It’s been a while since I’ve posted… and boy do I have lots to share!
Grad school is going… well. Lots of lectures, quizzes, and exams, but I’m managing my time well (or at least I’d like to think that I am!)
If you read my 2018 goals post, you know that one of them was to snatch 85 lbs. And if you follow me on Instagram, you also know that I accomplished that goal in February (yay!!) So now what??
Well, after joining the Pitt Weightlifting club and getting encouragement from my friends and teammates, I decided I wanted to compete in Olympic weightlifting!
Am I nervous? Yes. Am I excited? Yes. Is it going to be hard? HECK YES. But I’m excited to set new goals for myself and see what I can accomplish in just 4 short months (the competition is in July).
As for my second 2018 goal, “Build up endurance to run 5 miles”… that’s been put on hold. For one, running long distances can hurt lifting performance (not to get into too much detail, but it has to do with the ratio of short-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibers). Also, I hurt my shin doing box jumps 2 months ago and it still hurts to run. So instead of pushing my body (actually, my shins) beyond their limits, I’m going to give running a 4 month rest and focus on my Olympic weightlifting competition.
My third goal, “Decrease %body fat to 20%” will come with my training. I don’t think I’ll reach it before July, mainly because I want to stay in my weight class. It’s still a goal of mine, but it’s also been put on the back-burner until my competition is over. (If you’re wondering why I chose 20% as my goal, I explain it all in my blog post 2018 Fitness Goals.
I decided to list my 2018 fitness goals separate from my 2018 goals. If you missed it, read my 2017 Recap & 2018 goals here!
Snatch 85 lbs. – The snatch is a type of Olympic lift. I can only snatch 65 lbs. now, but I hope to reach my goal of 85 lbs (a 25 lb. plate on each side). Watch my Instagram video below if you don’t know what a snatch is (it’s okay, most people don’t!)
2. Build up endurance to run 5 miles – This may be hard with my shin splints, but I’m okay if I have to walk some of it. As long as I can feel my endurance is improving, I’m happy!
3. Decrease my body fat percentage to 20%– Recently my mindset has been on flexible dieting, especially around the holidays. Flexible dieting gives me comfort that I’m not ruining my fitness gains and still getting enough nutrients in my diet. And with flexible dieting comes intense fitness goals and training. I don’t strive to be a certain weight – it’s not an accurate representation of body composition. A more accurate measure is % body fat using a BIA (bio-electrical impedance) device (usually a scale or handheld). 20% is the minimum health standard for young adult women and the middle of the fitness standard range for young adult women. Even though I’m well in the range for the health standard, my goal is to be in the range for the fitness standard.*
I plan to achieve this goal by flexible dieting and a developing an exercise prescription. My macros are calculated by a trusted source and the exercise prescription is written by me. I plan to have 1 cheat meal/day per week because life gets in the way and sometimes I need to eat and enjoy! Overall, I plan to eat 80/20 – eat nutrient-dense foods 80% of the time and “fun foods” 20% of the time while hitting my macros 6 days a week.
4. Look and feel my best! – I’m not going to get stressed out if I miss a workout or go over my macros when it wasn’t my cheat day. After all I want to live a happy, healthy life and stressing over food and fitness isn’t worth it. My fitness goals should bring me joy, not anxiety!
*I understand this may contradict some people’s views on intuitive eating. I respect other’s opinions and I’m not saying one way is better than the other. Even reading through my own blog posts I go back and forth! Measuring body composition is not for everyone. To see if this way of fitness training is for you, go to your local dietitian, certified personal trainer, or certified exercise physiologist.
As I plan for next semester and write in my planner (I already know I have 2 quizzes a week, every week, back-to-back days…), I think about my career goals. Where is all this education taking me? Why am I learning about micronutrient metabolism and nutrition through the life-cycle?
There are thousands of career possibilities for a Registered Dietitian. There’s at least one RD in every hospital, and wherever you find food, you can bet there’s an RD working behind the scenes (yep, even McDonalds). Out of those thousand, a few stand out to me as my favorites:
Cardiac Rehab – I find heart disease very fascinating (although very tragic). It’s the #1 killer in America, and one of my goals is to pull that number way down. Since another one of my goals is to become a certified Exercise Physiologist (EP-C), I would also love to work in outpatient cardiac rehab (a program for people who had a heart attack/heart event/etc.). Cardiac rehab is run by an Exercise Physiologist, so to collaborate with him/her while working with each patient individually on their diet would be a dream come true.
