4 Critical Things Female Runners Should Know

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When it comes to keeping up performance in the face of menopause, Shona Hendricks has advice:

Don’t let menopause run you down

  1. Prioritize recovery! Overtraining without adequate recovery just leads to decreased performance in the long term, and remember, you may not recover as quickly as you used to. If you’re still achey from your previous run, give it another day, or at least make it a lighter run.
  2. Slow down in easy and long runs! This isn’t “taking the easy way out”; it will improve your overall performance, reducing muscle damage, allowing for quicker recovery and ultimately better fitness gains.
  3. Focus on nutrition! And that means carbs too. A lot of people fighting menopausal weight gain reduce their intake of food, but without sufficient energy availability, you will not be able to run well. In particular, carbohydrates are vital for energy. Consume them sensibly and with fiber and proteins and fats rather than alone, but do consume them.
  4. Incorporate strength training! Your run is not “leg day” by itself. Furthermore, do whole-body strength training, to prevent injuries and improve overall performance. A strong core is particularly important.

For more on each of these (and some bonus comments about mobility training for runners), enjoy:

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  • Before You Eat Breakfast: 3 Surprising Facts About Intermittent Fasting

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    Dr. William Li is well-known for his advocacy of “eating to beat disease”, and/but today he has advice for us about not eating to beat disease. In moderation, of course, thus: intermittent fasting.

    The easy way

    Dr. Li explains the benefits of intermittent fasting; how it improves the metabolism and gives the body a chance to do much-needed maintainance, including burning off any excess fat we had hanging around.

    However, rather than calling for us to do anything unduly Spartan, he points out that it’s already very natural for us to fast while sleeping, so we only need to add a couple of hours before and after sleeping (assuming an 8 hour sleep), to make it to a 12-hour fast for close to zero effort and probably no discomfort.

    And yes, he argues that a 12-hour fast is beneficial, and even if 16 hours would be better, we do not need to beat ourselves up about getting to 16; what is more important is sustainability of the practice.

    Dr. Li advocates for flexibility in fasting, and that it should be done by what manner is easiest, rather than trying to stick to something religiously (of course, if you do fast for religious reasons, that is another matter, and/but beyond the scope of this today).

    For more information on each of these, as well as examples and tips, enjoy:

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  • Hearty Healthy Ukrainian Borscht

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    In the West, borscht is often thought of as Russian, but it is Ukrainian in origin and popular throughout much of Eastern Europe, with many local variations. Today’s borscht is a vegetarian (and vegan, depending on your choice of cooking fat) borscht from Kyiv, and it’s especially good for the gut, heart, and blood sugars.

    You will need

    • 1 quart vegetable stock; ideally you made this yourself from vegetable offcuts you kept in the freezer, but failing that, your supermarket should have low-sodium stock cubes
    • 4 large beets, peeled and cut into matchsticks
    • 1 can white beans (cannellini beans are ideal), drained and rinsed
    • 1 cup sauerkraut
    • 1 large onion, finely chopped
    • 1 green bell pepper, roughly chopped
    • 1 large russet potato, peeled and cut into large chunks
    • 3 small carrots, tops removed and cut into large chunks
    • 1 tbsp tomato paste
    • ½ bulb garlic, finely chopped
    • 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • 1 bunch fresh dill, chopped. If you cannot get fresh, substitute with parsley (1 bunch fresh, chopped, or 1 tbsp dried). Do not use dried dill; it won’t work.
    • A little fat for cooking; this one’s a tricky and personal decision. Butter is traditional, but would make this recipe impossible to cook without going over the recommended limit for saturated fat. Avocado oil is healthy, relatively neutral in taste, and has a high smoke point, though that latter shouldn’t be necessary here if you are attentive with the stirring. Extra virgin olive oil is also a healthy choice, but not as neutral in flavor and does have a lower smoke point. Coconut oil has arguably too strong a taste and a low smoke point. Seed oils are very heart-unhealthy. All in all, avocado oil is a respectable choice from all angles except tradition.
    • On standby: a little vinegar (your preference what kind)

    Salt is conspicuous by its absence, but there should be enough already from the other ingredients, especially the sauerkraut.

