Tag Archives: fitness

May6

Book Review: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

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Book Review: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

A fresh glass of iskiate, the wonder drink of the Tarahumara. I promise it tastes ever so much better than it looks.

My cool younger sister is training to run her first half-marathon next weekend (Go Shannon!). She has been asking me for a while to join her in training for a big run, but I always had an excuse at the ready: my knees and feet can’t take it; it’s too cold/hot/humid here to train like that; or it’s too risky with my heart condition. None of those are, strictly speaking, what you might call true, though for a while I did honestly think that my knees and feet weren’t up to the task. I just didn’t realize that I was running really, really wrong.

At her urging, I recently read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall (available for Kindle, iBook, and Nook as well as on paper). I was so inspired by the tales of ultramarathoners, who are insane people who run seemingly insane 50-mile, 100-mile, or more races for fun, that I hit the pavement the next day with the intent of fixing my form and getting in shape to try one of these crazy-long races. 50-mile race, here I come!

Born to Run weaves an amazing yarn which leads to the conclusion that we humans not only can run extreme distances without pain, but that we evolved specifically to do just that. McDougall offers as evidence the Tarahumara tribe of Mexico, a reclusive community of people who run for fun–run 300 miles in one race for fun. They do it smiling, barefoot, and without injury, perhaps because no one ever told them that running is supposed to cause misery rather than joy.

The book asserts that our modern problems with running come from the very shoes we wear to cure our modern problems with running. McDougall makes the argument that learning to run barefoot or with minimalist shoes will lead to running with a form that maximizes efficiency and minimizes the injuries that come from wear and tear. Too chicken to commit to running fully barefoot, I ran out and got a pair of low-cushioning shoes to try, and I unwisely pushed for a full three miles my first time out with them trying to run on the balls of my feet rather than striking with my heels. While my knees certainly felt much better, my calves hated me for days. And days. And days. Clearly I must still have been doing something very wrong.

To help me further refine my form I checked out ChiRunning, a website (and book, DVD, and training program) that McDougall mentions. This site and support material deal in greater depth with the biomechanics of painless running. Where Born to Run has served as an eye opener and inspiration to run, ChiRunning will, I hope, help me get there. I have a lot more work to do on my form, but it has improved quite a bit. Today I ran 6 miles in under an hour, and I did it with only a little discomfort in one foot. A year ago I would have thought that was impossible.

Born to Run tells us that the Tarahumara have a secret weapon that helps them run their impressive distances. It is a chia seed drink called iskiate, and I have been experimenting with it over the last two weeks before my big work outs. McDougall describes it as looking like dirty water from some kid’s aquarium science project, which is about right, but he’s also right that it tastes great (like limeade) and helps keep your energy level up during a long workout. If you can get over that it looks vaguely like pond water and frog eggs, I really recommend giving it a try. Here’s how I make it:

Iskiate
makes 1 glass

  • 1.5 tbs raw chia seed
  • 10 ounces or so cold water
  • 1 tsp or so honey* or agave nectar
  • juice of 1 lime (you can use 1/2 lemon, if you like, but I really prefer the lime)
  1. Put the chia seed in a tall glass. Pour the water in and stir. Add honey or agave nectar and lime juice and stir well.
  2. Let it sit for 5 minutes (in the fridge, if you want it really cold). The chia seed will gel. Stir it up and enjoy.

*a note on honey–most vegans don’t eat honey because it is an animal product. I am vegan for health reasons, and as such honey is no better or worse than any other natural sweetener.

Apr2

Fitness Update 2011: Week 14

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Fitness Update 2011: Week 14

This morning's breakfast was definitely an act of comfort food: maple-flavored whole wheat and corn meal waffles with fresh strawberries and vanilla cashew cream.

The scale has brought bad news again this week. I am over 140 pounds for the third week in a row, and I know why. I can’t blame bloating, hormones, or last night’s dinner for this setback. It is because I am a card-carrying stress eater, and I am now under quite a bit of stress. Running, biking, and fighting can take some edge off, but sooner or later I find myself turning to comfort foods to ease my woes.

