Well,
that’s it. 50-Day Challenge is
complete. At the time of this writing,
I’m actually on Day 52. I feel good. I may keep it going indefinitely. For the stipulations you can read a previous
post here. I also plan on posting the 50
workouts later this week.
Here
are some raw stats:
--Total
Miles Run: 370.1 miles
--Total
Calories burned during workouts (approximate):
42,350.
Also regarding
the 50-Day Challenge I have received several questions regarding the two
following topics: Allergies and
Injuries/Overtraining. Below I will
cover each topic in a little more detail according to my experience.
Allergies: Yes, I attempted this 50-Day Challenge in the
midst of a major season change in Central Texas where the weather already
suffers from multiple-personality disorder.
Allergies did not play a part in slowing me down one bit, because I do
not get allergies. Once upon a time, I
did. Itchy eyes, dry throat, itchy skin,
unexplainable rashes and chronic inflamed sinuses were my norm. Not any more.
Here’s my
take on allergies. We get allergies
because our bodies are out of balance.
The term “allergy” denotes that there are “allergens” or an “allergic”
reaction happening in our body. We (as
individuals) and Western medicine have the tendency to treat only the symptom,
or in the case of an allergy, the reaction itself. We never get to the root of the issue. From my study and experience all allergies
are the result of inflammation.
In
this regard, treating allergies is pretty simple:
--Get
rid of the inflammation, and you get rid of the allergy forever.
Make
sense?
To
put it another way. Let’s say I’ve been
suffering from itchy eyes. I put in eye
drops and they work sometimes. I take an
anti-histamine to help mitigate the symptoms, but even then, some days my eyes
are still going crazy. That’s because
the cause of my itchy eyes could be residual toxins stored in my liver from a
bad diet, chronic stress, etc. Because
there are toxins in my liver, my healing system is trying to catch up, so my
liver becomes slightly inflamed as a protective measure, but the resulting
imbalance has to be relieved somewhere else.
The result: my itchy eyes.
--But
if I rid myself of the source of toxicity to my liver, I will no longer have
itchy eyes, nor will I need to take allergy meds. Toxins gone=inflammation gone=allergies gone.
As
a side note, strenuous physical exercise actually provides an excellent detox
measure as it shakes loose residual toxins that are stored in organ tissues and
joints.
3 Recommendations to Stay Allergy Free:
1. Acclimate
Your Body to Outdoors:
The
typical Western lifestyle has us plastered to chairs, glued to screen and stuck
inside simulated environments our bodies weren’t designed for. The more time I spend outside, the more I’m
convinced of our body’s abilities to adapt and thrive in any environment. I mean seriously, how big of a bummer is it
when spring finally rolls around and we’re all stuck inside on the weekend
because the pollen is too high and we’re sneezing and coming down with a
fever? Stop the madness! Your body needs to acclimate to its natural
environment which is the outdoors.
Here’s the issue: Because many of us spend so little time
outdoors, our immune system is on over-alert and recognizes everything that is
not the perfect temperature controlled sit-fest we’re used to as a foreign
invader. What does our body to foreign
invaders? It goes into defense
mode. Spending more time outdoors
re-awakens our body’s healing system to the degree that it stops seeing pesky
villains such as pollen and sunlight as foreign invaders.
For further study on your healing system I
highly recommend Dr. Andrew Weil’s book SpontaneousHealing.
2. Wean
Off Of Allergy “Meds”:
We pop allergy “meds”, Tylenol, ibuprofen,
naproxen and other “anti-allergy” and “anti-inflammatory” substances like it’s
going out of style. There’s no telling
what this stuff is doing to our internal organs, but that’s a discussion for
another time. Meds should be looked at
as a type of intervention, not a part of our standard operating procedure.
Here’s how we should look at the use of
Meds: Pretend we have a friend who has
become addicted to meth and is out of control.
The friend needs rehab. So we, as
friends and loved ones, stage an intervention so our friend seek the help
he/she needs. The intervention is how
meds should be used. Imagine having an
intervention every time a friend or family member drank a glass of water. This is the equivalent to how we use meds.
Another point to be said about meds as
related to allergies is that the meds dull our sensations and mindfulness about
what is really happening in our bodies.
Pain and irritation are not bad things that need to be mitigated, they
are teachers and important signals notifying us of imbalance. By stuffing ourselves full of meds, we become
blissfully unaware of these signals and the root causes to which they are
pointing.
Weaning off the meds is important in
fostering the ability to listen to our bodies, identifying the source of
inflammation and eliminating the inflammation and allergy entirely.
3. Eliminating
Inflammation:
I’ve done this with diet and
exercise. I think the types of food one
should eat are different according to each person. While I do better on a high fat diet, others
may do better on high protein, or high carb.
A lot of this depends on blood type and what health issues we may be
facing or improvements we may want to make.
One general principal does apply:
Eliminate as many processed foods as possible.
