health Archives - Operation Move

We’re more than a little bit excited to let you know about our new brand partnership with Hivita.

Now that Zoey and I have been using the products for well over a month we wanted to share with you some of the benefits we have been experiencing, as well as tell you a bit about how YOU can benefit from our new friendship as well!

When you train at the level we do, it is imperative to be on top of your nutrition. The fact is though that sometimes cheese, chocolate and ice-cream are also imperative to your life and it may be at the expense of other nutrient dense foods, so it is always good to have a quality back up plan.

To be perfectly honest I’ve come and gone with supplements and vitamins over the years, but since I have committed to taking my Hivita products every single day I do think they’ve had a positive impact on my health and wellness. Certainly when the flu ravaged my family a couple of weeks ago I got through unscathed and I’m pretty sure my Vitamin C with Zinc played a part in that! We love that Hivita is Australian made, owned and formulated too.

Something else I am prone to banging on about each Winter is my eternal battle with Seasonal Affective Disorder. In a bad year it can wreak absolute havoc on my head and whilst running and hence being outdoors in the elements more has made a difference, there are other things that can help as well.

I’ve had low vitamin D levels (like most women) for the longest time. Running through the sunnier months has improved that but keeping those levels high through the grey of Winter is really important. Having tried any number of Vitamin D supplements over the years I’ve been really happy with the offering from Hivita and when I had some bloods done very recently my D levels had been maintained which is a bit excellent.

We’ll be talking more about the range over the coming months because there are so many products that are perfect for women who like to move and really help support your health. We did want to mention the Liquivita for Kids however as supplements for the little ones have been a bit of a hot topic in recent times.

The advantages of a multivitamin in liquid form for kids are obvious. And despite all the ‘perfect parents’ we’ve seen lately carrying on about how children should be eating better and fed a perfectly nutritional diet therefore not requiring supplementation, we feel like this is a good addition to help support children’s health.

I will add to that, that those parents can take a flying leap at themselves.

I have an autistic child who presently limits himself to about 5 foods. This is FAR from unusual for many kids both on and off the spectrum for a number of reasons. And aside from that sometimes life just does not allow us to create perfectly balanced meals for our children.

So if those people want to come and cook dinner at my place each night and watch it go uneaten by at least one of my kids they are welcome. In the meantime I will be grateful that I have a means of getting SOME goodness into his belly in a form that he will tolerate. Especially when that supplement has no artificial colours or flavours and no added sugar.

Our Operation Move members, along with our Far & Fast and Move It Elite coaching clients have all been gifted with a goodie bag full of great Hivita products. We’re thrilled to have Hivita helping us support our people the way they do best and we have a special offer for ALL OpMovers who might be keen to try out the range.

Exclusive Operation Move Reader offer:

30% of all purchases at Hivita before 31/08/2015 plus free shipping for orders over $50. Just enter code OPERATIONMOVE at checkout.

AND for any OpMovers who are coming to the Gold Coast Marathon weekend events on July 5th, come and find either Zoey or myself and we will let you know how you can pick up your VERY OWN Hivita goodies to try, with thanks to Hivita for their generosity and support!

We will be around the event for most of the day after completing the half marathon, look out for the Operation Move singlets!

I started doing Crossfit at the beginning of 2014. I don’t do New Years Resolutions because I figure if you really want to do something, you’ll just do it. So at the end of December 2013 I found a local gym that ran CrossFit classes and signed up.

I’ve heard people refer to Crossfit as a vortex of pain. And chances are if anyone tells someone doing Crossfit that they are batshit crazy, they will take it as a compliment. Just like any other type of fitness there is a gargantuan amount of fat shaming and just general grossness that goes along with some CrossFit inspiration out there. I suggest you avoid that.

But what is it?

Crossfit, at core is a perpetually changing mix of aerobic exercise, body weight exercises (things like push ups, squats, burpees, pull ups) and Olympic weight lifting performed at high intensity. Classes would generally include a warm-up, a skill development part, the high intensity ‘workout of the day’ (WOD) and a cool-down/stretch. It’s strength and conditioning designed to improve your muscular strength, endurance and flexibility.

Was I scared?

Hell yes. I was used to running which didn’t involve doing exercise in front of other people who would realise I had no coordination skills whatsoever. I might have cried before I went in the first time thing because I get very socially anxious in those types of situations. But here’s the thing, regardless of what you might see on the internet about the hard-core nature of CrossFit, what a trainer at any gym will want for you is to be fit. You can’t be fit if you are injured. So they will adapt exercises, they will teach you and they will support you through the learning process.

What I love about it.

For someone who is used to endurance exercise of often two hours or more, the idea of going to a gym to do a WOD that will last for 20-30 minutes is actually really appealing. No matter how hard it is, it’s only 20 minutes. It works muscles that running doesn’t touch and I know the high intensity part of it is very different too. I have a different kind of muscle exhaustion at the end of it. And yes, I throw around the term ‘good pain’ a whole lot more.

What I get out of it

Even if you don’t want to do CrossFit I am a big advocate of strength workouts. I don’t have the discipline to do them at home on my own, but it’s really easy to do with hardly any equipment. A few things happen with strength workouts. The first is that it kicks up your metabolism so you can eat more or lose weight (whichever appeals to you). It will develop your endurance in cardio workouts. And the perpetual change associated with strength workouts has some huge benefits. If you are doing the same type of exercise all the time your body gets used to it, gets more efficient at it and burns less calories to get it done. Mixing up your regular workouts with something that is always changing means that your body can’t get used to it, can’t get lazy and will get more out of it as a result.

Crossfit advocates Paleo. Do you Paleo?

No I do not. I’m vegetarian for starters. Paleo knocks out dairy, grains and legumes. So right off the bat I’d lose all sources of protein. There is no way it would work for me. And even if I was a meat eater I would have serious doubts as to the health benefits of Paleo. You know what I do like? Moderation. So I have started eating less processed grains and replacing with vegetable carbohydrates instead and butter, lots of butter.

One Month In

Now, it’s hard to attribute things to Crossfit because at the beginning of 2014 I quit smoking, quit drinking, increased my kms by about double and started going to Crossfit and I also started eating more healthy foods. But I had been wanting to lose some extra weight for awhile to get me to a better race weight come later in the year and in my first month I lost about 3kgs which was enough inspiration for me to keep going.

Healthier with Hivita.

What is CrossFit? And should I be scared?