Author: Chris Brown (Page 35 of 41)

Meal Prep: The Secret to No Weight Gain During December

December 2, 2018 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Weekend Meal Prep

One of the best tools I know of to keep me from gaining weight during the holidays, is a simple one. It’s not hard, if I do it right and it’s amazing how helpful it can be.

Weekend Meal Prep is no secret, actually. I think we all know that meal prep makes a huge difference in maintaining a weight loss. I find that it is especially true during one of the most challenging months – December!

This weekend I prepped three dishes: lemon chicken in the crock pot, roasted sweet potatoes fries and a protein filled quinoa salad with veggies.

During the winter I also like to make veggie soups. Having a nice big bowl of soup to start dinner is a great way to get extra liquid and vegetables into my daily meal without much work. It is a win win win: filling, good for me and easy.

The most important keys for meal prep:

Before I start to prep: Probably most important for me is to do the prepping when I am NOT hungry. Just after breakfast or lunch is the perfect time for me. It’s kinda like that other non negotiable – don’t grocery shop on an empty stomach.

Secondly, it’s really important that I need to love the food. (Which is why it’s so important for me not to try to prepare the meal prep when I’m hungry!)

Obviously before I can do meal prep, I have to have an idea of what I’d like to have waiting for you in the fridge or freezer. Making something “too” healthy or “too” hard is not a good idea for me. I usually fall back to something that I know I love. A soup or salad already made up, the kind that if I see it in the refrigerator, I want it.

Super healthy somethings, are a no-no. They just don’t do it for me. I was on a morning green smoothy kick for a while but found out it is too healthy for me too early. So when you’re deciding what to make, figure out something that keeps pretty well. I not only wasted all the ingredients by setting out all my smoothies ahead of time, I wasted my time. So when you’re choosing what to make, select something that looks good several days later, that you’ll actually want to eat.

Smoothies just don’t keep that well. They tend to separate or taste too watery to me.

It does need to be more on the healthy side however. I did meal prep before I lost the weight too. It wasn’t always the healthiest. And I didn’t pack my lunch. Back when the kids were little, I made 10 PB&J’s and put them in the freezer on Sunday night. It made it super easy to pack their lunches for day care or school so I would just add yogurt, veggie sticks and a drink into their paper bags before heading out the door in the morning.

If I didn’t meal prep back in those days, I’d be making bad choices all the way around.

For me, it is easier to make a bunch of one dish that can be frozen and/or refrigerated. Most things only last 4 days max in the refrigerator.

Containers are the other stumbling block for me. My container cupboard ends up like my sock drawer – lots of miss matched pieces. Periodically I have to do a purge and replace.

I start by pulling out all the containers ahead of time. Lids and bottoms. The type of container varies – sometimes I use glass jars, sometimes plastic with lids, depending on the meal and if it needs to be reheated or if it might leak. I spread the containers out on the counter ready to be filled helps me start with the end in mind.

Depending on what I have to do in the week ahead, I like to have them in containers that can be transported, so that I can bring them with me if I’m away from home at lunch time or dinner time. These days I’ve been traveling to my parent’s home quite a bit and its invaluable for me to have a healthy, easy and yummy choice available.

The fries and the chicken work for evening dinners, but I will use the salad (with maybe some tuna stirred in) as my lunches during this upcoming week.

What is your favorite dish for meal prep? Do you use just pre-cut the peppers, onions and celery for the week – or do you go all out and make full meals? I’d love to hear your ideas!

Becoming More Healthy by Eating Healthy Fats

November 24, 2018 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Healthy Fats and Non-Healthy Fats

I am on a bend, trying to learn more about nutrition and healthy fats in particular. I am seriously trying to learn more about the role of fat in my diet. There is a lot to it.

For most of my life, I lumped all of the different kinds of fat together — things like belly fat, saturated fat, and Omega-3 fats. Most of my eating plans would revolve around calorie counting. I have a better handle on it now, but I’m still learning about nutrition, macros (protein, carbohydrates and fat) and how to be more healthy as I work on maintaining my weight loss. Note: I am not a dietitian or nutritionist, just someone trying to sort it all out.

