Do you suffer from lower back or hip pain? It could be your glutes…

Hello lovely people here. I’ve recently learnt a few things about the way my body works, and I want to share it with you – I suspect a few of you may also recognise my story.

I like to stay fit, and exercise four or five times a week – a mix of bootcamp, running, yoga, pilates. It keeps a smile on my face, and helps make allowances for the wine and chocolate in my life. I’d consider myself to be quite a fit person generally, but over the last few years I’ve had nagging back and hip pain which comes and goes, but more recently has been coming more than it’s going.

Last night an Osteopath saved my life…

Ok, so that’s a bit dramatic for a headline but it made me sing ‘last night a DJ saved my life’ so that’s lovely. In truth though, my visit to see the lovely Anna has been a revelation. She asked me so many questions, looked at the ‘whole me’ by talking about my underachieve thyroid and the impact it has on my life and body, and genuinely wanted to delve into the ‘why’.

Turns out I’m a bit wonky (from birth, apparently) but also that I have an underactive left glute too. A marathon runner with glutes that don’t work = sore back and hips!

So, before I jump headfirst in to getting my miles up for the London Marathon next year, I need to work on some core muscles first. Glutes and abs. As well as helping me avoid injury, it should also help me run faster (and maybe give me a figure like Beyonce?). Perhaps the last wish is a step too far, but the first two are definitely achievable.

The good news

It’s do-able – I can build my core and abs, but with smaller and much more intense moves than my usual bootcamp repertoire. So, I’m going back to exercise school and am using a circuit of pilates and pilates-type moves to build things up. Here’s what I’m doing…

• Skaters
• Copenhagen
• Bent Knee Side Plank
• Hip thrusters (with band)
• Single leg hip thrusters

Give them a go, and see if they make a difference! You might need to build up from small reps e.g. 4/5 like I did!

I’ve also bought myself some resistance bands to stabilise my exercises, which I’ve been using every day. I’ll share the bands I bought from Amazon below. They aren’t the cheapest available, but they do come with free training videos and recipes too, as well as a practical exercise card book to help you follow the training.

I’ve also booked on to Spin to keep up the cardio, and to help keep the lbs down 🙂

Happy squeezing, lovely people.

Tahlia X

Advertisement

Apple & Berries Oat Breakfast Smoothie

Here’s another throw back to keep us all motivated this week 👍🏻

How’s the ‘shaking it off’ going for you? Here at Mums In Real Life, we’re feeling mighty fine!

These yummy Oat and fruit breakfast smoothies have really given us a spring in our step this week.

Did You Know….?

That Oats are stacked full of vitamins, Fibre and antioxidants and are among the healthiest grains on earth.

Check out this link for all of the benefits:

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/9-benefits-oats-oatmeal

The breakfast smoothie for Day 5 is just delicious! Give it a go, it’s super easy…

Ingredients:

150ml Soya Milk

100ml Skimmed Milk

20g Oats

4 Strawberries

1 Apple (skin on, cored)

Handful of Blueberries

Method:

Pop everything (save a couple of blueberries to use as a dressing) into your blender and blitz. Pour and enjoy!

The Mighty Mango & Perfect Pear Smoothie

Here at Mums In Real Life, our healthy living reset is going well. How can we tell? Between the two of us, we have sore legs, sore arms and the ab zone is killing!

Check out our exercise cards, which have been generously created by our friend PT Craig at Keeling Fitness:

https://keelingfitness.com/

If you’ve been following us and joining (thank you!) in, you’ll know that we’ve started each morning with a breakfast smoothie! How simple and delicious – my youngest counted to 63 and my breakfast was prepped and blitzed!

The smoothie for Day 4 is Mango and Pear. In case you didn’t already know, Mangoes are a great source of Vitamin A & B. They’re also high in fibre, a good source of antioxidants and are low in calories.

Check out more info here:

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/health-benefits-mango

For this smoothie, we’ve married our Mango with Pears – a marriage made in heaven!

Pears have stacks of nutritional value and are a proven recipe aid to weight loss.

Check out more info here:

https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/fruit/pears.html

So, let’s get this party started!

Ingredients:

1/2 Mango – peeled and cut into chunks

1 Pear – cut into chunks

10g Porridge Oats

100ml Soya Milk

150ml Skimmed Milk

2 Ice Cubes

Method:

Pop all of the ingredients into your blender and blitz!

Thank You!

Here at Mums In Real Life, we are so inspired by others. Thank You for all of your support so far 👍🏻

Marathon Training: FINAL Week!

Wow, the last 16 weeks has been a blur of running, running and more running (with a lot of stretching, aches and very tight muscles).

I think it’s fair to say that the last week has been disastrous. On Tuesday, the class germs finally got the better of me, Friday saw the sick bug arriving and Saturday a seized vertebrae and trapped nerve in my back. Cue stretching, rolling and plenty of icing (not the fun type) and a shed load of Ibuprofen.

In desperation, my dear hubby agreed to pick me up and gently sway back and forward to help the aforementioned bone back into place – success! it worked, but am still a bit hobbly with just 6 days to go until I face the biggest challenge yet.

My amazing Chiropractor is going to sort everything out tomorrow, followed with a Sports Massage to help these aching muscles. Will it be enough? I can only keep everything crossed. Am going to try a very gentle run out tonight with my running buddies to test the water.

In the meantime, I’m not going to dwell. I’m going to keep myself busy with thoughts of food and hydration for the week.

Pre-marathon nutrition

Well, Carb-loading here we come…

I’ve done lots of reading up on the subject and advice seems to vary. From carb loading the whole week, to two three days prior to the big day. I think I’m going to go for the first three days of the week high in protein and fibre (and shed load of vitamins to help bolster my poor battered immune system) and then focus on higher card meals on Thursday/Friday/Saturday.

