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Posts Tagged barefoot shoes

Another Reason Vibram FiveFingers Can Save Your Knees

Jul 19

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 8 Comments

Well hello there FitFeat friends!

Hope that your week is off to a great start!  It’s going to be another fast one, I can tell already!  Time flies when you are having fun and loving life, right?  I swear I need to go back and see what my July horoscope had in store for me because I feel like things have been working out in my favor lately – in a “wow that was pure luck” sort of way!  Yes, I read horoscopes AFTER the fact.  It’s more fun!  I also read magazines from back to front. :D I’m odd like that, I guess!

So, those of you who were FitFeat readers a year-and-a-half ago may recall that was when I got my Vibram 5Finger shoes.  And proceeded to rave about them for how they took the pressure off my knees – no pain when wearing them for running.

Well I have found a new reason to wear them.

Last week when I was insanely tired from an unplanned delayed arrival into Denver coming home from my work trip, I left my house to run an errand wearing these:

Well that excess piece of sandal you see in front of my toes somehow latched onto a curb and threw me down hard before I even knew what hit me.

Giving me one of these on my knee:

(I decided not to post the pic I took when it first happened, because it was really gross.  This is 5 days of healing – so not as bad.)  :)

Can I just tell you I was up from the ground in a NANO-second after biffing it?  I forgot how embarrassing taking a tumble in public is.  My purse went flying, I landed all askew.  I popped up like it never happened and kept right on going.  (My pride was seriously hurt more than this knee!)  Until  I started to bleed all over the card section of the drug store…at which point I had to hit up their pharmacy to beg for a band-aid or two.

It occurred to me that had I been wearing my 5Fingers, this would not have happened.  :) They fit nice and snug, and I would have been light on my feet instead of the “slap slap flapping” of my loose sandals.

Lesson learned. (I must say in my own defense that my 5Fingers were in the washing machine at the time… since I’d used them a bunch the prior weekend.)

Now that you are hearing yet again all the virtues of “barefooting” it in your 5Fingers – I have to share this cool race info with you.  A colleague of mine and his wife started these Barefoot Races and they have them all over the country:

The Naked Foot 5K, sponsored by Merrell

Minneapolis, MN: August 20th
Grand Rapids, MI: August 28th
Austin, TX: September 24th
Highlands Ranch, CO: September 11th
Nashville, TN: October 15th

If you live near one, check them out!  And check out their website because they have some fun info out there.  Plus they collect shoe donations for Soles for Souls (a shoe charity that recycles shoes for people in need).  If you know any barefoot runners (or anyone interested in starting) this would be a great event for them to look into!

I know some of you readers have done some barefoot running.  Who’s barefootin’ it these days?  Leave a comment and share!

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Why You Might Want to ADD a Pound

Jul 8

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 2 Comments

Well hello there FitFeat friends!  Happy Friday EVE!  Gotta love short holiday weeks!

This morning started with a fantastic 5 mile client run in some unusually humid weather.  Wow, I thought I’d been transported back to Ohio for a minute with the low cloud cover and muggy air.  I left the house with nice straight hair and when I came home, MSP said I looked like I’d showered and let my hair air dry (which is to say:  NOT a pretty sight!)  Humidity and my hair do not play nicely together.  Crazy waves and cowlicks all over!

I do feel for folks who have to run in humidity ALL the time.  We are lucky here to typically have very dry air.

I wore my VFFs again today – still love running in them and still finding it to be pain free.  My knees are happy these days.  Maybe I’ll get the itch to go longer than 8 or 9 in them, but right now I’m back to just enjoying runs as they come.

After my run, I was so craving something fresh.  I couldn’t decide between a cantaloupe or a green smoothie.  So I did both.  Ate a few bites of the cantaloupe:

And then put the rest into a rocking smoothie:

  • 1/2 Cantaloupe
  • 1 small orange
  • kale
  • spinach
  • flaxseed oil
  • pepitas
  • 1/2 scoop vanilla plant protein powder
  • 1/2 cucumber
  • water

It was so refreshing post-run.

Rascal couldn’t even wait for me to stop pouring some into his bowl.

He kept trying to get his face in there before I was done.  My pups LOVE when I share my green smoothies with them.

Ready for seconds!

***

Have you ever ready any of Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s work?  I own his “Eat to Live” book and have borrowed his “Eat for Health” books from the library a few times.  Dr. Fuhrman uses the term “nutritarian” as opposed to vegetarian, flexitarian, vegan, etc. because he promotes eating foods based on their nutrient value.  For example on a scale of 1 to 1000, KALE scores 1000.  From a nutrient density standpoint, it’s the gold standard.  (Another great reason to make yourself a batch of kale chips!)

