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Archives for December 2016

Are you ready for a challenge in January?

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If you are new to Operation Move you might not know this, but it didn’t start as a running thing so much as a moving minutes thing. And every month we would see how many minutes we could rack up. It was a pretty cool thing. And I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off 2017 by brining back a moving minutes challenge.

You can follow the minute suggestions, or not – sometimes it helps to have guidelines. And anything can count – run, walk, lift, cycle, do jumping jacks in the living room -whatever you like.

You can join in with the hashtag on instagram or post in our community group (it’s private so only community members will see your posts).

This adds up to 880 minutes for the month of January. How many minutes will you do? Who wants to set a goal?

Meet a Mover – Nicole’s Story

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Nicole is an awesome contributor to the Operation Move community and a wonderful member of our Run Club program too. She wrote this a year ago and sent it to me and I only recently discovered it in the abyss that is sometimes my email inbox. Don’t worry, I have a better system now! But nonetheless I wanted to share her journey with you and congratulate her on two amazing years on her own path through health and fitness and supporting so many other people on their own paths as well.

– Zoey

In January 2013, my health took a turn for the worse, I started having pain in my joints, my whole left side of my body had constant pins and needles, and I was fatigued and could barely get out of bed each day. After seeing my GP and being referred on to two specialist and numerous tests, Multiple Sclerosis was mentioned, I was very scared and very worried, and it was the scariest time of my life. I went for a MRI and I was cleared of MS, which was a relief, but I was still no closer to a diagnoses. After a few more test’s I was diagnosed with Lupus and Sjogren’s disease, two auto immune illnesses. So I now had a name for it.

It’s now September, 2013 and my weight is increasing, exercise was limiting, due to the paid and fatigue, I’m on numerous medication, to help the ease the symptoms, I’m working 3 to 4 days a week, as I can’t work the 5 day’s that I’m suppose too, and I’m on high blood pressure medication. My specialist keeps telling me to walk, exercise and eat good foods; it’s going in one ear and out the other.

At this stage, I’m barley making it out of bed each day, suffering from depression and I’m eating everything and anything I want, trying to cheer myself up, not knowing that I’m actually making my illness worse. In November, I started to talk to my husband about giving up work, as I just couldn’t cope with it. All I was doing was working, going home, sleeping and repeat, I had no life. It was so depressing, but at the back on my mind, something kept pushing through, saying you can beat this, you can beat this.

My husband had been training with Vision for about a year now, and he was getting some amazing results and he was feeling fantastic, I finally started listening and watching what he was eating, I read the book that was provided to him, and started doing some research into foods that help auto immune illnesses. In early December, I contacted Vision Personal Training, and decided that January 2014 was the time to get my life back!

7th January 2014 was the day that changed my life! I remember being so scared to walk into Vision, I couldn’t sleep the night before, but I knew I had to do it. I walked in, and was greeted by a big smile and I’ve never looked back. I topped the scales at 115kg’s. This day was the change of my life forever.

My main aim for 2014 was to come off all my medications, lose weight and get my life back. I was 110% committed to this, and I still am. Within three months of training and clean eating, I came off my blood pressure medication, woo hoo!! Yes, one goal done. Now I was working towards coming off my auto immune medication. I start my own group on face book, to keep me accountable and share my story, and it all helped, and still does.

Then the magical day come, in October 2014, my specialist took me off all my medication! He clapped and said to me, if only all my patients were like you. I was so, so, so happy, I can’t put it into words, I’m like YES! I DID IT. At this stage I had lost around 26kg’s, exercising and feeling good.

In 2015 I decided that I wanted to learn to run, a friend got awesome results with operation move, so in July I decided to sign up for the July Learn to Run course. It scared me a lot, but I was determined to get through the course. Some days it was a love hate relationship, but I completed the course, and I’ve gained so much confidence through it. I completed the City 2 Surf and the Blackmore’s Bridge run, and both times I got a PB. Leaving me keen to challenge myself more, so I’m determined to give a Half Marathon a try, in 2016, I just want to complete it, not fussed on any special time, just want to give it a go. The support that I received and still receive through Operation Move is amazing, it really kept me going, what a wonderful bunch of strong women!

I’m now happy to say that I can run and I’ve lost a total of 31.5kg’s and I’m pain free, and my health has returned, I’m 44 years old and I feel the fittest and healthiest that I have in decades. My journey continues….

How to hijack your motivation before it disappears

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If you ask people why they run, they’ll often refer to the elusive runners high. And while the jury is still out on what an actual runners high is and if it even exists, the real reason people decide to run or do a workout is probably to do with dopamine. Most people think of dopamine as the reward hormone, but the truth is it’s far more complex than that. Dopamine spikes when we anticipate a reward and the spike of dopamine creates the motivation for us to do the work in order to get the reward. So, it’s a pretty big deal in terms of creating habits for running or fitness or change of any kind.

