On the Run: fitness made simple
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~Simple and healthy recipes
~Running Tips
~Strength Training Ideas
~Yoga Workouts
~Productivity Advice
~Motivation & Inspiration
A better world starts with a better YOU.
impassivities Asks:
surfnrunnr Said:
Hi! Coffee has more caffeine than tea which I do not need. Tea also has more antioxidants than coffee. Tea stains your teeth less! Coffee is not “super unhealthy,” especially if you are drinking regular coffee with just some milk/milk alternative. It gets bad like during the holiday season when Starbucks has all these specialty drinks full of whip cream, sugar, syrup, and empty calories. It’s a little worrying that you aren’t getting enough sleep as a freshman in college. My roommate and I sleep 7-8 hours a night in med school. I drink tea, but she doesn’t drink any caffeinated drinks! Figure out why you’re so pressed for time. Did you over-commit this semester? Are you balancing school and play well? Are you productive during the daytime? Is your class schedule messed up with lots of small time gaps? I would say a reliance on caffeine is a negative habit to have, and it’s not a necessary component of productivity. Nor is it the secret to academic success. You’re going to do great!
New Year’s Resolution? Getting enough sleep =)
For me, I drink tea daily. I’ll reuse one teabag for 2-3 refills. I like herbal teas to squash sugar cravings. Tea helps me from snacking and eating late at night. I drink coffee when I need to stay-up late to go out with friends…lol I drink coffee when I need to have fun, not when I need to study!
Do you find that you NEED caffeine?
-Geraldine
Yayy! so cool that my undergrad college has a popular tumblr! Follow this blog for some proven health-related information!
Hi Everyone!
Med School starts tomorrow and I’ve been planning how to eat healthy and efficiently. Here are some tips from me and Dr. Barbara Rolls’s The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet book (Facebook & Amazon). For lunch salads, I buy mostly pre-cut and washed items to quickly throw together. For dinners, I use whole vegetables and prepare them quickly, mostly by boiling. I’m not a fan of frozen vegetables because mine always end up soggy…I also prepare big batches of grains and refrigerate them for the week. However, I did see some frozen cubed butternut squash and frozen cooked lentils that looked promising. I absolutely hate frozen zucchini…bleghhh soggy tasteless mess.
What’s more important for you? Saving time or saving money?
Hope everything is going well! I miss everyone =)
~Geraldine
This was the other group’s final dance. I liked it better…especially all the floor-work. What a lovely and interesting dance that was put together in just a few hours.
Anonymous Asks:
surfnrunnr Said:
Hi, I worked full-time doing research after graduation for 6 months. I also had to finish some applications and interviews. Since then, I’ve been traveling, taking classes that have always interested me, pursuing artistic and musical projects, and spending time with my family. If you plan to have at least a year before med school/grad school/work/etc., my best advice is to not waste the amazing opportunity to do something productive, meaningful to you, and fun! It’s a time to really round out your life and to focus on some areas that have been neglected or yearn for development.
Thanks for reading my health blog and have a great summer! :D!!! Hope you aren’t taking summer session like I did the summer before 2nd year…
surfnrunnr asked: Hi Chick, I just watched your recent yoga video. Definitely alot of “whoaaa” moments. How long have you been doing yoga? and do you do impromptu yoga or know sets of poses? Thanks for sharing and love the music too.
Thanks for asking!!! :)
You know what? I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how long i’ve been doing yoga and teaching it. I’d say four years taking yoga, two years of it teaching, minus some black holes of illness and depression and all around life fuckery.
In college I took one yoga class as a PE credit. It was taught by a 65 year old lady who taught in a pink leotard and tights and played songs like “Reminiscing” and anything on a late sixties easy listening compilation. I spent class trying to blow up her tape deck with my thought vibes. Nevertheless, the yoga didnt do much for me.
For the next 8 years I maybe took a yoga class once or twice at my gym. I enjoyed it, had some nice instructors, but since I also took so many other classes, like step and kickboxing, I never had the time or desire to go to an outside yoga studio.
THEN, in March of 2008, after driving around with a brand new mat in the trunk of my car for 6 months, I signed up for a free week at the same studio my friend went to, because my bootcamp class at my gym had been cancelled. She had been recommending it for over a year, but I was too stubborn to change my routine, which I had DOWN PAT.