The purpose of this elimination has
profound effects because unfortunately, most processed foods have chemicals and
substrates in them that our bodies cannot break down. Thus our bodies recognize these substances
as foreign entities and begin auto-immune responses, one of which is
inflammation. And guess what? Chronic inflammation has been linked to many
auto-immune diseases. But I’ve got great
news: We can control our immune system,
we just have to take back the reins.
Eating a proper diet is one of the first steps to this empowerment.
Oxygen is also very important in
releasing your body from inflammation.
Overloading on fresh fruits and veggies is one way to hydrate our cells
and flood metabolic processes with oxygen.
Studies have also shown that cancer cells cannot exist in an oxygen rich
environment. Drinking alkaline water is
another method of oxygenating our cells.
Though with the alkaline water I would recommend a gradual introduction
because doing it do quickly causes a pretty gnarly detox. Proper breathing is also a brilliant way of
ridding our bodies of inflammation and promoting long term health. I utilize a technique called developed by Wim Hof and I highly recommend it for a variety of reasons, but especially for the
anti-inflammatory benefits. Click: HERE for another link to the method.
Injuries
and Overtraining: I’m 52 days in with no “rest” or “recovery”
days and I haven’t had an injury. I
think the whole idea with overtraining is highly specific to each person. Douglas Ernst has written an excellent article
on the subject. There is some “adult” language in the
article, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Personally,
I think “overtraining” is a highly personal and can only be determined on a
case-by-case basis. What might be a
light day for me, might be another person’s threshold. The type of exercise is also important. Someone who has been powerlifting for the
past five years, isn’t going to be able to start running 50+ miles a week with
me cold turkey. In the same vein, I’m
not going to be able to hit the gym and rep 200 clean and jerks everyday like
some guys can. All in all, it comes down
to listening to our bodies and raising our level of belief.
Although
improving fitness has physical effects, in my view, the mental side of fitness
is 98% of the game. My experiment
running the Austin Marathon last year on a minimal training plan proved this
point to myself. I ran the course in 3
hours and 50 minutes on a training plan that incorporated speed and HIIT
training with no runs longer than six miles.
With that previous experiment, I listened to my body and I did what I
set out to do.
Ultimately,
our bodies are made to move, and we are designed to be moving most of the
time. As we push the envelope, we
continue to find that our minds and bodies are capable of much more than we
think. Take for example Dean Karnazes
who ran 50 marathons in 50 consecutive days, or James “The Iron Cowboy”
Lawrence who completed 50 Full Ironman Triathlons (that’s 170.6 miles total) in
50 consecutive days in a different state each day. Both of these men completed their challenges without
injury, and actually reported feeling stronger and faster on day 50. In the case of Karnazes, he actually ran his
fastest time on day 50. Although these
seemingly insane challenges go against the grain of conventional fitness
wisdom, challenges like the ones detailed may be key in opening up a new realm
of raw human potential.
On
a personal level, the more I train, the quicker I recover, which narrows the
gap between “necessary rest” and optimum performance. I believe our bodies will tell us when we
truly need rest. That’s what the
challenge has been about for me. Finding
my body’s true threshold and blasting through old paradigms regarding my mind’s
relationship to my body. Becoming more
mindful of the relationship has been the keystone in completing the challenge,
though there are a few practical rituals I adopt that have been very useful.
How
have I stayed injury free? One thing is
that I’ve been doing this for a few years now.
With endurance training, the more one trains, the quicker the body
adapts and facilitates recovery.
Consistency in training has been key.
Diet
is also huge. About 70% of my diet is
raw vegetarian or fruitarian. The other
20% is supplemented by whatever my wife cooks.
About 10% of the time we have cheat days where we eat junk (A pizza once
a week or a plate of enchiladas.) Nearly
100% of my diet is a whole food diet. I
don’t count calories. If my body is
telling me to eat more I eat. Some days
I hardly eat anything. Typically I have
a small breakfast, which is usually a smoothie or mixture of different fruits. For lunch will be some type of raw fruits and
veggies with hummus or salsa. Dinner is usually my big meal
and varies according to the day. As a
family, we eat a lot of legumes, rice, avocado and veggies stews for
dinner. Keeping diet in check aids in
making training easier and prevents inflammation, which…is also the culprit in
most injuries. (See a theme here
inflammation-allergies-inflammation-injury?)
Variation
also helps in staying injury free. If I
run the same route everyday for the same distance, my body and my mind will get
bored. Also my body will get seriously
out of balance. In order to stay injury
free, particularly for athletic performance with a bent toward endurance,
workouts must be varied. When all your
systems are strong it’s virtually impossible to suffer an overuse injury. See an older post I wrote here for more
detail: The Fitness Balance Scale.
I
hope that answered a few questions and demystified the process for some of
you. What challenges are you going to
take on?
Success
stories and further questions are always welcome.