Today is the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Although it has been about 12 years since I gave up baking hundreds of Christmas cookies, that I would allegedly give away to friends and family or to have available if someone dropped by, I still remember pulling cans of Crisco shortening, sticks of butter and bags of sugar in preparation for this baking tradition.

Now, I have replaced this activity by pulling out the lights and putting Santa decorations on the mantle instead!

I guess my lack of knowledge had me just figuring that anything with a lot of fat in it would probably make me fat. I didn’t actually know that there were so many types of fats.

Of course, I’m still learning. Jill and I named this Becoming Elli because we are still learning and working at it. However, now my cupboard is stocked with a big can of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, a jar of coconut oil and stack of sardine cans. I haven’t bought corn oil for a very long time. Crisco is a distant memory.

It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I bought my first avocado. Now during my visits to the grocery store, I’m always giving the avocados the squeeze test to find the best ripe, but not too ripe, ones. I’ve really developed a taste for sardines too.

I have learned that there are a lot of good reasons to add healthy fats into my food plan. I’d rather eat my healthy fats than take a pill. Taking a gel tab from my big jar of fish oil gel tablets tend to make me burp.

Good to know facts about healthy fats and oils

Perhaps you already know these facts about fat. I’m probably late to the party. It is still relatively new information to me, as I wasn’t brought up knowing this and have been learning it as I go.

- Certain fats (omega-3) helps your brain think – Psychology Today – Have you fed your brain today? “Omega-3 fatty acids are great for mental clarity, concentration, and focus.”
- Low fat isn’t always a good thing. Lots of times something that is low fat has been changed to taste better by adding in lots of sugar. Too much sugar in your system ends up with extra fat being stored because it cannot be processed. Your body processes sugar first, then fat. But it won’t get to the fat if there is too much sugar.
- Certain fats help you feel full and satiate those hunger urges. (Sugar causes the hunger urge in me.)
- Some fats help to regulate hormones which helps regulate body weight. I think the hormone is called leptin but there is still some mystery around how that all works.
- Healthy fats protect you against some diseases – diabetes, cancer, heart disease.

The word fat is a bit deceiving to me. I know that I don’t want to be fat, or at least I don’t want to have too much body fat. The word fat is used different ways and not always for describing the same thing. Fat, floating on a soup or the top of a gravy, is pretty unappealing. Fat hanging over my blue jeans isn’t good either, but healthy fats keep you thinking, satiated and protect against some diseases.

I know I can’t trust my taste buds anymore. “It tastes too good to be healthy.” That’s not always true either. I love the taste of avocado. Things that taste delicious are sometimes very good for health and that is the case with avocados for sure.

Healthy Fats

Like most things, in many cases healthy fats are a matter of degree.

Eggs, a wonderful source of fat and protein that I consider a staple, used to be considered a potential cholesterol-raising food. We’ve now had the all-clear on eating eggs. Apparently cholesterol in our bodies does not really come from the cholesterol in our food. I have 11 chickens laying eggs, so you know how I feel about eggs!

Omega3 fats are important for us to eat and most of us don’t get nearly enough of them to eat. That’s why I have sardines to my diet. Oily fish like salmon and sardines are great sources of omega 3 fats.

I’ve heard people argue about coconut oil, which turns to a solid under 76 degrees. Some say that cooking with coconut oil when using higher temperatures is the way to go. Others say that coconut oil has the most saturated fat of any fat. People are arguing over saturated fat now. Some say we need it; others still insist it’s bad for you. Here’s the reason people like to use coconut oil. Some of the fats in it are what’s called medium chain triglycerides. These types of fat go straight to the liver and are used for energy rather than being converted into body fat. You’ll have to make up your own mind about coconut oil because many of the food experts advice against using it, while many others recommend it.

Of course, there have been much discussion about the virtues of dark chocolate. I gather the darker the chocolate, the less sugar and the better it is for you. I’ve seen recommendations for dark chocolate with at least 70% cocoa and others as high as 85%. The darker the chocolate, the less sweet it is but if you give yourself some time, you’ll get used to it and really think of dark chocolate as a treat.

