Eating Right-- Abs are made in the kitchen. And on the treadmill. Not from crunches.

Same disclaimer as yesterday: We're not scientists, doctors, dieticians, or snake oil vendors. But we do make a lot of sense.

Also, an extra warning on this one. Imma give you some tough love.

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More regular conversations, in which I wish people would listen to me:

Them: "What kind of exercises can I do to get rid of this?" (points to jiggly tummy)
Me: Cardio.

Really?

Yes, cardio.

What about crunches?

Are you trying to develop a thin layer of muscle under all of that? Because you're not going to see it until that is gone.

What about Pilates?

Good for all over toning and conditioning, not good for burning off lots of pounds.

Well, my daughter/friend/sister-in-law/cousin/hair stylist is doing this ab workout and she says it's great!

I'm sure it is. But it's not going to get rid of belly fat. Sorry. Cardio.

What kind of cardio? Does walking count?

Maybe, but you need to be aware of how many calories you're actually burning, because it's going to be less than you think.

Well, my daughter does yoga. Maybe I'll just do that.

Oh. Okay. Let me know how that works out for you.

***

I will never understand why some people want to argue with me about this. Do you think you're going to convince me that you can lose 10 pounds of stored belly fat in yoga? By breathing and stretching? And Yes, there are some great stomach exercises I can  give you, once you lose that layer of jiggle that is still going to hide all of your efforts.

Wait, let me say that again because that seems to be the part that people don't hear: That layer of jiggle is still going to hide all of your efforts.

Look, friends. We all want tight toned Victoria's Secret model abs. I teach fitness classes and train for marathons and my abs are still not clearly defined unless I suck in my breath, okay?

But if you're dead serious about losing the weight around the middle, you are going to have to accept the fact that "abs" are 60% efforts in the kitchen, 30% efforts in the gym, 10% genetics and willpower and you know, those few extra days we bloat up sometimes.

Because the belly area is where we start to store, under the general layer, visceral fat. This is the stuff that attches itself to organs and tissues. Tell me that you honestly believe that crunches are going to get rid of that stuff. And that general layer on the belly likes to stay there because your body, through the magic of creation/evolution/whatever you believe, likes to keep it there like a warm fuzzy protective blanket around all of your most important vital organs. The cells in our body have not yet evolved to realize that Taco  Bell is open late and SuperWalmart is open 24/7. Therefore, it still likes to store up whenever it can to protect the most important organs. And that warehouse stubbornly sits around our torso area.(Or, if you are a hippy running chick, your warehouse is just a little further south, but you get my point!)

So no, sorry, crunches will NOT get rid of it. Man, if crunches did half of what they were supposed to do I'd be so freaking ripped right now.

So, you want a thinner waistline and a toned sexy core.

Let's start with that 60% in the kitchen statistic I gave you. If I were to ask you "How do you eat during the day?" Guess what you would tell me? "Oh, I eat healthy." But as we pick apart your daily diet, most of you do NOT get the 5-6 servings of fruits and vegetables. You eat snacks you THINK are healthy but are sugary and overprocessed. It's okay to be there right now, I am not judging you, I am telling you that we can just make some adjustments and do better.

Typical American diet:
Breakfast-- big coffee drink "(I don't have time to eat", "I am not hungry in the morning")
Mid-morning snack (because now you are hungry)-- something from the vending machines or a storebought snack like minimuffins or 100-calorie snack pack with a sugary drink like another coffee or lemonade or soda. Or maybe you do buy yogurt and granola bars. Check the sugar content on those. Yuck.
Lunch- sandwich of some sort. Subway. Or cheeseburger. Or homemade. 2 servings of bread. And some chips. And another soda. You think the lettuce and tomato on the sandwich counts towards your veggies but it doesn't. You need 2 cups of lettuce to be a serving of veggies.
Mid Afternoon snack (because you need a little pick me up)-- sugary drink like soda or juice or coffee, and something sweet like candy or cookies. Here's an interesting tid-bit. This is the point of your day when stress starts really piling up AND you're hitting an energy slump so your BRAIN sends you signals that it needs extra glucose and makes you crave something sweet! But then you don't actually burn off that glucose and worse, the cortisol that is trying to help you deal with the stress doesn't work because rather than go through fight-or-flight, which demands a physical response, you just continue to sit at your desk. So guess what? Your body just sabatoged you into eating poorly AND storing it as extra fat. Booooo....
Dinner: Either fast food, or something frozen, or boxed. Maybe you do cook a full meal, in which case it probably looks like: Meat. Rice/pasta/potato. Vegetable. Bread.
10pm-- ice cream. Or candy from you're kids' holiday stash. Or cookies. "just a little"

