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You are here: Home / 2020 / Archives for February 2020

Archives for February 2020

Podcast: Episode 121 – No Runners Don’t Hate Running

OperationMove · February 22, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Or how you can manipulate data to sell the story you want . . .

Strava released data from surveying 25,0000 runners. You can see their visualisation of that data here. And I probably would have just looked at it and thought hey, that’s pretty cool but then every media outlet across the globe started running their story which was basically “LOOK. Runners hate running too!” And as clickable a headline as that it is it’s not really true. The less exciting version is that runners love to run, and they tolerate a bunch of stuff that they don’t always love, all the time because they love it – and overall there is very little that they actually hate. So this week, I talk a bit about the toxic nature of normalising love-hate relationships with exercise and movement.

Would you like your question answered?

As promised on the podcast, you can book in a skype call here Or you can email me here.

Check out Run Club and the Operation Move Sisterhood

Our amazing community includes:
  • Plans from 5km to Marathon from Beginner to Advanced
  • Weekly workouts for when you are in between plans, or just to spice up your week
  • A private facebook community
  • Access to coaches for all your questions
  • And most importantly – the most supportive community you can imagine!
You can sign up here.

Support the podcast, so we can make more and get access to bonus episodes!

You can support Operation Move and the podcast on Patreon. I am so grateful for your support!   Stay up to date on:
  • instagram @opmove
  • facebook @opmove
  • facebook community group @opmove
You can listen on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher.

Podcast: Episode 120 – Sweet Talking Your Way Out The Front Door

OperationMove · February 13, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Getting out the door is the hardest part, isn’t it?

I think everyone has experienced in no matter if you are new to creating a habit, or if you’ve been at it for awhile. So. Much. Procrastination. And once you are out there, you are totally fine. But getting over that hump can be a hell of a thing. This week I’m talking about the key things I still use to get me out there which include:
  • Planning
  • Preparation
  • Rampant Bribery
  • Deal Sweeteners
  • Accountability/Peer Pressure
  • And finally, sweet talk

Would you like your question answered?

As promised on the podcast, you can book in a skype call here Or you can email me here.

Check out Run Club and the Operation Move Sisterhood

Our amazing community includes:
  • Plans from 5km to Marathon from Beginner to Advanced
  • Weekly workouts for when you are in between plans, or just to spice up your week
  • A private facebook community
  • Access to coaches for all your questions
  • And most importantly – the most supportive community you can imagine!
You can sign up here.

Support the podcast, so we can make more and get access to bonus episodes!

You can support Operation Move and the podcast on Patreon. I am so grateful for your support!   Stay up to date on:
  • instagram @opmove
  • facebook @opmove
  • facebook community group @opmove
You can listen on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher.

Why eating ‘healthy’ or ‘clean’ won’t get you the results you want

OperationMove · February 11, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Mixed salad leaves with berries, avocado and honey-mustard dressing

“I eat so healthy”, she says.

And it’s true, she does.

About 5 years and 40kg ago, I would have been confused too.

The problem with ‘healthy’ and ‘clean’ eating

The first problem is the fact that these are words that don’t really mean anything, like ‘natural’. What is healthy food, anyway? What’s good for one person, isn’t going to be good for another person.

Personally, I have an issue with the idea of ‘clean’ eating just because it positions itself in a place of moral superiority (or seems to). If one thing is clean, then the other thing is dirty, right?

Okay, so even if I play the game and we put the food we are talking about into the ‘unprocessed’ category of food, or at least less processed – which will probably include meat, fish, vegetables, fruits but then I guess dairy, oils and grains are probably a grey area.

It’s not specific. So it’s hard to know if you are doing it, or not doing it, because it’s just so abstract.

 

Why a style of eating won’t get you to your goals

 

While not all people come in with the same goals, most of the time they can be boiled down to a few things:

  • Better fueling/energy/performance for life or fitness
  • Improvement in body composition

And that’s the problem. The basis of any goal is finding the right energy balance, which at a base level is you getting enough energy, but not getting more than you need or less than you need.

No style of eating is going to help you with that.

If you want to lose fat, you need to be in a calorie deficit.

If you want to maximise performance, you need to be eating to a calorie maintenance.

A style of eating can definitely help to support either of those goals, by making them easier to maintain, but that is it.

Once you’ve got your energy balance locked down, then you can start making sure your macro nutrients (protein, fats, carbohydrates) support your muscle mass, your activity and your hormones and that you are geeting enough micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) to support your body as well.

 

The truth is, without tracking it you won’t know

I really believed I was eating a ‘healthy’, fairly balanced diet until my nutrition coach got me to track my food for two weeks without making any attempt at a behaviour change.