Unhealthy Fats

I am still skeptical about “smart balance” and “healthy choice” brands. While many foods are under discussion, I think we can all agree that trans fats are bad.

Trans fats were found in fried foods, fast food and certain baked goods… or at least they used to be. Trans fats raised the bad cholesterol and lowered the good cholesterol. In 2015, the US government passed a ban on all trans fats, which had 3 years to take effect (June 15, 2018, almost 6 months ago!) So, in theory, they are gone.

Trans fats (partially hydrogenated fats) had a very weird chemical bond. It is where hydrogen was during a manufacturing process to make a liquid oil into a solid.

It can still be confusing about which are healthy fats and which are not. Saturated and unsaturated fats are on the spectrum, with saturated fats being on the bad side, and unsaturated fats on the better side.

I figured I could just go to a chart (put out by the USA government) and it would be clear to me which fats are the right ones. Ha ha! Not so fast!

Healthy Fats chart from the health.gov website

Courtesy page 26 of the PDF on the Health.GOV website. Click for full 144 page report.

See the chart about common fats and oils shown on page 26 of this 2015-2020 PDF from the US government.

What is the difference? (Here is where my eyes start to get glazed over, as the memories of high school chemistry class come back.) It has to do with the bonds, double bonds versus single bonds and if it has been manufactured. I’ll spare you the diagrams.

Saturated fat are usually a solid at room temperature… in general saturated fat is a solid or a liquid, depending on the temperature. like butter, cheese and animal fats.

Some, if not many, people think saturated fat is linked to heart disease and high cholesterol. Saturated fat is “packed tighter” than unsaturated fat.

Others say we should avoid most vegetable oils except for a few oils like olive oil and avocado oil. They recommend using butter, coconut oil, and other oils high in saturated fat. Not to be wishy-washy, but this can become a bit confusing.

I’ve seen articles saying – “choose” soft butter (processed?) or choose choose “low-fat” ice cream (more sugar?). I’m not convinced that either is right. These may be worse. (Editor’s note: I do tend to drink light beer, but most beer drinkers scoff and wonder why someone would drink any beer if it is light. But I digress, as beer doesn’t have fat in it and that’s the subject at hand.)

So now, leave a message below with your take on the healthy fats. Which do you eat? Which do you avoid? Do you disagree with my take on the situation?

Time for me to go decorate the mantle and put on some Christmas music.

Inspiration to Maintain a Weight Loss During Thanksgiving Weekend

November 17, 2018 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

The big weekend is approaching. The four-day food and shopping fest is next weekend. In the past six years of {struggling} to maintain my weight loss, I work to find inspiration for maintaining my weight loss.

Having the Becoming Elli Community helps me. I know I needed a lot of support to lose the weight. It took me about five years to lose the weight. I found that originally losing it was one thing. I still need support and more knowledge to keep it off. Staying fit, strong and healthy is definitely the ultimate goal. I need to go step by step to stay on the path.

Thanksgiving can be a slippery slope for me. I know that there are many people who say things like – just eat until you’re satisfied – or don’t worry about it on one day – just enjoy everything. Inside my head, I know that doesn’t work for me. At least not yet. Maybe next year.

But this year, I know I need to have an action plan for Thanksgiving day and actually the whole weekend because of all the oh-so-easy to pick at and eat leftovers from the feast.

Sometimes other people refer to it as a goal, but in reality, it is more of an action plan. Things I will do, rather than focusing on the desired end result goal.

My action plan this year. I will:
1) Exercise Thanksgiving morning
2) Bring complex carb roasted vegetables that I absolutely love
3) Make the day all about people and talk, talk, talk
4) Drink at least 64 oz of water
5) Take a deep breathing break at least 4 times during the day to de stress
6) Listen once again to Marsha Friedman’s Coping With Holiday Stress podcast episode & re-read her tips
7) Look for the fun in the holiday beyond the food/shopping extravaganza to make up a gratitude list

I’ll probably make a clumsy turkey out of assembled vegetables – here’s the one from last year. Although this year I might try a variety of those big Mediterranean olives for the body along with peppers, carrots, celery and cauliflower.In a way I look at this vegetable turkey and see a huge pinterest fail, but in another way, no one was too intimidated by its beauty to not eat it! Most the raw vegetables were gone and the ones left over found their way into turkey soup!

