Become an outdoor runner.

For the longest time I hated running outdoors anywhere. I never felt like I was getting any "better" at it, and I certainly never enjoyed it. Then, I downloaded the free Nike running app.

Whether you’re an accomplished runner or you’ve never ran outdoors before in your life,this gps-powered Nike app can help track your progress. It monitors your speed (highlights your route in green for your fastest speed and red for your slowest speed), has a pause button so you can take breaks, and even cheers at you when you reach your goal (which you can set yourself. Start at 1 mile and walk/jog as needed.)

This app keeps all your records so you can see how many miles you’ve logged total, what your fastest mile was, etc etc. By keeping a record of what you're actually doing--by quantifying your work--you can track progress. 

And for me, I love competing with myself-- the app gives you the option to beat your previous records --your fastest run, your longest, of your furthest distance. Sometimes I try to beat last week's total miles logged. 

You can also write notes on each run, link them with your Nike+ shoes, see an estimated amount of calories you burn, and share it via facebook. 

I used this app last year during vacation in Ocean Isle. We stayed in a condo right on the beach, and my first morning run I almost got lost. (All those condos look the same!) But, thank goodness, I just whipped out the Nike app and followed my trail back.

I started using this app religiously two years ago when the thought of running made me want to puke, and now I don’t run without it. 

My current average mile pace is just over 9 minutes a mile, and the distance I do each time is 5k (or 3.11 miles). I can finally do the entire thing without stopping. 

That's less than a half hour for an awesome cardio workout.

Try it out!

Enriched Wheat Flour vs. Whole Grain / Whole Wheat Flour

Check out the first ingredient in your bread. Is it “enriched”? The term enriched means to improve, or enhance the quality of, however, using this word on the back of a loaf of bread is reeeeally misleading…

When a grain is processed and turned into a flour, it is stripped of it’s nutrients. The “enriching” process adds some extra synthetic vitamins and minerals to the flour, but the nutritional value does not come close to the original, natural whole grain. On top of that, one of the added “nutrients” is a form of iron–not the kind that human bodies need, but instead one that has no nutritional value. This type of iron “may be toxic”, according to the FDA.

Thanks again, FDA.

In addition to its lack of nutrition, enriched flour has a high Glycemic Index. It is not absorbed by our bodies in the same way that a complex carbohydrate like a whole grain is absorbed. Instead, our body reacts to this nutrition-less starch in the same way as it reacts to sugar. And how is this, you might ask?

When you eat sugar (or enriched flour), your blood sugar spikes. In response to the flood of extra sugar in the blood, your body releases huge amounts of insulin, a hormone secreted by the pancreas that converts blood sugar (called glucose) into glycogen, which is the form of sugar that’s stored in the body to be used for energy. Once your body fills up its stores of glycogen in your liver and your muscles, it begins storing the extra glycogen in the adipose tissues, or your fat. Your fat is stored right beneath the skin, around the internal organs, and between your muscles.

This is what adipose tissue looks like.

So next time you’re eating your enriched wheat bread that, according to the ingredient labels, has ZERO grams of fat, you’re accumulating fat.

It gets worse?

When our insulin increases as a response to too much sugar in the blood, its job is to lower the blood sugar. What we experience is a sugar high (high blood sugar) followed by a crash, a period of low energy, hunger, and carb/sugar cravings.

So not only do these simple carbs make you fat while you’re eating them, but they also cause you to be hungrier, eat more, and crave the bad stuff.

The Solution

I sound like a broken record, but check the ingredients label. The first ingredient (what the product contains most of) should be whole wheat flour, or whole grain flour.

I don’t eat bread that contains flour, but B does. This is what we buy:

It’s not perfect nor preservative-free, but it’s close, and contains no high fructose corn syrup. It’s currently the best thing that Walmart offers. Trader Joes and Whole Foods have TONS of good options.

We also both love Ezekiel, which is completely flour-free and contains sprouted grains rather than stripped, sad fragments of the original grain. Sprouted grains contain less starch and more nutrients and are better for our digestive systems. You can read about the benefits of sprouted grains here.

You can buy Ezekiel bread, English muffins, and even tortilla wraps in the refrigerator section of health food stores (and Giant Eagle!)

So there you have it. Eating fat will not make you fat as quickly as eating carbs will. (non-vegetable carbs, that is.) And if you’re one of those people who gets super tired halfway through the day, change up your carb intake and add some healthy, slowly digested and nutrient-rich grains into your diet and feel the difference in your mood and energy levels.

Source: here, here, & here.

Ketchup.

I like ketchup on my scrambled eggs sometimes. And I eat it with my sweet potato fries, and on burgers. (Post coming soon on how to make a burger healthier). Adding extra sauces to meals is extra calories, ketchup included, but more importantly, it’s about those ingredients!

