Because She Dared

“I got my first full-time job, but I could have sworn I was making more money in college, working for my parents as their daughter.” -A clipping out of Reader’s Digest, that my mom sent me three years ago.

March of 2015, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel: graduation. Along with that light, I realized that I would also need to start applying for jobs to begin my career. That spring, I went on several “serious” interviews and several “practice” interviews. Much to my surprise, I took a job from one of my practice interviews at Jamestown Regional Medical Center (JRMC). In May of 2015 I finally graduated, and I officially started my career as  Speech Pathologist on June 15, 2015. Fast forward to August 3, 2018 and I walked out of JRMC, for the last time, as a full time employee. I wanted to reflect on what I have learned the last three years at my first job.

1. Life doesn’t come with a syllabus. I remember one class in grad school, we got to make our own mid-term. And boy did that throw a room full of type-A SLPs for a loop. Our professor told us that we could do whatever we wanted for the mid-term: write a paper, make a project, make our own test, just as long as it included certain elements. After lots of complaints from our class, our professor told us: “This is real life, your clients won’t come with a rubric, you get a name and a date of birth. If you’re lucky you will get a diagnosis.” Unbeknownst to me, this was the one thing college that REALLY prepared me.  Be prepared to not know.

In order to graduate and get my state license I had to pass a national exam. Passing score is 70%. Theoretically, walking into my first job, I am able to independently handle 70% of my caseload. Even with that 70% knowledge, I was wildly unprepared. What do you do when the doctor puts in the wrong order? What do you do when you when insurance denies your claim and now your patient owes $1500? What do you do when you don’t know what a certain disease or disorder is? What do you do when you realize your patient will never “get better” and you have to be the bearer of bad news? What do you do when a co-worker doubts your abilities?

Simple: FAKE IT! Fake your confidence long enough to escape to the bathroom to cry. You have to fake it, at least at the beginning. Then eventually, the amount of bathroom crying episodes reduces from daily, to once a week, to once every two weeks, to “hey I actually kinda know what I am doing, and I’m using the bathroom for its intended purpose.” Always remember, everything is “figureoutable.” So fake confidence that you know what you are doing, then go figure it out. College was NOT about giving the answer to everything possible situation; it was about finding and using the right resources to solve the problem. There is no rubric or syllabus for life. Fake it. Cry in the bathroom. Then use your resources and solve the problem.

2. Ego is poisonous. NEWS FLASH: there is a lot of ego in the medical community. Everyone thinks that their job is more important than anyone else’s. There is a fine line between, “what I do is important” and “I’m the most important,” and that line is the individual that you are treating. Put your patients first, before your ego and pride. Sometimes the best thing for you to do is to take a step back and let someone else take over. An egotistical attitude says “I’m always right, I know everything.” A humble attitude says “I don’t know, but I will find out.” Be humble. Admit when you don’t know something, but don’t leave it at that. Go figure out the problem. Changing my attitude to a humble attitude benefited my patients. Humbling myself, admitting that I don’t know everything, and being willing to learn from others outside of the speech world, added to my knowledge base and ultimately helped my patients.

Everyone you encounter knows something that you don’t. Instead of just assuming that “I have a master’s degree and I’m smarter than you.” Humble yourself, listen and be willing to learn. Your relationships with your co workers, your boss, and your workplace will improve. There will be ego in all aspects of my life, no matter the job, the town, or the setting. But my attitude and how I react is entirely up to me.

4. Stand up for yourself. That’s it.

5. Don’t put yourself in a box. I always said “I would never work in a school. Kids are gross, I don’t want to work with kids” Well guess what, I quit my job at JRMC to work in a school. I put myself in this box of “Medical Speech-Pathologist” (Hello ego!) and closed myself off to opportunities to grow as a professional. My passion has always been for adult and geriatric care, so any kids that came in my door were looked at as “UHG!.” Instead of opening myself up to an opportunity, admitting that I don’t know something, and figuring out the problem, (Hello again ego!) I sent them on to someone else. I put myself in this box. But as I continued to go through my career, I realized, kids are just tiny adults. They have just as much right to communicate their thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs as my adult patients. I have the tools and the knowledge to do that. Ultimately communication is a human right, and children are, in fact, humans who deserve that right.

So I have a new adventure ahead of me. Working in a school system with children. I have no idea how to work in a school system. The paperwork, the caseload, the IEPs. Three years ago, I didn’t know how to work in a hospital. But I learned. and I am taking these lessons with me to my new adventure. Change your mindset, change your life.

