So it was a new week has arrived! This weekend I was at home in Örebro and took the opportunity to climb on an indoor rock climbing center is there and it was loads of fun! Before I climbed often, but now it was a while ago and then it was nice to do it again!! I like climbing to challenge myself (I have a certain fear of heights), because it’s a social activity, and if you climb outdoors it is often in fine natural surroundings, which I love As you climb, it is both strength, flexibility and balance, and it’s a great feeling of being able to stand and balance on one small step at the same time as you gaze upwards at an angle to the side to gather strength and climb your, awesome! So try to climb if you not done so already!
Mondaylove //Lisa
The other day I had one nutrition counseling with a woman who has iron deficiency and it’s something that can be common among girls and women who are physically active, especially if you also are vegetarian or vegan. Symptoms of iron deficiency can include fatigue, dizziness, headache and breathless. If you think you have an iron deficiency you need to go to a medical center to have the blood iron level checked. Don’t take supplements if you just think you need to, high iron intake can in the long run be toxic! If you eat various, balanced food there shouldn’t be any problem. Iron is essential for oxygen transport in the blood and affects athletic performance, low iron values may cause a deterioration in performance by oxygen transport becomes worse and the muscles are not getting enough oxygen to cope the physical activity. So good iron values are important! Be sure to eat a balanced and nutritious diet in sufficient quantities to prevent iron deficiency occurs. The daily iron requirement is approximately 2 mg but the body only takes up 5-10% iron from food so we need a daily addition of 15 to 25 mg of iron by the food we eat. The body will more easily absorb iron from food of animal origin than from vegetable and therefore it may be suitable for vegetarians and vegans take supplements, but don’t take supplement if you don’t need to. Substances that inhibit the absorption of iron, for example, calcium, phytates (found in whole wheat flours, not as much in sourdough) and tannins found in tea and coffee (wait 30 minutes after eating before taking a cup). Vitamin C stimulates the vegetable iron absorption so eat a serving of fruit, vegetables or a glass of juice to meals containing vegetable iron, this is especially important if your meal also contains substances that inhibit iron absorption. Foods that are rich in iron include meat, fish, chicken, seafood, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds (more of them with peel), soybeans, millet, apricots, sunflower seeds, spinach and broccoli.
To meet the daily requirement, you can eat a mix of 5 tbsp sesame seeds 3 tbsp pumpkin seeds, 2 tbsp sunflower seeds, 2 tbsp millet flakes, 2 tbsp walnuts, 1 tbsp hazelnut, two Brazil nuts and 3 apricots in yogurt for breakfast / snack or mix in a smoothie, do not forget to eat vitamin C to! For this you also need to eat a serving of spinach (85gr) and 100 gr chicken as an example of a day of good iron supply. This also means that you’re getting enough zinc, vitamin E, phosphorus and magnesium. And I almost forgot to write that you can cook your food in a pot made of iron to increase your iron intake!
Today I saw this beautiful place, so lovely with all the green colour!
Greenwednesdaylove! //Lisa
When I make smoothies, I usually use my regular milk but it is as we all know, fun with variety so the other day I tried to make my own sesame milk. Sesame seeds are among other rich in calcium, B vitamins, magnesium, iron and zinc so perfect to have in muesli, porridge, bread and various foods that you want to spice up a bit. It was much easier than I thought to make own sesame milk so try! It stays about 5 days in the fridge and is good to drink as it is, keep in smoothies, to muesli, or drink hot with honey, cinnamon or cardamom. The “seedpaste” that remain after strained the milk can be saved and used in porridge, bread, steaks, or to energy bars.
Recipe 1L sesame milk:
2 ½ dl sesame seeds, 1 L of water, 1 pinch of salt.
Soak the sesame seeds overnight in the fridge to remove indigestible enzymes. Strain off the water and rinse the seeds thoroughly. Mix the seeds until they are finely divided and diluted with fresh water (1 L) meantime. Strain the milk through a “seedmilkbag” or a fine sieve (I used sieve and it worked fine), try to get as much liquid as possible. Keep cool in a glass bottle or jar it will last longer than if you use a plastic bottle.
