5 Ways to Become a Better Runner That Don’t Involve Running

5WaystoBecomeaBetterRunnerThatDontInvolveRunning

I’m going to say something that may blow your mind — and many of you may disagree — but here it goes: Running does not necessarily make you a stronger runner. There, I said it. Now let me explain where I am coming from and what I am not saying.

I have coached a diverse population of runners over the years. Those who are trying to complete their first 5Ks and seasoned runners trying to improve their PR’s want to know how to “run better.” They have questions about proper pacing, stride length, the right shoes, how many miles they should complete every week, when to train, etc. While all of these questions matter and a proper program should be followed, what runners fail to focus on is what to do when they are not running. The following activities focus on what to do when you are not running that will make you a stronger runner.

Core Training

Developing a strong core (abdominals, back, hips, glutes) will help you maintain proper posture, stability and mobility. Running with good posture will place less impact on your joints and ensure that your gait is balanced as your feet strike the ground. Try this core workout to make you a stronger runner.

Weight Training

Stop hitting only the pavement, and hit the weights. Resistance training can be an effective way to gain strength that will support your running. Doing weighted squats, lunges, deadlifts and lateral lunges can help support all of the muscles you need to run pain-free. I’m not suggesting you try to gain a ton of mass (aka muscle hypertrophy), but well-conditioned leg muscles will lessen the potential impact on your knees and back.

High-Intensity Interval Training

Doing short bursts of high-intensity exercises followed by a recovery can help improve your endurance. You are literally training your body to perform harder and longer with less recovery, and this translates into greater endurance. You can do this with running through fartleks, hill repeats or intervals. Imagine sprinting up a hill for 50 yards as fast as you can then walking down and repeating this five times. Now imagine how it would feel to run on flat terrain for 250 yards and how much easier that would feel. You would have conditioned your body for greater endurance by doing the hill sprints.

This can also translate to many body-weight HIIT exercises. Try doing this body-weight HIIT workout with intervals of high-intensity exercises for 15 seconds followed by 15 seconds of recovery, and see how you feel. Over time, this conditioning will yield greater endurance and gains with your running.

Flexibility and Mobility

In other words, do yoga or foam rolling. If you have a weekly rest day when you don’t run, try an active recovery routine that focuses on the full range of motion through your joints. A foam rolling routine can improve your mobility or improve your ability to use and recruit the proper muscles to move. For example, tight hip flexors will negatively impact your posture and ability to flex and extend your hips. This imbalance will cause your body to recruit different muscles to perform the running movement and can lead to pain and injuries. (If you think you hate yoga, give it one more shot. If you still hate it, try foam rolling and stretching at home.)

Rest and Recovery

A day of not working out or running may be the best workout of your week. Your work is only as good as your recovery; if your body doesn’t have time to rest, then it doesn’t have time to repair. This is what leads to injury, fatigue and weakness. Take a day (or two) off, and see how great you feel. Overtraining is the number 1 cause of injuries for runners, so make sure you vary the way you train and always remember to rest.

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Mediterranean Salad with Crispy Chickpeas

Mediterranean Salad with Crispy Chickpeas

Celebrate lunch with Uproot Kitchen’s light and refreshing Mediterranean salad topped with crispy chickpeas! Munch bright flavors and crunchy textures drizzled in a creamy hummus dressing. Toss up this salad recipe to save time on busy workdays. It’s perfect for a brown bag lunch — just store the salad and chickpeas in separate airtight containers.

Westbrook_HeadshotMarisa Westbrook is a public health professional and food blogger who shares healthy recipes for active lifestyles. By using whole ingredients, getting workouts in, and walking to fro-yo, she finds a healthy living balance. Visit her blog Uproot Kitchen for healthy recipes, travel and restaurant recaps, and active lifestyle tips, or connect with her via TwitterFacebook & Instagram.

Photo courtesy of Marisa Westbrook. Original recipe published on Uproot Kitchen.