6. The last thing I have learned throughout these last three years at my first “big kid job.” Passions change. Sometimes your passion might change within your field of study. Sometimes your passion is so far outside of your original plan, it actually sounds crazy. Don’t let your salary be a distraction from your dream. If it’s time to start over completely, do it.

 

 

“Let’s get doughnuts and put them right here, but Becca can’t have any.”

“OHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Look who is eating a cookie! You finally decided to break down”

Nutrition. Research articles are constantly changing and telling us what we should eat, how much we should eat, when we should eat. Zone, Paleo, Keto, IIFIYM, Vegetarian, high carb, low carb, high fat, no fat. These words and phrases are constantly debated in gyms, on fitness blogs, on podcasts, on the news, in churches (probably). There are countless documentaries that tell you which diet is the best, while disputing the other diets. And the next documentary will tell you that their diet is best and the documentary that you just watched was all a lie. Today’s blog will be my take on “nutrition.”  I will be the first person to say, I don’t know much about nutrition, but this is a long and candid look at what I have experienced in the last two-three years since beginning my fitness journey.

The first thing that I have experienced with nutrition: I will never win. NOW. I will absolutely reach my nutrition based goals, as long as I stay dedicated, consistent, and patient. I will win that battle every time. The battle that I will lose every time is the one with others. Where I work, there are treats EVERYDAY, and we have potlucks about once a month. People bring in doughnuts, cookies, home baked goods, candy. It’s readily available at my work.  When I first started at my job, I indulged. Every time there was a treat, you could bet that I was eating with two hands.  Since starting my fitness journey, I have slowly changed WHAT I ate. I used to eat “classic” North Dakotan “put a can of cream of mushroom soup over meat and cover it with cheese and put it in the oven at 350 for an hour.” Classic potluck food. I don’t eat a lot of noodle/cream/cheese hot dishes anymore, so I usually bring my own lunch to potlucks. I don’t eat the treats every time because that’s not what I eat anymore.

The battle that I lose constantly is the one with my coworkers. I am in a lose/lose situation. If I abstain from the treats, they jeer and tease me. “Oh you’re too good for the doughnuts?”  However, if I do indulge and have a cookie or a piece of candy, it becomes comments about me “breaking my diet”and “not being as good as I thought I was.” So no matter what I do in this situation. I lose. I am not sure why people think it’s ok to comment on what someone eats or doesn’t eat. My co workers, family, and friends probably do it to me because I CONSTANTLY talk about eating healthy and working out. And I simply talk about these things because I love them so much. This is my LIFESTYLE. The only person I take care of is myself, no kids, no husband, no pets. If I am experimenting with a certain diet, that is exciting to me, and I am going to talk about it. I reduced dairy and wheat from my diet, and I noticed a big difference. I reduced processed carbs and sugar from my diet, noticed an even BIGGER difference. (Sugar is bad, who would’ve thought?). I am going to absolutely talk about how making these changes has affected my life. Disclaimer: do I still eat baked goods, cookies, doughnuts, pizza, tacos, candy, hot dishes etc…? ABSOLUTELY!!! But instead of eating a dozen doughnuts in a week, I will maybe have one doughnut a month. This way it truly is a treat. I generally keep my diet 80% clean foods (foods that don’t have an ingredient list) and 20% other foods.

Next thing I have learned about nutrition. Binging. I like to self diagnose, and I diagnosed myself with binge eating disorder. The last diet that I was on, worked REALLY REALLY well. I dropped a lot of weight, I leaned out, I felt good. But, I didn’t know how to adjust it when I began to plateau. I was extremely calorie restricted, especially for what I was doing on the physical side. I also love my routine, and I had my meals down to a science. It was easy. I now realize, I was being LAZY. I didn’t want to try and do math and try and adjust things. This amount of restriction, really started to mess with me mentally. I would have “cheats” For example, my typical afternoon snack on this diet would be half an apple, an ounce of chicken and three almonds. Maybe later in the day I was feeling hungry, so I would have a small handful of almonds. That would be considered a “cheat” on this diet, because it wasn’t balanced with carb and protein. In my “binge” mindset, I would then justify that small handful of almonds to go have an actual cheat: a whole pizza, beer,  cookies, chips and dip, and a box of cereal for dessert. And I would not stop. I figured “It’s only one cheat meal if you never stop eating.” I would go to the store and buy $40 work of junk food that I would eat food over my garbage and have “one more bite.” Then throw half of  it away and pour dawn dish soap over it. This way  I wouldn’t eat it out of the garbage because I have pulled jars of peanut butter or boxes of cereal out of my garbage and eaten them. I would buy a big bag of trail mix at Wal-Mart and eat it nonstop on the 10 minute drive home. When I got home, I would throw it away in the dumpster and half to three-fourths of the bag would be eaten.