After a single class, I never looked back. Between 2008-and summer 2010, I did yoga almost EVERY SINGLE DAY, without fail.
I decided to do the Teacher Training program through my studio almost a year after in Feb 2009. I started teaching in June of 2009 and taught at two different studios from the summer of 09 to summer 2010. I had a pretty crazy schedule at this point. In addition to a demanding full time job, I was teaching ten classes a week or more AND trying to get my own practice in every day. So during the weekdays, my mornings started at 4:30 so I could be out the door by five, to open the studio and be ready to teach the 6am class. On some evenings I wouldnt get home from teaching until 11 at night. I taught five classes over the weekend. I was a crazy girl. So within these two years, I crammed in a shit ton of yoga.
Of course, I couldn’t keep up that pace, so eventually, some health issues I was dealing with took their toll, my marriage fell to pieces, and I got severely depressed and sick and had to quit teaching, stopped working and got a divorce. Two words. Not Fun.
I was no longer practicing regularly and lost a lot of ability which was super frustrating and depressing as well. The rest of 2010 was a wash and I only started feeling like my old self sometime last year. I don’t quite remember exactly how or when it happened, but with the support of my sweetie (who was my guardian angel at this time) I slowly started to come back to life. We spent 6 weeks in the beginning of 2011 in Vermont (where I started this blog over a year ago) and gradually started to feel a little bit better, just a little at a time. After a lwhile, I started going back to the studio to take class, and then several months later, felt strong enough to teach and became a substitute rather than having regularly scheduled classes. If I felt bad, I would have the flexibility to control the amount of classes I taught. I decided not to go back to work and adopted a pretty relaxed schedule. I still got fatigued easily. I still got depressed. But at least this time around I didn’t fall as deep or as hard and I could climb back out with a little help.
By the end of last year, I had a pretty predictable schedule of teaching, taking yoga in SD and then taking some time off to travel with my sweetie. I got my dog Abby and she sucked up much of the free time I used to use for yoga.
We decided to move to Bainbridge Island outside of Seattle in Mid Jan of this year. Since then, I haven’t taken any classes at all, but have been practicing on and off on my own. I have lost some ground. Im not as strong as I used to be and there are some poses that I can no longer do, but at the same time, my body feels good and i’m happy with what it can do. There are also some poses that I could not not do, that I CAN now. So you fluctuate, but never really are better or worse, just different. These days, I may practice 30 mins to an hour or just do 15 minutes here and there. Pretty unstructured and relaxed.
When I used to teach, I used to create my own sequences for an hour class, sometimes an hour 15min class. There’s a basic structure to a yoga class so you get to be creative, but still teach a rounded class. I almost never taught the exact same class twice.
On my own, I wont plan ahead, I’ll just start moving and combine poses that feel good and “flow” well together. I might try a couple different ideas. Once I have a “sequence”, I’ll flow through it a couple of times on both right and left sides and then cool down with some stretches and savasana.
What I recorded is what I would consider a flow sequence. There are some pretty standard series of poses that go well together, so you’ll often see these put together in a class. Different teachers just put a different twist. One of my favorite parts of teaching was building classes and creating playlists to go with them.
BTW, the song in the background is Enigma, Sitting on the Moon. … And I like soft, furry things and cute animals… and there was this one time … at band camp ….
From : http://yogachick.tumblr.com/
Today students in my Beginning Modern Dance class performed our midterm! This is what my group came up with. I like it because it has some jumping and abdominal work lol. I’ve never danced before (obviously), but am glad I’m exploring it a bit. There’s really a level for everyone…if you’re in your late teens or in college but still want to dance, join in school dance performances or take a class at your school! It helps you gain some confidence, be more active, and express yourself.
So this was my typical backpack during my freshman year in college (errr except I took General Chemistry and not O-Chem): textbooks, laptop, notebooks, food, liter of water, & junk in the front pockets. I would walk around all day like a pack mule. People started recognizing me as the “girl with the huge, colorful backpack.” Someone once said, “it looks like you’re wearing a jet pack,” because it was wider than I was. POINT BEING, students’ shoulders take a toll by carrying heavy backpacks around. Yoga has really helped me align my shoulders more and to release some of the tension that I’ve built up over the years. I feel like I’ve developed huge trapezoids overtaking my neck.