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6 Tips to Manage Post-Run Hunger

6TipstoManagePostRunHunger

Running is an easy way to be active, as all it really takes is a pair of shoes, and you’re ready to go. For this reason, many people desiring to lose weight often try running as a way to accelerate the process.

As a sports dietitian, I often work with beginner runners looking to improve their fitness and hopefully lose weight. I often hear a story from this crowd that makes many of them question whether they should be running at all. As they run more miles or more frequently, their overall appetite increases. This can create a sense of panic as new runners try to manage their hunger and keep on track with their weight-loss goals. Perhaps you’ve experienced this interesting phenomenon and also wondered what the heck was going on.

Well, there’s actually a lot going on in our bodies, and knowing how to handle our hunger requires us to understand it first.

Appetite and hunger are regulated by hormones. One main hormone, ghrelin, stimulates appetite and food intake. Others like PYY initiate satiety and tell your brain that you should stop eating. These hormones fluctuate throughout the day to stimulate and halt hunger based on levels of glucose in the bloodstream, the amount of food (or lack thereof) in the stomach and altered physiological states like stress. Exercise also impacts appetite hormones. It is well-known that ghrelin is suppressed during and immediately following exercise. This explains why you rarely feel hungry while running or right after.

Why Running Makes You Hungry

This article is about an increase in appetite, so clearly the story doesn’t end there. A lot of research has focused on just this issue and explored what causes appetite to change in relation to exercise. Here are two of the key reasons why your appetite may be more intense after a run:

Exercise Adaptation
When you first begin a new exercise routine, it’s going to be challenging for your body and require more effort to perform. Running is no different, and, therefore, beginner runners burn more calories as the body adapts and becomes more fit. Research has found that appetite and food intake may increase after moderate to intense exercise to make up for this large expenditure of energy. Running in and of itself may be causing the increase in your appetite.

Cutting Calories
Reducing calorie intake has also been connected with a compensatory increase in appetite related to changes in hormones. It’s almost like your body knows you are eating less and tries to tell you to eat more. One study found that a higher appetite was reported 4–8 hours after exercising in a fasted state than when exercising after a meal. Since many people run first thing in the morning on an empty stomach or cut extra calories to try to lose more weight, they may be experiencing an increased appetite because their body desires — and truly may need — more energy.

Tips to Manage Post-Run Hunger

While these findings could be discouraging, don’t worry! With a few tweaks to your eating plan, you can help ensure that post-running hunger does not hinder your weight-loss goals. Troubleshoot your hunger with these tips:

Don’t restrict calories too much when starting a running program. Not only is it potentially not a sustainable plan, but it could be causing an increase in your appetite that is difficult to manage. Make sure you are:

  • Getting adequate calories throughout the day.
  • Running with a little fuel in your system by eating a snack 15 minutes–2 hours prior or a meal 2–3 hours prior.
  • Refueling after your longer runs (about 45 minutes or more) if it’s going to be more than 2 hours before your next meal or snack. (Try my favorite Chocolate Tart Cherry Recovery Smoothie.)

Eat every 3–4 hours during the day to keep energy levels up. When you go longer than 4 hours without eating, glucose levels in the blood can drop significantly and trigger your appetite hormones. Your brain will signal you to crave foods high in energy and fat to fix this problem, which makes it really difficult to say no to sweets and treats.

Incorporate high-fiber foods into your meals and snacks. Fiber can slow the emptying of food from the stomach, which means you will feel fuller (or more satisfied) longer. Choose a serving of raw veggies, fruit, whole grains, legumes or nuts at each meal or snack to provide a boost of fiber.

Stay hydrated. As the warm summer months approach us, even a short run can deplete water levels in your body. Since thirst can sometimes feel like hunger, staying on top of your hydration can help ward off fake hunger signals.

Get adequate rest. Sleep deprivation is connected to higher levels of ghrelin, choosing larger portion sizes and increased food intake. A good night’s sleep could significantly improve your appetite control.