Not exactly living a healthy lifestyle there. I am slowly learning how to  balance these these “treats.” I started by getting online nutrition coaching. I am slowly learning how to fit “treats” into my daily intake and not have it be a binge. But it’s a battle where I am constantly learning how to give myself grace and celebrate the little victories. I can now have a box of cereal in my house and not have to sit and eat the whole thing in one sitting. It actually will last a week or two! This is a big win for me. I bring my own food to potlucks, or when I go home for the weekend because I need to in order to avoid binging or guilt trips. Few people understand this, and just think it’s a weird habit or that I am being pretentious. Right now a big nutrition goal for me is balance, and someday I will be able to participate more in potlucks and treats at work without the guilt, but for now, I need to have this “weird habit.” (aka-dedication)

The last thing that I will touch on. Food based friendships. Any change in my lifestyle has lead to change in friendships. I quit drinking, I lost friends. I started eating healthy, I lost friends. I simply lost friends, because I no longer get invited to the nights out, the dinners, or the weekend-long drinking events. I don’t get invited because I always say “no thanks” to these things. And I say no because of the two reasons listed above. I know from experience that going out to eat can trigger a binge. Food and socializing is such a cultural thing. When we gather, we gather around food. But why? Do we remember the food and the drinks? Or do we remember who we are with and the conversations that took place? I have been trying to make an effort to spend quality time with quality people and not make it about food. When I get together with friends I want to be focused on just being together. There are all kinds of things we can do that don’t involve eating for example: do a workout, go on a walk, go golfing, or maybe just sit and visit.

If you are still reading this. Thank you and congratulations. This is a really really long post with very personal content in it. But I do want to give my two cents on nutrition  Like I said, we constantly hear about what we should be eating or not eating and it will change every time you turn on the news. Here is my advice, take it or leave it.

#1: Watch the documentary “In Defense of Food” this doc doesn’t have a “diet” agenda, it’s one of the best food documentaries that I have ever watched.

#2: The “food pyramid.” I like to think of my nutrition in a pyramid, with 4 parts.

The base of my pyramid is “What I am eating.” The base of my pyramid is 80% whole and clean foods. I consider clean foods 1-ingreident foods, or foods without labels or ingredient lists. So the base of my pyramid is Meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seeds. Once I get that down, I move up the pyramid, which is “How much I am eating” This is where measuring my food comes into play. I know how many grams of protein, carbohydrates, and fats that I get everyday. This is something that I am still slowly getting a handle on. The third step of my pyramid is “When do I eat,” this is where nutrient timing comes into play, intermittent fasting, carb loading, fasted workouts. I have just hit the tip of the ice-berg with this one.  And the last part of my pyramid is “supplements.” This is an area that I haven’t really gotten into, other than fish oil. Supplements are huge in the fitness industry, but if the base of your pyramid (What you are eating) isn’t solid, then these supplements don’t have anything to stand on.  There is no magical protein shake or pre workout that you can take that will make you lose 10 pounds in 1 week. You have to look at the base of your pyramid and work up from there.

#3. Get nutritional coaching from a professional. If you are serious about your nutrition and want to get a handle on it, find someone who knows what they are doing, and pay them to help you. I recently signed up for nutritional coaching with working against gravity, and I am learning so much. They are helping me balance out my nutrition.There are all kinds of nutritional coaching programs out there: eat to perform, working against gravity, renaissance periodization just to name a few. These are great sources, they make individualized programs to help you reach your goals based on your lifestyle.

I dare you to take a look at your own food pyramid, where can you start building: what, how much, when? I also dare you to not judge others for what they eat or don’t eat. Food is a big battle for a lot of people and being kind to someone can make a big difference. Happy eating friends!

 

 

“It’s great that you’re working out, but be careful so that you don’t look like some of those girls”

“With all the lifting you do, your arms don’t look like Michele Obama’s.”

