It doesn’t happen when I swim, or when I cycle – only when I run.
I’ll be doing fine, running along at an easy pace. My breath will be through my nose, both in and out. I’ll be breathing around 3-4 step pace.
And then. Around the second km… I get a stitch. Almost without fail.
And it’s driving me insane!
It’s really impacting my ability to run constantly for a decent distance (think 5k) and also my ability to speed up. I’ve been running regularly for about a year now, and it’s a problem that doesn’t seem to be going away.
In short – it’s the one thing holding me back from improving my running.
So, I’m putting out a plea – do you know how to prevent a stitch?
I have tried the following, with varied levels of success:
Diet – not eating for a good few hours before running, as well as WHAT I eat. I seem to get less stitches when I’m eating a strictly paleo diet.
Breathing – making sure to fully exhale, and exhaling when landing on my left foot, as I always get my stitch on my right side/shoulder.
Posture – tightening my lower abdomen, and also my middle/upper abdomen as I run. This gets pretty exhausting over longdistances.
However, the only thing that actually gets rid of it once a full-blown stitch has set in is to slow to a walk or stop, press on the spot, and/or bend over for a moment.
Current theory seems to suggest that it’s caused by organs pulling on ligaments, or an irritation of the parietal peritoneum – two layers of membrane that have a fluid layer between them in your abdomen.
I’ve often suspected that my bra has something to do with it. Ladies, can you confirm/deny this for me? I always seem to get the worst pain just under my breast – where my bra strap goes around my torso – and the shoulder pain is where the shoulder strap runs, too. Could the extra pressure from the garment be exacerbating the problem, I wonder?
Long story short – I’d love to hear what’s worked for you if you’ve managed to overcome this problem. Is it something that gets better the fitter you get?
There’s gotta be a solution – I don’t imagine all runners/athletes just push through the pain… or maybe they do?
So, Dr Michael Mosley’s Horizon documentary – Eat, Fast, and Live Longer – was on here in Australia the other week.
Nick and I watched it – and so did my parents.
Independently of each other (even though we live next door!) my parents and Nick and I decided to give it a try.
My parents, as they are both currently living with weight gain that’s been brought on by illness/medication over the last year or two, are keen to try it out to primarily lose that extra weight, but also (as my Dad had cancer last year) to reap the other potential health benefits of the diet.
Nick and I are both at pretty healthy weights, though I would like to lower my body fat percentage – I’d like to get down to an athletic level of body fat prior to next the next Triathlon season, which starts in September for me here in Australia.
So – what is the Fast Diet?
Basically, it’s a form of intermittent fasting.
You eat normally 5 days a week – yep, whatever you want! (Though Nick and I still eat primarily Paleo.) On the 2 ‘fast’ days, you eat 1/4 of your normal calorie/kilojoule intake, which equates to around 600 calories for men and 500 calories for women).
That’s it!! Super-simple.
What does it do for you?
Obviously, eating only a 1/4 of your normal intake of food twice a week is going to help you to lose weight if you need to.
However, the weight loss potential is not why I’m so eager to give this program a try. I am more interested in the potential long-term health benefits to my brain and cardiovascular system, as well as the potential to avoid diabetes and cancer in the long-term. Not that staying slim is a bad by-product, I’ve struggled with my weight like most women!
I took a snap from a page of The Fast Diet book that gives a summary of the potential benefits:
The science behind the benefits of intermittent fasting is very promising, and I’m going to be keeping an eye on human trials as they happen in future.
It also makes logical sense – after all, throughout most of human history, we did not eat constantly, all day/every day, without experiencing hunger.
Not surprisingly, intermittent fasting in some form is already popular amongst those in the Paleo community, as it does reflect how our ancestors would have eaten more accurately than our 3-6 meal a day Western model.
However! I’ve been hesitant to explore it as an option, because a lot of the anecdotal evidence I’ve read in the Paleo/Primal community has seemed to reflect the fact that it works really well for men, but not so well for women.