Up your sports nutrition knowledge. As your passion for running increases, so should your passion for sports nutrition. If you continue to increase your mileage or frequency of runs, nutrition will begin to play a more crucial role in your success. Work with a dietitian to perfect your individualized nutrition strategy to help you reach your running goals. Here are my top nutrition tips for runners.

Selected Sources:

  • Deighton K, Batterham R, and Stensel D. Appetite and gut peptide responses to exercise and calorie restriction. The effect of modest energy deficits. Appetite. 2014; 81:52-59.
  • Hogenkamp P, et al. Acute sleep deprivation increases portion size and affects food choice in young men. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2013; 38:1669-1674.
  • King J, Miyashita M, Wasse L, and Stensel D. Influence of prolonged treadmill running on appetite, energy intake and circulating concentrations of acylated ghrelin. Appetite. 2010; 54:492-498.

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The Most Common Weight-Loss Blunders Dietitians See

weight loss advice

Losing weight can be tricky business: When you’re insanely busy, it can be tough to focus on your goals in a healthy, sustainable way, let alone work towards them at all. It’s easy to fall into pitfalls, but hey, knowledge is Selfpower—when you know the traps you’re most likely to fall into, it’s easier to steer clear.

Registered dietitians know these roadblocks all too well, and they’ve helped their clients get past them, too. Here are 12 weight loss mistakes registered dietitians warn against:

1. Focusing on what you can’t eat.

tomatoes
Betsie Van der Meer, Getty Images

“So many people embarking on a weight loss journey focus on what they can’t have—[such as] no sugar, no alcohol, no dessert, no bread, no cheese. I like to tell my readers to focus on what they can have and tally up all the filling and nutritious superfoods out there.”

–Kath Younger, R.D., blogger at Kath Eats Real Food

2. Adopting an all-or-nothing attitude.
“[Don’t] eliminating foods you love. Too many people who are trying to lose weight develop the all-or-nothing attitude. This way of thinking can be detrimental in the long run. Instead of depriving oneself of foods they love, they should learn how to incorporate them into their diet in a healthier way. For example, love pasta? Instead of adding a creamy high fat sauce, add lots of veggies, grilled shrimp, and toss in olive oil and garlic. Can’t live without bread? Well, you shouldn’t have to. Make a healthy sandwich for lunch on 100 percent whole grain bread with grilled chicken, avocado, lettuce, and tomato.”

—Keri Gans, M.S., R.D., author of The Small Change Diet

3. Not having a solid plan.
“Not having a solid, realistic plan [is a mistake]. People should set themselves up for success by coming up with small, challenging yet attainable action steps to work towards. Start off with a few actionable and specific goals for the first week. Once you master those, keep adding on. Before you know it, those action steps will become lifelong healthy habits.”

—Lindsey Pine, M.S., R.D., owner of Tasty Balance Nutrition

4. Cutting out an entire food group.

yogurt
andresr, Getty Images

“When people are trying to lose weight, they often cut out an entire food group, like carbs or meat, but this usually just results in an unbalanced diet and even deficiencies in certain nutrients. Plus, for most people, this is not sustainable for a lifetime—I always say if you couldn’t do it for the rest of your life, it’s a diet that’s probably not going to work in the long run.”

—Sarah-Jane Bedwell, R.D., L.D.N.

5. Replacing meals with liquids.
“Green juices and smoothies are very popular right now, and a lot of people will use these as meal replacements. Unfortunately, oftentimes these beverages aren’t made up of the right mix of nutrients. Green juices lack fiber and protein, which are key nutrients in keeping you full and helping you meet your nutrient recommendations, and smoothies are typically loaded in sugar from juice, sweeteners, or too much fruit, and can be really high in calories from oversized portions of healthy fat sources like nuts and seeds.”