In the “Eat for Health” series he suggests to his clients that rather than making huge changes right off the bat when trying to lose weight or get healthier one should just ADD in a pound of raw green veggies a day to what they already eat.  And then over time you will find that because you are eating a pound of filling green food, you won’t need as much of the other less healthy foods you might have been eating. (As the program progresses, one then aims to eat at least 1 pound of raw greens vegetables and 1 pound of cooked veggies and at least 1 cup of legumes.)

I know that when I measure out my greens for my smoothies I typically end up with about 9 oz with the cucumber, celery, sprouts, leafy greens and occasional avocado.  I was curious what one pound of raw greens would look like all in one bowl so that I could gauge whether I was anywhere near the 1 to 2 pound mark.

For the sake of pure volume rather than variety, I just threw some veggies into a bowl to weigh.   One full head of romaine, a large stalk of celery and a medium cucumber fit the bill.

On one hand it didn’t seem like as much as I thought it would.  But then on the other hand, this bowl is way bigger than my head.

Because I’m known to have a pinhead, I’ll show you the bowl next to my iPhone for better sizing reference.  ;)

After weighing out the pound, I took out some of the greens to save for later, and then “prettied up” my salad with some dulse, avocado, red and yellow pepper – and weighed again.  I’m over a pound, wahoo!

Then I added 1/2 cup of navy beans.

And called it lunch!

How about you?  Do you think you are getting 2 pounds of veggies in each day? Are you a fledgling nutritarian or a full-on card carrying member of the club?  I think that between my large lunch salads and my green smoothies, I’m somewhere in the middle!

Have a great day friends!

– Shari B. =)

***

Shari Becht is a Fit Living Coach and an ACE Certified Personal Trainer offering online/phone coaching services to people across the U.S.  She is extremely passionate about teaching her clients how to start making small changes every day to their own lives, built around steps customized to fit their needs.

If you or someone you know could benefit from Shari’s coaching, please feel free to email her at shari [at] fitfeat  [dot] com.  For more information, click here.

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Like It Was The Summer of 2009

Jun 17

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 9 Comments

Holy moly, I spent a few days away from the blog and I come back to find 96 spam messages!  Yowza!  I hope they at least count as page views toward my FoodBuzz account!  Haha!  Thank you Akismet for catching all that spam and keeping it from hitting my comments area!  You are a godsend of a plug-in!

So glad you guys liked the post about the crazy ingredients in our food.  I had a good time writing that one. Garbage in my food gets me all riled up!  :)

Today I’m having flashbacks of last summer.  I started the morning with a run, enjoyed half a cantaloupe when I got home, then got busy doing some ‘doody duty’ and YARDIO and followed it all up with a delicious smoothie.

Love it when the yard is freshly mowed:

And love it when I can enjoy my smoothie on the back patio in the sunshine:

(BTW, this smoothie was a keeper:  small banana, handful of frozen blackberries, vanilla brown rice protein, 1/2 a cucumber, spinach, romaine, flaxseed oil with 8 oz water — SO SO GOOD!)

Ahhh, just like the good ‘ol days of 2009.  ;)   Last year at this time I’d left my high stress no-fun job about 6 weeks prior and was taking the summer ‘off’ to enjoy life a little more and get some projects done around the house that I’d been putting off.  It was fantastic!

Fast forward one year and this summer is definitely on the BUSY BEE side of the coin.  Last year I didn’t have the ops admin job, the fit living business or the blog.  In the battle for where my time is spent sometimes the blog wins, some weeks the training wins, and this week (plus the next two weeks) the admin job will win because we are gearing up to relocate the office.  If FitFeat seems oddly quiet off and on between now and July 4th, you’ll know why!

***

Today’s run was with a client and it was a PERFECT morning.  Warm with blue skies and a light breeze.  We hit up my (and her) favorite hilly trail.  (And she was rockin’ her new pair of Vibram FiveFingers, woot woot!) It was a good thing I had her appointment on the books, because if not I think I may have hit the snooze button a few times.  It was a bit of a rough night of sleep thanks to a certain little dog who likes to howl and bark like mad when his dad comes home from softball late at night.  Picture me sleeping soundly one second, then needing to be peeled off the ceiling in the next. Instant adrenaline rush and impossible to sleep after that.

He looks so innocent doesn’t he?

It’s a good thing he’s so darn cute.

