As I was rinsing off the salt-crusted soles of my running shoes tonight, I realized how warn down they are. A quick calculation and I realized that I've probably been wearing the shoes longer than the recommended 300 miles. I also remembered that every time I've put them on recently I've been a little bit grumpy about the way that they feel. Have they ever explicitly stopped me from going out on a run? No. But "old, warn shoes" are one thing that I could write in my list of the barriers that I feel get in my way of being as active as I could be.
What do your barriers look like?
In nutrition counseling we often talk about barriers. Part of being a successful dietitian is helping people to overcome or at least recognize whatever barriers they might have getting in the way of healthy eating. This could be a practical barrier such as lack of grocery stores with fresh produce or it could be something more internal such as feeling sad lately and feeling the need to find comfort in food.
Is there something that you're having a hard time accomplishing? Try making a list of barriers and potential solutions. Here's are a few examples - the first is one of my personal barriers and others I've drawn from patients.
Goal: run more often during the week
Barriers: cold weather, uncomfortable old shoes, darkness
Ideas to break barriers: put together a chart of outside temperatures with appropriate clothes that will keep me warm, buy new running shoes, find friend to run with consistently after work
Goal: eat more vegetables each day
Barriers: fresh produce just goes bad whenever I buy it, vegetables are hard to cook and expensive
Ideas to break barriers: stock freezer with selection of frozen vegetables that I know I like, find Pinterest boards featuring easy vegetable recipes to bookmark for trying each week, buy produce with recipe in hand on the day I know I have time to prepare it to avoid spoilage
Goal: lose weight in order to better fit into clothes
Barriers: gym membership is expensive, family doesn't like 'health' food, low motivation
Ideas to break barriers: find a friend to go for walks with outside on a consistent schedule, try making current favorite family meals using healthier ingredients, put sticky notes with inspirational quotes on car dashboard to remind myself of goal
These are just a few ideas of ways to get into the mindset of breaking through barriers. If you can think up some ideas for overcoming your own barriers, try writing them down. Even if you're not ready to take action yet, looking at your list of solutions can motivate you to take small steps in the direction of your goal! Now I'm off to buy some new running shoes...
If you're like me, you've probably done some sort of physical activity and thought to yourself afterward "gee, that must've burned a whole bunch of calories!" But how many? For a class last semester I got to wear a metabolic armband for 24 hours that tracked my calorie output (as well as my sleep quality, how many minutes of moderate and vigorous activity I did, and the number of steps I took). How does it do this? By strapping the band onto your upper arm, it measures "galvanic skin response" to see how much you sweat in addition to skin temperature, the rate at which heat is being dissipated, and, via the accelerometer, how much you're moving. I was so excited to get to use the armband but I had a hard time deciding which physical activity I wanted to do on my one day; it ended up raining so an hour and a half of hot yoga won out over other options. Still, I was itching to try out other activities.
Last week I was able to borrow the armband for a whole week for just this purpose. I had a couple of activities I knew I wanted to try and then I talked with friends and followers to see what activities they've been wondering about. When I could, I compared my armband results from those that either the machine indicated, a website calculated, or the instructor of the class estimated to see how accurate these tools are compared with the armband (which claims to be the most accurate armband on the market).
Here's what the Body Media website that the armband syncs to knew about me going into it: my gender (female), my hand (right), my height (5'3"), my weight (~130), and whether or not I am a smoker (no). Here are my calculations, I hope you find them helpful!
Monday
3 mile walk to school (50 min): 228 cal
Comparison:Shapefit.com estimates that a 130 lb person walking 4.0 miles per hour, which is a little faster than I was walking, can expect to burn 236 calories per hour.
1 hour basic yoga class at South Boston Yoga which focused that day on hip opening: 141 cal
Tuesday
3 mile walk to school: 223 cal
Comparison: Monday the same walk burned 5 more calories - maybe my backpack was heavier that day?
Sitting in an hour and a half long lecture having walked to school: 92 cal
30 minutes on the treadmill, totaling 2.5 miles: 271 cal
Comparison: The treadmill, knowing only my weight and age, told me I burned 294.4 cal.