Coping with Holiday Stress Podcast with Marsha Friedman

November 13, 2018 / Chris Brown / 1 Comment

Episode #21 of the Fit, Strong Women Over 50 Podcast

Today Jill and Chris discuss coping with stress with Marsha Friedman. She works out 6 days a week at Planet Fitness – alternating between aerobics and weight training. Her goal is to keep the “Grandma arms” – loose skin dangling from the triceps – at bay, permanently!

She is currently a Leadership and Personal Development Coach who is passionate about guiding individuals to their full potential. As a coach, she helps her clients find the spark to ignite their own fires.

In Podcast Episode 21, Marsha shares many excellent techniques on how to cope with holiday stress:

Deciding how you will take care of yourself (great suggestions!)
How to embrace the emotions (and how to manage your mood when you need to)
The who-how-when of accepting help to improve your stress levels
Managing Expectations of the things that cause holiday stress: Food, Family, Finances, Fun and Friends

Marsha has a broad range of business experience from finance to customer service and from operations to organizational development.

Marsha is also a devoted mother and step-mother of four… and a grandmother of nine.

As someone who has dealt with a variety of challenges over the years, Marsha has the grit and determination not to let anything stop her.

Because she has rebuilt her credit, rekindled her spiritual life, raised successful independent children, reestablished her career, and reclaimed love again (and again) she is known as the Comeback Queen.

In addition, Marsha has offered a free 30 minute consultation to the listeners of our podcast. For a download checklist quiz, a more detailed explanation of her stress busting techniques and more information about the consultation, visit the website page that she set up, just for us!

Contact information for Marsha:
email: marsha@consultmef.com
website: www.consultmef.com
webpage for this podcast: http://consultmef.com/holidaystress

How do YOU Measure Fit?

November 10, 2018 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

How do most women over 50 measure fit?

I am guessing that the first answer would be weight. Maybe stamina vs fatigue?

As women in 2018, we have the opportunity to access so much information, it can be overwhelming and obsessive. Those who know their numbers may point to BMI or A1c or VO2Max. Or waist size or blood pressure.

As I go deeper into focusing on fitness, strength and getting healthy, I’ve discovered that there are always new numbers and measurements to fine tune things.

When I first started running/walking/jogging in 2009, I wanted to know how long it took me to go one lap around the track, one mile and a 5K. Those became numbers I worked toward improving. I hadn’t even heard of VO2 Max and even now, that number is something that I associate with athletes who would be knowing and tracking their numbers.

During my years of going to Weight Watchers from 2007 to 2013, there were weekly weigh ins. During the week, I would be counting points that WW had assigned to various foods. After I reached my goal weight, I stopped counting the points and started focusing more instead on fiber grams, protein and looking at healthy omega fats. I became much more focused on counting the number of minutes I exercised each day.

I began to follow my resting heart rate numbers and maximum heart rate. I learned there are lots of ways to measure fit.

As my health improved, then I was looking into complex carbs vs simple carbs vs processed food. Is white wine really better than red wine (or just NO wine??) Fish vs chicken vs red meat vs beans and other legumes? I joined the nutrition club at my gym.

And the numbers started to become more refined as well. Blood draws to get much more accurate numbers than jumping on a scale in the morning.

For lipids, I’d used to just track only my total cholesterol number. Then it was tracking my HDL and LDL along with triglycerides. Next I was focusing on the particle sizes. For glucose, most of my tests included just one number. Now I’m more interested in A1c.

During this past year I began tracking my sleep — not just the number of hours that I sleep. (I used to count the hours I went to bed and got out of bed.) Now I have information about how long I have had deep sleep, REM, light sleep and awake hours.

