - this works! Just keep doing today and you'll be great.

Finally, you can have friends on MyFitnessPal. I have a few although I don't interact through that app very often. Sometimes I go around and tell people good job for working out or something.





Hey, you! Good job.

If you like my blog and you maybe aren't on Facebook or Insta or Twitter, feel free to subscribe. I'll uh.. figure out how to make that work..

I put like, a whole bunch of links on that page for subscribing. Click one.

Cake and Choices

I’ve started a health adventure because I really wanted to lose weight. 

Yeah, I know, people have been trying to say that losing weight isn’t really a good goal. I should say I’m trying to make better health choices or live a healthier life style.

I say, “Let’s not argue Sematics. I like to play with language and meaning.”

Anyway, the reason I’m writing this isn’t because I want to debate words and meanings.

I wanted to talk about Cake and Choices.

You see, I like cake. I really like cake. Also baked goods. I mean, sugar mixed with flour (and other ingredients) placed in an oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees usually results in something sweet and tasty. It’s really hard to say no to cake.

But I had to learn to say no to cake. That was first. I had to learn that sometimes, I have to tell myself No, not today.

That was a hard first lesson.

I had to avoid places I knew there was cake. That meant not attending staff birthday parties because the temptation would be too great. That also meant not stopping at the Depot in town to get one of their super sugary, but very tasty cupcakes. I mean, while we’re mentioning things I gave up, I gave up getting medium Dunkin Donuts Mocha ice coffee. There, you’ve heard my whole confessional.

At a certain point I realized that I had to stop telling myself No all the time. No cake. No creemees (soft serve for some of you). No ice cream. No nothing? This does not seem sustainable in the long run. I’m going to eventually cheat on myself.

So I finally told myself yes. Let’s have a creemee. My husband and I were celebrating our Anniversary (five years). I tried really hard at dinner to be good, but we tried a new restaurant and it wasn’t what I would call an ideal dining situation. I needed something to top off the day, and my husband suggested the creemee.

It was an especially tasty creemee from a place called Jonathan’s. Pomegranate flavored. There was a lot going right with this situation. It definitely made up for dinner. Actually, at the time, I remember that it seemed like almost too much. I didn’t need this whole creemee (but I mean, I ATE it.)

I didn’t even count that creemee in my food tracker.

I week or so later I bought some other creemee based dessert. It took me three days to eat it because I portioned it out. I learned that I could have treats. I could sometimes say yes.

But more importantly, I learned that saying Yes or saying No to treats is a Choice. It’s my choice.

That’s kind of empowering because it’s no longer about the things I can’t have.

Yeah, that piece of cake looks good, but do I really want cake right now? Is it worth going off plan? Does that cake fit into my day? I mean, I can say yes but I can also say no. Either choice is okay, as long as I think about it first. 

Most days I pass up the cake. I do sometimes splurge and eat Gelato. Don't hate on me. It takes me a month to eat a pint of Talenti Gelato.

Today, I went to the staff birthday party. The cake looked good, but not so good that I felt like I needed to say yes. So I didn’t. I still got to socialize, and there was maybe a little twinge of an awkward feeling because I was the only one not eating cake.

It also felt good to know that it was my choice, I could have eaten it. I just didn’t choose to.