This week I’ve made smoothies with avocado, lemon, strawberries, granola and pomegranate, super good! Just let your imagination run wild over what you want in your smoothie!!
//Lisa
Yesterday I baked a new bread for a recipe given to me by my friend Frida. You use scalded spelled flour and then add the flour you want and tasty treats such as nuts, seeds and dried fruit, it was super good! I also did granola and energy bars when I had the ingredients on the table, so now the pantries are filled for a while!
“Frida bread”, two breads.
* Scald 2 dl spelled flour with 3 dl boiling water 5 to 10 minutes in a bowl.
* Add an additional 5 dl water until the mixture is 37 degrees Celsius.
* Dissolve 25 g yeast mixture and add 1 teaspoon salt and 2 tablespoons of oil (I use canola oil).
* Mix in about 12 dl flour of different varieties and if you want chopped nuts, dried fruit or seeds (dough will be quite sticky)
* Divide the dough into two loaf tins and let rise under towel 1 – 1 ½ hours, turn oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
* Bake in oven for about 1 hour, but keep an eye on the loaves periodically after 40 minutes so they do not become overbaked.
* Let cool on a rack under towel.
* Serve with good toppings and good company!
Now the spring has really come to Stockholm, lovely!!
//Lisa
Running is not just about leg strength, but also a lot of core strength and some upper body. So it’s like to exercise strength for surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding and skiing, it’s good to train strength for the whole body to become a better runner. I think it is best to run ab exercises at the end of a strength workouts to reduce the risk of becoming tired in the abs and drop the posture and technique in other exercises. The muscles that are primarily used in the running are the quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteus, lower back and abs. Here are suggestions for strengthening exercises that you can do home, repeat each exercise10- 15 times, 2-3 times per side twice per week.
1. Front lunges, very simple, and very effective. Training quads, gluteal muscles, calves and buttocks at the same time. Remember not to go so deep so that the knee thuds into the ground, the knee should go straight down over the big toe and not fall inward or outward during the movement.
2. Step up and knee lift. Step up with one leg and lifting the other. Step back and repeat with the same leg. Extend the exercise with extra weights, either wrist weights or hold weights in your hands. Repeat with the other leg.
3. Pushups. Training the core and upper body, which is important for runners as they often have weak arms. Ensure that the hand position is wider than the shoulder width.
4. Hip Lift. Lie on your back, feet on the floor and push your hips as high as you can toward the ceiling. Lower your hips toward the floor. Increase the difficulty by putting your hands over your chest instead of supporting them on the floor. You can also lift and stretch a leg in the air, and finally change the supporting leg position that you feel that the load increases on the leg that you are working with. Repeat with the other leg.
5. Heel dipping . Lay on your back and bring the knees up to 90 degrees. Press the lower back against the floor and keep that feeling throughout the exercise. Slowly lower the heel down to the floor, keep the 90-degree angle at the knee. When your heel sink to your back drop from the floor – your job is to push it down and continue to breathe. Raise slowly up the foot back to the starting position and repeat with the other leg. The slower the better.
6. Back Extension. Lie on your stomach with your toes in the ground throughout the exercise. Keep your hands at your ears with elbows out from the body. Lift your upper body off the ground, remember to lift with your entire torso. If you want, you can stretch your arms forward, sideways and backwards while keeping your upper body off the ground.
7. The plank – Hold for 20-30 seconds to begin with, gradually increase to 2 minutes One of the most effective exercises for core stability. Remember not to lose your lower back!
8. The side Plank – Hold for 30-45 seconds on each side. Remember to keep the arm under the shoulder and lift the hips. You can make this exercise easier by putting down the bottom knee into the ground
9. The plank with level change. Lie on your stomach. Go up on the hands and feet (as in pushup position). Pull your belly button toward the back to activate core muscles. Get down on your left elbow, then your right elbow and then up on the left hand and finish with right hand. Switching the elbow-elbow, hand-hand for one minute. Remember to keep your belly button towards your spine and not to arch your lower back.
10. Crunches. Remember to tighten your stomach throughout the movement and do not lift with the neck during the exercise.
