That title doesn’t mean what you think.
I am still on a leave of absence from my job as a high school English teacher.
I am finally, however, get back to teaching in two ways next week:
1. I will be teaching a cardio circuit class at my gym on Saturday mornings.
Think lunges and bear crawls and farmer’s walks and push ups.
Lots of them.
2. I will be teaching a nutrition class at my gym on Wednesday nights.
This is the class I am thinking the most about. I feel like I could teach a cardio circuit class in my sleep. I won’t, because I think my clients would notice I was snoring while they were lunging, but I do circuits at least once a week myself, and I run similar workouts with some of my more advanced clients already.
This nutrition class, however, has me thinking.
I have six weeks, one class per week, to cover everything I think our gym members might need to assist them in weight loss and overall health.
Here’s my current plan of approach by week:
- Week 1: Overview — What NOT to Do
- Week 2: Proteins (metabolism, daily needs, healthy sources, poor sources)
- Week 3: Carbs (ditto protein topics)
- Week 4: Fats (ditto protein topics)
- Week 5: Putting it all together & Special considerations
- Week 6: Q&A Session
I think this covers the basics I wrote about in this post, plus it will allow me to dive into some of the specifics I wrote about in this post.
It also allows me time to cover personalizing a diet (week 5), and I think it will give me a chance to cover some of my clients’ special needs like autoimmune issues and blood sugar regulation (also week 5).
Oddly, I am super excited about running the nutrition series (versus the cardio circuit class). This is sort of my first large-scale foray into my field of study — I want it to go well so badly that I have been literally lesson planning these classes in my head. I genuinely want to give out good information in a smart way, a way other than a simple lecture/handout review.
Perhaps my class attendees will do a little pantomime to explain carb storage.
Or the Krebs cycle.
Or maybe — MAYBE — I’ll get really good at teaching both classes, and we can reenact the Krebs cycle via a series of frog jumps, plyolunges and squat thrusts.
Or not.
Though I do think squat thrusts are a PERFECT way to represent ATP.
This is awesome! What a great opportunity
I had to do a talk on nutrition in November and I was terrified. I’m confident in what I see but speaking in front of 100 people? Yowza. I think as a teacher you will do far better than me!
This will feel like old hat to me LOL. I have been wondering how I could combine nutrition and teaching, and I guess this is a start
My nutrition professor last semester worked in Krebs’ lab. He liked to joke about the only Krebs cycle ever photographed and shared an image of Krebs on a bicycle. Truthfully, though, I like the breakdown you have. I thought about how I would do it and I couldn’t think of anything…. so keeping it to the ‘how these macros work’ is brilliant. Is it just gym goers that sign up or can anyone hop in any week?
It’s just gym members, and I am capping the participants to see how it goes. I’m hoping it’ll fill up and we can run it again!
I wish our gym had a nutrition class. Yours sounds great.
Mary, I work at another Fitness 19, the one in Williamsville! If you belong to one, you can go to ANY of them, so if you wanted to come to the class at my location, you probably could!
Very cool! I am excited for you.
Thanks Kristen, I don’t drive any more. Frank is a near perfect husband, but has one huge flaw. He will not drive anywhere that is more than 5 minutes away