Tuesday was the day I burned the most calories - by walking to school, running on the treadmill for 30 minutes during lunch, and walking to dinner and then the train later that night, I burned 2828 calories, took 22,513 steps, and had a total activity time of 276 minutes. Could it be because I had slept for 8 hours and 4 minutes the night before, with 94% sleep efficiency (time laying down versus time actually asleep) making it the best night of sleep I got all week? Perhaps!
Wednesday
Day off! After awhile you don't really notice the armband during your daily routine and sleeping, but Wednesday I had ghost armband syndrome and kept thinking I was still wearing it.
Thursday
Sitting in an hour and a half long lecture having driven to school: 85 cal
Comparison: Sitting in the same lecture on Tuesday burned 7 more calories having arrived from walking rather than arrived from driving.
1.5 hour boxing class at Boston Boxing and Fitness (mix of jumping rope, weights, sparing, step-ups, push-ups, lunges, etc): 434 cal
Comparison: Shapefit.com estimates 354 cal/hr of "boxing, punching bag" but that jumps to 531 if you're "boxing, sparring" and 708 cal/hr if you're "boxing, in ring, general."
Friday
Spin class at Sweat and Soul, 45 minutes long on Real Ryder bikes: 226 cal
Comparison: The instructor estimated 800 when I asked him how many calories one could expect to burn; a Body Media rep says via e-mail "When
using certain gym equipment you may notice that your overall armband
information may be lower than it should be. This is due to the fact that
the abnormal and usually smooth motions throw off the accelerometers in
the armband. Different equipment can affect the overall accuracy of the
armband in many different ways." I think that the number is on the low side, but it was also only a 45 minute class and I wasn't panting, though I did sweat completely through all of my clothes so maybe a more accurate estimation would be around 300 calories.
Note: These Real Ryder spin bikes are pretty cool. They're supposed to mimic real riding on the road so they move to the left and right - and you really have to engage your core in order to turn them. See the above video for an example.
Saturday
Stair running at Harvard stadium (the little stairs that you use to enter the stadium, up one set and down the next around the entire stadium and back which took approx 25 minutes): 187 cal
Comparison: The ZYP website says participants can "dance away their worries & 500-700 calories." Before I went to the class I never would've guessed that I would get such a good workout but you literally move (or shake) your whole body the entire time - so don't underestimate this as a really good full body workout.
Special thanks to Rachel, Lea, Barrett, Dan, Chris, and Meredith who suggested workouts and then kept me company (or brought me along)!
I'm planning on borrowing the armband again in the spring so that I can track calories burned for fun outdoorsy activities like cycling, hiking, and running. Is there an activity that you've always wondered about? (Besides swimming since you cannot submerge the armband.) Let me know in the comments section and I'll write about it next time! Interested in learning more about Body Media, how it measures calories burned, or how it compares with other armbands out there? Check out their comprehensive website.
Full disclosure: I work for Clif Bar. I also love the products, and the company. They're all about staying true to who they are (as in, not selling out to a big corporation), treating the environment well, giving back to the community, and of course, making delicious, nutritious bars. So, I'm obviously a huge fan of something they've got going right now called Meet the Moment. The idea behind this campaign is for people to share how they "meet the moment" by uploading a photo and adding text to it in order to inspire others. And, as if that wasn't already pretty cool, they donate $5 to your selected charity when you upload your first photo. So, what are you waiting for? Share your Meet the Moment here.
Need inspiration? Here's mine (might look familiar!):
Wow, what an incredibly active Memorial Day weekend! I'm sure you've all been sitting at the edge of your seat, waiting for me to unveil the results of the Schroeder Sibling Swim Off. There were some technical difficulties, but all of the glitches seem to have been worked out so that I can now present to you SCHROEDER SIBLING SWIM OFF: THE MOVIE!
As you undoubtedly just sat through and saw, I was the winner, although I only won by about 10 seconds (or approximately 1/2 pool length). It occurred to me as we got towards the end that there was a good chance that we might tie which hadn't even crossed my mind previously, and I'm glad I was able to pull it off in the end - partly because it would've been pretty anti-climactic to have a tie (and partly because winning feels soooo good!). Of course, the original goal of the swim off was to get both of us into the pool and training on a regular basis. Bragging rights are just an added bonus of fitness!