Yesterday I went to the skateboard ramp to start the skate season! It was so fun but hard, it was quite some time since I last was skateboarding in a ramp so today I have sore muscles in my legs, totally worth it and time to kick it again soon!
Join our awesome skate camp in Berlin this summer!! http://www.girliecamps.com/skate/
//Lisa
If you have weeks with much of physical activity it is important that you get recovery between days with hard intensity workouts. Remember to take a day with low intensity and let your body rest. I love taking nice long walks, yoga or bikerides on these days! So if you are going to run with us in New York remeber to get the best recovery between your workouts with both food and activity!
Part of recovery and upload is the food you eat. For me it is important to eat balanced to get the right nutrion and I prefer to get all the nutrition I need from food and not from food supplements. According to me, physical activity and food are important together, both of them is part of a healthy lifestyle in the proper amounts of both. I eat kind of different on days when I have physical activity (high to moderate intensity). For example on days with cardioworkout I eat some more of carbs. But this can depend on what aim you have with your physical activity. Try to eat healthy fats, protein and carbs that gives you both energy and have a nutrition value.
Meals on days with cardioworkout can look like this:
Before workout: Eat a maincourse 3-4 h before the workout and a snack about an hour before. A maincourse may consist of pasta with marinara sauce, pasta salad with chicken and a snack can be a sandwich with cottage cheese or a glass of milk and a banana.
During exercise: Are you exercising less than 60 minutes is sufficient to drink water during your workout. Are you exercising more than 60 minutes, you may want to bring drinks with carbohydrates to keep performance at a good level.
After training: Remember to restore the fluid you have lost by drinking 5 dl water immediately after the session. Has it been a cardio session, it is good to take some 100 gr carbs and about 10 g protein to restore muscle glycogen and accelerate recovery. An immediate snack may be 2 glass of skim milk, banana, sandwich with cottage cheese / cheese, a smoothie (3 dl).
I have been in Åre for the last days of this season and yesterday it was snowing and today the sun is shining just like the weather should be in April! Even though it’s sad this season in over the summer is soon here with a lot of nice adventures like Run in New York and awesome surf in Biarritz!!!
//Lisa
Today I woke up to a rainy and gray day, which is always so boring! Days like this that it is important to do something that lights up the day when the sun doesn’t! So after a little texting it’s soon time to go and have a nice café breakfast with a good friend to start the day in a glorious way!
If you are going to camp with Run, Surf and the City, New York it is high time to start getting started with the run so that you will so well prepared for distance of 10 km, it is always a plus if you feel you able to run 12 km for then you know that you are capable of running 10 km without a problem. If you haven’t run 10 km yet it’s time to get started to have time to adapt your body to longer distances and prevent injuries! Remember to check your shoes so that you have the right shoes for running and your feet. Try to get two days in a row with recovery when you should not be running, but you can of course be active in other ways!
If you are a beginner to start running, I recommend that you try to get out and run 2-3 times a week where the first weeks varies with running and walking a certain distance, for example, 5 km, or a certain time, for example 30 minutes. For each time depending on your daily condition, you should seek to run more and walk less. I think a good distance to set as a first goal is 5 km the first week and then you can increase the distance more for each week with 500-1000m until you can run about 7km and then you can develop your running as describe below.
If you already are a runner and decides to develop your running to longer distances it is good to do vary your workouts to accustom the body gradually. Each week should include a longer distance workouts (7-8 km) at a relaxed pace that you each week increases by 500-1000 m until the distance is 1 km longer than your possible race distance. Each week should also include two shorter workouts for about 30-40 minutes each where one of them should be an interval workout for your cardio improvement and the other should be at easy pace.
Here is a program that you can follow if you want to improve your running with the goal to run 10 km. This program is based on a person that already are running 2-3 times each week for 4-6 km and want to develop pace and distance. You will be running three times per week, remember to get good recovery between the workouts.To keep track of your heart rate you can use a pulse watch , or else you can think of on the low intense workouts you should be able to talk while you run, at intervals it should feel strenuous to very strenuous in breathing while you do the intervals.