So, by the numbers, you've had probably 2-3 servings of protein as processed meat. About 1 1/2 servings of fruit and vegetables. And about 6 servings of grains (and probably processed and not whole grain). About 3-4 sugary drinks. And in all honesty, we don't see anything wrong with this. This is pretty typical for everyone!

Well, with a few tweaks, we can reduce the calories, get in much more healthier fuel, STOP your body from sabatoging itself, and get some physical results.

Breakfast: EAT BREAKFAST!!! How about 1 scrambled egg and 2 slices of tomatoes on an english muffin. Wow! Yummy! Still don't have time to cook? How about just 1 slice of toast with peanut butter and grab a banana on the go.
Midmorning snack: Fruit. Pack your own snack packs of grapes and strawberries and pineapple. So sweet! Or apples with a spoonful of peanut butter or sunflower butter. Or raw almonds with some dried cranberries and a few chocolate chips.

make your own!



eat lots and lots and lots

Lunch: Instead of the sandwich, order the salad. Control the dressing and the cheese. Water. Or juice diluted with flavored carbonated water. Lemon water. Cucumber water. Mash up some strawberries and throw those in the bottom of your water glass. If you do want the sandwich, just skip the chips and the soda. Just the sandwich is about 500 calories, you don't NEED to add an extra 400!
Mid afternoon snack: Apple slices and nuts and a few pretzels and some peanut butter and some WATER.
Dinner: Salad. And roasted veggies. And some lean protein. And, if you're still hungry, maybe a little less potatoes/rice/pasta
10pm-- water!

None of that is really unreasonable. And really, even if you just changed up lunch and mid-afternoon snack you'd be saving almost 600 calories.

The bottom line:

Tip the scales in your favor. Know the numbers. How much are you storing up and how much are you burning off? Replace some of those bad ideas with new favorites!

Happy Eating and Running! ~Jen

Long Run Sunday: Poetry in Motion

I present to you a review of our Long Run Sunday... in Haiku form. ~Jen

Refuel

I woke up early

from dreaming about pancakes

but first, long run day

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Feelings about running in the cold

My soul is quite well

my fingertips, toes, and face

however, are numb

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Cure for Insomnia

You run stronger, then

you run faster and farther

sleep like a baby

****

Recovery

Stretch here and stretch more

eat, drink, hot shower, ice packs

BIIIIIIIIG smile on your face

****

You are driving a 2,000 pound car. You win.

Hey, scoot over! (please)

LITERALLY no one else

even on these roads

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Rhythm

No music today

except the constant chatter

and laughter of friends

****

Doing the hard thing

Talked about hard things

commitment, trust, marriage, friends

(don't mention running)

****

Dusty country road

high hills, high winds, lots of sweat

Finish strong- pancakes

Hey, you're on the "Crazy" running chicks blog. We never promised to think so highly of ourselves that we can't be silly. If you can't have all kinds of crazy fun when you're out on a long run day, why the HECK are you doing it?

True story: you can't trust Jen to do mileage math. Becky goes, "So what do you think, three more minutes on this road and then turn back?" Jen says,  "Well, we're on 107th so if we just finish this out, and turn left to 110th, that's just three miles. Right?"