The focus of the weekend was on the swim off to such a degree that I hadn't put much thought into the half marathon that we'd signed up for the next day. In the car on the way there, Erik asked if we should be betting on the run like we did the swim off. I've never in my life ran faster than him so I declined... and then came across the finish line 7 minutes ahead of him, with a PR time of 2:00:34. It just goes to show, a little motivation can carry you a long way!
Earlier this week was the 2011 Boston Marathon. This is an exciting time for me and hopefully for others in the area - so many visitors, all of them here for one reason: fitness (aka being ACTIVE!). You can almost feel healthiness in the air, especially if you spend the three days leading up to the marathon at the Sports and Fitness Expo which is full of - you guessed it, active people. Over 80,000 people attend the expo over three days before the race. That's a lot more than the 27,000 people who are there to pick up their race number, so clearly there are some others that are interested in sports and fitness (or at least want free stuff and good deals of things relating to sports and fitness).
The first two days I was working in the Clif Bar booth, chatting with runners and their friends and families about the awesome Clif products that we were sampling. One of the things I overheard the most was "oh wow, these actually taste good!" indicating that they'd tried some less than stellar samples that day. The last day before the race I volunteer at registration, giving runners their number and trying to answer any questions they might have. The Sunday night shift is always interesting because a lot of people come directly from the airport and are somewhat distressed, whether their flight was delayed or they got lost taking the train in.
Runners watch a video of the race course during the Expo
This all leads up to the big day... MARATHON MONDAY (otherwise known in Massachusetts as Patriot's Day). This was the first year in a long time that I had the day off and was able to watch the runners. It was a gorgeous day for it and everyone looked great! I've always said that I'll never run another marathon, but watching the runners with the big smiles (even at mile 22) was super inspiring. It made me think that maybe one of these days I could tackle it again - and since I wasn't much of a runner when I took it on the first time there's enormous room for improvement. Later that night I had dinner with my inspiring friend Rebecca who had just ran a 3:22 race and didn't look tired in the least. After a long and delicious dinner, I went home and did two things: started reading Born to Run and registered for the Madison Half Marathon.
Did the marathon inspire you to take any steps to be more active? Leave it in the comments!
I was raised to be the type of person that can't really sit still on a vacation. In my family, vacations included going to countless museums, castles, churches (ask my parents how much I loved those as a teenager!). The idea of going somewhere to just sit on a beach day in and day out has always been foreign to me. So it's no surprise that for me, travel often goes hand in hand with some sort of physical activity. I've found that triathlons have been a great way for me to explore New England, visiting various spots in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont that I never would've gone to otherwise. Running and biking is also a great way to explore a new city, race or no race. I recently did a 10-mile run in Salem, MA that took us past the historic House of Seven Gables, to the rocky shores of Marblehead, and back to the city of witches (see photo).
Going for a training ride or run or signing up for a race in a new or exotic location can also be a great way to stay active on your vacation. Sure, you might spend the rest of your time there doing little else besides eating the local cuisine and sampling the local drinks, but you'll feel much better about it if you've done something to earn it! It's also a great way to bond with family members that live far away. My brother and I live halfway across the country from each other, but we've gotten together to do a triathlon in Maine, a Livestrong Challenge in Texas; he and my dad have done a trail half marathon in California as well as a marathon in Austin. The point is, while there's never a bad place to exercise, why not take a vacation to an awesome place to exercise?
There was a multisport expo this past weekend in Boston. It's the third year that I've gone and I always come away from it feeling very inspired; to train more, sign up for races, eat healthier. This time was no exception!
On Saturday morning I went to a seminar put on by a local triathlon coach and he talked about questions that he is asked the most frequently. Of course a lot of people ask about the best food to eat before, during, and after a race because we all know how important nutrition is to performance. He had a great way of phrasing the importance of the post-workout meal. He said: "Think about it, would you rather rebuild your muscles with a twinkie or with salmon?" When you consider the 'you are what you eat' aspect of life, it should help inspire you to put healthier things in your body. Food is constantly rebuilding in your body, so make smart choices about what those building blocks are made out of.
I've talked in the past about what motivates each of us to eat healthy and be active. One of those things is signing up for a race of some sort, whether it's walking a 5K, jogging a half marathon, or attempting to live through an ultramarathon. No matter what the race is, it's a great way to challenge yourself and have an end goal to work towards! On that note...