W 1:
1) 4km, easy workout where you can talk while you run
2) Interval Workouts: 8 min warmup. 4 x 4 min intervals (70-75% HR max) with 2 minutes fast walking / jog between each. 5 min easy cooldown
3) 6 km. Jog 10 min, 8 min, 6 min, 4 min. Join brisk 2 minutes between each jog.
W 2:
1) Distance 6 km, you will be able to talk reasonably
2) Interval: 12 min easy jog. 6 x 2 min interval (80% HR max) with 1 min easy jog between each. 8 min easy cool down.
3) Distance 6 km. you should just be able to talk the first 2 km. Then increase the tempo of 2 km. lower the tempo to the original tempo the last 2 km.
W 3:
1) Distance 7 km, you will be able to talk reasonably
2) Intervals: 8 min easy jog. 3 x 10 min (70-75% maximum heart rate) 3 min easy jog between each. 5 min cool down
3) Distance 5 km, easy and free, you are out and enjoy!
Week 4:
1)Distance: 8km, you should be able to talk reasonably.
2)Intervals: 8min easy jog. 4x 4 min intervals (80-85% HR max) with 2 min rest (= quick walking / light jog). 5 minutes easy cool down.
3)Distance: 6km total. You should just be able to talk the first 2 km. Then increase the tempo of 2km. Slow the pace to the original tempo the last two.
Week 5:
1)Distance: 9km total. You should be able to talk, to feel calm.
2)Intervals: 8min easy jog. 3x 10min (75-80% HR max) with 3min easy easy jog between each. 5min easily cool down.
3)Distance: 5km heightened momentum. Start slowly and controlled, increase speed gradually. Increase the average-pace with 10sec per km every km you run.
Week 6:
1)Distance: 10km, you should be able to talk reasonably.
2)Intervals: 8min easy jog. 4x 4 min intervals (80-85% HR max) with 2 min rest (= quick walking / light jog). 5 minutes easy cool down.
3)Distance: 6km, easy and free. You are out there and enjoy!
Week 7:
1)Distance: 10km, you should be able to talk reasonably.
2)Intervals: 8min easy jog. 4x 4 min intervals (80-85% HR max) with 2 min rest (= quick walking / light jog). 5 minutes easy cool down.
3)Distance: 6km, easy and free. You are out there and enjoy!
Keep on running!!
LOoove //Lisa
This weekend I was at a course in yoga with focus on the heart and breathing and the next time in a month, it becomes more focus on core stability, stress / sleep / mood. It was both interesting and inspiring to take part of new sequences of yoga exercises that will have positive effects on cardiac work and exercises to increase energy flow in the body and more peaceful exercises with greater focus on breath and stillness. The entire first session we went through inversions and the effects of standing upside-down, it was hard but fun and afterwards I felt surprisingly good both mood and body! Yoga is good for you to strengthen the muscles, get the heart working at a moderate intensity, increase flexibility and balance while providing you with a greater body control, stronger energy flow and a larger internal awareness of how you are feeling right now. So Girlies, make yoga to a part of your active awesome lifestyle and you will get more even energy from the inside out!
and don’t forget to join our upcoming camps!!
http://www.girliecamps.com/our-camps/
Lovelilove //Lisa
In order to have an effective running and reduce the risk of injury, it is important to have a good running technique, and the secret of this is not in your shoes, but is something that you, the runner, need to consider when you run. If you know you’re running a lot on your heels, which can cause undue stress on the legs and want to move on to run more on the midfoot, so remember to change the technique gradually so that your muscles become accustomed to running your new way. In the beginning it is enough to run more on the entire foot a minute or 100 m at a time of muscles and joints to get used to. When it comes to running stride, it is common to take the long strides, which means that you end up in front of its center of gravity and “brakes” races, then it is better to take a little less and more steps with more force. In addition, it is easier to land on your heel if you take longer steps, so be sure to take smaller steps and landing more on the front part of the foot, and “roll” your foot so that the heel just kissing ground before taking the next step. One way to test yourself how you run is to run 20 m barefoot, then you will know how you land on your feet and hopefully it will not feel good to land on the heel. If you test this, choose a flat surface so you run as naturally as possible without it being a lot of gravel on the road. Bring that feeling with you when you have shoes on and see if it feels any different! Try also to run with a slightly stooped proud bearing, Push forward the hips a little each step and open up the chest, but of course in a way that feels natural for you to run in! A pretty fun exercise to test this is to put your hands against a wall / tree and run while holding the hands of a few running style and then let go and run away to the side. The feeling of forward tilt as you have the first steps is the one you should try to take with you in your running.