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Heat some oil in a large sauté pan (cast iron is perfect if you have it), add the onion and pepper, and stir until the onion is becoming soft.

    2) Add the carrots and beets and stir until they are becoming soft. If you need to add a little more oil, that’s fine.

    3) Add the tomato paste, and stir in well.

    4) Add a little (about ½ cup) of the vegetable stock and stir in well until you get a consistent texture with the tomato paste.

    5) Add the sauerkraut and the rest of the broth, and cook for about 20 minutes.

    6) Add the potatoes and cook for another 10 minutes.

    7) Add the beans and cook for another 5 minutes.

    8) Add the garlic, black pepper, and herbs. Check that everything is cooked (poke a chunk of potato with a fork) and that the seasoning is to your liking. The taste should be moderately sour from the sauerkraut; if it is sweet, you can stir in a little vinegar now to correct that.

    9) Serve! Ukrainian borscht is most often served hot (unlike Lithuanian borscht, which is almost always served cold), but if the weather’s warm, it can certainly be enjoyed cold too:

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

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  • Why it’s a bad idea to mix alcohol with some medications

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    Anyone who has drunk alcohol will be familiar with how easily it can lower your social inhibitions and let you do things you wouldn’t normally do.

    But you may not be aware that mixing certain medicines with alcohol can increase the effects and put you at risk.

    When you mix alcohol with medicines, whether prescription or over-the-counter, the medicines can increase the effects of the alcohol or the alcohol can increase the side-effects of the drug. Sometimes it can also result in all new side-effects.

    How alcohol and medicines interact

    The chemicals in your brain maintain a delicate balance between excitation and inhibition. Too much excitation can lead to convulsions. Too much inhibition and you will experience effects like sedation and depression.

    Alcohol works by increasing the amount of inhibition in the brain. You might recognise this as a sense of relaxation and a lowering of social inhibitions when you’ve had a couple of alcoholic drinks.

    With even more alcohol, you will notice you can’t coordinate your muscles as well, you might slur your speech, become dizzy, forget things that have happened, and even fall asleep.

    Woman collects beer bottles
    Alcohol can affect the way a medicine works.
    Jonathan Kemper/Unsplash

    Medications can interact with alcohol to produce different or increased effects. Alcohol can interfere with the way a medicine works in the body, or it can interfere with the way a medicine is absorbed from the stomach. If your medicine has similar side-effects as being drunk, those effects can be compounded.

    Not all the side-effects need to be alcohol-like. Mixing alcohol with the ADHD medicine ritalin, for example, can increase the drug’s effect on the heart, increasing your heart rate and the risk of a heart attack.

    Combining alcohol with ibuprofen can lead to a higher risk of stomach upsets and stomach bleeds.

    Alcohol can increase the break-down of certain medicines, such as opioids, cannabis, seizures, and even ritalin. This can make the medicine less effective. Alcohol can also alter the pathway of how a medicine is broken down, potentially creating toxic chemicals that can cause serious liver complications. This is a particular problem with paracetamol.

    At its worst, the consequences of mixing alcohol and medicines can be fatal. Combining a medicine that acts on the brain with alcohol may make driving a car or operating heavy machinery difficult and lead to a serious accident.

    Who is at most risk?

    The effects of mixing alcohol and medicine are not the same for everyone. Those most at risk of an interaction are older people, women and people with a smaller body size.

    Older people do not break down medicines as quickly as younger people, and are often on more than one medication.

    Older people also are more sensitive to the effects of medications acting on the brain and will experience more side-effects, such as dizziness and falls.

    Woman sips red wine
    Smaller and older people are often more affected.
    Alfonso Scarpa/Unsplash

    Women and people with smaller body size tend to have a higher blood alcohol concentration when they consume the same amount of alcohol as someone larger. This is because there is less water in their bodies that can mix with the alcohol.

    What drugs can’t you mix with alcohol?