***

You have to check out the delicious dinner than Cindy posted on her blog.  It looks fantastic, and yes I do want to earn a parade (even if my parade would be quite short seeing how it’s only one person) so I might have to make something in a puff pastry for my hubs!  I’m sure he would love it.  I did make him a Bison BBQ Meatloaf with roasted sweet potatoes Tuesday night.  I think the parade was postponed due to inclement weather.  ;)

My meals have been a little on the boring side as of late.  Green smoothies, big salads, oatmeal, grilled goat cheese sandwiches with tomato soup, you know the usual SHARI FARE. Nothing exciting enough to share.  But I have a great new apron (five bucks, SCORE!) so I am sure the inspiration will start flowing now.  Isn’t it the apron that makes one a good cook?

Have a great day friends!

– Shari B. =)

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Windburn

Apr 13

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit, thrive diet | 2 Comments

Hey FitFriends!  How’s your Tuesday treatin’ ya?

I had a very fun run this morning at my favorite hilly trail with two of my favorite running buddies and when I got home at first glance in the mirror I thought, “hmm, weird, my sunscreen didn’t work very well today” because my cheeks were really red.  Then I realized it must have been from the WIND!  It was CRAZY WINDY on the run today!  The hill at the beginning of the trail is a great warmup walk and we were leaning into the wind to stay upright.

But it wasn’t raining or snowing.  So that’s a big plus.  And the sun was shining, which was an even bigger plus!

So another 5.4 miles logged in the ol’ Vibram FiveFingers.  I think my calves may not have been QUITE ready after all the Vibram love they got over the weekend (leg workout Friday morning, 5 miles Friday evening, 15 sets of sprints Saturday, yoga Saturday, 7.6 miles Sunday afternoon).  They are pretty tight & tender today, even after all the stretching.  I might have to make tomorrow a yoga morning – lots of downward dogs should do the trick!

***

Welcome to “Random Topic Day” here at the FitFeat Blog.  :D

Run Carrot Run

My NO MEAT ATHLETE shirt arrived!  I’ve been a regular reader of Matt’s two blogs (No Meat Athlete and Health Blog Helper) ever since the inception of my own blog.  I happened upon NMA by accident after I starting eating along the lines of a mostly vegetarian, sometimes pescatarian diet and had done some Googling of vegan and vegetarian athletes.  Matt is an ultra-marathoner, vegetarian, soon-to-be-new-dad, animal lover, awesome blogger, and I’m sure a ton of other things.  I’ve always gotten a kick out of his logo (the carrot wearing a headband and sweating) and tagline (“Runs on Plants“).  So I finally had to treat myself to one of his running shirts.

Now, you all know I’m a stickler for customer service – let me just tell you that I am beyond impressed.  Matt wrote after I’d placed my order to say that the size small  shirts he received weren’t up to his standards and gave me a couple of options (refund?  wait for new printer? switch sizes?)   I went the route of going up to the medium size.  Well when he mailed my shirt he also included the small one that he wasn’t pleased with the printing of.  So now I am the lucky owner of not one but TWO No Meat Athlete shirts.  (Thank you Matt!)  And his standards must be higher than mine, because MSP and I both thought the small shirt was just fine!

If you haven’t checked out No Meat Athlete yet, go give it a look.   You won’t be disappointed.  Not only is he hosting a giveaway today of some compression socks, but he’s also donating all revenues from his Foodbuzz ad FOR ALL OF 2010 to help animals.

Run Drink Run

To know me is to know that I am a big believer in Brendan Brazier (professional VEGAN Ironman Triathlete), and his books.  I regularly drink Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer.   So I was excited when our local Whole Foods started carrying sample sized packets of the Vega Sport.  I tried the Lemon Lime flavor on Sunday afternoon just before heading out to run with my friend Amanda.

The taste is interesting.  Definitely not something you’d crave or have too  much of, that’s for sure!  :)   And I was a little nervous to have something that is considered an “energy” drink at 4:00 in the afternoon, for fear that I’d never get to sleep that night.  I ended up only drinking about 1/2 of what I made because I ran out of time and didn’t want to chug it.   I had a steady flow of energy during the run without ever feeling jittery and I had no trouble getting to sleep that night.  Typically I’m beat when it comes to exercising in the afternoons, so I’d like to think that I felt good thanks to this drink.  For the high cost though, I think I’ll stick to single-serve packets and only use it when absolutely necessary, like for long runs.

