#HLS Saturday: A Day Of Learning

After the previous days tour and party I woke up on Saturday refreshed and excited for the conference to begin. I started the day bright and early running with a few fellow attendees:

It was early enough that there was an amazing view waiting to greet us in front of our hotel:

I managed a 3.5 mile run and 1 mile walk which was a great way to open the day of a healthy living summit. There was a first for me this morning, actually two firsts.

1. The first time I’ve ever run with anyone who wasn’t my wife or kids.
2. The first time I’ve run in downtown Chicago. Even though I live in the burbs I’ve only been running for a few months so I’m not quite Mr Explorer when it comes to running yet.

It was actually really nice running downtown for a change. Not only was the change in scenery amazing to look at but the path was well kept and there were actual working water fountains every quarter mile or so. Kudos to Chicago for keeping it clean and friendly to all!

No morning would be complete without some good coffee:

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While I didn’t manage to talk anyone else into getting coffee with me that didn’t prevent me from enjoying it.

The Summit

After cleaning up and enjoying a great breakfast from Thomas, Stonyfield, and Quaker (thanks!) the summit began in full force. The sessions I attended were:

• The Keynote
• Fueling for Fitness — Perform Well And Recover Quickly From Your Workouts
• Stepping Up Your Blog Photography
• The Ups And Downs Of Pressing Publish — Getting Real About the Blogging Community
• The Five W’s of Strength Training
• Stop Staring Over Your Shoulder — How To Avoid the Self-Comparison Trap

Since this is shorter recap posting (yea short right) I’m not going to go into huge depth on all of the sessions but I do want to share some tidbits that hit home with me for a few of the sessions … I’m also planning few other postings in the future that were inspired by these sessions.

Fueling for Fitness

This presentation was presented by Rebecca Scritchfield of Balanced Health and Nutrition and Heather Calcote of Dietician on the Run. I was very excited when I saw this on the schedule given how my wife and I have had bonking and post workout energy issues in the past.

Pre-Workout

• Try to have a meal or snack around 1-2 hours before working out
• Fresh, dried, or frozen fruit, low fiber carbs (yes white bread is good), oatmeal, fig newtons, or peanut butter & crackers. Essentially you want something high in carbs, low to moderate protein, and lower in fat as fat is hard to digest.
• Avoid dairy, too much juice, fat, or high fiber as it may cause GI issues like dumping syndrome
• Try to drink water or a sports drink 15 minutes before and during your exercise

Hydration During Workout

• Goal is at most 2% body weight loss during a workout
• Workouts < 30 minutes water is sufficient
• Workouts > 30 minutes use electrolyte and carb replacement sports drink
• Workouts > 2 hours use an endurance sports drink
• Avoid flavored waters, fruit juice, and soda due to acidity, high sugar, and low electrolytes (see dumping syndrome above)

Fueling During Workout

• Fuel before you feel tired
• Workouts < 60 minutes you should have adequate stores in your body
• Workouts 60 – 75 minutes should require 100 – 250 calories
• Workouts > 75 minutes consume 1-2.5 gels or a 60 oz sports drink each hour
• A good refueling option is Honey or Agave. Honey packs have ~16g of carbs per packet and are free at Starbucks (5 finger).
• You can also try Bars, Sports Gels and GU’s. The key is convenience and using what fits your body.

Recover After Workout

• Whatever you consume the ideal ratio of carbs to protein is 4 : 1
• Some people carry pizza for their post workout fuel
• Other options are fruit, bagels, smoothies, and drinkable yogurts
• Chocolate milk recently beat a leading sports recovery drink in aiding in post workout recover due to it’s ideal carb to protein ratio.

I can’t wait to try out this information during my next run especially since I have an excuse now to drink Chocolate Milk.