They call it comfort food for a reason–eating certain types of food can provide a temporary emotional lift that makes life feel a little bit better, if only for a while. Too bad most of these foods are also on the naughty side, rich with fat, sugar, and salt. They are ok once in a while, but eating like this as a daily habit is not going to give me the fitness results I want.

My main comfort food these days is chocolate in its many forms, and I try to mitigate the damage by mixing my super dark chocolate morsels up with dried fruits and raw nuts to make my own comfort food gorp. This cuts the naughty sugary with healthier fair making it slightly less damaging, I hope. In times if extreme stress, such as right now, I will also feed my feelings by snacking on half sandwiches made with whole grain bread, homemade peanut or almond butter, and organic jam. This is perhaps better than Skippy and Smuckers on Wonderbread, but it is still a lot of extra calories in my day. And I will really loose control if there is anything resembling mac and cheese in the fridge, because a bowl of that topped with sriracha is another carb-rich high calorie woe-soother that I find hard to resist. These extra calories are adding up to a little bit extra me, and rather than shedding the 10 pounds or so I have left I am starting to put weight back on.

This week I plan to try some other ways to cope with the growing stress. Maybe I’ll try to add more walks into my day, which should be possible since the weather looks like it will be better than last week’s miserable cold drizzle. I am also going to take time to practice my pool game, which I find meditative as long as I don’t have an opponent egging me on, and I’ll also try to replace some of the extra snacking with cups of soothing tea (jasmine, if I can find it). Intellectually I understand that the rough time I’m in the middle of will pass all too soon, so I need to focus on getting through it without doing harm to my body and mind.

Exercise remains a critical component to my stress management plan. Here’s what I did this week:

  • Sunday I gave myself a day of rest.
  • Monday I took a 45 minute strength and conditioning class and a 1 hour MMA class.
  • Tuesday I took a kettlebell class that ran just over an hour.
  • Wednesday I walked the dogs for 30 minutes and took a 45 minute strength and conditioning class and a 1 hour MMA class.
  • Thursday I took a 45 minute class MMA class
  • Friday I rode my bike indoors for 45 minutes.
  • This morning I took a 45 minute MMA class. I hope to walk the dogs later, as well.
Jan15

Ultimate Transformation Challenge

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Ultimate Transformation Challenge

This is me now, after losing 30 pounds and before starting the Ultimate Transformation Challenge.

I’ve come a long, long way in the past few months, dropping thirty pounds and getting into the best shape of my life, but lately I’ve sort of hit a plateau. I just can’t seem to get rid of that last bit of mommy flab haunting my midsection–that last bit of flab that is going to keep me from wearing a bathing suit in public without slouching around like I’m trying to hide behind myself. It’s time to try something new to shake things up a bit more and get my progress back on track.

I am going to be kicking my lifestyle changes up to the next level through the Ultimate Transformation Challenge, a series of seminars recommended to me by my marital arts instructor (Thanks, Master G!). I don’t really know what to expect, but the few program alumni I’ve spoken with have enjoyed it and report good results.

The first seminar to kick off the challenge is tomorrow morning at 7:30. Good thing I’m a morning person! We’ll be introduced to the program, given the course materials, and set loose on Phase 1, which I think lasts three weeks. While I won’t feel comfortable sharing the full plan here (it’s not my intellectual property after all), I will be sure to share my progress, and possibly tantrums, here at least weekly.

Last night, in preparation for the program, I had the husband take a few official before photos of me wearing only a sports bra and bike shorts. Seeing photographs of myself nearly naked was humbling to say the least. I will not be sharing those here, though perhaps one day IF I end up with a great after photo to offer in contrast, and IF I get drunk enough to forget that sometimes people from my professional circle stumble upon this blog, I may do it. In the meantime, I posed for a more decent and less embarrassing before photo which gives you a general idea of where I am now without sharing so much…belly skin.

So we have a good record of what progress I make, here’s where things with my body stand now:

  • weight: 142.2 pounds
  • waist: 31″
  • hips: 38.5″
  • thigh circumference: 23″
  • calf circumference: 14.5″
  • outlook: pretty good, though a little nervous

I’ll check in with these again next Saturday, and we’ll see what changes.