I have heard this slogan before, I have seen the photos that often accompany it – women who have not eaten anything for a day so that their six-pack is visible, women who not only have muscles but are in fact skinny as well.  I have never thought much of it and just shrugged it off as yet another ‘fad’ doing the rounds on Pinterest, but I realise now that on some level these kinds of photos have changed the way I think someone fit should look like.

The post on Fit & Feminist blog points out that “skinny” and “strong” are actually describing different things so should not be compared at all – “skinny” refers to how one looks, “strong”, however, refers to what one’s body is capable of doing.

A light bulb moment for me. Strong is not the new skinny. Strong has nothing to do with skinny or not skinny. Strong is what you can DO.

Yesterday I had a great CrossFit session at lunchtime, I achieved a PB in back squat (5×3 reps at 50kg last week, 60kg this week :) BUT I was feeling off in the evening.  I was feeling tired and hungry, and frustrated that I was feeling tired and hungry… even though I’ve either ran or done CrossFit for 4 days in a row. And I was frustrated that after 8 months of CrossFit my arms are still fat and my muffin top still keeps revealing itself when I don’t stick to strict no-grains diet for a few days.

I had started to do something that I always keep telling people not to do – I was comparing myself to others. Probably without realising I was comparing myself to the women who are usually seen on the ‘Strong is the new skinny’ images and definitely also to the few women in my CrossFit classes who have very nice muscles.

Reading this post snapped me right out of this negative mindset, it reminded me why I exercise – I don’t do it to enter competitions where I’m judged by how I look, I do it to feel strong.

I remembered that I am all for inspirational quotes and photos but I don’t pin photos that display muscular women just posing – I prefer photos showing what someone can do, like this one or this one.

I remembered that even though I love CrossFit, I don’t aspire to look like the fittest woman in Europe and in general I don’t get a lot of the CrossFit photos that are out there (squatting heavy weight in hot pants just does not make sense to me).

I remembered that I don’t buy women’s magazines, even fitness ones (other than Women’s Running).

And I promised myself to cut myself some slack for not having a six-pack and to just enjoy what my body can do.

How do you cope with being bombarded by images of what ‘fit’ looks like?  Can ‘fit’ or ‘strong’ be put into photos at all?  Could  ’fit’ or ‘strong’ be photographed without showing off every inch of someone’s insanely toned body?  Does any of what I just wrote make sense to you? ;) 

On Thursday we did sumo deadlifts. I got up to 60kg for the last 3 reps. Watch out Beyonce, this booty’s going to be nicer than yours one day! :)

The workout was 4 rounds of:
5 Hang power clean
5 Shoulder to overhead
5 Lunges per side, with barbell
- Rest 1min

I did the first round with 30kg but after the 4th lunge fell over :| I quickly took 5kg off the barbell and completed the workout with 25kg. It is ridiculous how hard it is to do lunges with a weight.

Other than that we did of course the usual ‘warm-up’ of running, pull ups, push ups, kettlebell lunges, etc. I can’t wait to see what next week has in store :D

By the way, the CrossFit Games European regional competition was on this weekend – check out what kind of badass stuff went down – http://games.crossfit.com

Views like this – what’s not to love??

The first 5km were a bit hard because I got dizzy, I think I was dehydrated. I always have water with me though so after that distance everything started to feel better and I had a great 15km run in the woods just listening to great music, enjoying the sunshine and loving running at a pace that feels comfortable and awesome all the way.

The common is hilly but it just adds to the ‘adventure’ of it all.

I loved the surroundings so much I collected the husband and the kids as soon as I got home and we spent the afternoon there just letting the boys be boys and breathing in fresh forest air for a change.

The boys continued the construction of a little hut we found

A Saturday that fully charged my emotional as well as vitamin-D batteries :)

The weather gets to me, I can’t help it. My husband keeps saying that we didn’t move to London because of the weather and I get it – I need to lower my expectations.

The run was hard but only because my legs were sore from Tuesday’s epic Crossfit session involving pistols (one-legged squats), weighted back squats and hip hinges. I concentrated on my running form, trying to lean forward from my ankles, lift up legs using my glutes and hamstrings instead of my quads and keep hands moving straight next to my body without them crossing over.

It’s funny this learning to run ‘properly’ thing – yesterday it took almost all the joy out of my running and when I got home I thought – “Stuff it, I just want to run! Just the way I run, just at the speed where it’s enjoyable!”