—Maxine Yeung, M.S., R.D., owner of The Wellness Whisk

6. Eating too few calories.
“The biggest pitfall I constantly see my clients falling into is the calorie counting trap. Many women come to me struggling to follow a 1,200 calorie per day diet and ask me what would help them to feel more full during the day. My answer is always to eat more! We live in a culture that is so obsessed with calorie counting that oftentimes we are depriving our body of the very nutrients that will actually help us not only to live healthier, but lose more weight. In my practice I try and help my clients transition from counting calories to counting nutrients because at the end of the day, what you eat is just as important as how much you eat.”

—Emily Cope-Kyle, M.S., R.D. owner and consulting dietitian at EmilyKyleNutrition.com

7. Steering clear of healthy fats.

avocado toast
juj winn, Getty Images

“I find that many people are stuck eating low-fat or fat-free versions of food, a holdover from the fat-phobic days of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. A moderate amount of fat is important as it helps with satiety. Plus, people end up replacing fat with refined carbs, which we now know can have a detrimental effect on health and weight. Include healthy fat at every meal, in the form of nuts, seeds, liquid oils, avocados, oily fish, soy, and dairy products.”

—Alissa Rumsey, M.S., R.D., spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

8. Ditching fruits and veggies with high sugar content.
“[I see people] cutting out certain fruits and vegetables because they think they contain too much sugar. Sure, some do contain a bit higher amount of naturally occurring sugars, but they also contain fiber, which helps counterbalance the effect on blood sugars. Compared to highly processed snacks and drinks, there is nothing to be worried about.”

—Michelle Dudash, R.D.N., creator of the Clean Eating Cooking School.

9. Relying on weight loss pills.
“The bottom line here is if there was a pill or a potion that really worked in the long term, then not one of us would be talking about weight management at all! The weight loss industry is…so successful because we are so desperate to find a quick fix. The only long-term effective weight management skill is to change the way think about fueling our bodies. We need to think of food as fuel for daily living and to fuel it the best way we can. The rest takes care of itself.”

—Jennifer O’Donnell-Giles, M.S., R.D., C.S.S.D.

10. Taking the weekends off from healthy eating.

weekend
Jake Curtis, Getty Images

“You should take the weekends off from your job, not your diet. Sure, you can still have fun and go out to eat on the weekends, but make an effort not to stuff yourself to the brim with food or drinks. Simply eating mindfully when you are enjoying good food can be enough to not wreck your hard work during the week. If the weekends are a problem for you, consider weighing yourself Friday mornings and Monday mornings. If you see that number routinely creeping up on Monday, try changing your weekend routine to include more exercise and healthier food choices.”

—Heather Mason, M.S., R.D.

11. Not drinking enough water.
“A lot of my clients don’t drink enough water. Changing this habit is one of the easiest ways to help your health. Studies show that drinking water or eating a water-rich salad or broth-based soup before a meal can help decrease how much you eat during the meal—plus, staying hydrated helps prevent headaches, which can lead to stress eating. Figure out how you prefer to get your water: Do you like a bottle with a straw or a wide-mouthed top? Whatever your preference, keep a water container at your side as often as you can. You’ll reach for it a lot more if you don’t have to get up to fill a glass.”

—Amy Gorin, M.S., R.D., owner of Amy Gorin Nutrition

 

Visit our friends at self.com for the final tip!

—By Alexa Tucker

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Mac & Cheese Prosciutto Bites

Mac & Cheese Prosciutto Bites

Healthy Nibbles and Bits puts a grown-up spin on a childhood favorite, mac and cheese, by turning it into fancy finger food. Served in tiny baked prosciutto cups, these bites are perfect for portion control. This appetizer will make your next party unforgettable.

Lisa LinLisa is from San Francisco and has passion for eating well and staying in shape through kickboxing, yoga, and cycling classes. She loves experimenting with new recipes and fitness routines, which she document on her blog, Healthy Nibbles & Bits. When she’s not blogging or exercising, she’s most likely watching Jeopardy! or British TV shows. For more from Lisa, follow her on FacebookInstagram and Pinterest.

Photo courtesy of Lisa Lin. Original recipe can be found on Healthy Nibbles and Bits.