Regular Heinz Ketchup ingredients:

 Simply Heinz Ketchup ingredients:

It tastes exactly the same and it’s not toxic to your body. Why would you eat the high fructose ketchup when you can eat ketchup without it?

Organic ketchup also exists if eating organic is your cup of tea. (Health food stores.)

So does Jalapeno ketchup and balsamic vinegar ketchup. (Heinz website?)

Umami Burger in Los Angeles makes their own ketchup that I believe tastes so good it’s worth its weight in gold.

Some other things you find when you Google ketchup:

Ketchup cake…

This amazing ketchup tie…

And this:

Embrace ketchup. This is ‘merica.

Make your pineapple sweeter!

After you buy a pineapple, store it at room temperature, upside down until you cut it. All the natural sugars sink to the bottom when it sits in the grocery store, so the bottom of the pineapple is sweeter than the sour top. If you store it upside down for a few hours or a day or two, the sugars trickle down through to the top, making the pineapple evenly sweet throughout.

Pineapples are full of vitamin C which strengthens the immune system, and an enzyme called bromelain, which reduces inflammation and could help conditions like arthritis. (Cool, huh?)

One cup of sweet, delicious pineapple has about 70-80 calories.

What exactly does "organic" mean?

Organic refers to the way farmers grow and produce their products, which include fruits and veggies, grains, dairy, and meat. Organic farmers don’t use the conventional methods of chemical pesticides and growth hormones that are believed to be harmful to our health. Here are the differences between the two:

Conventionally produced

• Use chemical fertilizers to promote plant growth
• Use synthetic pesticides to reduce pests and disease
• Use synthetic herbicides to reduce weeds
• Feed animals growth hormones, antibiotics and medications to increase their growth and prevent disease.

Organically produced

• Use natural fertilizers like manure and compost to feed and nourish plants 
• Use natural pesticides and certain insects and birds to keep away pests, mating disruption, and traps to control pests
• To manage weeds, they use mulch, or till / hand-weed.
• Feed animals organic feed, and prevent disease by giving the animals free roam of clean organic pastures and clean housing.

So, yeah, organic takes more effort and more time. You have to hire someone to weed the garden rather than just dousing the crops in poison. You have to treat animals with a little respect and keep them clean, rather than mass-producing giant mutant chickens in a dark, dirty cage that have so many growth hormones and antibiotics injected into them that it causes girls to go through puberty too early (true story, google it.). Organic is also more costly to the consumer because there’s more involved in organic production. To me, it’s worth it.

Oh, and watch out for the word “natural”, because it doesn’t mean organic. If the product is 95%+ organic, it will have the USDA organic seal. The word “natural” has no requirements surrounding it.

Activia Greek Yogurt

When I grocery shop, I don’t pay much attention to the stuff I don’t normally buy. I bring my list and make a beeline to my yogurt, ignoring everything else on the shelf. I do a lot of my shopping at Walmart (gag) so I’m usually in a rush to get in and out of there before I have a mental breakdown. So today when I went looking for Activia Greek, I for once, actually had to experience the enormity of the yogurt aisle.

There are so many horrible yogurts out there.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to let you guys down easy with this whole Activia thing, but I’m thinking of just going the tough love route and hoping you thank me for it later.

So here it is. The very first thing you should look at on any pre-packaged food is the ingredients…

This label is from the strawberry one. I would have reviewed the plain one, but Activia doesn’t offer a plain Greek yogurt. Hm.

First what I like about this yogurt:

Strawberries! (Actual strawberries!) Real is always better than artificial flavoring.

And now what I don’t like about it:

• This tiny container contains almost an entire day’s amount of sugar. The American Heart Association strictly recommends no more than 30 grams of sugar per day. If you’re watching your weight, keep it between 20 and 25. Activia Greek? 18 grams of sugar.

• Their patented Bifidus Regularis has of course never been proven to regulate your digestive system or improve digestive health. Yogurt in general contains probiotics that improve your digestive health. So there’s that.

• Lots of additives and preservatives. It’s a very “processed” version of Greek yogurt.

• And not to be too snooty, but it’s not organic (so that means preservatives, artificial additives, hormones and antibiotics given to the cows that produce the milk, etc etc.), and it doesn’t advertise that it’s non-GMO (companies are proud when they don’t use GMOs so they usually label accordingly), so I think it’s safe to say that genetically modified organisms (possibly from both the milk and the strawberries) are part of this yogurt.

I’m not a yogurt lover, and I’m sure this one is delicious, but there are so many other options out there that can offer you more than Activia Greek does. Eating this is like eating a spoonful of real Greek yogurt mixed into a snack pack pudding.

This is one of the best Greek yogurt out there:

It’s organic (so no GMOs, additives or synthetic preservatives here!) and ready for the ingredients?