    You’ll know if you can’t take alcohol because there will be a prominent warning on the box. Your pharmacist should also counsel you on your medicine when you pick up your script.

    The most common alcohol-interacting prescription medicines are benzodiazepines (for anxiety, insomnia, or seizures), opioids for pain, antidepressants, antipsychotics, and some antibiotics, like metronidazole and tinidazole.

    Medicines will carry a warning if you shouldn’t take them with alcohol.
    Nial Wheate

    It’s not just prescription medicines that shouldn’t be mixed with alcohol. Some over-the-counter medicines that you shouldn’t combine with alcohol include medicines for sleeping, travel sickness, cold and flu, allergy, and pain.

    Next time you pick up a medicine from your pharmacist or buy one from the local supermarket, check the packaging and ask for advice about whether you can consume alcohol while taking it.

    If you do want to drink alcohol while being on medication, discuss it with your doctor or pharmacist first.The Conversation

    Nial Wheate, Associate Professor of the School of Pharmacy, University of Sydney; Jasmine Lee, Pharmacist and PhD Candidate, University of Sydney; Kellie Charles, Associate Professor in Pharmacology, University of Sydney, and Tina Hinton, Associate Professor of Pharmacology, University of Sydney

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • When You “Should” Be In Better Shape

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s easy to think that we “should” be many things that we aren’t. However, it can be counterproductive to implementing real change:

    The problem with “should”

    The word “should” often sabotages changes in mindset and habit formation. Saying things like “I should be further along” typically leads to frustration, feelings of failure, and ultimately a lack of motivation to take action. Yes, in the first instance, “I should…” can be a motivator, but when your goals are not achieved by the second session, and the “I should…” is still there, the subconscious says “well, clearly this is not working”. Even though the conscious mind can easily see the fallacy in that dysfunctional line of thinking, the subconscious is easily swayed by such things, and in turn easily sways our actual behaviors.

    Also, even before that, if goals feel impossible, people often do nothing instead of making small, manageable changes.

    So, what should we do instead?

    Step 1: assess your current lifestyle and priorities. Your current results are a reflection of past habits and actions, including dieting practices, inconsistent workouts, and lack of planning. Instead of searching for a “perfect plan,” first acknowledge your current lifestyle and priorities. Then, identify which habits are beneficial, which ones hold you back, and what common excuses you make. By understanding where you are now, you can create a sustainable plan that fits your life rather than fighting against it.

    Step 2: define your future lifestyle. It’s not enough to just set goals—you need to define what the lifestyle associated with those goals looks like. Recognize that real change requires adjustments in habits and routines. Don’t stress over whether these changes feel overwhelming; simply identify what might be necessary. Writing things down (and then consulting them often, not just putting them away never to be seen again) makes them more tangible and helps create a roadmap for progress.

    Step 3: make one small change today. Rather than making vague or overwhelming changes, start with one small, realistic step that aligns with your goals. Building momentum through cumulatively beneficial small actions leads to longer-lasting motivation. Also, instead of focusing on what you need to cut out, look for positive habits to add, as this makes change easier. Track your progress visibly—like using a checklist—and commit to revisiting and adding new changes weekly.

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  • What immunocompromised people want you to know

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    While many people in the U.S. have abandoned COVID-19 mitigations like vaccines and masking, the virus remains dangerous for everyone, and some groups face higher risks than others. Immunocompromised people—whose immune systems don’t work as well as they should due to health conditions or medications—are more vulnerable to infection and severe symptoms from the virus. 

    Public Good News spoke with three immunocompromised people about the steps they take to protect themselves and what they want others to know about caring for each other.

    [Editor’s note: The contents of these interviews have been condensed for length.]

    PGN: What measures have you been taking to protect yourself since the COVID-19 pandemic began?

    Tatum Spears, Virginia

    From less than a year old, I had serious, chronic infections and have missed huge chunks of my life. In 2020, I quit my public job, and I have not worked publicly since. 

    I have a degree in vocal performance and have been singing my whole life, but I haven’t performed publicly since 2019. I feel like a bird without wings. I had to stop traveling. Since no one wears a mask anymore, I can’t go to the movies or social outings or any party.

