Tag Archives: healthy-living

cyber monday

Cyber Monday Decision

cyber monday

Cyber Monday, the way I see it we have two choices—and no, neither of these have to do with online shopping.  Most likely we all ate way too much the past 4 days.  Thanksgiving usually sets the tone for the holiday season.  Often times we overeat at Thanksgiving.  This  leads to our brains prompting us to eat more fatty foods since our reward centers have been on overdrive.  The reward center works by releasing dopamine and serotonin when we eat sugary food.  When these chemicals dry up we crave more carbs and sugary foods.  This cycle will perpetuate during the holiday season as coworkers bring cookies into work and your friends make you their world famous pumpkin bread.  This is where our cyber Monday choice comes in.  We can choose to say I’ve already been so bad, what is one more cookie/pumpkin bread slice etc., or we can choose to use the “fuel” we stock piled over the weekend.

 

You’re already eaten poorly for the weekend.  You can’t change that, but instead of beating yourself up over what you may consider a mistake you can choose to see this as the KILLER WORKOUT week!  Following Thanksgiving, malls have Black Friday.  The internet has Cyber Monday.  I like to think of the week following Thanksgiving as Killer Workout Week.

If we follow a ketone cycling diet, we have all most likely indulged in far too many cheat meals within the past 4 days.  That doesn’t mean that our diet has been completely thrown out the window, nor does it mean we should continue to perpetuate this eating cycle until January 1st when we decide we have to lose the 20lbs we gained over the holiday!  No, what this means is that you will have plenty of glycogen stores to fuel your muscles for KILLER WORKOUTS all week long.

Stop feeling helpless and upset and instead take control over what you can do this week!  Maybe this week, you will finally deadlift 450lbs!  If you’ve been stuck at running 4 miles, today is the day to set out for 5.  If you’ve never tried crossfit take a class today knowing you’ll have the fuel to make it through!

Society will tell you overeating is bad—and while I am not telling you to go overeat all the time, what I will remind you, is food is fuel.  If you ate too much, all that means is your gas tank is overflowing.  Go burn some gas while it’s still fresh in your system!

Yoga can help your running form!

One of the reasons I love yoga, is Bikram Hot Yoga has helped me improve my running form.  I may have had decent posture before I started doing yoga, but now I KNOW I have good posture and not only do I have good posture but I have learned how to actively traction my own spine.  What does that mean?  It means I can use each intercostal muscle between my ribs and vertebrae to fight against gravity and keep my spine from sinking in on itself.

This is the feeling you should have as you are running.  When I say “Chest up runners.”  I mean you should imagine I am pulling you but the shirt up and forward at a 45 degree angle.  You can try to do this all you want, but without actively using your core, intercostals, and erector spinae muscles all you are doing is bending at your hips and sticking your chest forward.

Your intercostals and erector spinae muscles are just two sets of muscles groups in which yoga will help unlock the mind body connection to. (By the way another big muscle group yoga helps you learn to activate is the gluteus maximus–you know that big muscle I’m always saying is so important to runners!)

If you want to try it this month check out this living social:  My studio is having a special.  Give it a chance, it’s crazy what your own body can tell you if you listen! 🙂

http://www.livingsocial.com/deals/263200-20-yoga-classes-30-or-one-month-of-yoga-49