CULTURED PASTEURIZED ORGANIC NONFAT MILK.

CULTURES: S. THERMOPHILUS, L. BULGARICUS, L. ACIDOPHILUS, BIFIDUS, AND L. CASEI.

The cultures are the probiotics, the natural bacteria that’s been proven (unlike Activia’s made-up one) to promote a healthy digestive system

Stonyfield also carries a chocolate version made with carob (a healthier alternative to cocoa powder) instead of chocolate. Keep in mind though, any time you get the flavored yogurts you’re asking for a ton of sugar.

A better idea would be to buy plain Greek yogurt and add your own fruit and some honey or Stevia to sweeten it. Even throw in a hand full of granola if you’re feelin’ saucy.

This next one is the same thing, but not organic.

I’m sure it’s probably cheaper, too. Dannon and Stonyfield are the same company, but Stonyfield does organic. I’ll continue to give good options in both organic and non-organic foods since I know not all of you are on the organic bandwagon. (…yet)

These aren’t the only two good Greek yogurts out there, so  as a RULE: check your ingredients. See if you can identify what’s in there. The ingredients shouldn’t be much more than milk. Check the sugar. Look for organic if you’re snooty like me. Compare labels.

It’s a war zone out there.

Eat more veggies!

Buy this silicone microwave steam cooker and eating veggies will become your new favorite thing. I seriously don’t know how I lived without this.

You don’t have to add water to it at ALL, but your veggies will be perfectly steamed in minutes. The cooking times for different veggies are available on the box this thing comes in, so there’s not much guesswork needed.

I’m trying not to sound like an infomercial, but this steamer is honestly amazing. Buy it on Amazon here.

This is my future self.

Outdoor running, yoga & mental clarity.

Are you an outdoor runner?

For the longest time, I wasn’t. I was a crappy runner, I got winded very easily, hated every second of my run. I don’t run indoors (hate hate hate treadmills) so I guess you could say I’m only a seasonal runner. That’s probably annoying, I know.

The running and yoga parallel.

One of my long-time passions is yoga, specifically for its stress-relieving capabilities. I recently began teaching one-on-one yoga sessions and it’s allowed me to dive back into all of the mental benefits yoga has to offer. One of the biggest concepts in yoga is the practice of “letting go,” working on your ability to place your mental baggage outside the door, knowing that you are free to pick it back up when your practice is over. During the hour that you practice yoga, your mind is clear, and you’re completely in tune with yourself. When it wanders, acknowledge it, then place those thoughts outside with the rest of them.

This is something I had always had a hard time achieving in a yoga practice. For a long time, mental clarity always seemed like some far-off idea that I could never achieve no matter how hard I tried, and I know that many of you feel the same.

That being said, I have been practicing this concept when I run. I set aside an hour for myself that allows me to mentally press the reset button. I go to the bike trail with my Nike App and my heart rate monitor, and I leave my to-do lists, my worries, plans, and any other baggage in the car. As soon as that car door closes, I’m free, focused on nothing other than my body, my breathing, my heart rate, and the sunshine. My run has turned into a mental health exercise, and I can’t tell you enough how much I crave it.

Actually run better

The Nike App is a godsend (read this.) It syncs with your GPS and monitors your speed and distance. It notifies you when you’ve hit your half-way mark, too, which is cool. Then pro athletes congratulate you for beating your fastest time, or running your longest distance. It’s sweet.

One of the easiest ways to clear your mind when you run (and not keep thinking “I can’t do this anymore, how much longer should I run? When can I turn around?”) is to set your app for a specific distance and then just run intul it tells you to stop. I love running 5k’s because it’s just enough time for me, but that’s just my preference. Start at your own level. Walk some, run some. Do whatever you want, just keep going. The Nike App is monitoring your time and pace, so you don’t have to concern yourself with it. Do what you are able to do.

The second thing you might consider buying is a heart-rate monitor. As the heart gets more fit, you are able to work at the same intensity (i.e. run at the same speed) but your heart rate will be lower (because it’s working more efficiently). This is how you become a better runner, no matter if your goal is speed, endurance, or both.

Keep a log. After you get back to your car, record the date, your distance, time, andaverage heart rate during your run. (heart rate monitors tell you an average heart rate as well as a maximum HR after you stop your workout.) This way, you can see your progress and increase your motivation.

The summary.

1. Find a place outdoors that you like to run.

2. Check your baggage. When your mind wanders during your run, immediately tell yourself that now is not the time to think about whatever it is you’re thinking about. Teach yourself to live in the moment for just that period of time, not the future or the past.

3. Use your Nike App and Heart Rate monitor to get the most out of your run.

4. Log your progress.

Let me know if this works for you guys! I couldn’t be happier with this routine.

xoxo

Yoga is essentially a practice for your soul, working through the medium of your body.

 -Tara Fraser