    All my friends live in my phone now. It’s a community of people—a lot of them are immunocompromised or disabled in some way. 

    There are a good portion of them who just take COVID-19 seriously and want to protect their health, who feel the existential abandonment and the burden of all of this. It’s really isolating having to step back from any sort of social life. I have to assess my risk every single time I leave the house.

    Gwendolyn Alyse Bishop, Washington 

    I was hit by a car when I was very young. I woke up from surgery, and doctors told me I had lost almost all of my spleen. So, I was always the sickest kid in my school.

    When COVID-19 hit, I started working from home. At first, I wore cloth masks. I didn’t really learn about KN95 masks until right around the time that COVID-19 disabled me. [Editor’s note: N95 and KN95 masks have been shown to be significantly more effective at preventing the transmission of viral particles than cloth masks.]

    I actually don’t get out much anymore because I am disabled by long COVID now, but when I do leave, I wear a respirator in all shared air spaces. My roommate and I have HEPA filters going in every room.

    And then we test. I have a Pluslife testing dock, and so we keep a weekly testing schedule with that and then test if there are any symptoms. I got reinfected [with COVID-19] last winter, and a Pluslife test helped me catch it early and get Paxlovid. [Editor’s note: Pluslife is a brand of an at-home COVID-19 nucleic acid amplification test, which has been shown to be significantly more effective at detecting COVID-19 than at-home antigen rapid tests.]

    Abby Mahler, California

    I have lupus, and in 2016, I started taking the drug hydroxychloroquine, which is an immunomodulator. I’m not as immunocompromised as some people, but I certainly don’t have a normal immune system, which has resulted in long-term infections like C. diff.

    I started masking early. My roommates and I prioritize going outside. We don’t remove our masks inside in public places. 

    We are in a pod with one other household, and the pod has agreements on the way that we interact with public space. So, we will only unmask with people who have tested ahead of time. We use Metrix, an at-home nucleic acid amplification test.

    While it’s not easy and it’s not the life that we had prior to COVID-19’s existence, it is a life that has provided us quite a lot of freedom, in the sense that we are not sick all the time. We are conscientiously making decisions that allow us to have a nice time without a monkey on our backs, which is freeing.

    PGN: What do you want people who are not immunocompromised to know?

    T.S.: Don’t be afraid to be the only person in a room wearing a mask. Your own health is worth it. And you have to realize how callous [people who don’t wear a mask are] by existing in spaces and breathing [their] air [on immunocompromised people].

    People think that vaccines are magic, but vaccines alone are not enough. I would encourage people to look at the Swiss cheese model of risk assessment. 

    Each slice of Swiss cheese has holes in it in different places, and each layer represents a layer of virus mitigation. One layer is vaccines. Another layer is masks. Then there’s staying home when you’re sick and testing.

    G.A.B.: I wish people were masking. I wish people understood how likely it is that they are also now immunocompromised and vulnerable because of the widespread immune dysregulation that COVID-19 is causing. [Editor’s note: Research shows that COVID-19 infections may cause long-term harm to the immune system in some people.]

    I want people to be invested in being good community members, and part of that is understanding that COVID-19 hits the poorest the hardest—gig workers, underpaid employees, frontline service workers, people who were already disabled or immunocompromised. 

    If people want to be good community members, they not only need to protect immunocompromised and disabled people by wearing a mask when they leave their homes, but they also need to actually start taking care of their community members and participating in mutual aid. [Editor’s note: Mutual aid is the exchange of resources and services within a community, such as people sharing extra N95 masks.]

    I spend pretty much all of my time working on LongCOVIDAidBot, which promotes mutual aid for people who have been harmed by COVID-19.

    A.M.: An important thing to think about when you’re not disabled is that it becomes a state of being for all people, if they’re lucky. You will become disabled, or you will die. 

    It is a privilege, in my opinion, to become disabled because I can learn different ways of living my life. And being able to see yourself as a body that changes over time, I hope, opens up a way of looking at your body as the porous reality that it is. 