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4 Reasons a Cardio Addiction Won’t Help You Lose Weight

4ReasonsaCardioAddictionWontHelpYouLoseWeight

Attention, cardio bunnies: Your sweat style might actually be what’s standing in between you and your fitness and weight-loss goals.

Do you usually spend your gym time bopping up and down on the treadmill or elliptical? Then you need to torch these four all-too-common cardio myths ASAP:

1. Cardio is more important than strength training for fat loss.

Minute-per-minute, you might burn more calories on the elliptical than you will in the weight room, but those calories will come from carbs, fat and protein — that’s right, the building blocks for muscle. And muscle is not what you want to lose if your goal is to reduce body-fat percentage, explains California-based personal trainer Mike Donavanik, C.S.C.S.

What’s more, as soon as you finish a cardio workout, your calorie burn stops, Donavanik says. Not so with strength training. After a strength session, your body has to work not only to repair and grow your muscles, but also to return your body’s levels of enzymes and other chemicals back to normal, he says. That process increases your caloric burn, even at rest, for up to 72 hours after you leave the gym, according to research published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology. Plus, over the long term, building — not burning — muscle, is the number-one way to increase your metabolic rate.

Hence why in a 2015 study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, men who performed strength training boasted less belly fat than those who performed the same amount of cardio.

2. Running and spinning double as lower-body strength workouts.

No, no, no. “They’re two totally separate forms of training,” Donavanik says. Even through running and spinning work your muscles, they target your slow-twitch muscle fibers, which are in charge of your muscular endurance. Strength training, however, hones in on your fast-twitch, power-generating muscle fibers, especially if you’re lifting heavy weights for only a handful of reps per set.

That means resistance-heavy cardio won’t eliminate the need for targeted lower-body strength workouts. Plus, if you’re vying to run your first 10K or triathlon, performing strength workouts will help prevent muscle imbalances and injury, he says. You need both strength and endurance for optimal performance and health.

3. You need to work out in the “fat-burning zone.”

So, if, for overall health and athleticism, you still need to involve some cardio in your workout routine, you should probably set your treadmill to the “fat-burning zone,” right?

Wrong.

“The ‘fat-burning zone’ is based on the fact that at lower intensities you burn a higher percentage of calories from fat stores versus stored carbohydrates,” Donavanik says. “However, this fact has become so distorted that it’s ridiculous.”

See, even though you’ll burn a greater proportion of your calories from fat exercising at lower intensities, you’ll also burn fewer calories overall — and that includes calories from fat, he explains. Opt for high-intensity interval training (HIIT) if you want to burn more calories and fat during your cardio workouts. In one study from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, exercisers who performed a 20-minute HIIT workout torched 15 calories per minute. That’s about twice as many as you’ll burn during long endurance workouts.

4. You can count on cardio machines’ calorie displays.

“Don’t believe the numbers you see on the machine,” Donavanik says. In one University of California, San Francisco experiment conducted for Good Morning America, elliptical machines overestimated peoples’ calorie expenditures by up to 42%! Treadmills overestimated by 13%, stair climbers by 12%, and stationary bikes by 7%. Yikes. While cardio machines’ technology is constantly improving, most machines still aren’t able to factor in all of the variables that make every exerciser’s calorie burn unique.

Luckily, research published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise suggests that fitness trackers come a lot closer.

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Strawberries & Cream Oatmeal

Strawberries and Cream Oatmeal

Strawberries and cream are a match made in heaven, and now you can enjoy this combo in your oatmeal in 20 minutes or less. This Fit Foodie Finds recipe uses only simple ingredients. Oatmeal is loaded with fiber, vitamins and minerals to keep you energized and satisfied all morning long.

Lee Hersh

Lee is the author, recipe creator, and photographer behind the healthy food blog, Fit Foodie Finds. She’s based in the Twin Cities where she runs her blog full time, teaches group fitness, and loves anything and everything about the outdoors. Check out her out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

Photo courtesy of Lee Hersh. Recipe originally published on Fit Foodie Finds.

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