Oncology – For those who don’t know (or haven’t read my My Nutrition Philosophy), I was diagnosed with leukemia at 10 years old. Thankfully I’m all cured – 7 years in February! – but that doesn’t mean the pain has left. I want to give back to those suffering with cancer because I know firsthand that it is not an easy journey. Although I haven’t gotten to cancer in my MNT course, it’s one of my goals to give back in some way whether that be in the form an RD or simply a volunteer.
Sports – I have a fascination with how the body uses food and nutrients to nourish itself, especially during exercise. I have a Bachelors in Exercise Science so naturally I have an interest in sports nutrition! I don’t know exactly how I want to achieve this goal… all I know is that it’s a strong interest of mine. Perhaps working in a gym or a place like the YMCA? Or maybe research?
Community – Community nutrition kind of encompasses all things nutrition because it focuses on preventative measures using food. Heart disease and some cancers can be prevented through diet and exercise, so being a community dietitian (i.e. working at Giant Eagle or an outpatient clinic) would be another way to bring the incidences of heart disease and cancer wayyy down.
I have a lot of goals… at times it seems overwhelming. But I keep in mind that everything that I’m doing is getting me one step closer toward these goals. I’m starting a job at my local Y as a personal trainer (with my Exercise Science degree) and I’m shadowing as many dietitians as I can over winter break to gain as much experience as possible – all while completing an online course and enjoying the holidays!
You don’t have to have an “all or nothing” attitude – it’s little baby steps similar to what I’m doing that can help you accomplish your goals.
Since I got such great feedback on my nutrition philosophy, I decided to share my fitness philosophy too! I talked a little bit about how I got into fitness in my previous post, but I’m going to dive a bit deeper here…
When I finished my chemotherapy for leukemia, I was overweight. Around the same time, my older brother was really into fitness. So, being the sweet & protective older brother he is, he wanted me to lose weight and be healthy. At first I didn’t want to because I was lazy and didn’t see the point. He tried to get through to me, but that only made me angrier because I thought he was trying to change me. At the time, I didn’t see the benefits of exercise and thought of it as a punishment.
After months of my brother trying to convince me, I finally gave in and started running. I grew to love it and lost all the “chemo weight.” He taught me the basics of nutrition, but since he’s not a professional, I went to a local RD. I was going down the right path! But soon it took a turn for the worse…
During my senior year of high school, I over-exercised and ate too few Calories (that’s a glare on his shirt, not mud)
I became obsessive with it. I thought that if I went a day without running, I’d gain all the weight back. Soon, I was eating 700 Calories a day and exercising everyday. I weighed myself multiple times a day and got stressed when the number rose by as little as 0.2 lbs. This lasted for about a year until I entered undergrad.
At the beginning of my freshman year, I was overweight again. I kept running but I was eating more; and since my body hasn’t had that much food for a year, all of it got stored as fat. That definitely put a toll on my mental health; but soon, I was introduced to strength training by my roommate. I fell in love with it and began to fuel my body properly. I had periods of weight gain and weight loss, but overall, I lost quite a bit of fat-mass.
My roommate also introduced me to Olympic lifting and CrossFit, which I absolutely LOVE. I can’t thank her enough for not only introducing those fun workouts, but encouraging me for the past 4 years to keep lifting and keep going, even when I viewed my body as “fat.”
My Fitness Philosophy:
I still do Olympic lifts and CrossFit; however, I like to switch it up. When I have specific fitness goals, I like to have an exercise prescription/workout plan to keep me on track. When don’t have specific goals and I just want to lift for fun, I don’t follow a plan and just do a CrossFit WOD and some Olympic lifts.
You can probably see a pattern in my lifestyle… it’s all about choices. I can choose to eat a smoothie bowl or a bowl of ice cream. I can choose to achieve certain fitness goals during this time in my life or I can do workouts I want to do that day. I can choose to workout or spend time with loved ones. No choice is a bad choice — it’s all about what YOU want to do. (Disclaimer: this lifestyle does NOT apply to clinical populations. Some patients are required to have a workout schedule due to their illness, especially cardiac patients)
This lifestyle takes practice though, and I do owe a lot of it to macro counting and research since it gave me “food freedom” with structure and educated me on specific foods and nutrients. But I also owe it to some amazing Instagram dietitians and student dietitians who inspire me and remind me to make healthy choices when I feel like giving up:
Maddie Joyce Nutrition 