Some things to keep in mind:
- Even in mountain pose, pull your shoulders away from your ears.
- Stand tall and decompress your spine.
- Perform neck stretches as well.
Everyone please, take some time out of day to relax your shoulders and neck!
Hi everyone! Wonder how I got to blog and be featured in Seventeen? I entered one of their contests and caught the eye of the editors. Here’s an opportunity for incoming college freshman to contribute to Seventeen’s College Blog. There’s 15 spots open! This is a chance for you to gain communications experience, more readers, and to share your ideas.
Anonymous Asks:
surfnrunnr Said:
Omgod this was totally me during my 3rd & 4th years! I went from microwaving raw chicken to cooking all the recipes on my page! Please take a look at my “A+ Grocery List” for some ideas. But just quickly:
- Black beans, whole wheat tortillas, shredded cheese —> quesadillas
- Breakfast: oatmeal, plain non-fat yogurt, frozen fruit
- Snacks: fruits on sale (like apples, bananas…anything .99cents/lb)
- Easy to cook veggies: broccoli, green beans, & frozen vegetable medleys
- Grains: brown rice, whole wheat or rye bread, quinoa
- Super Sandwich: lean meats, spinach (instead of lettuce), broccoli slaw, avocado (instead of mayo), mustard, cheese if you likeeee it
It’s times like these that I pray that the guy I like doesn’t drive by and see me…
I don’t have a car at the university, so riding my bike from the grocery store back to my dorm/apartment is how I manage. Not having a car is actually really liberating and biking around the area is a great way to be active. It’s also quite fast to get to anywhere within 6 miles. Balancing your bags on the handle bars is a trick to master…I even rode up a big hill and looked like a dorky, yet determined girl! People in cars stare and laugh, but I don’t care. Oh the things I do for Greek yogurt and quinoa…
You know you’re a little too intense when your roommate says, “I saw you walking back with your bags and was going to give you a ride…but I thought you wanted the exercise.” LOL
C’est la vie.
Happy Friday!
What UCSD Dining Sells (And they actually sell!)
Hoagie Sandwich: 955 Calories and 45 g of Fat, 90 g Carbs and only 4g of Fiber!!!
Black Forest Ham & Swiss: 810 Calories, 43 g of Fat, 69g of Carbs and only 4g of Fiber!!
I can’t believe these sandwiches sell and in the School of Medicine area too! Even grown men are not trying to lose weight should have the common sense to not eat 65-86 g of refined carbs and 40+ g of fat…or should they (maybe us fitblr peeps are more nutritionally aware then the average American). I’m glad my college prints the nutritional information, but man is it scary! I would not have thought they were over 800 calories each.
However, UCSD has lots of other healthy options too! (steel cut oatmeal for breakfast, bangin’ salad bar, and always something grilled for dinner).
~GT
For many of you, its the start of a new school year. However, you don’t have to wait for a milestone to start making changes to our life. Even if you don’t wake up the next day a pound lighter, with a 6-pack, or strong enough to run a marathon, the fact that you want to change for the better is already an improvement. Aim high and do your best! Maybe these tips are nothing new, but I just want to show how you can set broad goals and break them down into manageable bites.
Remember…fitness isn’t all about your weight and muscles. Its about handling stress, coping with change, and finding happiness.
- Identify your habits that need a makeover
- Brainstorm 5 ways to improve
- Pick one habit from each category to work on each day
- Congratulate yourself for doing so!
May the fitness be with you,
Geri
I bumped into some of my friends during my morning run (10 miles), and they graciously allowed me to photograph them! They started their weekend with a beach run and good talk. Get your friends moving and enjoy the day together!
I just saw a recent picture of one of my best friends from college and sent her an email saying her weight loss has worried me since we were roommates 2nd year (2009). I never dared talk to her about it before because I didn’t want to make things awkward or ruin our friendship. We’re both graduated now and I didn’t want to have any regrets, especially because I love her so much! I carefully crafted my message, but hopefully she doesn’t take it the wrong way. (I hope she’s fine and I’m just being an overprotective friend!)
I was so nervous writing the email, and almost started crying. I can’t believe I actually sent it…I hope this doesn’t ruin our friendship =(