After seeing the Horizon documentary, however, the possible benefits indicated by scientific trials were too intriguing to pass up.
You can hear from the man himself in this short radio interview:
And so, here we are – one month for starters, to see how this particular form of intermittent fasting affects me, personally.
To eat according to the Fast Diet – the 5:2 Diet – a form of intermittent fasting – for one month.
Hypothesis
I hypothesise that this will be a relatively easy eating routine to stick to, and that I will see a drop in overall body fat AND therefore in my body fat percentage (I will be exercising as normal during this time). I hypothesise that I will find it so useful and positive that I will decide to continue eating this way once my month-long experiment is concluded.
Materials
The internet. Seriously, if you’ve seen the documentary, you don’t really need the book, though it does re-hash the scientific info nicely. I didn’t plan on buying it, but my Mum did, so I stole it and read it
Pin board – collecting 500 calorie meals from around th web.
Method
Fast days on Tuesday and Thursday, were I eat 500 calories split between 2 meals at around 11am and 7pm.
Days are flexible – can be moved if there is an event on, but must be at least 2 days per week, non-consecutive.
Drink as much black coffee, herbal/green tea, and water as I like throughout the day.
Follow this plan for one month. Easy!
Lab Notes
My initial measurements are:
Weight – 71.8kg. (I am 176cm tall – 5’9 – pretty tall for a lady!)
Waist – 75cm.
BMI – 23.2 (I’m not too fussed on this, as I’ve got pretty good muscle mass for a gal)
First 2 fast days were very easy. I felt a few hunger pangs, but nothing major. I felt no lack of energy or focus (though on Thursday, I was VERY sick with a cold and had what amounted to a 16-hour work day. And I coped). Boy did I enjoy my food, though! Eating very little in a day helps you to savour your food much more. I also drank copious cups of water, black coffee and green tea.
I was introduced to the 12 Days of Christmas type of workout in Booty Camp.
I love it because it’s a quick (this one took me 20 minutes), full-body workout, and it’s easy. Easy in that it’s just 12 exercises that you repeat over and over, so you don’t have to remember a complex sequence.
It’s also flexible – you can pretty much put any 12 exercises you like in there – you can do a full-body workout, or focus on legs or arms… so the basic format is useful over and over again.
So, what is it? Well, it’s a ladder-sequence modelled on the old 12 Days of Christmas song. You know – ‘on the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…’ then each day the recipient gets something new, plus each of the presents from the day before.
So, you choose 12 exercises, then work your way down and back up the ladder.
For example, here was the workout I did today:
It’s deceptively effective. When you start out, it feels really easy… but by the time you do that last lot of exercises you’ll be sweating like crazy, and feel pretty worn out!
This took me about 20 minutes to do, and I didn’t race through them. I’ll definitely be adding this in to my regular repertoire – I’ll probably come up with a few more full-body versions, then a couple of upper-body/core/lower-body versions, too.
I find that when I do a strength training workout like this, it really helps me to have it all planned out beforehand, so I don’t have to think while training – just follow what I’ve gotten written down. It means I can be a bit tougher on myself while I’m feeling nice and rested – if I go into a strength session and fly by the seat of my pants, I find I give up too quickly
I’d love to know if you’ve given this type of exercise a try – please share if you’ve got your own version of this or seen a good one somewhere!
Last week, I finished my first ever boot camp. Actually, it was a little different to a standard boot camp – it was, in fact, Booty Camp.
Booty Camp is an Australia-wide organisation offering the boot-camp experience in an all-female environment.
Why did I choose Booty Camp over a traditional boot camp?
Well, the all-female element was the real kicker – I enjoyed the thought of training exclusively with women, taking out the self-conscious element that training with guys can often engender, as well as the fact that – as women – we were more likely to all be on a similar level of fitness (in fact, there ended up being quite a wide range of fitness in the group, but we all kept up with each other). Also, no offence guys, but some of you REALLY need to learn what deodorant is…
So, I signed up and started Booty Camp on the 7th of January. Perfect time of year to kick off a new training programme!
