Are you working out hard but not achieving the results you desire? This post discusses why more exercise is not always better, the signs of overtraining and how to find balance in your exercise routine for best results and optimal health.
Tips for Self-Care Between Massages
I went to see my massage therapist for the first time this year. It's been too long since my last visit and my body always tells me when it's overdue. I try to get a full body massage at least once a month, especially when I am training hard. I see it as both a reward for my hard training efforts and a part of my recovery protocol. Although a massage can be expensive, I try to work in a 90 minute session once a month because I make it a priority to take care of myself. Runners and massages go together like peanut butter and ice-cream. What? Just me? (I'm not pregnant, I swear.)
One thing I have learned over the years is that we don't train in a bubble. You can exercise for an hour a day but if you are not taking care of nutrition, sleep, recovery and managing stress levels you may not see the results you desire. Everything is connected. Stress at work can affect your workout recovery. Poor sleep can inhibit fat loss. Poor nutrition can hurt your performance. You have to take care of your whole body, mind and spirit for true health and balance.
You body is like a race car, it may be fun to take it for a few speedy laps around the track, but you need to keep up with the maintenance in order to continue to perform your best. Maintenance of your body includes exercise, nutrition, rest, recovery, mobility and stress management. Maybe when I was a younger my body was more forgiving, but as I am getting older I definitely feel my best when I spend the time to take care of myself and pay the consequences if I don't.
Although massages are definitely not a requirement of a healthy lifestyle, I always enjoy my massage sessions. My massage therapist works to help release tight muscles so I can feel my best. It's a stress reliever and a way I pamper myself. He always gives me tips and advice on how I can maintain a healthy body outside of our sessions, especially since I visit just once a month. I love his ideas so I thought I would share some of his wisdom with you. I wish I could get a massage every week, but I follow these tips to extend the benefits and good feelings after a massage. Whether you are able to get a regular massage or not, this advice applies to maintain a healthy body.
Tips for self-care between massages. save to Pinterest for later
"AIR IS FREE"
It doesn't cost a penny to take in a deep belly breath and exhale. You don't need to skimp or save on those deep breaths. When he is working a particularly tight muscle he will say, "Air is Free" to remind me to take breathe deeply during the massage, but a deep breathing practice can serve us well all day long. You don't have to commit to a long term meditation practice, just stop and take a few deep breaths to relax your body and mind at any time. There are apps that can guide you, FitBit has a "Relax" setting that walks you through two minutes of deep breathing or just stop and breathe once in awhile. Air is free.
FOAM ROLLING/STRETCHING
A great way to encourage healthy mobility is with a foam rolling and stretching practice. It's always a good idea to move through a full body stretching session after your workouts, and it may be helpful to set some time aside for foam rolling as well. A lot of people have rounded shoulders and tight hip flexors due to our modern lifestyle of sitting and looking down at our phone screens most of the day. Some daily simple stretches and foam rolling techniques can help us counteract these disadvantages of our lifestyle.
DRINK WATER
After you get a massage they always encourage you to drink water. It's usually under the pretense of "flushing toxins" or some nonsense, but the truth is that muscles feel and perform their best when hydrated so this is generally good advice, whether you're getting a massage or not. You'll feel your best when fully hydrated.
SLEEP ON YOUR BACK
This is a tough one for me and something I am working on. He says sleeping on your back is the best sleeping position since it helps relax tight shoulders, chest muscles and hip flexors. It allows your head, neck and spine to rest in neutral position. Since I am recovering from an injured shoulder, he says it's especially important that I'm not adding pressure by sleeping on my shoulder. I often start on my back, but fall asleep and roll over. Hubby says I snore when on my back, but he is clearly lying. Sweet dainty girls like me don't snore, obviously.
Like anything else sleeping on my back is a habit that has to be developed and cultivated. I set the intention to sleep on my back when I go to bed at night and on those nights that I don't succeed, I try again.
Even if you don't get regular massages, these tips for self-care to maintain a healthy body between massages applies to everyone.
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BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE!
5 WAYS YOU MAY BE SABOTAGING YOUR RESULTS
It can be frustrating if you feel like you are working hard but still not seeing the results you desire. Human metabolism is complicated and it is not always as simple as the common advice to eat less and move more. Here are five common, easy-to-miss ways you may be sabotaging your fat loss results.
5 ways you may be sabotaging your results. save to Pinterest for later.
Not getting enough quality sleep
It's sometimes seen as a badge of honor to function well on a little sleep, but sleep is an often overlooked factor for fat loss. Most of our body's recovery processes happen during sleep. Sleep plays a role in stress levels, recovery and regulation of hormones. Aim for 7-8 hours of high quality sleep each night for best results. If you are currently getting considerably less, start by adding 30 minutes to an hour each night. Create and follow a sleep ritual to help develop the habit of a good night's sleep. People are often looking for the supplement or diet that will help them reach their goal while completely overlooking the basics, like sleep, that can have a much bigger impact.
Not managing stress
High stress can cause you to hold on unwanted weight, can inhibit recovery from workouts, can cause you feel hungrier and potentially overeat. Everything is connected. During high stress times make an effort to spend at least 15-30 minutes a day in stress-relieving activities. Read a book, take a bubble bath, meditate, pray, walk, stretch, foam roll, get a massage, listen to music or anything other healthy activity that puts you in a relaxed state.
