Personal Development

I’ve had two weeks of vacation to complete my education as a Personal Trainer. Did my final exams yesterday and got really good feedback on the practical part - which made me so happy!

I did the practical exam with a guy in the group and it was so much fun! I planned a hard training session for back and post delts for my “client” while he made me train shoulders and triceps. He pushed me beoyond my limits and we did not only pass the exam with positive respons from the teacher, we both got good training sessions.

During the past two weeks we’ve had intensive days learing about everything from seniortraining, to nutrition, sports injuries and specific training. We’ve had the chance to try different kinds of training and also to do “roleplays” in the gym. I know which course fellows I’d be willing to spend money on for personal training… (Johan is one of them;-))

Going back to work again today  – my vacation is over (might take some additional vacation days in the end of the summer).  I am glad I chose to spend my vacation on education and personal development because I’ve really enjoyed it!

I am taking a summer course in nutrition as well. It contains of some course material to read (which I’ve already read), a hand in, a lab and an exam. I love learning more about the things I am interested in.

I’m In Love…

OK, never thought I’d say this – but I have found a car that I just fell in love with… I am not interested in nice cars, or at least I thought I wasn’t…until I saw the Audi R8. It was displayed in a window downtown, and I looked it up on the internet. Price tag was waaaaaaay beoyond what I’d ever consider spending on a car, but dreaming is always nice

Me and Johan have chosen to add another university course to our study list. This time it is a summer course in Nutrition – on distance. Only 3 mandatory gatherings, and today is one of them. I’m attending a 3 days work related education so I’m not able to attend. Will receive some hand-in to complete instead.

I’m about to hit the spinningbike at home. I really do enjoy morning cardio! Sometimes I get stuck in front of the computer in the morning though… like now… Swithching focus to workout mode instead. See u!

Mattias&Linda

We left Stockholm before lunch yesterday. One of Johans best friends, Mattias was going to marry his Linda.

Before going to the church we unpacked and got dressed at Johans grandmothers place since we were going to sleep over there.
I like her alot, she is so interested in everything going on around her and sooo kind

Me and Johans grandmother
Johan and his grandmother

The wedding ceremony was beautiful and the happy couple looked great together.
All the guests had made some effort to dress nice as well.
Here is my Johan and Johan L. in their outfits for the day.

The wedding dinner was very nice. With lots of “happenings” arranged by the friends and family of the married couple.

After dinner and wedding cake (which looked beautiful and probably tasted good if you like whipped cream and sugar), a live band started to play. When everybody else now seemed to have lots of energy I just got tired. I am not used to staying up that late, and since I don’t drink alcohol that extra energy to dance and jump around late at night does not come my way – you should see me doing intervals at 5 a.m. in the morning instead – that’s more my cup of tea.

 
Although I did not join the dancing queens and kings on the floor I really enjoyed talking to all the people  and to share this special day with Mattias and Linda. We left the party at 2 am and fell asleep in a second when we got to Johans grandmothers place.

Back in Stockholm again, tired. But I have a home examination in the second part of my Sports & Excercise psychology course, so no time for sleep… (Johan fell asleep on the sofa. He also have the same home examination as me but I just don’t have the heart to wake him up right now, more work for him next weekend then). For me lots of pepsi max is on the menu – studies here we go!

Yeah right!

Seen that the low fat/sugar free yoghurt icecream is back on 7-eleven? Tasted it? Eaten it believing it did not have any fast carbs in it?
Well. think again… the second ingredient on the list is maltodextrin, like that would be better than sugar?
I’d maybe consider eating it after a hard training session, not otherwise.

How come they fool people this way?
Maltodextrin has a very high GI and will definately cause a high peak in bloodsugar levels – higher than with regular sugar.

Impressions of Copenhagen

Took a walk downtown Copenhagen after work yesterday. Lovely weather! I’ve been here before but I’d forgotten how it was like. It feels very different than Sweden, and I keep wondering why there are so many homeless/drug addicts/alcoholics on the streets? Maybe we have just as much in Sweden but we don’t see them?

When I’m in other countries I like to walk by a food store just to see if they have anything exciting that we do not have at home. (In Denmark chicken seems to be very cheap by the way). I had no problems finding low fat cottage cheese and quark here. But I also found something more – Icecream! I eat icecream once a year, and that is after competing, but since I found one with 80 kcal per 100g, low in fat and with sweeteners instead of sugar I just couldn’t resist. Lovely, but I got so cold after eating it. Why don’t we have this type of icecream in Sweden, they have a similar one in Norway too… but not Sweden. Maybe that’s good cause my poor stomach really got upset after eating it… those sweeteners I guess…

I passed by a 7-eleven to buy something to drink, and suddenly I felt like being in LA again. Diet Mountain Dew! (Or it had the name Free Mountain Dew). The taste of it brought me back to Venice beach… the sun, the sand, Golds Gym. Started to miss Johan and to dream about taking the next flight to LA with him. Wow, back to reality, some person wanted money from me I think. He said something in danish but I walked a little faster and pretended I didn’t see him.