I turned up not having any idea what to expect (though dreading the idea of those crazy tires-on-rope that I’ve seen other boot camp peeps using). Thankfully, our trainer Rosie owns a Vespa, so no tires for us! There was, however, a LOT of skipping and boxing, which I really enjoyed.
Each and every one of the 12 workouts over the 6-week training period were different, though they all incorporated core exercises like pushups, squats, crunches, etc.
So – what sort of results did I see?
Well, during the time I did BC, I was also doing triathlon training – though in a quite haphazard fashion, which usually consisted of swimming a kilometre 2-3 times a week, as well as running and cycling sometimes… plus a little yoga. However, BC was definitely the core of my fitness programme during this time, and I saw some fantastic results – most noticeably in my upper-body strength (the swimming no doubt contributed to this too).
One of the great things about BC is that you do a fitness assessment at the beginning and the end, so you can see just how far you’ve come.
Here are my results:
When I started, I could barely do one proper pushup (on my toes). I was a wuss and always did them on my knees, as I was trained when I was a teenager, because I was a girl, and that’s what girls did.
Pshaw, I say to that now! By the time I finished 6 weeks of BC, I could do at least 20 full pushups + more on my knees. I think I did 20 full ones and 16 knee ones within the 1-minute assessment period. That, my friends, is some awesome progress.
You can see that I improved across the board, though my upper-body and core strength improved the most, as they were my most-neglected areas up to this point. All the running I’ve done over the last year had already made my lower body reasonably strong, but I’ve still got plenty of room to improve in that area, too.
Overall, I really enjoyed the camaraderie of BC, I enjoyed being pushed and not having to think about what I was doing, just following orders, so to speak.
It also taught me that I’m capable of a lot more than I thought I was, and I’m now much more confident to go ahead and continue my own strength/callisthenics work independently.
Would I do it again? For sure.
It’s the sort of thing that would be useful once or twice a year to push you out of your rut, get you working out with others (I don’t use a gym, so don’t do this any other time) and to get a kick in the butt, too.
{an inexplicably fuzzy photo of me after my 2nd ever tri}
So yeah, I’ve totally been bitten by the Triathlon bug.
I just did my 3rd tri yesterday (funnily enough, the shortest one so far – 250/6/2 in 31.13 min) and I’ve already booked 2 more this summer, with the longer view to completing one or two full tri series next summer!
Up to this point, my training has been pretty haphazard – swimming 2-3 times a week with no real structure, running and cycling once a week (if that!) plus for the last 5 weeks I’ve been doing a boot camp 2 hours per week. Throw in a little bit of yoga and that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. Also – been eating WHATEVER I want, and that is starting to show. Whoops.
So, I’ve done a little mind voodoo on myself and signed up for my first ever full sprint distance tri on April 7. That gives me exactly 2 months to get serious with my training in preparation!
I’m going to be honest here and say I am kinda terrified by the thought of doing a full sprint tri – most especially the swim (my weakest sport). I know I can swim 750m – I swim 1k a few times a week – but I want to be able to do it 1)all freestyle and 2)in a decent time! So that is my focus. That, and I want to increase my running pace, because it is woefully slow. Not sure if I need to look at my gait (I don’t get much knee lift – my Dad was watching my tri yesterday and he compared my run to a powerwalk!) so not quite sure how to go about that.
I’m also getting serious about keeping records – weekly weight and measurements, as well as keeping track of what I eat – thinking about going back and using My Fitness Pal again for this. Nick and I are doing another 30 Days of Paleo in March, so that will be really helpful to drop a few extra kilos of fat. I’ll have to make sure to eat a LOT of sweet potato for energy, though!
I found this awesome site today – Beginner Triathlete. They have heaps of fab info – especially helpful are the training programmes. I’m starting on Month 3 of the Sprint Tri 2x Balanced plan as of tomorrow.
Doing that + 2-3 strength training sessions per week will be just what I need to whip myself into shape for that April sprint tri. I’ve got 2 months to prepare. Wish me luck, people!
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