Quick and Healthy Meal: Almond Lamb and Pumpkin Couscous

almond-lamb-and-pumpkin-couscousAlmond Lamb and Pumpkin Couscous

This quick and healthy meal is great served hot, cold or warm. Try adding some leafy greens into the mix such as lots of fresh coriander or rocket.

Nutritional details 
Serves : 1
Calories: 440

Fat: 11.9 gms
Protein: 37 gms
Carbohydrate: 47.8 gms
Fibre: 4.8 gms

 

Instructions :

1. Steam the pumpkin and chop roughly and dice the tomato.

2. Meanwhile, add coriander and cumin to chicken stock and bring to the boil. Pour stock over the couscous, cover and stand for 5 minutes.

Remove cover, fork couscous until fluffy and grains have separated.

3. Add steamed pumpkin, tomato, almonds, parsley and sultanas. Toss well to combine and adjust seasoning.

4. Grill lamb steaks on a hot pre-heated grill plate (2-3 minutes) each side until done to your liking, rest (5 minutes) before slicing diagonally

and serving. To serve, top the couscous with lamb and drizzle generously with yogurt.

Ingredients

2 sprig fresh flat-leaf parsley

1.5 tomatoes, small (approx 100g each)

100 g pumpkin (edible portion)

30 g cous cous Average, all brands

0.5 tsp ground cumin Average,

90 mls chicken stock, liquid- if using prepared stock, buy liquid stock, not stock cubes

10 g almonds, flaked

90 g greek yogurt, low fat

100 g lamb, steak, lean

10 g sultanas

0.25 tsp ground coriander

 

Download a print version of the recipe for four people.  Almond Lamb and Pumpkin Couscous

 

 

How To Prepare For Your School Cross Country

Kids Running Lindfield
<

At some time in their primary school career, your child will be expected to enter their school cross country. It can be a traumatic event for some kids, whilst others can’t wait till they’re old enough to get amongst it!

Make sure the experience is a great one for your kids, which will leave them wanting to do more. Use these tips on how to prepare for your school cross country.

  • Start to talk to them about the cross country in very general terms. Simply looking over the school calendar for the term and happening to notice when the cross country is on, is enough just to plant the seed initially.
  • Do some exercise yourself. Make exercise just something that your family does, not a big deal
  • Get your child familiar with the course of their school cross country. If you don’t know where they run, ask the school, or ask us. We know a lot of the courses used by local schools. Walk over the course with your child so that they know what to expect.
  • If you can’t go over the actual course, get your child to at least walk over the distance of the race. Don’t say something like, “it’s like running from here to the shops and back”. That can seem an awfully long way to kids. Much better to travel over the distance on foot with them.
  • If they are happy to do some training, go for a run with them, or get them running with friends. Try to get them to run slowly with you. Most kids will take off at the rate of knots and be puffed out after a couple of hundred metres. You don’t want this to happen on the day of the event. They will definitely go too fast at the start of their school cross country if they don’t practice running slowly before hand. Try to teach them ‘Jogging’ pace, or ‘No Puffing’ pace. They’ll still go too hard, but it should pull them back a bit.
  • Practice racing. Nothing makes you better at something than practice. Even if they don’t practice in a formal situation, get them racing against you or against their brothers and sisters, or friends. Remind them to slow down at the start so they have enough puff left at the end.
  • Whilst your child will feel great about themselves if they run the whole distance without stopping, try not to let them get so worked up about the event that they see themselves as a failure if they don’t make the distance.
  • Prepare them for what to do if they do feel too puffed to continue. Walking for even 20 metres can be just enough time to recover and pick up to a jogging pace again. Make sure they know this is ok.

Some kids take naturally to distance running, and absolutely love it from the start.  If your kid’s one of those, here’s a few tips.