And that was an eye opener. Not only was I mindlessly eating a whole lot more than I thought, I was probably getting about half the protein we would ultimately be aiming for or less.

You think you know, until you write it down.

 

But there are things you can start with, even if you don’t want to track that are more beneficial than trying to eat ‘healthy’.

 

There are plenty of reasons why you might not want to track your food. Maybe it feeds into a disordered pattern that isn’t helpful, maybe you have other priorities right now, but whatever it is there are a few things you can do.

 

  •  Sit down to eat without your phone and without a device or watching TV. This is a whole lot harder than it sounds.
  •  Use some simple portion sizes for your meals (like making sure you are having a palm size serving of protein at every meal for women and two for men)
  •  Try adding in more vegetables to every meal
  •  Just drink more water

 

Marketing hype has sold us the idea that fat loss and performance is linked to a particular style, but it’s not true.

 

How often have you head that the secret to instant fat loss is keto or paleo or low carb or zero sugar or whatever the flavour of the week is? I’m betting a lot. And it’s attractive right, because nutrition is hard and someone is promising you a magic bullet. But the truth is, if your goal is fat loss everything works exactly the same way calorie deficit.

And a certain style of eating is definitely going to help you with that. In a fat loss phase I might start off having around 180g of carbohydrates per day (protein and fat stay pretty much constant because they are needed to maintain muscle and regulate hormones). If I’m eating calorie dense foods I’m going to run out of food for the day pretty quickly and I’m going to be starving.

I could eat a packet of chips with 50g carbohydrates and 20g fat which will keep me full for about 5 minutes, or I could have a huge bowl of tofu and vegetables with buckwheat noodles.

One of those things is more sustainable than the other.

But, I could also easily over-eat any ‘healthy’ or unprocessed food and gain weight on any style of eating too.

 

Match your eating to your goals, not the hype

 

You know how it’s often assumed that if you are thinner you must be healthier? This is the same thing. It might be ‘healthy’, but it also might not get you anywhere near where you want to go.

 

 

 

The best piece of running advice I ever got wasn’t from a runner

OperationMove · February 10, 2020 · Leave a Comment

I find inspiration for running everywhere, not just from running.

Young asian woman enjoys running outside with beautiful summer evening in the countryside.

I am definitely one of those people who finds a whole lot of interesting things for my sport, outside of my sport. I suppose, a lot of it has to do with finding a different perspective or looking at something from a different angle.

In anything, there’s a certain level where you just tend to accept that it’s the way things are, without asking why they are, because that’s the way they’ve always been.

I listened to Jason Koop talk about just this thing in terms of coming to running coaching from a cycling background, he just took less things as gospel.

Imposter complex can come into this too. Especially when you have experts in the field who know so much more than you do, who are you to go a different way than well established principles.

It’s important to put that imposter complex aside and always test. Test and re-test. See what’s true, and what holds up. Especially with coaching women, because the reality is the vast majority of research is done on men, so how valuable is it really?

Anyway, back to my best running advice.

When I first started CrossFit it was hard to figure out how to pace workouts – what was too easy or too hard? It was unfamiliar territory because it felt different to running. Running has a more immediate feedback loop than strength training does. So if you go out to hard, you know pretty much straight away.

There’s a level where that can be true with CrossFit but it’s also easy to feel like you could have gone out harder and then get to the afternoon and realise, ‘nope, I’m good!’

I was asking my coach at the time about what I should be aiming for and his answer was ‘it’s your time, you do what you want with it.’

Which is true for everything.

And has both escalated and tempered my approach to everything since.

I decide what I want to get out of it.

I decide how hard or how easy it needs to be.

I decide what is worth it.

Not every day can be an all out effort – in fact if you want that great day at a race, very few can be an absolute all out effort. Some days need to be easy, other days you can lean in to the discomfort.

And it’s always your time.

Is your running watch sabotaging your mindset?

OperationMove · February 7, 2020 · Leave a Comment

 

How much does that data really impact you?

Do you see that performance condition notification come up and when it says ‘poor’, does it make you have a tiny doubt about your workout? Do those unproductive or de-training statuses on your app give you doubts about the work you are doing? Maybe they don’t on a conscious level, but on a subconscious level they might be! This week, I dive into what some of the metrics are based on, what the pitfalls are and how to make sure they aren’t negatively impacting your performance. The goal should be that these extra data points help you to get more in touch with your body, rather than eroding your confidence in it.

 

Would you like your question answered?

As promised on the podcast, you can book in a skype call here

 

Support the podcast, so we can make more and get access to bonus episodes!

You can support Operation Move and the podcast on Patreon. I am so grateful for your support!   Stay up to date on:

  • instagram @opmove
  • facebook @opmove
  • facebook community group @opmove

  You can listen on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher.

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