But of course I know that I have a competitive side and that side will not let me jog on at a comfortable speed, that side keeps pushing me out of my comfort zone. I think the key for me is to agree with that side of me that once a week it’s ok to have an easy fun run.

Since Wednesdays are my days off work, the rest of my day went by in the usual whirlwind of collecting my youngest from the nursery, spending time with him at a soft play centre because our house is cold/dusty/noisy from the renovation, picking up my oldest from school, taking them out for dinner, arriving at home when it’s already their bath time.

As a result of being on the go most of the day I snacked a lot yesterday, never really feeling full and kept therefore eating until almost 9pm. I just don’t know how to do this little and often thing right – it almost seems like proper meals with a couple of little snacks in between works better for me.

But anyway, my oldest son wouldn’t fall asleep at night for ages. I know he had swimming anxiety – he hates going swimming on Thursdays because the pool they go to is freezing cold and he hates that. Then he remembered something that had happened at school earlier and then it all spiraled into “I’m having the worst day of my life! I wish I had never been born!” etc.

Oh my. Parenting is a hard gig. I want my kids to be confident and secure in themselves and optimists in every situation but if it’s taken me over 35 years to sort of get to that mindset then I realise that they have a long way to go.

And it’s hard for me to accept that my kids will go through all the sh*t that I went through as a child / teenager / young adult. All the years of figuring out the world and yourself and where you fit in it. Tough stuff.

The good thing is that before I fell asleep my other half made me laugh so much I was in tears and this morning I woke up to bright sunshine and a great deal of the doom&gloom had lifted from my mind.

There will always be bad days. The days when my legs are too heavy and sore to run, the days when the kids say things they don’t mean, the days life just feels a little too overwhelming.

But these days pass. They always do. I have to believe that they do :)

I have been blogging for 8 years and have been to several blogging conferences. This year I no longer update my parenting blog, I have this one here instead and it’s totally perfect that my first blogging conference in 2013 was not a parenting one (two of those will come later on this summer) but one for running bloggers.

A few days before the event I realised that I hadn’t ordered any new ‘business’ cards with my new blog name but when I got there it turned out that no one had them and no one actually needed them – most of us knew each other already! In a crowd of just 50 it was easy to spot familiar faces and the day went by way too fast in a happy blur of being inspired by every speaker and catching up with people who already felt like old friends.

That’s my purple bum

At the end of the day we went for a 5km run, there was an olympian leading the group but I was so far behind he looked like a little dot in the distance :) My knees were actually giving me a bit of trouble and I decided then and there that I’m easing off this barefoot running thing. A running coach we heard, Karen Weir, demonstrated different elements of good running form and I realised that I can improve my form without focusing on landing on the forefoot so much. Leaning forward from my ankles, keeping the cadence up, learning to lift my legs using my hamstrings and glutes will all be good for me in the long run. The foot will naturally hit the ground more towards the middle of it rather than straight on the heel but from now on my focus will be on all the other elements of good running form – my ankles, feet and calves are simply not ready for full-on forefoot running.

Sitting in the train later on and heading home, I tweeted Liz and Laura to suggest that next year we start earlier and have at least an hour scheduled in for mingling and taking photos. I would have liked to say hi to absolutely everyone, I would have liked to sit down in a huge circle and have everyone say a few words about them (and then we’d have a big group hug ;)  I wanted to mention a lot of people here by name and blog but started putting together a whole page of great running blogs instead. Stay tuned!

The great thing is that it looks like the amazing gals of Write This Run have more events planned so I’m keeping my eye on what’s happening and hoping to catch up with my running/blogging friends sooner rather than later again.

All in all – it was a great day and I’m buzzing with new love for running and blogging!

PS. For other posts about the event, check out Write This Run’s Facebook page.

I still don’t eat foods that obviously have sugar in their ingredients but I have gotten a bit too addicted to Genius gluten free bread which does have some sugar in it, and I am snacking way too much on things that have a lot of fructose – nakd bars, Trek bars, raisins, dates, more raisins…

As a result I found myself starting to feel a slave to cravings again – wanting to eat more of sweet stuff, wanting to eat something sweet after every meal.

