The Road To Being A Certified Weight Loss Specialist
By admin
Happy Hump Day! How’s the week going so far? To be honest, aside from the freakishly cold temperatures, I can’t complain! The count down is on for my birthday (8 days) and I am pretty pumped to see what lies ahead for the big 2-9.
One thing I am excited about is kicking off the final year in my 20s with a new certification.
I announced about a month ago that I was given the opportunity from NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine) to go through their newest certification and become a weight loss specialist.
Now, I am no dumb blonde, so I jumped at the opportunity.
The WLS course is an at home, online based course that can be done on your own schedule. That is a must for me, since my schedule is all over the place on a day to day, week to week basis. And another must: easy navigation. I hate programs where you can’t figure out how to even get started. But the back office of NASM was pretty self explanatory. Click your course, click on the chapter and you’re off and studying!
In fact, unlike the personal training course were you only have 3 months, this course is open for an entire year. I am not the kind to take my dear sweet time with things like this, so I set my goal to have it done in 2 months…. success.
What Is A Weight Loss Specialist?
Being a weight loss specialist allows me to have a better understanding of clients who are overweight and obese. The course goes more indept on how to create fitness programs for people of all sizes and with health concerns related to being overweight, such as diabetes, heart disease, etc. Dietary and nutritional information is also explained in more detail than what I learned when being certified as a trainer.
Basically it makes me a stronger personal trainer and helped to re-educate me on a lot of concepts I had forgotten about!
What Came With The Course?
I mentioned this before when I announced my WLS intentions, but the course is set up to be customized for how you prefer to learn. Once logged in, there is a textbook version of the entire course, and there are videos as well.
Personally, I prefer to read and take notes so that was my method. I do better that way then watching videos.
There were also additional manuals and resourcs to help get you started and/or improve your personal training business. Always a plus!
And finally the test. I wasn’t sure at first if the test would be online or if I would be required to go to a testing center like I did for my C-PT certification. I was relieved when I realized it would be done right at home, online and my results would pop up immediately.
100 multiple choice questions, 2 hours, and a lot of clicks later… I was a certified Weight Loss Specialist!
And on top of that I received 1.9 CEUs (we need 2.0 every 2 years to keep our certifications current, the 0.1 is CPR). So with that course, I am ready for another two years of training!
Was the course worth it?
Absolutely! I know the program is not cheap ($ 499) but this is my line of work and to be the best, you have to invest in yourself.
I think too many people get wrapped up into learning what they need to know and forget that learning should never stop. As a trainer, it’s important for me to stay up to date on the latest and greatest fitness and weight loss trends otherwise I will become stagnent and my abilities as a trainer will suffer.
To be the best professional and to be able to provide my beauitful readers with the best info, I gotta stay on top of my game and this helped a lot!
Just because I have my CEUs for my recertification, doesn’t mean I will just sit on my tush all day… I’m always learning about something and planning for my next educational experience, which I am thinking will be to become a Women’s Fitness Specialist (only appropriate, don’t you think?).
You can find out more about the Weight Loss Specialist Cert & all the others that NASM has to offer at their website: NASM.ORG
Do you like learning and taking courses? What was your favorite college class?
I told Dan years ago that if I had the opportunity, I would love to take just one course/semester at the College of Charleston (the college in our town) just for fun. I would love to take some more science classes, phys ed courses, and art history (I love art history).
In college, my favorite class was physiology. I had a very energized teacher that later became my mentor and really supported me and my goals throughout school. I also was the physio lab assistant… yup, I was a bio dork and loved it!
*I was not compensated by NASM to write this post. They provided me with the course however, all thoughts and opinions are my own.