So these are some pointers that you can consider in your running and I think it is important to find your own sense of the run to make it into something fun and natural, because when that feeling comes, it is really fun to run! Running for me is something that can feel like the worst while it may be among the best there is. Although the feeling of blood taste in the mouth when I run intervals, the feeling afterwards is the best that I have actually managed it, just like running those extra 500 meters of each week as a milestone towards being able to run longer distances, it feels awesome! To see how much you can get your body to cope if you give the patience, love and sometimes fight for something you really want to meet! When it comes setbacks, it is important for new efforts and not fail to try again, maybe you need to find new ways to reach the goal, eventually it will go as it should and it is the best feeling that you have done it! For me, running a way to let thoughts of other things, get fitter, able to paddle faster on the surfboard, pulsing deeper and longer in the snow to reach the best rides and to take me right where I want when I want, so let’s run!
Lots of Girlie love!! // Lisa
Springtime is almost here with a lots of sunshine, slushsnow riding and warmer weather, it is so lovely! I hope you have got a lot of riding this winter and that you have even more awesome riding to look forward to the rest of the season! Another nice thing with spring is that it’s time to lace up the running shoes and head out to run in the verdant spring. Maybe you are going with Girlie Camps to New York and run the NYRR New York Mini 10k? Or want to get started with your running to strengthen your fitness and body? Then it’s time to get started to have time to adapt your body to longer distances and prevent injuries to get a longlasting and healthy results! Remember to check your shoes so that you have the right shoes for running and your feet.
If you are a beginner to start running, I recommend that you try to get out and run 2-3 times a week where the first weeks varies with running and walking a certain distance, for example, 5 km, or a certain time, for example 30 minutes. For each time depending on your daily condition, you should seek to run more and walk less. I think a good distance to set as a first goal is 5 km and then you can increase the distance more for each week.
If you already are a runner and decides to develop your running to longer distances it is good to do vary your workouts to accustom the body gradually. Each week should include a longer distance workouts (7-8 km) at a relaxed pace that you each week increases by 500 m until the distance is 1 km longer than your possible race distance. Each week should also include two shorter workouts for about 30 minutes each where one of them can be an interval workout for your cardio improvement.
Here is a program that you can follow if you want to improve your running with the goal to run 10 km. These are the first three weeks. To keep track of your heart rate you can use a pulse watch , or else you can think of on the low intense workouts you should be able to talk while you run, at intervals it should feel strenuous to very strenuous in breathing while you do the intervals.
W 1:
1) 4km, easy workout where you can talk while you run
2) Interval Workouts: 8 min warmup. 4 x 4 min intervals (70-75% HR max) with 2 minutes fast walking / jog between each. 5 min easy cooldown
3) 6 km. Jog 10 min, 8 min, 6 min, 4 min. Join brisk 2 minutes between each jog.
W 2:
1) Distance 6 km, you will be able to talk reasonably
2) Interval: 12 min easy jog. 6 x 2 min interval (80% HR max) with 1 min easy jog between each. 8 min easy cool down.
3) Distance 6 km. you should just be able to talk the first two kilometers. then increase the tempo of 2 km. lower the tempo to the original tempo the last 2 km.
W 3:
1) Distance 5 km, you will be able to talk reasonably
2) Intervals: 8 min easy jog. 3 x 10 min (70-75% maximum heart rate) 3 min easy jog between each. 5 min cool down
3) Distance 4 km, easy and free, you are out and enjoy!
I hope you get many awesome runs to look forward to this spring and keep in mind that you can always run where, how and when you want as long as it makes you happy and proud of yourself!
Peace, run and love! //Lisa
