CHANGING Room CHAT ... JANUARY Week 2...

[Oldfloss]

Hi Folks... and welcome to the Changing Room.

It is full of folk getting in out of the cold currently! Ha ha ! I know I am a day late,,, it took me a long time to get here ! Icy!

What weather indeed ! I have not been able to get out for a run or anything else for that matter for days and days... I have however, had a fair few workouts, cleaning snow and ice off cars, and then heavy snow on ice has given me plenty of core strength and stamina work too.

Not being overly tall, there has been plenty of stretching involved also !

Whilst all this has been going on, I have upped my indoor workouts... and yoga has played a big part in that,

So, what have I been thinking about this last week.. well... reading posts on the forum there have been so many questions about all sorts, including some about what to eat before, ( or after), exercise...

So I am going to use a post from a while back, with added bits... and hope we have some folk dropping in to share there thoughts and maybe tips and ideas.

So...

Throughout all of the activities , that I have been involved in over the last week, one of the things that was of paramount importance to us...was... food! Nutrition , hydration... fuel. Keeping ourselves going!

This leads to a fair few questions, which, certainly on running forums, we get all the time...

What to eat... and the big one...Should we exercise before or after a meal?

Other quires follow; does the timing, of what we eat and drink, affect our health?

Okay, why do we think that this is important... well, for many folk, it seems, it may not just be about performance, but more to do with the burning of fat and weight loss!

The whole thing is very scientific and fairly complicated and complicated more, by the fact that we are all so very, very different.

One thing that became evident. is that when we eat or do not eat, is about a whole lot more than losing weight .

So,,,

I have my routines and my own rules before exercise, and before my running.

For my normal runs, or home exercise routines, which I nearly always do before 8.a.m. My morning cuppa and two digestive biscuits... is what I have about an hour before... leaving the house with just a sip of water if I am running or before indoor workout, Breakfast, waits.

Running from home, up to an hour or so, I would never change that. If I was running later, or in a race, I would have something more appropriate, as long as it was two hours before. T'ai Chi day, is always a big bowl of cereal with added flax seed and fruit, about an hour and a half before the class begins.

My after exercise breakfasts, are varied, anything from smashed avocado on toast, oatcakes and cheese, to any egg type breakfast, a real treat is smoked salmon and scrambled egg and on my long Sunday run day, home made pancakes with honey and bananas!

But that is me and my routines. What is right for me, may not be for you.

At this current time of the year, there seems also to be different things to take into consideration. The fuel we out in needs to be really correct for the extra hard work we are putting in to our exercise routines.

There is a lot of really interesting information here...

nuffieldhealth.com/article/...

Here is another useful link too.

bbc.co.uk/food/articles/eat...

So, your turn now.. what are your thoughts on this subject? Have you adjusted your eating regime to suit the weather here in the UK?

I do know in my household, that we are eating a lot of different kinds of home made soup and I am trying out different bread recipes too.

Soup made in batches, and varied too. I do enough to freeze , so that we always have a quick meal to hand. Soup can be a really nourishing meal and cheap too... you can get an awful lot for not a lot of cash!

I randomly chose this out of a whole lot of recipe sites... I have not tried any ..but some sound yummy! BBC Good Food site too, is one of my favourites but there are loads of others out there.

motivatebootcamp.co.uk/8-ea...

Hydration too... please, just because it is cold and you may not feel thirsty, don't think you do not need to maintain that hydration routine, you certainly do

Anyway... I am really hoping some folk may pop in... it is warm here and you can sit a while and share... Do please give us any tips and any recipe ideas if you feel like it too...! What gets you going, on these cold dark mornings! What warms you up after a workout!

Looking forward to seeing some of you !

Oldfloss x

[Mormor1]

I think I'm a bit like you OF...in that I don't like to run with ALOT of food inside! I generally have half a banana or a knäckbröd and honey with a coffee before I go out. I'm usually out by 8 , occasionally earlier if I can find a head torch , run for an hour but trying to build up to 2, and then finish with a quick swim in the sea before heading home for breakfast.... porridge oats, fruit, kefir and more coffee....it works for me.

[Oldfloss Administrator in reply to Mormor1]

That sounds like super start to your day ! A very healthy and bracing one too !

We do what suits each of us... and now you mentioned porridge... that's tomorrows breakfast sorted for me! Running or not!

Thank you for sharing those tips with us

[CBDB Administrator Graduate Gold]

Food .. glorious good … indeed.

I have to admit, I have lost some of my joy of cooking or going out to restaurants once I committed to changing my nutrition to lower inflammation in my body (e.g. cutting out gluten, dairy, soya. No alcohol. No sugar. Low carb. Nutrient rich greens, etc)

I used to love going out for restaurants, but it did kill the joy when having to chose from very limited meals and seeing others still being able to eat various delights. Add to this that hubby is avoiding environmentally destructive foods, like beef, prawns and salmon, and it sometimes seems there is not much left.

But over the past 6 years, my inflammation markers (blood tests for hypothyroidism) have come down immensely and I do feel so much better in my own body.

So I fairly happily have adjusted to this new way of eating.

On running days, I only have a cup of coffee before heading out, with a healthy plant-based protein smoothie after returning and shower. A few days a week I have a light lunch, but 2 days of the week I skip this and jump to early dinner, which (thanks to the pointers of one of our HU members) is always healthy Mediterranean low-carb / thyroid-friendly adjusted diet (from Michael MOSLEY’s Fast800 cooking books, but I follow the 5:2 way of eating. This means 5 days eating healthy but normal calorie intake. 2 days of the week I only eat 800 calories) .

All that suits me fine, and I feel great, but there are quite a collection of favourite meals and foods that I miss terribly, e.g. a good fresh German bread, salmon, prawns, goulash, fresh cows milk, etc

But I can’t complain as I’m fitter than I have been for a decade … apart from the repeated flues I’ve been suffering with recently.

Glorious food … so important for a gloriously feeling body .😋😋😋.