Fitness: You get what you expect!

A couple of athletes here locally have been training for The Death Race, and I've been following their training thanks to the video updates of their workouts uploaded by their gym, Boot Camps to Go.  The Death Race is held each year in Vermont and is so named because it's supposed to be insanely hard not just physically but mentally as well.  It's an adventure race with obstacles like navigating a barbed-wire forest in the dark, assembling your own transportation after searching for the individual components in a murky pond, carrying a portion of your body weight up a mountain only to be faced with logic puzzles to complete at the top, and memorizing facts, figures, and objects so you can recreate them at a later time. It requires participants to be prepared for and willing to try just about anything and is proud of its 10% average completion rate. I usually roll my eyes at the "we're so tough" mentality of some endurance athletes (usually the ones I am trying to convince myself I am not jealous of) but I have to admit, I can't wait to hear how they do and what they encounter. They've been working very hard and I admire them! Go Megan and Ricky!

I love to tough it out with something that is trying to beat me; the sense of accomplishment after achieving something really brutal is beyond euphoric. It reminds me that difficulty is relative, and we can all do more than we think.

Every single time - every single time - I have set out to accomplish something new in health or fitness I have been met with the reality that I can do way more than I thought. We all can, including you.  It's just a matter of what you decide will happen.

My Daily Dose today was about how success favors the prepared mind. If Megan and Ricky hadn't prepared themselves for the Death Race, their chance of completion would be dismal. The same type of focus can be applied to the things we do every day to prepare ourselves for even the most minimal health success.

Here's what I'm saying: expect fitness to be impossible and it will be. Expect eating healthy to be a chore and it will feel like one. Expect your life to be adverse to a healthier routine and guess what?  You will never get your act together.

The reverse is true as well!  But you already knew that.

A whole world of amazing is waiting for you, and the golden ticket gets placed in your hand as soon as you start assuming you can achieve it. It's not always easy, but it's a lot easier when you expect the best. I'm on pins and needles to hear how the Death Race goes, and I expect to be thoroughly motivated to get out there and kick some fitness butt when I do! 

Get out there and get healthy...and start expecting it to be awesome!

Intentional Health: Eating for Function

This week is about intentional health: doing things on purpose to make yourself healthier.  Yesterday we talked about functional exercises, and today it's all about functional food.

Laurel Blackburn, one of my favorite trainers and owner of Boot Camps to Go, introduced me to the concept of functional eating years ago, whether she realizes it or not. She simply had to say the words in a lunch and learn presentation and my brain clicked. I fell in love with the concept of eating with intention: eating food that was chosen because of the way it performs in my body, not based on what sounds good at the time. It made perfect sense and I've done it ever since.

Since I've been pregnant, my functional eating has been more about survival (and supressing homicidal urges) than athletic performance. But, now that I am past the first trimester eating-bread-all-day-to-stay-upright phase, it's getting a lot easier to go back to my normal diet of vegetables, fruit, and lean protein. Thus, my veggie challenge from last week, which has been going great by the way. I've been eating one veggie meal every day for a week with the intention of getting my taste buds reacclimated to them.  Now, I crave tomatoes and spinach again just like the good old days!  Well, almost. :)

So how do you eat with intention?  Well, first take a look at your energy needs throughout the day: When do you exercise? Morning, noon, evening? Plan your high-energy and high-glycemic foods (bananas are a good example) for right before those times and limit them the rest of the day when your body just doesn't have a practical need for them. When do you feel tired during the day?  Plan a well-balanced snack (a good ratio of carbs, protein, and healthy fat) to boost your energy and keep you satiated until your next pit stop.  One of my favorites is plain greek yogurt with fresh blueberries and an ounce of chopped walnuts or slivered almonds mixed in.

Second, take a look at your fitness goals. Do you want to build muscle? Eat more protein after a workout.  Do you need energy stores for an endurance workout?  Make sure you're getting plenty of carbs and electrolytes.  A runner has different food needs than a weight lifter, and a multi-sport athlete will eat differently than a yoga devotee.  One plate does not suit all!