“You don’t look like someone who does CrossFit. Don’t those girls usually have 6 packs.”

All of these things have been said to me by friends, family, and strangers. If you are a female who has ever touched a barbell, you have heard these things too. You have probably seen hundreds of posts by other female athletes on this topic. Well strap in kids,  because now you’re going to hear my take on these comments.

So let’s start at the root of my issue with these comments. What gives someone else the right to dictate what my body is supposed to look like? What I really want to say to these individuals: How dare you? How dare you tell another person how they are “supposed to look.” How dare you disregard what their body is capable of? How dare you only focus on what their body looks like? How. Dare. You.

Telling another person what they are supposed to look like is a bold move to say the least, but we seem to really focus this towards women who lift. When it comes to lifting, we only ever picture the elite level athlete. If I told someone that I was going to run a marathon, they would never say “Be careful not to do too much or you’re going to get a pancake butt.”  Or if I were to say, I’m going to start swimming. No one would say “Oh no your shoulders are going to get big”  Because they don’t picture the elite level athlete when it comes to swimming or running. Why do we only picture the elite level athletes in sports like CrossFit, powerlifting, or weightlifting?  Any elite level athlete is going to have a certain look. Google search elite level marathon runners, swimmers, weightlifters,  rowers, cyclists, etc. and you will be able to place them in their respective sports by looking at them. This is simply because these individuals are so AMAZING and dedicated to their respective sports, that their body is responding to their level of training.

This brings me to my next point. I am not doing this to look a certain way. I am going to push myself past my physical limitations, and I am going to eat to fuel that performance. My body is going to respond however it’s going to respond. Being an elite level athlete (and looking like one) takes time and dedication. Time and dedication that I don’t have. Picking up a barbell one time is not going to turn me into Annie Thorisdottir or Katrin Davidsdottir. These athletes have dedicated the past 5-10 years to being CrossFit athletes. CrossFit is literally their job. I am in the gym for and hour or two hours 6 days a week, and I eat clean with measured out portions 80% of the time. At this point in my life, that is the amount of time I can dedicate to this, while keeping everything balanced in my life. Doing CrossFit and powerlifting at this level has definitely changed my body. My shoulders and traps are bigger, my biceps and triceps are bigger, my quads, glutes, and hamstrings are bigger (hence none of my pants fit me anymore), my waist is smaller, I have the tinniest little baby abs (that are still pretty insulated, if I am being honest.)  And you know what. I LOVE IT!!!!

Here is my final point on this. I love that my shoulders are big and the fact that my quads rip my pants. Do you want to know why? Because without getting bigger, I wouldn’t be able to lift the numbers I lift. I wouldn’t be able to do push-ups and pull-ups (and hopefully soon muscles ups.) I still have insulated abs (my cookie pouch) and cellulite. But I have no problem wearing booty shorts and ripping my shirt off in the middle of a workout, because I am doing this to improve physically. (And scientifically speaking, wearing a shirt makes it harder to breath during a workout.) My body confidence doesn’t come from what I look like, but it comes from how my body is performing. I will wear a 2 piece bikini proudly with my “cookie pouch” and cellulite because with that pouch and cellulite I have dead lifted 314 pounds, ran a 7 minute mile, and cleaned 170 pounds. I know that I have made improvements because I can do things now that I couldn’t 2 years ago. My body has changed, but I still pretty much look the same. If I only measured my success on what my body looked like, it wouldn’t seem like I made much progress. But measuring based on performance, I have improved by a million percent. (Please note, I am bad at math, but a million percent is a pretty accurate number of my improvements.) And all this being said, I don’t feel like this every single day. I am still a woman with body image issues. Of course I wish I looked like Annie or Katrin, but more than that I would love to have 1/8 of their physical capabilities.

Finally, I showed a family member a video of Brooke Ence at the CrossFit games and they immediately said, “Why would someone want to look like that, she looks like a man.” They completely disregard the incredible physical feat that she was performing. I saw a promotion for a group fitness class that said “Tone and shape your entire body without adding bulky muscles.” There was no mention of making physical improvements, just a focus on “looking good.” (But not too good, ie-  adding bulky muscles.) My point is simply this. Stop telling people, particularly female athletes, what they are supposed to look like. And keep doing your physical activity for YOU, running, swimming, crossfit, yoga, lifting, do it for you. Focus on your performance and measure your progress off of what your body is capable of doing, not what your body looks like.