It’s not without it’s problems though. When you start out you have an expectation of feeling fitter or running faster or whatever it is and usually in the beginning you get big results, so it’s easy for you to meet those expectations and your dopamine levels stay intact. But progress is not linear and what happens the next month when your results weren’t as good as you were expecting? Your dopamine takes a nose dive and you now have less motivation.

So how do you get around it?

Make the process your desired outcome. And break it down into small goals. Goals like completing the session. Goals like doing a certain number of sessions in the week. Rather than focusing on annual goals or goals for the training cycle – start focusing on a few goals just for the daily session. It might be to finish in a certain pace, stick to a heart rate zone, practice core activation, complete the full warm up. And after you’ve finished each session reflect on the successes of it. This is why post-run selfies are a great training tool.

Make sure your long-term goals are achievable. Realistic isn’t a dirty word. In order for you to thrive, you need to be able to see progress towards your long term goals and if it’s too out of reach, then you won’t be getting that ongoing feedback that you are getting the results that you are working for. Make sure your short-term goals are things that work for your long-term goals and make sure they make a clear, achievable and realistic path.

Vary the program and introduce unpredictability. One of the things about dopamine is that it highlights how we are all innately built to be gamblers. Predictability is great, but it gets boring. If you sometimes get the reward and sometimes don’t, then your dopamine levels are going to be double that compared to always getting the expected outcome. So in training that means your coach not sharing training plans too far ahead into the future. It means creating new workouts that you haven’t done or a combination that you haven’t tried before. It means them occasionally springing something totally random on you.

Turns out motivation might not have been as fickle as we always thought!

Phat Fudge – What is it and how to get it to taste like chocolate gingerbread

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phat-fudge-1

I think I first became aware of phat fudge as an invention of the LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) community and didn’t pay that much attention because more power too them but I’m a believer in carbohydrates to fuel most athletic endeavours. But I’m not actually sure if that’s where it came from. But in recent months as I’ve been predominantly vegan and grain free (apart from my cheat day where I eat all the bread), I’ve been looking further afield for recipes and this is one of those things that I thought would be great to try. Once I’d converted from full fat milk lattes to bulletproof coffee it wasn’t much of a stretch.

What do I use it for?

I use it for meal replacements or between meal boosts when I’m too busy to eat properly but want to stop myself from getting too hungry where I inevitably end up eating all the wrong things. I also use it as a fuel source pre-workout and I really liked it as an option before my last half marathon. And I often have it as a bit of a dessert, because I do like something sweet after dinner. So I’ll either have that or have some frozen raspberries with coconut yoghurt or coconut cream (and probably some maple syrup as well!).

The only thing is, sometimes it’s hard to stop yourself from eating it all at once. So you’ve been warned.

I originally got the recipe from here because I was looking for a phat fudge option that didn’t have ghee in it given I’m trying to avoid dairy where I can. And while I personally love turmeric, the other day I was out because I’d just made about 5 litres of curry, so I substituted for another anti-inflammatory: ginger and the result was pretty awesome.

What do you need?

1/2 Cup of Coconut Oil (I learnt the hard way that the liquid coconut oil I buy because it has higher MCT in it for my bulletproof coffee doesn’t work as well as the kind of coconut oil that solidifies because we are making fudge and the liquid oil makes it melt almost as soon as it’s out of the freezer. I smart person would have worked that out sooner, but hey it still tastes awesome).

1/2 Cup of Tahini

2 Tablespoons of Honey or the sweetener of your choice to taste

1 Teaspoon of Cinnamon

1/2 Tablespoon of Ginger (or Turmeric)

1/2 Tablespoon of Maca Powder

2 and 1/2 Tablespoons of Cacao or Cocoa Powder

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

Salt for sprinkling on top.

How do I make it?

On a low heat whisk together the tahini and coconut oil until combined.

Then add in the honey and continue to whisk.

Whisk in cinnamon, ginger, maca powder and cacao

Once all combined, take it off the heat and add in the vanilla.

Pour your mixture into moulds. I find ice cube trays work well

phat

Once it’s in the tray, I grind salt over the top – but you can skip that if salt in chocolate isn’t your thing. Then put it into the freezer for a few hours to set.

phat-2

And that’s it! Super easy. And yummy!

Does it fit my macros?

For those who are interested if you have an ice cube tray and divide it into 14 portions that results into the following nutrition breakdown

10g Carbohydrates, 14g Fat, 2g Protein (145 Calories per serve)

Podcast: Episode 33 – Until Next Year . . . meanwhile we talk goals, events and your fastest 5k

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33-until-next-year

It’s our last podcast for the year!

But before we go we are here to share some of the awesome goals that the Operation Move community has set and to remind you to:

Join the Secret Santa

Enter the Skins giveaway and give yourself a Christmas present or just grab the discount code!

Some events you could think about doing next year

And answer that question about how to run a fast 5k.

But more importantly to tell you how much we have loved doing the podcast this year and our best wishes for you and your family to have an amazing silly season!

 

Head over to iTunes to listen (and subscribe!)

You can listen and download episodes in Itunes here.