  • Go in fun runs with them
  • Time them doing laps around the local oval
  • Emphasise the fun aspect of running
  • Let them decide how much running they want to do. Don’t force them to train if they don’t want to, but do use gentle reminders and encouragement.
  • Practice cross country racing, even if in an informal setting.
  • Do some running with them, or organise for them to train with friends
  • Encourage your child not to be too outcome focused. Placing well in a cross country race is awesome, and your child should be proud of themselves. Remember to acknowledge the effort as well as the achievement though.  At some point, every child, no matter how good they are, will be beaten, and if it’s been all about performance from the start, it can be terribly deflating, especially for those who are a bit fragile. Looking in the mirror and honestly being able to say you’ve done your best can go a long way to easing the disappointment

Awesome Kids Running Training Groups run on weekday afternoons on Sydney’s North Shore and Northern Beaches. Find out more

Cross Country Races run on Sundays in February and March. More info

High Intensity Interval Training

hiit

Imagine if you could exercise for only 4 minutes, and receive the same health benefits as you would from spending hours in the gym, on a bike, running, swimming, jumping….Every few months there seems to be another headline promising health benefits from very short periods of exercise, so what’s it all about?

 

The exercise protocol is called High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), where you do short bursts of very intense exercise from anywhere between 1 and 4 times a week. HIIT increases insulin sensitivity and VO2 max (an indicator of cardiovascular health), and it really doesn’t take much time to do it at all. With HIIT your cardiovascular health will be better, your insulin sensitivity will improve reducing the risk of diabetes, so you’re likely to live longer.

 

Is it just me, or is there something weird about wanting to improve your health to live longer, so that you can sit around on your bum doing nothing?

 

Before we look at HIIT more closely, let’s take a look at some of the benefits of exercise.

Exercise can:

  1. Improve your mental health by reducing anxiety and alleviating depression
  2. Improve your balance (important as you age, if you can stay upright, you’re far less likely to facture a hip!)
  3. Improve or maintain bone strength (after a certain age, you stop laying down bone, but exercising can help you keep more of what you have)
  4. Improve insulin sensitivity, reducing the risk of diabetes
  5. Improve your posture
  6. Improve the range of movement of your joints, keeping you supple
  7. Improve your musculo-skeletal strength
  8. Improve you VO2 max, the maximum amount of oxygen you can take up in a minute, considered to be a good indicator of cardiovascular health
  9. Satisfy a need for making and achieving goals
  10. Improve self esteem
  11. Be an outlet for letting off steam in a socially acceptable manner
  12. Satisfy our desire for competition
  13. Increase insulin sensitivity
  14. Make you more able to perform your daily tasks such as hanging out the washing and carrying the shopping

The list is looking pretty long, and it’s certainly not exhaustive. Any three minute exercise regime which can cover all that lot has got to be something pretty special!

 

High Intensity Interval Training Protocols

HIIT is nothing new,  however recent research on this type of exercise is showing some very interesting results, namely, it can improve cardiovascular fitness and increase insulin sensitivity more than some other forms of exercise can.

 

The Tabata Method

Japanese scientist Dr Izumi Tabata observed the Japanese speed skating team in the early nineties, and noticed that short bursts of brutally hard exercise seemed to be at least as effective as hours of moderate training.

 

Having spent some time myself in a sport which required this type of training, I certainly agree it was the shorter, harder interval training we did in the latter part of our season, which really sharpened our fitness, and cut down our body fat. We looked forward each year to reaping the benefits of this kind of training, but we didn’t relish having to leave our hearts in the bottom of a surfboat!

 

There’s no way we could have done this type of training without doing a lot of work to get our bodies ready to handle this. It was the long, less intense rows over winter which allowed us to do the high intensity interval training. Without the build up, the risk of injury would have been too high. Nor could we have had the boat moving as fast. You simply can’t develop efficiency in a sport (including running and speed skating) without spending a fair amount of time focusing on how you do it. So HIIT is great, but as a stand alone training regime, I don’t think it stacks up.

 

The experiment Tabata conducted took a group of moderately trained students who performed and hour of steady cardiovascular exercise on a stationary bike five times a week. Another group did a 10 minute warm up on the bike and followed with 4 minutes of 20 secs of really hard cycling and 10 seconds rest, four times a week, plus one 30 minute session of steady exercise with two minute intervals.

 

The results showed large differences in the anaerobic capacity and VO2 max of the two groups. (VO2 max is considered to be an indicator of cardiovascular health) The high intensity group increased their anaerobic capacity by 28%, and their VO2 max by 15%, whilst the control group, who trained for 5 hours each week improved their VO2 max by only 10%, and saw no increase in their anaerobic capacity.