Finally, take a look at your daily calorie expenditure and determine the proper amount of fuel (calories/food) that your body needs. If you're trying to lose weight, subtract about 500 calories a day to create a deficit.  If you want to maintain, shoot to break even.  Plan for contingencies: if you know you have a party on the weekend and you'll likely go over your alloted calories, plan a slight deficit throughout the week or a big workout that day to burn them off.  It's all about planning and eating with the intention of staying healthy.  Here's a formula to help you figure out your magic number.

The point here is to think before you eat. Ask yourself whether what you're about to eat will get you to your next destination. And, if you're not sure, head to the library and check out YOU: On a Diet by Drs. Oz and Roizen. It's chock full of great info on how food works.

Intentional eating is fun and rewarding. So get out there and be healthy!

Half-Marathon: The Second Time's the Charm!

Ya know, it's amazing how much better you can run when you don't have a sinus infection and haven't just heard that your grandmother died. Those are the conditions under which I ran my first half in October, and it s-u-c-k-e-d.  I wasn't there mentally at all and my physical presence was only in the most literal sense.  When I crossed the finish line of that race, it was from sheer determination and because my sister shamed me into it. I was out for the count and felt like crap.

The second time was better to infinity and beyond!  The race was yesterday and not only did I feel great, the weather was phenomenal, the people were super-super, and my energy and health were right there with me.  I had the wonderful experience of running most of the race with a friend who was doing her first half (go Edie!), and saw so many other friends along the route including getting to "meet" one of my favorite local tweeps, @AHealthyJD, who was volunteering at a junction point.  It was so great to see her there and shout out a hello!  The feeling of community was definitely in high gear yesterday, and it made a big difference for me.

The run was flat, fast, and gorgeous. I felt like I was gliding over the pavement and sailed into the last bit of the race with energy to spare. I had a good strategy this time:

1. I wore compression socks, which did wonders for my sore calf muscles. I highly recommend them! I wore CEP brand socks and bought them at Capital City Runners. I am so not a bright pink girl, but my socks were the brightest pink you can find.  My eyes still hurt from looking at them.

2. I popped two Advil at mile 2 to prevent calf muscle inflammation later in my run. I have no clue if it did anything worthwhile but I'll probably do it again cause I'm superstitious that way.

3. I had a Lara bar in my fuel belt, broken into four pieces. I ate a piece and drank a bit of water at miles 6, 8, 10, and 12.  I don't eat Gu because of the artificial sugars and additives. 

4. I gave my husband a banana, a Lara bar, and a bottle of water to hold at the finish line in hopes of avoiding the blood sugar plummet I had at my last half.  It felt so good to have some good clean calories right away! 

My run was out of this world and I had a great race. Uber kudos to Gulf Winds Track Club for organizing the event, TroubleAfoot for covering it, friends at Boot Camps to Go and Tallahassee Society of Association Executives for cheering me on from the sidelines, and all of the great people on Twitter who made my day so wonderful with cheers and well wishes. 

Oh, I finished the race in 2:07:07, which is 11 minutes faster than my last half and three minutes faster than my goal time. woo hoo! I'm inching closer to the benchmark of completing a half in fewer than two hours...which is the point at which I'll consider doing a full marathon. Is NYC in my future?

In the meantime, I'm still grinning. And, yeah...thinking of a new goal. 

Any ideas?

Champion of Change: Data

Data. Info. Also known as reality. The champion of change for today is good old fashioned knowing stuff.

Specifically knowing stuff about you: what's going in and what's coming out. And just so we're clear, I'm talking about diet and exercise.  This is a family blog! Actually it's not necessarily but anyway that's beside the point.

The point is, you can have all the consistency in your healthy behaviors that you want but if you're not paying attention to the cold hard facts of your wellness, it's like going for a run with your shoelaces untied - you're going to get tripped up.  You need to pay a certain amount of attention to the numbers, and the amount of effort you're willing to put in here will determine the rate of your success.  Of course, you can also go overboard like I do and be so laden down with data that you go insane.  But that's just me.

Luckily, there are a lot of resources out there for collecting, analyzing, and using your wellness data.  I'm going to focus on the most important and simplest ones today: what you eat and what you burn.