At one point on Saturday I just stopped in my tracks in whatever I was doing and almost said out loud “It’s time to go back to square 1. Sugar free means eating vegetables, fish, meat, eggs, nuts, fresh fruit, it doesn’t mean eating fructose sweetened jam on gluten free bread or nakd bars after every meal or instead of a meal.”

There is nothing wrong with dried fruit but the issue for me is that more than a small quantity of that sweetness and the moderation button in my head gets turned off just like what eating regular sugar does (did) to me.  And nothing makes me more miserable than the feeling of craving for something sweet, the feeling of finishing a meal and instead of thinking “That was a nice meal.”, thinking “What else can I have now?” or “What ‘treat’ will I have now?”

So the reset button has been pressed. Instead of oats + coconut milk/cream + lots of raisins for breakfast (a combination I totally adore and will eat without the raisins at some point again) I had 3 fried eggs with a roasted beetroot :)  My first thought after finishing was “I could have something else now.”, but I just cracked on with work and before I knew it it was 11am and I had a pear.

For lunch I had steamed salmon with beetroot again (I roasted a few large ones last week) as well as different pulses and some cucumber.  I have a chocolate Co-yo coconut yogurt in the fridge for later on but right now I’m full and happy.

The next hurdle will be after dinner – I have a terrible After Dinner Snacking Habit. Yesterday I thought I’ll try to give it up, but then remembered the tagline of one of my favorite blogs:

Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.

I will therefore not try. I will simply do it.

So the plan for now is: non-sweet breakfast and no snacking after dinner. Fresh fruit and a sweet cane-sugar-free treat during the day once in a while is ok.

Does anyone have any good tips to give me when it comes to snacks/treats that are not overly sweet? There are so many recipes out there for great clean treats but they all use dates or raisins as a base, I’d like to find something that’s between a lärabar and a boiled egg. Not literally but you get the idea :). Maybe something with sweet potatoes as a base? Or even pumpkin?

Today everyone knows that there ain’t nothing wrong with real food – avocados, full fat butter and all coconut products do all have plenty of fat but it’s all natural and therefore much better for us than artificial low fat foods. Coconut products are especially good for us in many many ways – my friend Lisa has just written about it so I won’t repeat everything here.

I have been using coconut oil for cooking for almost a year and we make bircher muesli type of breakfast with coconut cream, oats, raisins and seeds on a regular basis. Last night I made coconut cream ice cream for the first time – I have seen recipes floating around but I was a bit sceptical as to whether it was going to look and taste like ice cream and whether the kids were actually going to eat it.

The ice cream passed both tests! It amazingly does taste like ice cream and the kids love it. I will be making loads of this in the summer, probably trying a mango version next. The treat is amazingly easy to prepare and any recipe that is fast and uses few ingredients that are all real foods is a winner in my book:

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Coconut chocolate ice cream

Prep time: 2 min, freezing time: 4-6 hours

Ingredients
- 1 can coconut cream
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method
Chuck all ingredients into a food processor for a minute.
Transfer to a container and freeze.
Let defrost a bit before scooping into bowls.

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Have you tried coconut ice cream? Do you have any good flavours to recommend?

NOTE – Added 19 May 2013: This treat is best eaten on the same day. Once it freezes completely overnight or even a few days, it’s very hard to defrost :(  So make a little batch at lunchtime for dinner and it’ll be nice and creamy, but don’t leave any for the next day! 

Last week I was reading an interview that Kaisa Larkas did with Muireann Carey-Campbell and one thing that she said spoke so loudly to me that I have been thinking about it ever since:

I work out because I love my body, not because I hate it.

Read it again.

Does that not sound perfect to you?? Did you not just have an “Aha!” moment??

How often do I still hear women say “I have to drag myself to the gym, I still have 2kgs of baby fat to loose. Ugh.” or “This cake looks great, I have to have it – but the Diet will have to start tomorrow!” ?

Think right now:

Do you exercise because you don’t like your body OR do you exercise because you love your body and moving it makes you feel good/strong/happy/healthy?

Do you deprive yourself from all the foods you think taste nice because you don’t like your body OR do you feed your body the best real food there is (even when it’s cake made with real butter, real cream, etc.) because you love your body and eating this way makes you feel good/strong/happy/healthy?

The mindset of deprivation has definitely not worked for me. For years and years I focused on what I should NOT do or eat. These days I think the other way around, I think what I can do to ADD to my life – go for a walk/run/etc., let the kids get messy, go to bed earlier and forget about the ironing :) and eat loads of fresh and REAL food because — eventually the good stuff will crowd out the bad so naturally that you don’t even notice that you don’t want cake all the time.