 

The thing is, you wouldn’t actually expect the steady state group to improve their VO2 max much as they weren’t doing VO2 max specific training, nor training aimed at increasing their anaerobic capacity. It would have been interesting  to compare the HIT group with a group who were doing traditional VO2 max training rather than an hour of slower paced riding.

 

Michael Mosley’s “The Truth About Exercise”

You may have seen the BBC documentary, “The Truth About Exercise”, which had presenter Michael Mosley doing one exercise session a week, within which he did 3 bouts of “all out, leave nothing in the tank” pedalling on a stationary bike for 20 secs, followed by a couple of mins recovery. Add to this, a warm up and a cool down. You can see a good description of the experiment here.

 

The most interesting result of Mosley’s training was that it greatly increased his insulin sensitivity. Another point made by the program was that his VO2 max, did not improve at all. The researchers said they could predict that as his genes showed that no matter how much exercise he did his “aerobic exercise was unlikely to improve to the same extent as someone whose genes resemble those of an Olympic gold medalist” (you’re kidding me).

 

Again, you wouldn’t expect this type of training to improve his VO2 max. I’d like to see them put Mosley through a program of specific VO2 max training, and see if he would respond.

 

So are the claims in the popular media too good to be true?

In a word, YES.

  1. For a start, it’s not just four minutes of exercise, or three minutes, or whatever protocol it is that you’re following. You definitely need to spend some time warming up and cooling down and stretching, so your four minutes will stretch out to 15 -20 minutes pretty quickly.
  2. For this type of exercise to be as effective as the research would suggest, you need to go hard, I mean really hard. Even though your total high intensity time is less than three minutes, it’s going to hurt, and a lot of people simply aren’t up for that. I could see myself doing it again if I was competing at a high level in a sport, but I’m not sure I’d like to do it again just for the fun of it.
  3. You risk injury if you go hard at this type of training too soon. For maximum benefit you need to do some longer less intense stuff to build your body to a point where you can go very very hard.
  4. You will get some benefits from HIIT by performing a less intense protocol such as that which Michael Mosley followed, and that has to be a good thing .

 

So what is the best type of exercise?

 

  • The best type of exercise is the exercise you will do, and I guess that’s what a lot of the hype surrounding HIT is about. From the point of view of public health, if people are attracted to exercising because they know that about 10 minutes a week can dramatically improve some aspects of their health, then that’s a good thing. If the alternative is sitting on a couch, for that ten minutes, then HIT is better than nothing. I just don’t get why you’d want to do that.
  •  It gets back to finding something that you like. Could we start from the premise that people will like exercising, if only they find something they like, rather than assuming people don’t like to exercise? (and just quietly, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that someone who leads a sedentary lifestyle doesn’t particularly like high intensity interval training, whether it be for four mins or four seconds-it’s not for everyone)
  • I love intense interval training, (though not extreme interval training any more) and I think that most people should be including some kind of more intense interval training in their overall weekly exercise program, but  that won’t have you covered for all aspects of your fitness.
  • If you like to get out and run on your own to clear your head, do it.
  • If you like to swim, swim.
  • If you like to work out with other people, join a group.
  • If you’re training for a particular event and want to get the best out of your body, include a variety of different training methods, including interval training. Research the best types of training to achieve the results you want, or ask an expert.
  • Try something new, dancing, walking –and once a week find a hill and really go hard up and down it five or six times-, pole dancing, take up surfing. Think about the sorts of exercise you did as a kid. Find something that has similar aspects to the exercise you liked doing then.
  •  To me, exercise is about enjoyment. Enjoying the process, the journey, not just the outcome. So, I’ll stick to my long slow runs, my long runs with a kick thrown in at the end, my resistance training, my high intensity training, my tempo runs.

No, I DON’T enjoy each and every bit of exercise I do, but I never fail to like how it makes me feel afterwards. How about you?

 

 

References:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/242498.php
http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/eng/html/research/areas/feat-researchers/interview/izumi_t.html/

 

 

Mindless Running

mindless running

mindless runningThere’s a lot to be said for running mindlessly. There are times when you want to be able to put your shoes on, get out the door and just run, without having to think about anything in particular. There’s definitely a place for mindless running in your training program.