First, the food.  It's always the food, isn't it?  The most important thing you can do for your wellness is to eat clean. But healthy food has calories, too, so it also helps to measure your portions and log it so you can look for trends, stay accountable, and plan for obstacles like travel and parties.  I do this with a digital kitchen scale and the online food journal for my GoWearFit.  I also used Fitday.com for years, and there are dozens more.  Find one that works for you, enter your portions accurately, and use it!  I could talk for days on the value of a good food journal and maybe someday I will.  You've been warned.

Second, the body. You already know the formula for calculating your daily caloric burn, and your food journal will tell you whether you are staying within your chosen range.  But you can also get data about your body that can help you choose an exercise program, proper equipment, and prevent injury. Last week I underwent a movement screen at Boot Camps to Go, which taught me a lot about my body's range of motion, flexibility, potential for injury, and opened my eyes to some preventative maintenance I can do through stretching and strength training to make my workouts a lot more enjoyable.  Laurel Blackburn offers movement screens at her warehouse, and you can schedule one for yourself.  Now that I have some fun data about the bag of bones I've got to work with, I'm working on my weak points, building a better body, and looking forward to following up with her to see what kind of progress I made.  Check it out - it's really cool.

I can't end a post on data without foaming at the mouth over my GoWearFit.  This thing is like the data holy grail.  I can see my calorie burn, log my food, and even see my sleep quality. It's nuts. Six months after buying it, I'm still in love and use it every day.  In fact, it helped me lose five pounds over the holidays just because I had ready access to undeniable data.  If you're serious about weight loss or maintenance, get one.

Reality bites, man. Sometimes the data we collect isn't what we want to see. But I promise you 100% over and over, when you start using it and functioning in the reality of your wellness, you won't hate data for long. It will become your wing man. 

Yeah...let data become your wing man!  Now get going! :)

The Turkish Get-Up is not a dance step. And there is no turkey.

For some, bracing for crowds, snatching deals, lifting shopping bags, and balancing their Christmas shopping is enough of a workout on the day after Thanksgiving.  Others brace themselves in an uber-plank, snatch kettlebells, lift their own body weight, and center their balance in a whole new kind of turkey-inspired indulgence.  I would fall into the second category. But you knew that.

On Black Friday I put on my black chucks and headed to Boot Camps to Go to workout with one of my most favoritest trainers, Laurel Blackburn.  I like Laurel because she not only knows her stuff when it comes to human physiology and conditioning, but she is a stickler for the details of form and function, just like me.  You can read more about her in Women's Health and Oxygen magazines, where she's been profiled for her no-nonsense perspective on achieving physical fitness and her popular Boot Camp workouts.  She's super cool.

Anyway, I was glad to finally have some time to learn about kettlebells, the ancient workout that is the new rage among fitness types.  Read my post on Kettlebells: Know Your Pro for the info.  I was not disappointed!  Wow, not only was working with kettlebells seriously tough mentally and physically, I managed to burn off the bowl of Thanksgiving Oatmeal I had devoured on the drive over in no time.  That was pretty sweet.

Kettlebells require serious attention to form and technique, and that is what makes the certification of your instructor so important.  In just the hour that I spent learning some of the basics, I could see how this is the kind of workout that never gets stale: there is always another level of improvement, heavier bells, and more advanced technique.  Working out with kettlebells is about more than just burning calories (which it does, in droves).  It's also a deliberate way to center your focus on one task, which requires you to forget about everything else cluttering your brain.  That was pretty sweet, too.  I learned how to correctly swing the bells, how to do a kettlebell squat, and got reacquainted with the fact that I am so not flexible.  Check me out in my super-fly workout gear! Oh yeah. I'm glamorous.


I think my favorite part of my Black Friday workout, though, was the nap.  What?  Okay, I didn't actually take a nap but I did get to lie down.  When Laurel told me we were going to do the Turkish Get-up I wasn't sure if she was going to give me her Thanksgiving leftovers or teach me a new dance step. It wasn't either of those.  Instead, well, it's easier to show you.  This video is long, but watch it anyway.

Learning this move was interesting, and I've been practicing it at home. It's a full-body exercise and a great way to start the day!

Look, it's a crucial time of year for staying healthy. The average person puts on seven pounds just in December!  If you want to avoid that, shake up the routine: increase intensity, try something new, and challenge yourself to not become a weight gain statistic.  For you locals, Laurel has a Monday, Wednesday, Friday KB class starting up in December - register for it!  If you're not from these parts, find a certified kettlebell instructor near you and give 'em a shot!