The Ups And Downs Of Pressing Publish

This was a panel discussion led by Anne P. and contained Heather, Julie, Sana and Andrea. A few random things I learned and / or took away:

• I don’t blog enough about my bad eating side … it’s there, just something I consciously and subconsciously never really blog much about. From time to time I post something but that might give the wrong impression to people that I don’t eat bad often.
• Our community is a powerful force and as a blogger I am influential in my own small way.
• It’s important as a blogger to engage the blogging community more. I think I’ve done a fair amount of this but certainly not enough. A big step for me was attending this conference.
• We’re all story tellers and pushing publish gives everyone access to whatever story your telling on your blog.
• I failed to share my story … by the time I had the nerve to share my story of why I started blogging and how it has helped me the discussion was over. Talk about nerves fail! No worries though, I’m sure I can manage a blog posting on the topic.

Stop Staring Over Your Shoulder

This was another great session that was led by Caitlin and Gena and had lots of great bits of advise embedded within it. This is far from the entire list of the insight presented but it was the things I made note of that struck a chord with me.

• Everyone should go check out Katie and read her posting entitled How blogging Changed My Life. It’s a very moving story and a great read.
• I want to make a Green Monster, I don’t know why I haven’t yet. Scared of Spinach maybe? No I’m not doing it because everyone stood up except me when asked if they’ve tried it, I honestly just want to try one.
• There are downsides to food (or fitness) blogging like food fads (gluten free, allergy free, raw, diet plans etc) and orthorexia.
• There are upsides like new recipes, culinary inspiration, and inspiration to re-evaluate set lifestyle ideas.
• I should share more of my success and failure during my journey, it’d help people relate more to me and my blog. I certainly have failed a lot, I’m just not always posting about them.
• It’s important to distinguish your reality from other peoples reality. Sounds simple enough but how many people can truly say their blog is distinctive? It’s ok to be different, really it is.
• Perfectionism is not healthy … we should be focused on being healthy, not being perfect.

I’m certainly planning to watch this session again when it’s available online because I found myself contemplating the ideas presented during the session getting into my own head and zoning out … attention fail!

Boxing Baby

After a long day at the summit I was so ready for a workout to get my blood flowing. The folks over at LA Boxing put together a free class for attendees to try out a boxing workout.

While more people were supposed to attend it ended up being only Mindy and I which honestly was actually kinda cool. We had the trainer pretty much one-on-one for a killer workout.

First we did a 15-20 minute circuit workout with 15~ different stations. I was absolutely dying when it was done and I’ve been doing circuits for most of this year and felt like my circuits fitness was solid. Man did I get schooled … I now have to find some new highs.

We then moved on to doing some bag work doing 1 min moves followed by 15 seconds of rest for about 15 minutes. Again, I was maxed out during the bag work. I kept pushing it and never gave in though … I think this impressed the trainer some, at least I like to think so. My form was off a lot but he worked with me repeatedly on trying to clean it up.

That was followed up with about 15 minutes of shadow boxing in front of some mirrors focusing on form. I think doing this before the bag work would have helped my form a ton. I now know proper form for a jab, hook, and uppercut.

Finally we finished up with about 10 minutes of bag work again doing 1 minute circuits working through the punches again as fast as possible followed by 15 seconds of rest. I was sweating like crazy and pretty much just wanted to collapse on the ground after we were done. I did manage a few minutes of stretching but I was cooked.

Thanks to LA Boxing for putting this class together. It was an awesome workout and has really peaked my interest in boxing as a workout option … and … I found a location in the suburbs near our house. I’m gonna see if Amy wants to try it again with me.

Our Indian Feast

After a long day at the summit and a killer workout a bunch of people met up later in the evening for a great indian dinner.

We had some great appetizers (I’m not sure what all of it was but it tasted great).

I ordered one of my favorite Indian dishes, Chicken Muckney.

The End

Well not quite, I have one more posting about Sunday mornings happenings that I’ll post tomorrow.

The conference was a lot of fun and it was great to finally put faces (and voices) to some of the blogs I’ve read for a while now. It was also great to meet so many new bloggers. It’s always refreshing and revitalizing to surround yourself with like minded focused people all with a common goal … living a healthy lifestyle.

I’ve already subscribed to everyone (yes everyone) of the blogs from the conference. I’m an equal opportunity reader that gives everyone a few reads to catch my interest.

• A New Found Confidence In Everything I Do
• Another Friday Weigh In Fun Day
• Friday Link Love
• The Day Of Being Dizzy
• Sumo Marathoner Should Have Received DNF