Fueling Up, Pre & Post Workout

For those of you who work out first thing in the morning, it’s hard to know how to fuel up properly without eating too close to a workout. Honestly, when I get up for Ladies Gun Club in the morning, it’s rare that I wake up with enough time to do more than roll out of bed, get my gear on, and fill up a water bottle. The last thing I want to do is eat. By the time I start working out, though, I get hungry. Unfortunately, this means that as soon as the workout ends, I am ravenous and as quickly as I can get to a food source, stuff my face until I’m totally full. Not a great way to celebrate a good workout.

 

So what can you do before a workout to stave off ravenous hunger? One thing that works for me is eating half a banana right when I wake up. It’s just enough food to keep me from chowing down after the workout, but not so much that I feel sick while doing all that jumping around. Added bonus? Potassium is known for helping to prevent muscle cramps, and who doesn’t love that?

Post workout is a great time to fuel up with some healthy fats and proteins.

Kellie Davis, a fitness coach in Northern California, put a great list together of 50 Awesome Pre & Post-Workout Snacks

Have some good workout meals or snacks? Comment below to share!

More on Habits

OK, so you've made your list and you've identified a couple habits you want to kick, and a couple you want to start. Maybe you're asking yourself, "Now what?" To start, pat yourself on the back for thinking about it at all, and then take a little time to think about the sources of your bad habits. You know they're bad and you try to resist that snooze button/cigarette/extra scoop of ice cream, but some for some reason, continue to indulge. 

James Clear wrote a great article about where habits come from and why it's hard to replace them. He says, "You don't eliminate a bad habit, you replace it. Most of your bad habits are caused by two things...stress and boredom. Everything from biting your nails to overspending on a shopping spree...can be a simple response to stress and boredom...Bad habits address certain needs in your life and for that reason, you need to replace them with habits that satisfy that same need."

Now’s the time to think about that healthy habit you’d like to replace the bad habit with. Next time you get bored or stressed and want that cigarette, or that extra sweet, why not make yourself take a 10 minute walk first. Doing this does two things:

1.     It gives you some much needed exercise (albeit light exercise) and releases endorphins that help make you feel happier and less stressed.

2.     It takes your mind off the thing you’re wanting.

The hope is that after your walk you’ll either be distracted from the nasty habit or you’ll feel good enough that you don’t need to rely as much on superficial stress relievers.  Maybe instead of walking, you practice breathing exercises, or call a friend who’s providing you with some gentle accountability, or maybe you just even close your eyes for five minutes and think about something else. Whatever it is, just stick to it for a couple weeks and see if you don’t notice even minor changes in habits and behaviors.

No matter what, remember that the most important part of this is being gentle with yourself. The best way to sabotage a wellness plan is to put too much pressure on ourselves, so make a promise to yourself, right now, that you’re not going to become your own worst enemy. Good luck!

Don’t forget—Ladies Gun Club at Carrier Park bright and early. See you at 7! AND it's bring your dude Friday. Let's hear it for the boys!!!!

Those Nasty Habits...

At one time or another, we've all had that clarifying moment where we wake up one day and realize that we have been perpetuating a bad habit for far too long. We realize it, and think about doing things differently, and maybe we even do for a while, but more often than not, old habits die hard. Whether it's hitting the snooze button for an hour every morning and then having to rush to get out the door, skipping breakfast, or indulging in too much dessert after dinner, all of these habits are detrimental to overall health and well being.

If you find yourself perpetuating some bad habit--or maybe a few bad habits!--don't be too hard on yourself, because habits really are difficult to break. It's not because we're lazy or weak, and there's actually a lot of science out there about why we tend to fall into bad habits over and over again.

In March 2012, NPR put out a piece called, Habits: How They Form And How To Break Them which explains how habits form by discussing the psychological three part process. It says that "as soon as a behavior becomes automatic, the decision-making part of your brain goes into a sleep mode of sorts...."

"In fact, the brain starts working less and less," says Duhigg. "The brain can almost completely shut down. ... And this is a real advantage, because it means you have all of this mental activity you can devote to something else."

The idea is that we make things like eating healthy meals and exercising regularly the ones that become automatic rather than hitting the snooze button, which can actually make us more tired in the long run.

So what happens when you want to break an unhealthy habit and replace it with a healthy one? Create rewards for yourself for all those good habits you're trying to start. They can be little things, like promising yourself a coffee and healthy breakfast with friends immediately after finishing a work out. You could reward yourself for waking up with the first alarm by getting yourself some amazing body scrub to use in a long, hot, sense-awakening shower. Looking forward to those showers might be just what you need to get out of bed.

This week, try a little exercise to get those habits changed:
1. Choose one habit you'd like to change, and try to identify the reward you've been giving yourself that makes it difficult to stop indulging. Work on removing that reward.
2. Choose one healthy habit you'd like to begin, and a reward to go right along with it.

Starting off slow an easy is key. Be nice to yourself, and don't get too upset if you slip up once in a while, because we all do!

Good luck with all those habits, and feel free to comment below to talk with others about their habit progress.