 

I had a mindless run the other morning. Didn’t really want to do it, but I knew twenty minutes wasn’t going to kill me, so I laced up the running shoes. It certainly wasn’t the day to be thinking about and experimenting with form though. It was a day to just let thoughts float in and out of my head, until I got into a space where my mind was clear. And that’s exactly how it went. After 18 minutes, I forgot how much I didn’t want to do it and started enjoying my run. So, I got a whole two minutes of enjoyment, but a whole day’s satisfaction for having done it, and a far more productive day to boot.

 

But….. if this is the way you run all the time, you’re missing out on the opportunity to maximise your training time. Whether your goal is to run faster, run further, run injury free, or some combination of those, you can’t spend all your time in la-la land and hope to improve to your full potential.

 

Tips For Running Mindfully

 

  1. Pick one thing about your running which you would like to improve – it might be running up hill or running down hill, it might be trying not to overstride, it might be running at an even pace for your whole run, negative splitting your run, running at a very slow pace over a longer distance. There are heaps of things you can pick to concentrate on, but make sure you choose only one for that run, and be sure on what you want to achieve. Work on that one thing for a few weeks, until you feel you’ve nailed it.
  2. Be patient. You’re not going to change your running overnight, but with frequent attention to detail, it will happen.
  3. Experiment a little. Drawing on the knowledge and experience of others is a great starting point, but you need to work from this starting point to develop a technique that suits you.  Only you can know what it feels like to be running in your shoes. Yes, take my ideas on board (and those of others) but check it all out for yourself.
  4. Focus for short periods of time during your run. Don’t try to think about what you’re doing every single stride, or you’ll be mentally fatigued by the end of it. The exception here is when you’re pace is the focus –either racing, time trialling, or being sure you’re running easy.
  5. Try running without gadgets. Run on how you feel from time to time, and when you do use a gadget, for pacing for example, be mindful of how you feel  at that pace. Make a note of that in your training diary, so you can compare different training runs. Your records will be far more meaningful if you can compare how you felt on your runs. You might run a 55 min 10 km in a training run and feel like you could go on forever, whereas you might do the same run 6 weeks later in the same time, but feel like you’ve been hit by a bus at the end of it. This can give much more info about the effectiveness of your training program than your times alone.
  6. Throw mindless running into the mix. Don’t be hell bent on always fixing and improving. Take some time to just get out there and let your thoughts drift off. Afterall, part of why we run is for the sheer joy of movement, and the mental lift we get as a result.

I’d love to hear about the types of things you focus on when you’re running, or whether you do at all.

 

 

 

 

Burn Fat For Fuel During Marathon Training

woman joggingOne of the most important, yet often neglected, part of marathon training, is teaching your body to burn fat for fuel.

Teaching your body to burn fat for fuel during marathon training means you are able to spare glycogen, and will be less likely to ‘hit the wall” or “bonk” during the latter half of the race.

Here are a few marathon training tips to rev up your fat burning engine:

 

  • Long, slow runs. These will help to burn fat for fuel during marathon training as your body relies more heavily on fat for energy during long duration, low intensity exercise.
  • Run in a fasting state. By that I don’t mean starve yourself for days and then run, but a pre-breakfast run should be part of your training at least once a week. Your glycogen stores are slightly depleted when you wake in the morning, so if you run pre breakfast, your body will turn to fat for fuel. Try having a light evening meal the day before a pre-breakfast run for greater effect. If you’re not used to doing this, you may struggle at first, so start with some shorter runs, and build up to longer runs in a fasted state. I find low to medium intensity training is fine pre-breakfast, but I personally struggle too much with higher intensity workouts. I don’t feel the quality is there if I’m not fueled.
  • Burn fat by eating fat. Your body is actually more likely to burn fat for fuel during marathon training if you have a small amount of fatty acids in your bloodstream, so eating a small amount of fat before your workout will help to initiate fat burning. Perhaps just a few nuts and seeds, or some avocado, about an hour before you set off on your run.

 

I’d love to hear how you go with pre-breakfast runs. They can take a bit of getting used to.