But Becky and Kathy and I fail to mention that turning OFF of 107th is still another 2 miles head.... and 2 miles BACK from that! So essentially, we ended up doing one looooong square that ended up being, oh, half a marathon. :)

Fortunately, my friends love me anyway and didn't beat me up too badly when our Garmins hit the 11 mile mark and we were still about 2 miles from my house.

Happy Running my friends!

Jen



why we cross train and why you should too and how to have fun with it

When I first started running, running was the goal. I thought the best way to get better at running was to keep running. Run harder. Run faster. Run longer. Light run day.

Hmmm. That works up to a point.

You develop a relationship with running. You like it, it's an attractive idea. You start to get to know it better. You spend more time with it. You invest in it. You start loving it. It loves you back. It shapes up your body, gives you confidence, makes you stronger.

But then you start falling out of love. It happens. But rather than fix the relationship, you start to let it go. It becomes an obligation. More like a lunchtime appointment with your dentist than a lunch rendezvous with your lover.

You don't fight with running. It doesn't call you to ask where you've been and what's wrong. You just start ignorning it.

One day you're sick of your iPod music, your shoes are no longer comfy, your route is boring and you just feel like you NEED to watch just one more episode of Jersey Shore and then, oh darn, it's dark out, too late to go running. All those things that were attractive- alone time! - become the things that drive you crazy- alone time :(

Running is sad. Running wants you back.

Becky and I have immensely different approaches when it comes to running. First of all, she does love running more than I do and Becky is better about getting in her small runs than I am. Me, I run about twice a week. One short day for speedwork. One long day. That's it.

I don't know of many other marathoners who would tell you they only run twice a week.

The reason I do it that way is because we also do a lot of cross training. Cross training offers so many benefits and I'm just going to highlight a few:

1)-- Boredom buster! when you're tired of hitting the asphalt, take a cruise on your bike. Or roller blades. Or work on upper body strength. Or take a class. You have so many options! You don't HAVE to do a Wednesday night 3 miler. You CAN take a boot camp class or yoga. You won't lose your conditioning if you decide to ride bike for 30 minutes instead of running for 30 minutes. When you don't want to go running because it seems like a boring idea, ask yourself what kind of training you'd like to do instead and by all means, go do it!

2) Tendons and Ligaments-connective tissue are the most prone to damage due to repetitive motion. Matthew Fitzgerald (sports nutrionist and writer for Competitor) explains it like this:

Tightness in certain muscles and tendons also contributes to some running injuries. For example, runners who develop iliotibial (IT) band friction syndrome typically have tight IT bands. Stretching can loosen tight connective tissues and thereby prevent such injuries.

Finally, by replacing one or two weekly recovery runs with easy workouts in non-impact modalities such as bicycling and pool running you can reduce the amount of repetitive impact your lower extremities are subjected to and in this way reduce injuries (without sacrificing fitness). Impact forces are the true origin of nearly every running injury.

Everytime one of us starts feeling a bothersome knee or shin or hip, we tell each other "ride bike for a week! Strength train! Squats and Lunges!"

3) Love of Power-- stronger muscles= stronger running. Leaner body = lighter running. Plyometrics = burst in muscles = greater stride = faster running.

4) Balance-- runners are notorious for over developing, under balancing their muscle groups. Quads get stronger while hamstrings pull tighter and are set up for injury. (Hint: Squats and Lunges!) Upper body training gets neglected and weakens, resulting in poor running form. Strength and yoga can help relieve some of the tension of overdeveloped, underbalanced muscles. This will help prevent injury and smooth out your running profile. Becky loves Power Pilates for strength training. There are so many classes, DVDs, youtube videos to check out!