What do you think?

P.S. The photo is totally random. I took it today and just think it’s cool.

A friend’s hens day at a spa could not have come at a better time – on Saturday I got to soothe my aching muscles by swimming, getting a massage and lounging in the hot tub or just out in the sun.

It was an incredibly sunny day in a beautiful place with friends old and new. By the time we got into the taxi at 8pm to come back to London, I felt like I had had a glorious holiday somewhere far away.

Cliveden House is a famous place, by the way. It used to be the meeting place for politicians in the 20s and 30s (Wikipedia says ‘political intellectuals’ but that’s a bit of a contradictory term in my opinion :), in the 60s it was the hotel where the then Secretary of State for War was getting to know the beautiful Christine Keeler (I’m sure everyone knows this photo of her).

The only hiccup to the day was the fact that it’s possible that we stopped a woman from getting proposed to. In the evening we took a boat ride which turned out to include a couple in addition to us. They probably though they’d be alone. He was extremely chatty the whole time (you know how some people talk a lot when they’re nervous), she didn’t say a word (she was probably the other type – the type that doesn’t talk when they’re nervous). They were both dressed up much more than is necessary for a little boat. If we did barge in on his plans to propose (apparently that boat ride is popular for those events), then ooops :) I hope he found another time and place. Maybe the place that is famous for an affair isn’t the best for a proposal anyway :)

Practicing a handstand on a Monday evening.
Totally normal :)

I was thinking the other day that although I tweet about CrossFit a lot, I haven’t been blogging about it much.

Is it because of little comments I’ve heard from people? That CrossFit is a bit extreme? That it’s a sure way to get injured? That it’s just an American fad?

It might be because of that. It might be because it’s been exhausting explaining CrossFit to people who don’t get it and don’t want to get it.  It doesn’t help that when people Google “CrossFit” they mainly get a lot of images of very beefy topless men and very buff women who only seem to work out in a bra and hot pants?

Maybe that’s why I haven’t written about it much. After all – what is my mother-in-law going to think? First I give up sugar AND gluten AND dairy, run a marathon and now I lift weights in hot pants?!?

It’s totally not like that though. In my box I’ve only seen one pair of hot pants (they were on a visiting American and thankfully we didn’t do deadlifts that day) and the guys keep their shirts on most of the time.

I don’t go to CrossFit to be part of some crazy topless cult. CrossFit is just a lot of fun. It’s simple as that. It’s challenging and hard but every time I do something I didn’t think I could do – learn a new skill or lift a bit more weight – and THAT is a great feeling that cannot be explained in words.

Up until now I have actually taken it relatively easy with the heavy weights. In the beginning I wanted to figure out the mechanics of each lift and exercise before I went all crazy with weight. A few months in when some things were starting to sink in (although don’t ask me what the difference between push press or push jerk is) I remained cautious because I had a marathon to train for and did not want to risk getting injured.

Since I started going back now after the marathon, I have not reserved any energy for ‘later’ – it’s been full force ahead at every session. Of course I have been so freaking sore that some days I can’t sit, stand OR walk properly.  But it’s all good! “Today’s pain is tomorrow’s strength” is what I’ve read somewhere, so as long as it’s not injury pain but just plain old DOMS, I’m happy.

So maybe CrossFit IS a bit crazy :) But until you lift some weights, you’ll never know how that can feel like such an achievement.

It’s Badass Stuff.  It’s the stuff that makes me feel like I can handle life. Because life can be hard… life where you juggle a zillion things with the responsibility of being a parent weighing on your shoulders can be hard.

But CrossFit makes me unafraid. It makes me try things that are not easy, it pushes me out of my comfort zone and I’m hoping that the stronger my body gets, the stronger my mind gets. I need it to be strong to not feel overwhelmed by life. When I look at life in bite size pieces and just one push-up at a time – it’s beautiful :)

So that’s why I love CrossFit. It gives me strength. Both literally and figuratively… and it’s the perfect partner to my running – strength and long-distance endurance go well together.

And did I mention CrossFit is FUN and everyone is friendly, encouraging, non-judgmental and easy to hang out with?? :) And I don’t need to mention that weight training is important as we get older, right? :)

Here’s a little video (warning: contains hot pants):