Maybe I’m too obsessive about measuring my fitness, but at the same time, I find that tracking is a powerful tool for measuring improvement. It helps me to find out that what I am doing isn’t working or is working.

I’m curious about the other members of the Becoming Elli community. Do you follow your numbers? And if so, which ones and why?

Three Ways I Maintain Fitness When Motivation Lags

November 3, 2018 / Chris Brown / 1 Comment

Do you ever find that the motivation is lagging to keep up with your workouts?

When motivation lags, I try really hard not to slide backwards with my fitness.

This time of year always does it to me. I’ve discovered it is a combination of things.

Partly because race season is in my rear view mirror and spring is feeling pretty far away.
Partly because rainy weather and cooler temperatures always seems to bring on a head cold.
And partly because of the dark mornings and darker evenings of short sunshine days.
Not to mention the time change and the havoc it reeks on my sleep patterns.

When Motivation Lags

Here are three ways that I have found work to help me to maintain my fitness, even when my motivation for the big workouts is lagging.

1) Walking – I try to look for the beauty in nature and go for a long walk several times a week during lunch time. While walking doesn’t necessarily raise my heart rate into cardio levels or more, getting the legs moving helps to burn some calories and release some stress. It doesn’t bother my ankles or require an immediate shower afterwards. I can bring the dog if I want. Even when motivation lags, I find I feel better when I get back from a good walk. While I like music when I run, a good audio book is my go to when I’m walking.

2) Soup – During this time of year, I fall back into old habits. At least a couple nights a week, I try to focus on vegetables for dinner. A good hearty soup that is patterned after the V-9 soup on Aladdin’s menu – one of my favorite restaurants in town. It has nine different vegetables in it and I make mine with what is in the refrigerator. My V-9 usually is comprised of cabbage, spinach, carrots, celery, onions, green/red/yellow peppers, brocolli, cauliflower, mushrooms and squash. I also refer to this as “zero point soup”, which a hold over from when I was working the Weight Watchers points and the vegetables became free. I try to skip potatoes. I find that soup also helps me get more water, since it’s not as hot, I’m not as thirsty, but I will get more liquid if I’ve got the soup. The trick is to keep the rice and pasta out of the soup. And don’t serve with a side of bread or chase it with a pile of popcorn. For best results, focus on the vegetables and don’t cook it to death. Mushy vegetables aren’t as yummy and you don’t want to cook the vitamins right out of them!

3) Basics – When motivation is lacking, it is tough to do strenuous exercise. And with sinus head cold, fore me it’s not even a good idea. That said, I don’t want to lose all of the fitness I’ve developed over the summer or the recovery I’ve made from the physical therapy exercises. To keep a certain level of fitness, I make sure that I do the prerequisite monster walks, heel raises, piriformis and calf foam rolling, walking bridges and a variety of other stretching/yoga type moves every single day with no excuses. Getting my basic routine out of the way every morning and evening will keep me from trouble when I’m ready to go to it again.

I know from my six plus years of maintaining my weight loss, that I can’t keep this up very long. Actually I could keep this up for a long time, but it won’t result in maintaining. It will result in a weight gain and a muscle loss.

Doing these three things do not net me the endorphins of a good workout or burn enough calories to stop the winter weight from creeping back on. But they help me hold things together until my head cold clears up and I can get myself through the disruption of my sleep pattern with the change over from daylight savings time.

Using these three tools gets me through a tough time without too much back sliding.

Soon, I’ll be back at the gym, lifting weights to build strength, working out with group exercise classes and sweating up a storm. But until I’m ready for that I’m focused on walking, soup and the basics.

How about you? How do you get through it when your mojo slips? Do you have a fallback routine that you use to adjust to the time change or when you have a head cold? Let me know! Either share publicly as a comment here or on our social media… or if you’re shy, just send me a private email Chris@becomingelli.com.

