Breakfast is the Black Sheep

People like to ignore breakfast. I personally like to use any excuse to eat food at all times, but a lot of people don’t share this philosophy (not sure why, since I’m chock-full of great ideas and you should all listen to me all the time).

I know what you’re thinking: “Everyone says breakfast is important, but I’m just not hungry in the morning“. 

Well, your body is hungry, but you’ve trained your brain not to listen to your body… and that’s a problem.

Let’s break it down:

1. You need energy to perform any bodily function.
2. You get energy from food.

So unless you can somehow stop your heart from pumping blood and lay perfectly still for hours on end without dying, you need to eat breakfast. (And if you can do that, then first of all you should seriously reflect on whether or not you’re an actual human, and second of all I’m not sure why you’re reading this blog if you have no intention of being active). 

Ok well ANYWAY, breakfast doesn’t have to be a 3-course meal. Even just a banana or a protein shake is enough to start your bodily ignition.

Any questions? (And if your questions have anything to do with how to tell if you’re a human, you’ll have to seek out another blog for that… I got nothing).

I Stretched Pre-Run and I Liked It

Text from one of my friends this morning:

Friend: Hey so I went on a run today but my calf muscle was stiff the whole time… wtf?
Me: What pre-run stretching did you do?
Friend: None. That’s so boring I can’t do it.

Listen up people- you HAVE TO STRETCH/WARM-UP!

I’m not trying to be bad cop, but it’s SO SO important that you wake up your muscles before work-out. I don’t care what type of exercise you’re doing- it’s SUPER important to stretch.

Let me tell you a story to better explain my point. It was my freshman year of college, one day before my first exam. Obviously I had no idea what I was doing so I studied for maybe 30 minutes and then hung out with my friends all night. The next day the professor passed out the exams and I realized that I knew the answers to exactly zero questions. Panic ensued. I felt like an idiot. I failed.

In this situation, my freshman self is your body during a work-out. If you don’t prepare, your body will not perform the way you want it to. I know it’s not glamorous, but you need to stretch and warm-up your muscles before and after you exercise. If you’re not sure what kind of stretching you should be doing, Runner’s World has a great how-to video. (You’re welcome RW).

 

Just Breathe

Lesson of the day: breathing.

A lot of you ask me how to get rid of that side pain just below your rib cage during a workout. Well, chances are that pain is the result of poor breathing.

Now you’re probably asking yourself, “why is this woman trying to tell me how to do something I’ve been doing my whole life?”
Well that’s a great question. I trust your ability to breathe for the purposes of staying alive, I don’t trust you to remember to breathe deeply during a run or workout. 

If you’re like me, you get so caught up in how badly you want to stop, that you find yourself taking quick breaths in and out. That is a recipe for disaster. ALWAYS remember to push all the air out of your body before taking another breath. When you breathe in and out very quickly, you’ll find that side ache coming back.

In short: stand upright (or run upright), tighten your abs and push all the air out of your body. Remember to do this, and you’ll be feeling much better in no time!

 

Answers I post are good questions from people I coach that I think would be good to address here. If you have a question you’d like me to answer, don’t hesitate to comment below!

The Point

Some days it feels like everything in me is asking “what’s the point?”. On those days I wake up and seriously contemplate calling in sick to work (except I don’t because I don’t have any PTO days left). I actually used to call in sick all the time when I was younger and “PTO” didn’t exist (well not at the local garden shop anyway), but I would get so overcome with guilt that I would end up wasting the whole day worrying I would get caught in a lie.

I’m not sure why I just told you that but now you know that I literally feel guilty about everything. I have a million frequent flyer miles from all the guilt trips I go on. (This entire paragraph was pointless except I JUST made that joke up right now and I’m really impressed with myself)

Anyway, at the end of days like that I come home, throw my bag on my bed, and just sit and stare at the wall in my room. What am I even doing with my life? Am I on the right path? Do I have plausible life goals? What does any of this matter anyway?

If there’s one thing that can stop the negative voices in my brain, it’s exercise. As soon as I hear the Debbie downers in my head fighting for the last word I get my running gear on, lace up my shoes, and run out the door. (But don’t just run out the door, stretch first!!!)

When I’m running, I’m feeling everything and nothing. I get to see so much of the city in such a short amount of time and it just makes me feel like I am part of something, that the things I do in life do matter. And more importantly: the things I want to do in life are plausible. In that moment I feel like I can be whoever I want, do anything I want to do, and I leave the rest behind me.

I never felt that before I started running.