Went to the gym in the evening. This time I tried a new SATS that has opened.
There is also a gym at the first floor of the hotel. 2000 sq meters. I thought I had missed a floor or something there because when I was looking for the free weights I could only find some dumbells and barbells already loaded with some weights (up to 30 kg). Other than that the gym was really fresh. All those new fancy Technogym machines and pilates balls for a whole class, come on – where is the gym?
If I thought SATS would be better I was wrong. New and fresh.. but those free weights were not there either. Did shoulders and arms  and went back to the hotel wondering why Danish gyms does not have any real equipment. There must be other gyms as well… also how come all danish guys train in flip-flops? Bare feet? Maybe because there are no heavy weights to lift?

Time for half an hour morning cardio before going to the office. Flying home again this afternoon.

Where am I?

When I arrived Copenhagen yesterday and went off the train from the airport to the centralstation I got a little confused. For some reason I had the view of Helsinki centralstation in my mind Wrong, this is Copenhagen haha.

I’m working from here a couple of days. I’m going to the gym when they open at 6, before heading to the office. Still a couple of minutes left until they open so I’ll share two pics from 17th of May.

Ja vi elsker dette landet…

17th of May. No matter where I am in the world, this date I’m Norwegian.It is a feeling that comes from deep within, a kind of pride, patriotism and happiness.
Norway is where I was born, we are an unanimity and today is the day to celebrate all the good things with our country.

Many people have the wrong understanding of the Norwegian national day. They believe it is a day filled with party that includes alcohol – they are wrong. The Norwegian national day is a day where the country is honoured. Everybody is dressing up and getting out on the streets with Norwegian flags to celebrate. Alcohol is not a part of this celebration.

I’m in Stockholm and around 5000-6000 Norwegians will participate in the parade from the city to Skansen starting at 1 pm today.
I’ll wear my national costume, and Johan will come with me carrying a Norwegian flag. The sun is shining today, so it will be a great 17th of May. Also since Norway won the Eurovision song contest yesterday I believe the atmosphere among the Norwegians will be something extra.

Hedgehogs invading Stockholm

Woke up to a beautiful sunny Stockholm today. Started the day with BCAAs, and an espresso and I went out for a run.

After 53 minutes I was almost back home again. I was running throug a park when something suddenly made a strange sound close to my feet. I jumped a couple of meters and my heart rate went almost up to max when I realized something bigger than an insect was moving on the ground. Hedgehogs! I’ve only seen those creatures ones before – and that was when I was 5 years on vacation in Sweden. (We don’t have them in Tromsö).

I had to take a picture with my phone to make sure Johan would believe me when I got back home ;-) But apparently hedgehogs are not so unusual so he was not impressed.

Best Grade!

Two weeks ago I had my first exam in Sports & Exercise Psychology, giving 9 studying points out of the total 15 for the whole course.

Got the result today….It was possible to get a total score of 36. To obtain an A the score had to be 33 or more. I am not sure exactly where I landed but I know I scored enough points to get the best grade.

The best thing is the learning that this exam gave me, I really feel I have understood what we’ve gone through in the course so far. Looking forward to apply the knowledge in real life as well.

(BTW Johan also got an A )

At the moment I am in Malmö, working. Arrived Monday and will go back home tomorrow afternoon. It is really summer in the air here, just love when the temperature is getting higher.

Time

3 weeks since my last blogpost… and what is my excuse for that? TIME, TIME, TIME… where does it go? The hour I had just a minute ago passed fast as a second

Working, travelling with work, training, sleeping and eating occupies alot of my time… And what is left of it I chose to put on education.
So, at the moment, in addition to the sports and excercise psychology course me and Johan are attending once a week at the university, we also decided to learned more around our biggest interest: Training.

Last weekend we started our journey to become SAFE educated personal trainers. We had a whole weekend of anathomy so now I know for example what os coccygis is

More education this weekend (a little longer this time so I have vacation two days) – yesterday we learned  how to save life in case of emergency, we learned how to handle different injuries and how to use a heartstarter. Today we’ll have biomechanics and physiology.