Consider it a Christmas gift to yourself. :)

Turkey Day Tip #3

Wait!  There is still time to be healthy on Thanksgiving! 

Here's how:

1. Exercise, fool! Many many many cities in this great country host Turkey Trots every Thanksgiving morning, and I am willing to bet good money that they are still taking registrations. Starting the day off with a run, or even just a brisk walk, is a great way to kickstart your metabolism plus put you in a healthy mood.  Exercise helps you eat less and feel happier about it, just sayin'. You can find a turkey trot near you!

2. Slim down your favorites. Look, I love sweet potato casserole just as much as you do. But I love feeling healthy and strong all day long more than the 10 seconds it takes to eat it.  Even if you're not a sadist like me, you can at least slim down your holiday favorites with some simple substitutions.  My friend Tiffany at The Gracious Pantry has some great holiday recipes that will make you feel like you're splurging without actually doing it.  Check them out!

3. Remember the REAL reason for Thanksgiving. My friend Ellen sent this article to me the other day because she knew I would dig it - it's not only chock full of my favorite historical demographic - naughty Puritans - but it's also about how Thanksgiving was intended to be a day of meditation and reverence, not gluttony and consumerism. Its a nice reminder to make family the focus of the day, not a personal challenge to eat everything you passed up the other 10 months of the year.

My Thanksgiving day plans? The Turkey Trot 15k, making mimosas and some whole-wheat clean eating cinnamon rolls for breakfast, watching the parade and complaining about all of the product placement, baking my healthy pumpkin pie (recipe below) with my munchkin, and having a delicious Thanksgiving-themed salad full of spinach, home-dried (AKA unsweetened) cranberries, toasted walnuts, and yes, TURKEY. Then a whole lotta rest so I can be ready for my post-Thanksgiving workout at Boot Camps to Go.

And now for the recipe...keep in mind I cook for fuel (which is to say I am not a chef!)

Healthy Heather's Pumpkin Pie


Ingredients:
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin
• 8 ounces almond milk
• 3 egg whites
• 1 ½ cups crushed whole wheat graham cracker crumbs (I use Mi-Del)
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• pumpkin pie spice
• 2 egg whites, for the crust


Directions:


1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Make graham cracker crust: combine 1 ½ cups crushed whole wheat graham crackers with about 2 tbsp melted butter and press into a greased pie plate. To make to crust less soggy, brush egg whites over it and bake at 350°F for about 5 minutes before adding the pie filling.

3. Mix pumpkin, milk, and egg whites until smooth.

4. Add the pumpkin pie spice

5. Pour into crust and spread evenly. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes then reduce the temperature to 350°F and bake for another 45 minutes (may vary depending on ovens).


Have a WONFERFUL Thanksgiving...see you soon!

Kettlebells: Know Your Pro!

Sometimes people call me Jillian Junior, which kind of annoys me because I cannot stand Jillian Michaels' persona on TV.  I know that they're just referring to my "no pity" way of keeping people - and myself - accountable to their fitness goals, and I am glad they find that endearing because I don't plan to start being an enabler anytime soon. 

And I do think that Jillian Michaels makes some valid assessments about people's readiness to change when it comes to their personal wellness, and her brand of bullying can be effective for some people to wake up and get real about their health.  I just have a hard time getting past the diet pill thing.

ANYWAY.  Since I am already so down on Jillian, reading this article about criticism of her new kettlebell workout DVD just added fuel to my fire.  I have never done a kettlebell workout, although I do use them for resistance with dead lifts and whatnot at the gym.  But I do know that working with kettlebells can be a serious calorie-burner and is likely different from anything you've ever done before and therefore great for cross-training.  And I also know it needs to be done under the supervision of someone who knows what the heck they're talking about.

Friends, use your whole grain noodle.  If you want to try kettlebells, do!  But seek out a certified instructor and sign up for a class where you can be monitored safely.  Dragon Door offers this national search database where you can find a certified instructor, which includes my friend Laurel Blackburn of Boot Camps to Go.  Check them out!

Be healthy, be safe, be smart!  Good day!