5)Anaerobic threshold-- anaerobic means "out of oxygen." Technically, it's the point before you reach homeostasis, that is, your muscles getting the required amount of oxygen to perform the elevated work. You know that feeling where you're huffing and puffing trying to catch your breath and your heart is racing and it feels like your lungs are going to implode but maybe you're going to vomit first? That's your anaerobic threshold. The point where you're pushing your body to that feeling- the hard working out of breath feeling- can be pushed further and further out as you build up a tolerance and your muscles-- including your heart and lungs-- learn to work more efficiently. Runners will tell you it takes a little while for them to "get their rhythm"-- they are referring to that pace where the stride and the breathing completely mellow out and fall in sync. The further away your anaerobic threshold is, the sooner you'll hit your stride. Cross training efforts in swimming or aerobics classes like kickboxing will challenge your heart and lungs, making them stronger and more efficient, thus, pushing your anaerobic threshold further and further away.

6) Engaged-- you know how taking the afternoon coffee break helps you come back to the last few hours of work with a little more patience and focus? You know how taking a break from your family makes you miss them and come back with more love? You know how taking a break from Facebook makes you more productive in your daily activities?.... my point is, when you take a break from running, you will become more engaged with other things in your life and then you will come back to running more focused and ready to engage in running. Sometimes, you just need a mental break. If you would consider taking a "mental health break" from work, consider that you may need to take a "mental health break" from running every now and then. A few summers ago we trained for a triathalon. (Well, Becky and our friend Jodi V. trained for the Triathalon. I hate swimming.) So we took our bikes out for looooonng summery bike rides! What a refreshing change of pace. Coasting downhill with the wind in your hair makes you feel like a kid again, with a huge smile on your face!

Cross-training will give you a whole new set of skills. Consider that it will break you from your routine and shake things up a bit. You'll train your body and your mind to work more efficiently and more balanced, you'll reengage your love for running. Chances are, you'll even meet some new friends who can share their advice in swimming or boxing or cycling.

Get out there and have fun with it. Find a new adventure. Don't be afraid of the weights. Make some new friends at the swimming pool!

Happy Cross Training!
~Jen

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Jen is a certified NETA fitness instructor, and also used resources and publications from the internet, like http://www.running.competitor.com/ and also http://www.ultrarunning.com/

greater than myself

If you ask a runner why they run, there will be a different answer for every day, for every type of run, for every mood.

Crazy Running Chicks--- me, you, your friends, your teammates--- we juggle so many, many things in our lives and somehow, in the middle of our chaotic worlds, running still makes sense of it all.

Very often, the races we participate in help to fundraise for one organization or another: Susan G. Komen. Alzheimer's Association. American Red Cross.

But in 2012, my closest favorite Crazy Running Chicks each chose a purpose, a mission, if you will, for which they will be running.

Their calling, their stories, I want to share with you. 

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I've always ran for myself. It’s my time to escape the world. I do it for my physical health and my mental sanity, among a million other things. But, in 2012 I want to start running for a cause greater than myself. I have chosen to raise funds for pediatric cancer.

In June 2009 our nephew Clayton was diagnosed with Medullablastoma (a type of cancer caused by a tumor in his head). After removal of the tumor, he went through 6 weeks of radiation and 6 months of chemotherapy. After a courageous battle, he went to be with our Lord on July 29, 2010. He was six.

I want to run in memory of Clayton, but also for all of the children sitting in hospital beds around the world. Children, who are unable to run, play and just be free. When I run, I feel free. I pray that all those kids can feel that way again or even for the first time in their lives. I am so blessed that the Lord has given me the ability to run. He has blessed me with this strong, healthy body. If I can use it to bless someone else in any way, then you better believe I am going to try.

46 children are diagnosed with cancer every day. Brain cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in children. Over 3,000 children die from cancer each year. Cancer kills more children than all other diseases combined!

“They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31

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Kathy Lentz has participated in the Fargo Half Marathon, the Bismarck Marathon, and the Mickelson Trail Marathon Relay among many other races. She has already signed up for the Fargo Marathon 2012. To support her cause and to fight the war against childhood cancer, please visit http://www.peopleagainstchildhoodcancer.org/ and http://www.stjude.org/

"Little Black Shorts"

"I think Little Black Shorts are sexier than Little Black Dresses."