I’m looking forward to learning some new tactics and strategies from others in the Becoming Elli Community of fit women over 50. Thanks in advance. (or should I put TIA? I always have to look those initials up to remember what they mean. ha ha.) – Chris

Celebrating Milestones

October 27, 2018 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Shout out to all the Fit, Strong Women Over 50
Today I’m celebrating milestones. Have you ever heard the saying “You are what you eat”? Or the saying “You are the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with.”? Perhaps you’ve seen this saying about “watching your thoughts” shown on the cover of this notebook?

* photo courtesy Amazon from the Motivational Journal Lover

I know that for me, whatever I put my attention and intention on, will pop up all around me. It is on my radar and I begin to really embrace it.

As we prepare to celebrate the first anniversary of Becoming Elli, I am reminded of this concept.

Celebrating Milestones
Depending on when and how you measure our official beginning, we’ve almost reached the first yearly milestone since our Becoming Elli website went live to the full internet. It’s always fun to be celebrating milestones and going live is a big one!

It was about a year ago, when Jill McCauslin and I began forming the ideas for creating the Becoming Elli community as a website, podcast and private Facebook Group. Although we weren’t sure exactly what form it would take, we both knew we wanted it to focus on being fit and staying strong as we get older.

Jill and I both agreed that fit and strong are key qualities that we want to embrace in this endeavor and as we continue in the second half of our lives.

Creating Becoming Elli

Naming “it” was a bit of a challenge.

We also wanted to identify and combine the concepts of healthy living, being fit, and becoming strong with our “cohort.” While we wanted to identify our age group, we both felt that “Baby Boomers” wasn’t the right phrase. In the process of coming up with a name, we learned how many derogatory terms there are for “older” women.

Elli, the Norse Goddess of Old Age, seemed like the right fit for what we’re hoping to achieve because she was fit and strong.

The Becoming Elli website was developed during the fall of 2017. The first time I think we discussed it out loud with each other while we trained for the Akron half marathon, probably in late August. To start we began to write some blog posts and brainstorm about what to call it. We bought some podcasting gear and learned what it takes to put together plans for a podcast.

We wrote and published a few articles on the server before the website actually went public. Most of our early stories were about our 2017 races like the Cleveland Firecracker 10K, the Akron Half marathon and what we learned by training for it and running it.)

Our first podcast for “Fit Strong Women Over 50” took a while for us to figure out, record, find music, edit and launch. We switched hosting platforms shortly after the first one. It took a while to get it up and running. I think we’ll have an official milestone celebration of the podcast launch separately from the website launch.

Over all, what I think surprised and delighted me the very most, was the reaction, response and reception to the podcast by other women over 50! We found out we are on the right track!

During the past year of starting our podcast, I have learned so much through the podcasting process. It has been so interesting to interview personal trainers, exercise enthusiasts, nutrition experts, and so many women who are working to become and stay fit and strong as they navigate life’s ups and downs, and zigs and zags!

Building Community
During the past year we’ve also begun to build the community with our Facebook page and the private Facebook Group. This too has been a learning process with the ups and downs of using Facebook as a platform. We also started other social media platforms with Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. We’re still learning!

To me, “Becoming Elli” has been a great addition in my life.

It’s become more than a project, it’s a passion! I love the community and hearing from other women around the country and around the world. Through the Becoming Elli community, I find that I am learning more everyday about how to stay healthy, fit in exercise during busy times, eat right even when it’s difficult and develop mental resilience.

Today I am feeling full of gratitude. Celebrating milestones along the way is important. I especially want to make a point to say thanks to my friend Jill who is the co publisher of Becoming Elli. Believe me, without Jill this whole thing would still be a pipe dream.

And to all of our guests who have shared their stories on our website, in our podcasts and to the entire Becoming Elli Community: a very special THANK YOU to you too!!

(*affiliate link disclaimer: some links are to Amazon where a small portion of your purchase will help to offset costs associated with this website and podcast.)

Strengthening the Mind

October 20, 2018 / Chris Brown / 1 Comment

Becoming Elli is about women who are working on being fit and strong. On this website and on the podcasts for Becoming Elli, we spend a lot time talking about strengthening the body, but today I wanted to focus on strengthening the mind.

I thought I share some of the tools I use to get mentally stronger.