My brother recently mentioned that he'd like us to sign up for a race so that he has something to work towards. Probably what he meant was that he'd like to do a race together where we get to support each other and race against other people in our respective age groups, like when we raced the Lobsterman Olypmic Triathlon last summer in Maine (see photo). However, I think it might be more motivational for both of us if we were racing against each other, which is why I challenge him to the first ever
SCHROEDER
SIBLING
SWIM OFF
MADISON. MEMORIAL DAY.
The rules: whoever swims the most laps in 25:00 minutes wins. No flip turns, flippers, or flotation devices. Loser buys breakfast at Mickey's Dairy Bar, including but not limited to a scramble and a malted milk shake. The exact date, time, and location are TBD but if you'll be in Madison around that time feel free to come support your favorite Schroeder sibling!
First of all, hooray for 500 page views and for a snazzy logo on its way. Blogging is fun!
I'm gonna go ahead and put this out there: I do not liking running in the snow. I did it this morning and kept waiting to fall into a peaceful rhythm or at least come to terms with it and enjoy the workout, but it didn't happen. My feet were wet, my eyelashes had tiny clumps of ice in them, and my arms were really cold. However, as I commented to my running companions that it was almost like running on sand (uneven, throws you a little off balance), I was reminded of the fact that warmer weather will someday come back and the running in the snow will have been worth it. Because while other people will be starting to run fresh, not having touched their trainers since the fall, those of us who have braved the cold and kept up our base level of fitness up will be running past them! At least that's what I'm telling myself...
There was one other thing that reminded me that it will be warm again someday: last weekend I visited Washington D.C. and went both biking and running along the fabulous paths that they have there. It was great to see so many people out and about being active, and I even got to put sunscreen on! In February! It was definitely bittersweet washing off that summer-smell at the end of the day and then bundling up the next day as winter weather returned with 50 mph winds.
So yes, it will be warm again someday and while it can be hard to stay active when it's rather dreary outside, just keep telling yourself: it'll be worth it when it's warm out, it'll be worth it when it's warm out.
And then when you get back home from that chilly workout, after you've taken a long hot shower, make some delicious nutritious food, like this awesome Quinoa, White Bean and Kale Stew that my friend Angie recommended to me. I made it yesterday and it is ridiculously good.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about motivation. What does it take to get a person to eat right, to be active, to take the extra steps to live a healthier life? For some, it’s signing up for a race so that you have something to work towards. For others, it’s the desire to fit into an outfit or bathing suit by a particular date or season. Everyone has different motivators and as an aspiring nutritionist/encourager of active lifestyles, I’m always curious to hear about them. Who knows, maybe what made one person get up and get going could work just as well for someone else!
Here is one person’s story about how one word was all it took for him to make a change…
"Andy" works for a mid-sized company that decided to implement a wellness program. If an employee signed up, their monthly health insurance rates would be lowered. All they had to do in return was weigh-in at a computerized scale once a week and make it clear that they were putting forth effort to improve overall health by either keeping a food log, taking stress-reduction seminars, quitting smoking, etc.
One of the features of the computerized scale was that it had your height programmed in so would give you your BMI each time it recorded your weight. Andy, who is in his mid-twenties and is of slightly above-average height, hadn’t paid much attention in the past to eating healthy. He’d always gotten away with getting his iced coffees with cream and sugar and eating pasta with sausage as an average meal. He didn’t appear to his coworkers as especially overweight, which is why it came to quite a surprise to him (and them, when he shared the information) that he wasn’t overweight; he was obese.
Every week he would sit down on the scale at work and every week the computer would tell him that he was obese. Seeing this word each week made Andy decide to make a change. He started ordering his iced coffees with milk; first whole milk, then eventually skim. Vegetables started to make an appearance in his pasta dishes. And, probably most importantly for him, he started running and going to the gym regularly. One year later he’s lost 30 pounds, ran a 5K with his co-workers, and is always on the look out for new ways to keep active.*
I think it’s important to remember that when hear about the “obesity epidemic,” it’s not always referring to people who might appear extremely overweight. There are reasons to motivate yourself into the healthy range besides outward appearance. Sure, Andy looks fit, but he also reduced his risk of chronic disease and lowered his blood pressure in the process.
What motivates you? What would it take for you to make a lifestyle change?