Train Faster Run Faster: Progressive Tempo Runs

train fast run fast

Also known as threshold runs, lactate threshold runs, and a few other terms as well, the temp run has been an important part of the distance runners’ training program for a long time now. Traditionally, tempo runs have been done under the lactate threshold, but the modern day runner is using progressive tempo runs to train the body to be able to handle what happens in race conditions, when you tip over that point at which the body is able to clear the lactic acid out of the blood quickly.

Lactate threshold pace is the pace where you are just in control of everything, and to go any faster would mean you would have to slow down through exhaustion pretty soon. You’re puffing hard, but not out of control, the amount of lactic acid in your blood is just about to tip over to that point where your body can’t clear lactic acid from the body quickly enough, so you have to slow down so that oxygen can be used to convert lactic acid back to pyruvic acid at the cellular level which will then be converted to water and carbon dioxide and expelled from the body as breath, sweat and urine.

Your muscles are feeling it, but can keep going powerfully, but if you go any faster, you’ve had it.  This is how you feel when you’re running at threshold pace.

You can train at or around threshold pace using interval training – running at threshold or just above for up to 6 mins, then dropping your pace dramatically for a few minutes of recovery. You can also utilise the tempo run, a longer run where you stay just under the threshold pace.

The long standing advice on temp runs is to be sure not to cross the lactate threshold, or else you won’t be training the right energy system. Theoretically, this is true-once you cross the lactate threshold, you aren’t providing the right stress to increase your lactate threshold as much as you would if you stayed under the threshold.

However, most of us are not training to increase our lactate threshold. Most of us are training to run faster. To perform at our best in a certain goal race. By performing some of your training at race pace when you are already buggered (that’s the layman’s term for fatigued),  you’re providing the right stress to your body to improve your race performance. You’re also working on some good mental toughening up as well!

If you’re racing a 5k for example, if you haven’t gone out too hard, you’ll feel ok up to about the 3km mark. Around about that point, your body will have to begin to deal with high levels of lactic acid accumulation, and if you haven’t trained your body to do this, it’s not going to do it very efficiently.

To train under similar conditions to those you’ll experience in a race, progressive tempo runs are very important. You need to train your body to deal with lactic acid after a relatively long sustained hard effort. Run most of your run, be it anything from 5k -15km (or more, depending on your experience) under your lactate threshold. It should feel hard, but not too hard. You should know you’re working, but feel like you could keep going. In the final 10-20% of your run, lift your effort and cross over the lactate threshold, bringing it home just like you would in a race. This will give your body practice at dealing with higher levels of lactic acid at a time when you are already fatigued. It’s simple. Train faster run faster.

Start out gradually with progressive tempo runs. Include maybe 1km at the end of a tempo run when you lift your effort a bit. Don’t do more than once a week. Play around with it a bit, and see your PB drop!

Image: rajcreationzs  freedigitalphotos.net

Running For Healthy Skin

Start running for healthy skin

Start running for healthy skinHow is it that some women have glowing, healthy, smooth looking skin?

Many of them can thank their parents for blessing them with good genes. But even if you weren’t so lucky, there’s a few things you can do to improve the look of your skin – without spending a fortune.

 

You can run, and you can exfoliate.

 

Running for healthy skin

Running helps nourish skin cells by improving circulation and increasing blood flow to them. Blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the skin cells, and it helps carry away waste products. By increasing blood flow, you’re giving your cells a flush out.

Running can also decrease stress, which will help to ease conditions exacerbated by stress, such as acne and eczema. The reduction in stress will help to smooth out some of those tension lines and worried looks on your face as well!

 

Exfoliate for healthy skin

Exfoliating helps to remove the outer layer of dead skin cells. It reveals to the world the brighter skin beneath this layer of dead cells. And you don’t need to buy expensive lotions and potions for exfoliating to be effective.

Here’s a simple recipe you can throw together from ingredients in your own kitchen.

 

Olive Oil Exfoliant

3 tablespoons rock salt
1.5 tablespoons olive oil

Mix together, then rub into your body in circular motion. Best done in the bath or shower as it can get quite messy.

You can try adding herbs to the mixture such as sage or basil.

For a face scrub, you should use salt that has been partially ground.

 

Picture: Stuart Miles: freedigitalphotos.net