I wrote this in a journal to myself last summer. I came across it again today and it put a big smile on my face.

I remember the day I wrote it and the way I felt.

I don't normally wear shorts. I mean, there's only like a month of opportunity that it's hot enough to wear shorts in the first place (North Dakota, people. I live in NORTH DAKOTA.).

But that day was already warming up by the time we headed out. I was wearing black running shorts, my turqoise race tank (the one in ALL the pictures) and we only did 12 miles that day (only). It was the longest I had run again since Grandma's Marathon and that crazy runner high had kicked in. 12 miles is actually my ideal training run. About two hours, cover some great distance on gorgeous back country roads, good visit with friends,waking up the deer in the fields and the pheasant in the brush, and still home before the littles are even rising and shining. In fact, on a summer Sunday morning, we're pretty much out and back before ANYONE is up rising and shining.

I had just come home, to a quiet house. The morning sun was shining through the kitchen windows and I had thrown on a loose, comfy t-shirt. And I kept catching a glimpse of myself in one mirror or another as I was moving about the house.

I had a HUGE smile on my face, my hair was still in a neat braid, my cheeks were rosy. And I was happy. Accomplished. Proud. Hard working. Satisfied. Peaceful. Content. Full.

And apparently, decided that I even felt sexier in those sweaty Sunday morning running shorts than all dolled up in a little black dress.

Think about that the next time you're throwing on shorts and lacing up shoes and headed out. Because I think anyone out there putting one foot in front of the other, working towards their goals, letting go of the stress, building yourself up... is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!

Little black running shorts are way sexier than little black dresses!

~Jen

the end of the holidays-- the start of your running goals!

It's that day-- the second of January-- where you feel the blues from putting away all of the sparkly Christmas magic and you felt super motivated yesterday because it was the start of a brand new year and everyone's Facebook status was all mushy and inspiring-- but today, you're just back to your normal existence, trying to decide between doing something about those New Year's Resolutions or just having  Eloise/Twilight movie marathons.

(Just GUESS which one I'm doing at my house RIGHT NOW!)

Or maybe you're back at work wishing you had just a little leftover spiked eggnog.

Whatever it is, lemme say that since you're getting back to normal, it's time for a new normal-- start making those resolutions/goals part of your everyday focus!

So just a quick little plug or two:

Fargo Marathon!! May 19th!!! No lie, we have highs in the 50s this week. In January. In North Dakota. What global warming?? The winds are a little discouraging but the training weather has been just lovely! Becky, Glenda, Kathy, and I are all looking forward to the Fargo Marathon, and a little worried that our winter, on delay it seems, might make for an interesting marathon. We'll see! But it's on the books. The Fargo Marathon is ranked as one of the top 10 Marathons in the US for crowd support, clean city, value for the money. I participated in it last year as part of a relay team and it was a pretty good marathon. I didn't like the running round and round through neighborhoods but I did think it was pretty neat that we saw familiar faces all along the route.

Missoula Marathon-- thinking about this one. 3300 feet elevation, though. We'll see.

Estes Park Marathon-- this is on Becky's list. She said she's "racing" the Fargo Marathon and just "enjoying" the EP marathon. Small marathon and the elevation on this one will be tricky but I can't wait to see her pictures, should be BEAUTIFUL!

Couch to 5K program-- if you are thinking about starting to run, in any capacity, this is a free program I recommend to EVERYONE because everyone who has used it loved it!

Rock my Run-- if you love music to run to, they have something for everyone. I've been into the DubStep mixes, check them out. I've found myself going through an entire 50 minute playlist and not even realizing it was 50 minutes already!

And if you are starting to run, let me tell you what every runner knows: the first step out the door is the hardest. Even for those of us who absolutely love it. And after that, the first mile is the next hardest. It takes a while for your body to reach homeostasis-- that balance between the oxygen required and the oxygen you're getting-- so that awful huffing and puffing and chugging you're doing? totally normal. Stick with it. You can do this.

Happy New Year everyone, make it a great one!
~Jen