This year my personal New Year’s resolution was to build resilience and remember consistency over intensity. I feel both of these concepts apply to strengthening the mind.

Athletes know that mental preparation is as important as the physical preparation. It may even be more important. Perhaps you’ve heard fo the concept that “fatigue as an emotion“, identified by the world-famous South African sports and exercise scientist Tim Noakes. I try to tell myself that when I’m tired, but I still have trouble wrapping my brain around that one!

Last month, I was particularly delighted when Olympic Medalist and USA long-distance runner record holder Deena Kastor was the invited to be the elite ambassador for the Akron Marathon. She really focuses on strengthening her mind.

strengthening the mind with Deena Kastor at the Akron Marathon

Deena Kastor offers mental strengthening words of advice to me at the Akron Marathon Expo on the day before I ran the half marathon. “Chris – Dream Large! Deena Kastor”.

“My competitive days had a short window, but I could push my mind and strengthen my positivity for a lifetime.” – one of the many wonderful quotes from Deena Kastor.

Her book, Let Your Mind Run: A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory*, is filled with incredible thoughts and is very powerful.

“My competitive days had a short window, but I could push my mind and strengthen my positivity for a lifetime.”

It has many great examples of positive affirming thoughts.

Part of the way I try to strengthen the mind in my training plan is to do yoga. I say “try” because I’m not as consistent as I want to be. I find it interesting that it is easier to push myself to exercise my physical body more than it is to strengthen my mind with exercises that I know will provide more calmness and focus. I’m talking about the breathing exercises, meditation, yoga and being still to just listen.

Here are some of the ways and tools I use to strengthen my mind and improve my resilience:

Slow down and collect calm
Notice and feel my breathing
Develop a focus
Count my blessings
Celebrate success
Slow my heart rate
Relax my mind and let my thoughts come and go
Focus on what is good
Write a mental list for my gratitude journal
Remember which ever one I feed – (the story about the two wolves)
Recognize the strength of optimism
Spend time with nature
Do hard things, so I remember that I can overcome obstacles
Let go of the D words. Avoid the D-words that have the tendency to pull me DOWN. Words like: discouraged, disable, dysfunction, depressed, disease, and distraction
Focus on uplifting words: inspire, encourage, enable, empower, enlighten, invigorate, at ease
Re-read the Optimist creed, the Serenity Prayer about courage, acceptance and wisdom and go through the basic action plan of Just For Today.

Do you work on strengthening your mind as well as being strong in your body? How do you do it? What tools do you use? Do you use any of the tools that I do? What am I missing? Leave a comment below or use your phone to record a voice message and email it to me at Chris@becomingelli.com.

(*affiliate link disclaimer: some links are to Amazon where a small portion of your purchase will help to offset costs associated with this website and podcast.)

7 Ways to Improve Your Sleep

October 13, 2018 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

We all know that getting healthy isn’t just about eating right and exercising. Getting enough good quality sleep is important.

Personally, I feel like sleep deprivation is torture for me. I don’t know about you, but I’m always researching articles about how to improve your sleep. Some people can handle 4 -5 hours of sleep once in a while, but I can’t. I really need a solid 7 or 8 hours a night to feel right. I’m also the type of person who likes to wake up early, but not to stay up late.

I find that without enough sleep:

a sniffle turns into a cold
a cold turns into sick
annoyed turns into cranky
tired turns into exhausted
life just seems much harder
it’s hard to pay attention the next day
can’t remember things (like what I’m in the midst of doing)

Why is sleep so important? Whether we realize it or not, there is a lot going on during sleep.

The body relaxes, rebuilds and recovers. The brain goes into different states of sleep, for instance, a slow wave deep sleep or a Rapid Eye Movement sleep. Sleep also helps to wash out wastes in the brain.

The longest time scientifically recorded that anyone ever went without sleep is 11 days. Here is the link to the NPR article and podcast about Randy Gardner and his sleep science experiment. He recommends never trying to go without sleep on purpose like that because he has permanent sleep cycle damage.