    Some people think of themselves as being willing to make concessions or change their behavior when immunocompromised people are around, but you don’t always know when someone is immunocompromised. 

    So, if you’re not willing to change the way that you think about yourself as a person who is susceptible [to illness], then you should change the way that you consider other people around you. Wearing a mask—at the very least in public indoor spaces—means considering the unknown realities of all the people who are interacting with that space.

    This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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  • Hearty Healthy Ragù

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    Ragù is a traditional Italian meaty sauce with tomato, and is the base for a number of other Italian dishes. It can be enjoyed as-is, or with very minor modifications can be turned into a Bolognese sauce or a lasagna filling or various other things. Our variations from tradition are mainly twofold here: we’re using nutrition-packed lentils instead of meat (but with a couple of twists that make them meatier), and we’re not using wine.

    Traditionally, red wine is used in a ragù (white wine if you want to make it into a Bolognese sauce, by the way), but with all we’re doing it’s not necessary. If you want to add a splash of wine, we’re not going to call that a healthy ingredient, but we’re also not the boss of you

    You will need

    • 1 large onion (or equivalent small ones), chopped roughly
    • 1 bulb garlic (or to your heart’s content), chopped finely or crushed
    • 4 large tomatoes, chopped (or 2 cans chopped tomatoes)
    • 1 tube (usually about 7 oz) tomato purée
    • 1 cup brown lentils (green lentils will do if you can’t get brown)
    • 1 tbsp chia seeds
    • 1 tbsp black pepper, cracked or coarse ground
    • 1 bunch fresh basil, finely chopped (or 1 tbsp, freeze-dried)
    • 1 bunch fresh oregano, finely chopped (or 1 tbsp, freeze-dried)
    • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast (failing that, 1 tbsp yeast extract, yes, even if you don’t like it, we promise it won’t taste like it once it’s done; it just makes the dish meatier in taste and also adds vitamin B12)
    • 1 tsp cumin, ground (note that this one was tsp, not tbsp like the others)
    • 1 tsp MSG, or 2 tsp low-sodium salt
    • 4 cups water
    • Olive oil for frying (ideally Extra Virgin, but so long as it’s at least marked virgin olive oil and not cut with other oils, that’s fine)
    • Parsley, chopped, to garnish

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Put the lentils in a small saucepan, or if you have one, a rice cooker (the rice cooker is better; works better and requires less attention), adding the chia seeds, MSG or low sodium salt, and nutritional yeast (or yeast extract). as well as the cumin. Add 4 cups boiling water and turn on the heat to cook them. This will probably take about 15–20 minutes; you want the lentils to be soft; a tiny bit past al dente, but not so far as mushy.

    2) Fry the onion in some olive oil in a big pan (everything is going in here eventually if the pan is big enough; if it isn’t, you’ll need to transfer to a bigger pan in a bit). Once they’re nearly done, throw in the garlic too. If the lentils aren’t done yet, take the onions and garlic off the heat while you wait. After a few times of doing this recipe, you’ll be doing everything like clockwork and it’ll all align perfectly.

    3) Drain the lentils (if all the water wasn’t absorbed; again, after doing it a few times, you’ll just use the right amount of water for your apparatus) but don’t rinse them (remember you put seasonings in here!), and add them to the pan with the onions and garlic; add a splash more olive oil if necessary, and stir until all the would-be-excess fat is absorbed into the lentils.

    Note: the excess fat to be absorbed by the lentils was a feature not a bug; we wanted a little fat in the lentils! Makes the dish meatier and tastier, as well as more nutrient-dense.

    4) add the tomatoes and tomato purée, stirring them in thoroughly; add the basil and oregano too and stir those in as well. Set it on a low heat for at least 10–15 minutes, stirring occasionally to let the flavors blend.

    (if you happen to be serving pasta with it, then the time it takes to boil water and cook the pasta is a good time for the flavors to do their thing)

    5) take it off the heat, and add the parsley garnish. It’s done!

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

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