I’m going to plan out my meals every day to ensure I’m hitting the right Macros, and also monitoring my fluid intake more closely to ensure I remain hydrated all week. I’m feeling adventurous this week, so am going to try a few new recipes to help me stay on track.

One of the most interesting pieces of advice I came across was to eat a small meal on Saturday evening, like a sandwich or similar, to give my body time to digest the meal properly and to avoid being bloated and stuffed on Sunday morning. Breakfast will be 6am porridge, peanut butter and banana and I’m aiming to have an energy bar at about 8.

Monday

• Breakfast: Protein Pancakes with Banana, Strawberry and Peanut Butter
• Lunch: Open Malt Sandwich with Tuna and Olives
• Dinner: Salmon with Ratatouille
• Snacks: Fresh Smoothie with Almond Milk, Homemade Energy Bar

I’ll post the recipes and Macros a little later today. It’s day 1 of the Easter Hols, so the children are getting fed up of me being at the laptop.

Have a fab Monday, lovely people.

Tahlia x

HOW TO HANDLE LONG RUNS

SO, let’s start with the good news…we did it! We nailed our long run last week, running a thigh-aching 29 kilometres (that’s about 18 miles). I feel like we might be ready for this marathon. My knees ache, my Achilles insists on clicking after every long run and I have a proud collection of beautiful sweat spots.

I’m going to be honest – 29k felt like a bloody long way. It felt like we were running for days on end (it was more like three hours). We took Percy Pigs and electrolytes to help with energy levels (and run into Burger King, drive-by style to grab an apple juice at kilometre 25, startling shocked lunchtime burger-eaters and the young boy behind the counter).

Anyway, despite looking like loony running maniacs, it got me thinking. This marathon lark is so complex – running is just the start of it. Just one element. You need to gear yourself up so emotionally, build your body up physically with training, and also understand your physiology to work out how much water, gels, carbs etc you need to keep going.

So, I started looking in to the science of taking on board water during a marathon. Should I just grab a cup at every water point (and risk of taking on board too much water) or should I put in place a strategy to drink a certain amount for each mile I run? It’s fair to say I’m pretty confused by the recommendations…

Well, research varies quite a lot! There doesn’t seem to be one particular method which is the best – if you take too much you’re risking your health, if you don’t take enough you’re also risking your health. Results can also be improved with the optimum hydration, but do you take in a measured amount, or just drink as you go? For runs totalling more than an hour, it’s a good idea to hydrate before and after according to an article from Runner’s World

However when it comes to longer runs, there is differing advice: some camps say you should work out how much you dehydrate on a run by measuring your before and after weight, and work out how much fluid to replace when racing – others, like this article I found from the London Marathon suggests you will need 400-800ml of fluid per hour (and also has a few good tips for maintaining fluid levels). The main takeaway is you must be hydrated properly at the start of your marathon – that doesn’t mean gulping down water immediately beforehand, but ensuring your water intake is sufficient in the week, days and hours leading up to the big day.

Ensuring you’re sufficiently hydrated is also key to great performance, and some articles also suggest that being insufficiently hydrated is as detrimental as not putting in the hours running beforehand.

Having sufficient Glycogen levels on race day is also important (Glycogen is a form of sugar that can be easily stored by our muscles and liver) and I found another article from Runner’s World which helped me to understand how best to approach this beforehand and on the day.

If you’ve been following the blog for a while now, you’ll have started to realise that I’m the slummy one in MIRL! I’m also not an athlete or a runner, I’m just a mum who set herself a challenge, and I’m not one to shy away from that. What I’m also not is a sports scientist, specialist or expert. So, I was pleased to find another article by Runner’s World called ‘The World’s Simplest Hydration Plan’, which says I can just go with my thirst. Grab a drink at the stations, and give myself 10 seconds at each water station. Being one for a simple life – I’m going with that option!

I’m always keen to hear your thoughts, so if you have any tips for hydration before or during the marathon, I’d love to hear your suggestions.

Happy Wednesday lovely people.

Tahlia x

Simple Running Plan

So, I mentioned previously that Tahlia has inspired me to get my running shoes back on. This I have done and it’s been far more enjoyable than I thought it would be!

Now, hands up here. I’m not a complete novice. I have partially trained for a Marathon and with the help of a local running club, managed to regularly rack up 11 miles. However, the Marathon dream came to a gradual halt when I fell pregnant and said a very big hello to bad hips.

That was nearly 8 years ago. So it has been a while.

After talking to several good friends (who run a lot) & looking at some plans online, I pinched the following stock programme which is I have to say, really working for me.

Last week I started this simple (but daunting!) Plan and was so chuffed with myself for doing 2km. The following run I upped my game and shaved off nearly 3 minutes. Again, although I know it’s not that great a distance, I was so proud of myself!!

This morning…drum roll please…I achieved 3km without even realising it (I was catching up with a friend who was running on the treadmill next to me!) and inadvertently ran/walked 3km in less time than I’d ran/walked 2km last week. This is the sort of plan I like. One that makes you feel good, has positive impacts and at the same time sees you hitting achievable targets! Give it a go…👍🏻

Next up, the 5 day healthy eating plan for the kids has begun. Last week we drew up a menu which I hope encourages them to try a few new things 🤞🏻

First on the menu was Tuna and Pasta bake. Easy you might think? What’s innovative about that? Others might wonder. Well, it’s been off the menu for a while in our house (see previous blog). My youngest PROMISED to give it a go. My Eldest couldn’t wait to have it back on the table!

Full of goodness, easy peasy to make (will add recipe card) and the sort of meal you can add extra elements to jazz it up, this just needed to make a comeback.

I served it with mini corn on the cobs and lettuce on the side. After eyeballing the plate for a few moments, the verdict was in….