Although I’ve never tried anything like that, I know that if I don’t get enough sleep the night before, my body wants more energy. It will send signals to my brain all day that makes me want to overeat to try to get more energy.

One night last winter, I stayed overnight in the hospital, when a family member needed me. I cat napped in the chair next to their bed. By morning, I realized this was a big mistake. I was completely wiped out of reserves, both physically and emotionally. It took me quite a while to get feeling back to regular again.

This won’t work for me because the lights are on, sleeping face down, and cold feet are sticking outside the covers. This would result in a sleepless toss-n-turn night for sure.

So how can we improve our sleep? I know for sure that I sleep better if I exercised in the morning. Even though some people find exercise at night to be easier, it’s too much stimulation for me.

Try these 7 ways to improve your sleep and wake up more refreshed

Quiet the hour before going to bed – Develop a nighttime routine during the last hour you are awake. Don’t do anything too strenuous or difficult — maybe something like take a warm bath, set out your clothes for the morning, and turn down the covers. Try to do things in the same order so that they become automatic. I like to get my bed ready with a rice bag so I’m not too hot, not too cold. I use rice bags at my feet when I go to sleep, but later I wake in the middle of the night to throw the covers off because I’m too warm.
Go to bed the same time every night – We all know that daylight savings time interferes with sleep. Falling back or springing ahead with the time change always messes up my normal rhythms. Did you read where in the spring, when clocks are moved ahead, a study showed the number of heart attacks increased significantly on the Monday after the time change? Although napping can mess up my sleep cycle, if I know I’m going to be out late and won’t be able to go to bed at my normal time, I find a nap is a good alternative. It’s best if I can catch a nap in early afternoon, but that’s sometimes difficult with my work schedule.
Set up the bed the way you like it – Arrange the pillows for your head, your body and maybe even your knees before you go to bed. Get the right sheets, blankets and covers that match your personal preferences. Use a mattress that is firm, soft or medium depending on your needs. Wear your favorite pajamas. In the morning, make your bed, so it’s ready to go the next night.
Wake up at the same time pretty much every day – It will train your body when to expect to get up. If you sleep in on the weekends or get up a whole lot earlier than usual, you need to give yourself extra time to get out of bed and to get ready. A consistent routine has been shown to improve sleep patterns.
Stop coffee or any caffeine at noon the day before – (I find chocolate affects me too, if I eat it later in the day.) Try not to eat anything a few hours before you go to bed. Drink large glass of water with dinner, but try not to drink too much right before bedtime, so you don’t have to get up in the night. Drinking alcohol is also known to interfere with staying asleep.
Control the light – Part of sleeping and waking is cued by light for natural circadian rhythms. I think that is one reason why it’s easier for me to sleep on a rainy day or in fall/winter compared to sunny days and spring/summer seasons. Some people find that black out curtains or a sleeping mask helps. I know that the light from screens don’t help, so try not to watch TV or look at your phone right before you go to bed.
Eliminate extra noise – It’s difficult to sleep in unfamiliar surroundings when there are different noises. Having quite white noise of a fan or very low volume of soothing sounds helps me to stay asleep. A TV playing in the other room or even voices talking outside can interrupt the all important deep sleep or REM sleep. Sometimes ear plugs can do the trick.

What do you do to get to sleep and stay asleep? Leave a comment below or send me an email at Chris@becomingelli.com.

How We Ran a Half Marathon

October 9, 2018 / Chris Brown / 5 Comments

In podcast episode number 19 of Becoming Elli, Jill and Chris discuss how they ran a half marathon. Today’s podcast covers before, during and after the 13.1 challenge.

In this podcast you’ll hear:

Our preparation:

Running plans leading up to it
The expo
Our cross training plans
Shoes
Practice fueling
KT tape

The actual race on Sept 29, 2018 in Akron:

The Course
Waterstations

What we did afterwards:

Fuel: Chocolate milk and banana
ice bath
What didn’t work

Are you planning a challenging race in the near future?

Let us know by sending an email to Jill@becomingelli.com or Chris@becomingelli.com so we can connect with you. Or join our Facebook Group.