I dare you to make a performance based goal: lift a certain amount of weight, get a pull up, run a half marathon in under 2 hours, and then go put the work in to reach that goal. It will be so much more satisfying when you reach a goal like that instead of “Michele Obama arms.” My arms may never look like Michele Obama’s, but I can deadlift more than she can, so who is the real winner here?

 

 

*****Please note, I am not dissing the women of other sports like running and swimming, I am just using this as an example for other sports, no offense to my runners or swimmers out there. You are all Beasts who do amazing things!********

 

 

 

“Hashtag squad goals!” “Hashtag tribe!” How many times have we heard this shouted, after taking a group picture, that is going to be posted, on 5 different instagram accounts by the 5 people in that group picture? But what makes your tribe or squad so “goal” worthy.  When I was in college and fresh out of college, I said yes to every invite. It didn’t matter who invited me, where we were going, or what we were doing. I was in. I suffered from a bad case of “FOMO” (Fear of missing out). I didn’t want to miss out on something amazing that was sure to happen. Rarely did something amazing happen, and I lost a lot of sleep and gained a lot of weight. I became stationary in my life. As I have gotten older, I have learned the importance of quality over quantity in relation to time and people. I have recently dared myself to embrace the risk of FOMO and say “no” more often to invites that involve any place, any time, any one. Rather, I say “yes” to quality time with quality people.  So what is quality time and what makes someone a quality person?

Quality Time.  Quality time is the time I spend making myself into a better person. I make myself a better person in two places. One, my time in the gym, I am taking time to improve mentally and physically. My workouts are when I am my own coach, these are the times that I tell myself  “Do better. Be better.”  Two, my time alone, in my apartment. This is time that I take to reflect, read, and recover. I write and reflect on my week, and I set intentions for the coming week. It’s my time to develop my character into someone who pursues excellence. All my other time alone time is “convenient time,” (watching “The Office” on Netflix for the 100th time in a row.) So if I give up my quality time, it better be for a quality person.

Quality people. Unfortunately, for me to have found quality people, I had to spend some time with non-quality individuals.  After hanging out with certain friends, I found  myself drained, burned-out, and stressed. I had to ask myself, “what about this individual makes me feel this way?” In that time, I discovered the traits I don’t want to be around. Some of these individuals I would call convenient people; they don’t really add anything to my life. They say the 5 people you spend the most time with is who you become. Ultimately who do I want to be? When people think “Becca Gussiaas” what comes to their mind? I hope they think of 5 things.

1. Authentic. I want to be around real people. I don’t want to be around  people who change who they are based on who they are with. I want people to be real with me and not pretend to be someone they think I want them to be.
2. Goal Oriented. I want to be around hard working individuals who are bettering themselves and the world around them. People who are willing to give up the immediate gratification for the long term reward.
3. Smart. I want to be around people who make me think. No, I won’t test your IQ. After spending time with someone, I want to have learned something about them, myself, or the world. I want to be around people who are so passionate about a certain topic, that they spend time researching, asking, and developing in that area. When I see them, they just HAVE to share what they have learned.
4. Kind. I want to be around others who make everybody feel like a somebody. I want to be around people who see others’ needs and offer a helping hand. People who are willing to give their time and talents to serve others.
5. Humble. I want to be around people who will do “the right thing” because it makes the world a better place, regardless; if they will get applause or recognition from the rest of the world. These are the individuals who will work hard to better themselves and the world without developing an ego.

These are the 5 traits that I want to be around, because; these are the 5 traits I want to possess.  When I am spending my quality time with others, I ask myself “Am I growing in these qualities?” To answer this question, I have simple equations

Quality time + Quality people = Growth
Convenient time + Quality people = Growth
Convenient time + Convenient people = Stationary
Quality time + Convenient people= Loss

So. I hope this rambling made some sense, and sorry for the grammatical errors. (I tried to decipher my late night journaling.) But I want to challenge you, or “dare you,”  to embrace FOMO. Increase your time spent with quality people, and reduce your time with the convenient people. Here’s a three-step process to help you start:

1. Ask yourself, what 5 characteristic traits  do you want to be known for?
2. Identify how you are developing your 5 qualities in your quality time.
3. Find quality people that will help you develop your 5 characteristic traits.

Thank you to all of those who have been quality people in my life and have developed  real life #squadgoals. You know who you are.

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