Delicious Dressing

One of my phone coaching/mentoring clients turned me onto this Annie’s dressing, Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette. It’s awesome!  I’m so glad she told me about this because I don’t think I would have picked it up otherwise.  Only 35 calories per tablespoon, all natural, vegan.  No SOYBEAN oil either.  :)   It’s kind of a sweet smoky flavor.  I liked it so much I knew I had to share it with you too.  And by the way, this certain client is kicking some serious “you-know-what”.  I’m so proud of her!  Not only has she met her goals and continued to set new ones, she’s stayed the course while also kicking her smoking habit recently.  Maybe someday soon she’ll let me write a profile about her.   ;)

Already on Vacation (in my head anyway…)

I am getting SO excited for my upcoming vacation.  (I’m being vague on specific dates right now for a reason, even if I do have someone watching the house for us.  Safety first!!)   I’m especially looking forward to seeing my cousin Kevin and his new ‘crib’, dinner and maybe a run with reader Carrie (also my cousin), going for a run with Cindy from A Sparkle a Day, and hopefully Berni (According to Berni) will get to join us.  And I think it’s supposed to rain in Denver the day I leave, so that’s good.  Because it’s always nice to be heading TO nice weather rather than having it be gorgeous out at home as you drive to the airport.  :)

Thanks to a comment from Carrie when I went on that RV trip, I’ll be doing a lot of “sight-running“.  I’d been a little sketched out to run in strange places all by myself.  But Carrie told me about one of her best runs while she was on a trip, so I took off my ‘scaredy cat’ suit and went out at all the cities we stopped in on during the RV journey.  And LOVED it.  So I hope to post some more ‘digital postcards’ for you while I’m gone.

I’m sure I’ll do some blogging while I’m there, but not to the extent that I did while I was on the RV trip with my mom and grandma last fall.  The one lesson I learned on that trip was that I can get a little TOO caught up in technology.  (Who..me??)  And I think I missed out on some good quality time with my family because I was constantly in a mad dash to track down some Wi-Fi so that I could get my posts uploaded.  I don’t want to make that same mistake on this trip.  So there may be a few “Best of FitFeat” posts along the way.  ;)   I figure if the DJs at my favorite radio station can replay their shows while they go on vacay, I can re-post some of my favorites!

Speaking of, I better continue with the packing extravaganza!  I’m a week-long packer!  The suitcase is out of the closet, the packing LIST-writing has commenced, and we’ll have to see if I can squeeze it all into one bag or not!

Have a TERRIFIC Tuesday!  I’ll see you next time!

– Shari B. =)

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Sprints and Crows

Apr 10

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 5 Comments

Hi friends!

Just wanted to drop in and say HAPPY SATURDAY!!  I hope that you are having a fabulous day!  Mine has been!  15 sets of sprint intervals this morning (in my VFFs), followed by some yoga.  Bueno!  I’m trying to learn to do the crow pose and not be scared of falling on my noggin. :)   I did it twice but very briefly – now I just need to learn how to stay IN the pose!

We also got two workouts in yesterday as well (lower body in the morning and 80 minutes of hills at night)…. I must be making up for lost time this week since I missed two days and then Thursday’s was a bit on the weak side.  Day 18 and Day 19 are posted now for Spring Slimdown – almost done now!  Good thing too, because I’m running out of room in the dropdown under that tab.  So I might have to figure out someplace else to keep those pages on the blog.

Last night I pulled out the last two Summoning Summer Crab Cakes from the freezer and made little sandwiches out of them, with some steamed asparagus on the side.  What an awesome dinner!  You have to try these salmon cakes — I will definitely be making another batch to have in the freezer because it was great to have them to make a fast meal in a pinch.

Well we are getting ready to settle in for the evening – we rented “The Blind Side” (and I think we are the last two people in the country to see it!)  I’m sure I’ll need a box of tissues, right?

See you next time!

– Shari B. =)

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Welcome to My Chapel

Apr 5

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 7 Comments

Good morning blog buds and happy Monday!  I can’t believe my extra-long holiday weekend is over already!  Wow, did that ever fly by!

I hope that you had a beautiful weekend.  It was a gorgeous day in Colorado for our Easter Sunday.  So MSP and I figured it would be a perfect morning to get in our first hike of the season.

Welcome to my chapel:

I always seem to be doing something outdoors with friends or MSP on Sundays.  I don’t belong to a particular religious denomination, so I always like to say that my outdoor jaunts are my “churchtime”.  :)

We had a great hike.  We’d initially intended to wear our VFF barefoot shoes – but it was a good thing we brought our trail runners along too because we ran into a lot of this:

Saw some neat things:

And posed for some pics :

We were out for a little over two hours and had a blast.  I’m so excited that hiking season is here again!  Maybe one of these years I’ll invest in some snowshoes so that hiking season can last all year long.

Did you do anything fun and fitness related over the holiday weekend?

***

The Spring Slimdown continues to creep along with the lowest weigh-in so far at a loss of 1.8 lbs over 13 days.  Getting there slowly and could make it faster if I was willing to be a bit more obsessive.  But right now, I’m not!

Make a great day!

– Shari B. =)



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