Not eating enough
You may be tempted to severely limit your calories in order to get faster results, but the body doesn't usually respond well to drastic changes. You don't turn up the temperature in the oven to cook your turkey faster and your body doesn't work that way either. If you eat too little for long periods your metabolism may slow down to compensate. With limited food intake you may not be getting the necessary vitamins and minerals, which can cause you to feel tired and foggy-brained. Lastly, if you are severely limiting your calorie intake, you're more likely to overindulge later which will eventually sabotage your efforts.
A better strategy is to eat about 500 calories under maintenance level for a moderate calorie deficit.
Eating "Diet" foods
Food marketing is tricky. Foods are often marketed with misleading labels to make people think they are making a healthier choice. Labels like fat-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, fresh, natural and organic are often slapped on unhealthy, high calorie, processed foods. If you don't pay attention to the nutrition label and read the ingredient list you may be eating foods that aren't healthy at all. Flavored yogurt cups are one of the worst offenders of a junk food disguised as a health food. They are usually loaded with processed ingredients and can have as much sugar as a cup of ice cream. Read the labels and ignore the marketing to make sure you are eating mostly whole foods from nature for best results.
Focusing on weight loss and not fat loss
It can be detrimental to get too attached to the number on the scale. The scale only tells a part of the story: your body weight. However if you are trying to lose weight, you should focus on losing fat, not weight. When the number goes down on the scale it could mean you lost fat (good outcome), it could mean you lost water (neutral outcome, neither good or bad) or it could mean you lost muscle (bad outcome). A lower number on the scale is not always a good result. In order to maintain muscle as we lose weight we need to consume adequate amounts of protein and perform some sort of resistance training on a regular basis. Losing muscle can hurt your ability to keep the weight off, which can sabotage your long term results. Focus on non-scale victories like body measurements, sleep quality, performance and how your clothes fit. When we are training properly, we sometimes shrink in size while maintaining the same scale weight.
Losing weight usually requires a lifestyle changes. Take it slow, be patient and learn to enjoy the journey. Focus on developing the healthy habits that will help you reach your goals. Here are 10 daily healthy habits that can change your life. Need help? My nutrition habits coaching program has three openings. See if you are a good fit.
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BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE!
THE PLAYLIST HIIT RUNNING WORKOUT
I get most excited and energized by blogging, running and rock music so I am always thrilled when I get the opportunity for a passion trifecta to blog about running and music.
Welcome to workout Wednesday when each week I share a new running or strength for runners workout. This week we have a fun running workout that takes all the pressure and stress out of your runs and lets you just go with the flow, or the beat of the music.
The idea is to create a playlist with the beats per minute or BPM in mind. We start with a song with a mid tempo BPM for a moderate pace to warm up and then alternate between higher BPM songs and medium BPM songs until the run is complete.
We naturally match our stride to the BPM so we may feel motivated to keep up a faster pace in sync with the music. Since most songs are around three minutes long (give or take), a playlist built around BPM can be the perfect high intensity interval workout.
The Playlist HIIT running workout. Save to Pinterest for later.
Start off with a song with a mid tempo BPM to get started, then make the next song on your playlist an uptempo song with 155-185 BPM. Some say 180 is the perfect BPM for runners as it's been claimed that 180 strides per minute is the most efficient turnover.
How do you find BPM of popular songs? The site songbpm.com lets you enter any song and it returns the BPM. Spotify also has playlists built around BPM, so you can pick and choose your favorite songs to build you own playlist HIIT workout around the music that you love.
If you like alternative rock like I do, your playlist might look something like mine. With this playlist we are alternating between mid tempo and up tempo songs. I created a playlist on Spotify if you want to hear my song selections. Create your own playlist with the music that you love.
THE PLAYLIST HIIT WORKOUT
Against Me! Don't Lose Touch 120 bpm
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs Phenomena 157 bpm
Band of Skulls - Sweet Sour 127 bpm
The Hives two-timing touch and broken bones 165 bpm
The Black Keys Howlin for you 133 bpm
Cake the distance 183 bpm
Young the Giant My Body 130 bpm
Millencolin - Ray 197 bpm
The fratellis - Henrietta 122 bpm
The Kills Sour Cherry 160 bpm
Create your own playlist and see how it feels to run by music bpm. As a running coach I will advise you to not try to run faster than your current fitness level. If you can't keep up with the tempo of the song, it's always better to go at your own pace for safety and sanity.
I'd like to thank hubby, the drummer, for a little bit of music education as I put together this post.
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BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE!
SPICE UP YOUR RUNNING PLAYLIST WITH THESE ALTERNATIVE ROCK SONGS (YOU PROBABLY NEVER HEARD)
The three Rs: Running, Writing and Rock music. They are my life's passions. If I can run, write and listen to music, I'm in my happy place.
I grew up on '90s alternative rock music so it holds a special place in my heart. I heard Smashing Pumpkins on the classic rock station and realized that I am old now. That age thing doesn't keep me from the music I love or going to the concerts of my favorite artists, I just usually wake up the next day in worse shape than after a half marathon.
Today I wanted to give you some ideas of alternative rock songs to spice up your running playlist. They may not be new songs, but some of them may be new to you. Sprinkle of these in and see if the beats push you across the finish line a little bit faster.
I resisted the urge to make this an all-Jack-White-all-the-time playlist, which is often the playlist in my ears. Check out these ten alternative rock songs to spice up your running playlist. Do you know these songs? These artists? They are among my favorites for running and for life.
10 alternative rock songs to spice up your running playlist. Save to pinterest for later.
I added my song selections to a Spotify playlist so you can check them out for yourself. Do you have any suggestions of songs for my playlist? Will you add any of these to your running playlist? Anyone else out there a Jack White fanatic like me?
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BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE!