Unhappy love

I went to a physiotherapist yesterday. My right leg that spends more time hurting than not hurting was getting bad even for itself and I've signed up to run Aarhus Halvmarathon on Sunday. As there wasn't enough time to go to the doctors and I was not sure how much my general practitioner could do for me anyway, I just popped by a physio office next to my house. I just wanted to ask if it's like with any other muscle soreness that if I'll run it gets better; or when it hurts even when im just sitting, should I just rest the whole week and do what I can on sunday.
I kept my self very conscious of the fact that it's a physiotherapist and therefore it's in her genes to be more worried than the thing is worth and prohibit all sorts of things that shouldnt actually be so bad. Still, what she said made me quite sad.
According to her running and me are done. She said it's a ad idea for me to be running and it's an especially bad idea to be running on Sunday.
Then she made me an ultrasound and it got even worse :D ( it's not funny at all, its awful and ridiculous :/). I have never thought that ultrasound has something to do with sound. But I figured it out quite fast when she came with a machine with now screen, but what made an awful sound when approaching my sore leg and more and more quiet sound when it got further from it. So no sound - good sound. Then again - no sound at my thigh, a small quiet beeping at the knee, and almost -omg-where's-my-earplugs-sound at my ankle. Turnes out I have an untreated reoccurring inflammation in my muscles and bones of the right ankle caused by overuse. And every time I get it, more and more scartissue forms, that makes it even more tight, uncomfortable and susceptible to a new inflammation.
According to the physio it should e no running and just RICE treatment for a couple of weeks (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevate). And then I should change my sports to for example biking or swimming (öööömh?...:()
In case I want to keep on running, I should give it about a month, then start by very small distances again, cool it down and make a compress after every time I run and only run 3 times a week for some like 3 weeks. And then maybe increase, but keep icing it after running until..the rest of my life.
I figured she's just being a physio.
But then she called me at 7pm from a home phone. Said she had consulted with some running specialist and wants to make sure I understand that by no means they can't recommend me to run on Sunday. And that it's serious and she can see that Im still planning to run, but I shouldnt and its so so so so so bad idea. And there's more treatment plans than the ones she already gave me and she'd like to talk about them (she even mentioned surgery :/). Almost got me very freaked out, but then I guess her more humanistic less physioistic side took power and she was like - ut if you're gonna run on sunday, come by Friday evening and we'll help you to tape it properly. So that's what Im gonna do. Plus eat a lot of painkillers Sunday morning and take good care of it afterwards. And then..then we'll see. But I promise I dont like biking more than just a good means of transportation. And I dont like swimming as a sport :(. And I promise when I think of quitting running I'm almost as sad as I was once when the horse I had been riding forever was sold. And thats being very sad.
It's just like being genuinely in love with some one who genuinely doesnt deserve you. You like someone/something and it makes you happy and all you want to do is spend your time with him, hoping it all gets better. But it doesnt and it just keeps hurting you. and it doesnt do you any good and you know that you should leave and quit the whole thing but you still keep doing it, hoping things will change or not thinking about it at all.
as said.. Sometimes it lasts in love and sometimes it hurts instead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbXnLn5-7MA

and that'll be the end of the post.

I keep you posted.
And by the way, you can follow me running on my Fb wall (here) live on Sunday :)

yoyoyoy
whiny girl
:D

Part 4 - Sample Menu

getting enough vitamin D shouldn't be a problem now, as we get it from the sun. In the autumn-spring, however, I'd recommend a supplement. 

DAY 1 (2490kcal, under consumption of vitamin D)
breakfast:
a normal bowlful - 40g Havegryn, 200g Yoghurt
2 teaspoon jam
10 almonds
1 big glass of orange juice

Snack:
1 banana,
1 glass of orange juice

Lunch:
100g(half a smaller plate)boiled rice
2 chicken files
150g curry sauce
160g (quarter of a plate) carrot-pineapple salad
1 tomato
20 slices of cucumber
0,5 pepper fruit

Snack:
1 apple
1 bun with ham and cheese

Dinner:
a plateful of stew (potato, carrot, cabbage, meat)
2 slices of ryebread
a regular bowl of fruit salad

DAY 2 (2410 kcal, under consumption of vitamin D)
Breakfast:
a normal bowlful - 40g havegryn with 200g yoghurt
10 nuts and tablespoonful of honey
one banana

Snack:
2 sticks of celery (cut in pieces) with tablespoonful of peanutbutter

Lunch:
plateful of stew (same as last evening)
marinated beetroot
1 slice of ryebread

Snack:
1 bun with 1 boiled egg
1 banana
10 almonds
1 glass of fruit yoghurt/juice

Dinner:
frikadeller soup,
1 slice of ryebread
1 glass of milk

1 slice of toast with jam,
1 glass of kakao milk

DAY 3 (2420 kcal under consumption of vitamin D)
breakfast
omelette made of 2 eggs and one glass of milk,
10 slices cucumber
1 tomato
1 slice of rye bread
1 banana
1 glass of juice

Snack
bun with ham and tomato
1 muesli bar

Lunch
frikadeller soup (from last night)
slice of rye bread
1 glass of skimmed milk
1 orange

Snack
3 tablespoons of cottage cheese (hytteost)
1 tomato

Dinner:
Mashed potatoes (and carrots) with minced meat sauce (ködsovs)
3 tablespoons of marinated beetroot

2 handfuls of strawberries
2 tablespoons of flöde til piskning og madlavning (14% or 8% fedt, sold in Fakta)

Part 3 - Basic Tips

1-      Have regular mealtimes.

2-      Eat at least 5 times a day
for example: 8:00 breakfast; 10:00 snack; 12:00 lunch; 15:00 snack; 18:00 dinner

3-      Never skip breakfast – if you’re not hungry, eat something small or at least drink some juice/yoghurt

4-      Don’t eat at least 2 hours before you go to sleep – you will rest better and feel more  hungry in the morning

5-      Eat a lot of fresh things like fruits, vegetables, berries, nuts, etc

6-       Use frozen vegetables and berries –they are easier to use and won’t go off

7-       Eat a variety of foods

8-  Drink enough (3-4 litres). Most of the liquid should be water. Try to avoid soda and alcohol, and don’t drink too many liquids with calories (juice, chocolate milk, cacao, sugar in coffe/tea).

--     Choose low-fat products

1-  If you drink soda, choose diet soda

1-   Avoid empty calories like cookies/kiks, candies, chocolate, chips, ice-cream, deep-fried products, fast food.

1- If you have to eat out order a sandwich/salad from f ex Anette’s sandwich; Rather than eating in McDonald’s choose Subway or Sunset Boulevard (you can see how many calories there is in different foods and choose something with lower calories)

--    It is very important, especially when you have 2 trainings in one day, that you eat something after workout that has protein (10-20g) and carbohydrates (60-90g) and drink as much as possible (about 1-2 liter per an hour of working out – train 1 hour, drink 1 liter)

Part 2 - Meal suggestions

Breakfast:
oatmeal (with jam /almonds/dried fruit/honey)
porridge
muesli
cereal
fruit
yoghurt
eggs
omelette (with cheese and ham/ vegetables)
smoothies
boller
rugbrod
rice with jam

Before training snack:

Breakfast cereal with low fat milk and fruit

Porridge with low fat milk and juice

Pan cakes with syrup

Toast with honey/jam

Spaghetti and tomato sauce with low fat

Baked potato with corn

Müsli bar and banana

Bun or sandwich with banana and honey

Fresh fruit salad with low fat yoghurt

Smoothie

After training: (amounts calculated for a 60-kg person)
2 bananas, 300g yoghurt
1 bun with ham and cheese + 1 fruit
1 bun with ham and cheese + 1 bun with jam
1 bun with 1 boiled egg + fruit/ almonds
2  big glasses of juice + 1 glas milk
2 glasses of fruit/berry yoghurt

Lunch/Dinner
-Stews (take different vegetables, clean and cut, put into a pot with little water, steam until ready to eat; you can add some lean meat or beans, or eat with rugbrod and ham)
-Purees (take vegetables, clean and boil soft, smash; can add some cream cheese and eat with for example lean meat/fish/beans/walnuts or whatever you like)
-Soups (usually start by heating a little oil in a bottom of a pot, add onion, carrots and meat/fish if they’re going to be in the soup, heat for a short time. Add all other cleaned and cut vegetables and boiling water, and a bouillon cube)
-Vegetables in the oven: heat oven to 200-250 degrees, clean and cut vegetables, add meat if want to, put in a form, add some oil+water+spices mix or egg+milk+spices(+water+oil)and cook until ready to eat.
-Vegetables on a pan (very good with for example celery, pepper fruit, carrots, champignons): put some oil on the pan, cut vegetables and champignons into small slices/pieces, heat on the pan until warm and cooked. Eat with f ex bread and lean cooked meat.
-Easy bean-tomato sauce: put very little water on a pan, heat up, add cut onions and tomatoes (maybe also some aubergine or squash or whatever you’d like) and beans, let it cook for about 5 minutes on medium heat. Eat just by itself, with salad or with pasta/rice
-Pasta salad: boil pasta, clean and cut whatever you want in your salad (for example pepperfruit, onion, egg, broccoli, cucumber, tomato etc), some meat if want to ( f ex kylling i stimler), mix together.
-Instead of pasta, use rice/couscous/lentils/legumes in pastasalad and get a whole new meal
-Sauces: take a pan, heat some onion (if want to) and meat/mushrooms fast until nice and brown, add about 1-2 spoonfuls of flour to the middle of the pan, move around until brown, add milk and spices, heat until boiling.
-Tacos/rolls – buy tortilla wraps, if want to, heat up in the oven, fill with whatever you like (for example cold ones with cream cheese, iceberg salad, cucumber and ham/salmon(laks); or warms with beans, onion, tomatoes, fried hakket oksekod, cheese)
- Liver/fish files/other meat with boiled potatoes and steamed carrots/cauliflower/broccoli etc

Salads
-Fruit salad J -so good and suitable as a dessert
-Carrot – pineapple salad: buy conserved pineapple pieces and put together with revet carrots.
-Rejer salad – peas (buy f ex frozen, boil for 1-3 minutes, cool down), onion, cucumber/tomato, + whatever you like, rejer (buy f ex frozen, melt in water, drain), dill + natural yoghurt if you like.
-Beetroot (can buy conserved from shop and just eat)
-Pickles (can buy from shop and just eat)

In general if you make salads, get creative – just add together different things you like. Use things you usually don’t put into salads like eggs, dried fruits, almonds, seeds and so on. Test and experiment to find out what you like J.

Sweet things
-berries, dried and fresh fruits (try melon, watermelon, oranges etcetc)
-yoghurt (fruit and berry yoghurts, natural yoghurt with berries/fruit pieces)
-smoothies
-bread with honey
-muesli bars/ raw bites (raw bites from Simon, muesli bars 8stk 9dkk in Lidl)
- roasted havegryn (heat on pan with a little oil and sugar – very easy, cheap and good)
-ryebread dessert – take pieces of dried ryebread (rasp), jam, and natural yoghurt (can add little bit of sugar), put into glasses/bowls like 1 layer of rasp, 1 jam, 1 yoghurt and so on until the glasses are full, keep in fridge for a while and eat J.
-chocolate cake, a healthier version (1 dase bönner (not in tomato sauce :D); 3 eggs; 1,25dl sugar; ¾ dase kakopulver; saft+skal af 0,5 apelsin (if you like apelsin), 40g 70% mörkt chokolade(melted), 1tsk bagepulver, 1tsk instant kaffe (not very important), 1 tsk vaniliepulver.  Blend alle  ingridienserne uden chokoladen – den skal tilföj  til sidst. Bag i en lille bageform m bagepapir ved 175 degrees varmluft i 35-40 min.

Snacks:
pieces of vegetables (like raw pepperfruit, celery, carrots, tomatoes, cucumber, etc etc)
fruits – fresh or dried
nuts and seeds
sundried tomatoes
berries
beans (for example take large pieces of celery and pepper fruit and use them as spoons to eat beans in tomato sauce)
crisp bread
rice cakes
popcorn (make at home with little or no fat and salt)

Dip vegetables in dip made of natural yoghurt and spices like pepper, dild, petersell and other good spices J.

Drinks:
WATER,
milk,
yoghurt,
juice,
tea,
coffee,
chocolate milk,
diet soda

Eat Healthy - part 1 (WHAT IS WHAT)

One of the big missions in my internship, has been making an athlete to start eating healthily. He doesn't have any one specific problem or area of difficulty, rather he's just doing it all wrong - skipping breakfast, having a couple of high-calorie-low-everything-else-meals a day, then skipping more meals not to gain weight..and that was just the beginning. Not because he wouldn't care, just because he just didnt know what is he doing wrong and even more important - what could he be doing instead and why.
To help him I made it all very basic and easy and wrote it all down. Now I figured that why not, in a modified form, publish them here, so they possibly and hopefully could help someone else as well. I'm sorry that in some parts the documents are in Danglish, but hope you'll all still get the meaning.
So - part 1:

The Basics - What is what

Energy is measured in calories (kcal). Calories are in the food you eat, and you burn calories by everything you do – sleeping, breathing, eating, moving etc. The more intense the activity the more calories you burn. So strength training burns more calories than just walking, but less than for example running and biking.  

If you don’t want to gain weight, you have to eat the same amount or fewer calories in a day. If you want to gain weight, you have to eat more than you use.

Calories in food come from three groups of foods: protein, fat and carbohydrates. In addition food has vitamins and minerals, but they are very small and don’t give any extra calories.
1 gram of carbohydrates gives you 4kcal
1 gram of protein gives you 4kcal
1 gram of alcohol gives you 7 kcal
1 gram of fat gives you 9kcal

An average diet should include
55-60% carbohydrates=1695 kcal=424g
15-20% protein = 520kcal=198g
25-30% fat =949kcal=105g

ever day.

Body uses protein mainly to build muscles. Extra protein in diet (protein you eat, but what body doesn’t need) will be peed out. (A little will be also stored as fat)
Good sources of PROTEIN are:
meat
fish
nuts and seeds
beans/ legumes
milk products – milk, koleskal, kaernemaelk, yoghurt, cheese, hytteost, etc
eggs
supplements

Body uses carbohydrates to get energy. Extra carbohydrates in diet will be stored as fat.
Good sources of CARBOHYDRATES are:
pasta,
rice,
potatoes,
bread,
vegetables,
fruits,
berries,
juices,
bars like raw-bite, mueslibars
grains – havegryn, muesli, cereal
supplements

There’s also a lot of carbohydrates in

Candy, chocolate, cookies, sodas, ice-cream, fast food; but there’s not much your body can do with those carbohydrates (because they don’t have much vitamins and minerals and calories mainly come from sugar), so most of it will be stored as fat.

There is two types of fats. Unsaturated and saturated fat. Unsaturated fats are good and they’re used by body as motor oil is used in cars – to keep things (like your joints and ligaments in knees, elbows etc) running smoothly.
It also gives you pretty hair, skin and nails ;). And is very important because some vitamins are fat-soluble – can only be used when they are dissolved in fat. For example if you eat a lot of carrots and get a lot of vitamin A from that, but eat no fat, then body can’t use the vitamin A.

Most of the saturated fat you eat is just stored as fat.

Good sources of UNSATURATED FATS are:
fish,
nuts and seeds,
rye bread with seeds,
liquid oils – olive oil, flax-seed oil etc

There is a lot of SATURATED FAT in:
butter,
cookies,
dressings,
sauces
fatty meat (bacon, red meats, sausages, some hams),
high-fat cheese and other milk products (ice cream)
(white bread)

Being a trainer

..is so much more than just bossing people around. What I've seen, being a good coach requires taking care of so many different things one wouldnt even think about. Today somewhere close to the end of a third practice of the day - as my coach is gone, is just me alone - I realized how much during the last 4 hours I had been cheering and motivating people - "come on, two more, you can do it, come on, take a big breath, kom nu, kom sa," And therefore started thinking about how important it is that your athletes would trust you and feel safe with you. That's something Simon has always been bringing out, but I think I got it just today. The athletes are willing to do whatever you tell them to do. They give you their body, so you could give your knowledge and in a way both the athlete and the coach are each others tools.
Of course the athletes get tired as well. And they believe they can't do something or cant lift some weight. And that's where trusting becomes important. The athletes need to know that the coach wouldn't make them do anything dangerous, and that she respect the athletes enough  to not spend their time and energy making them do exercises they won't benefit from. They have to know that the coach is there for them and helps them. And then they will really believe her when she's saying "c'mon, one more rep, you can do it'. And then they'll really do it.
Then, a good coach in my opinion, has to be an amazing communicator - be able to be short and precise, saying just the right things on just the right moment, not too little, not too much, pick the right words, know when its necessary to make a little joke and then actually be able to make a joke and know when to be serious and even when to get upset. And when not to. When to push, how to push, how to motivate and how to leave a good impression of herself.
A coach definitely needs to know how to behave. How to stay calm and polite, how to look as an authority but not as someone people would be afraid of. How to cheer people up and how to calm them down.
She always needs to be on top  of the game - knowing what's going on, whats the plan, why is the plan as it is, what's the main focus points, what's more important and what's less. The athlete will come to practice and do what he's told to do. It's the coach who needs to pick the right things so the athlete would be in the most optimal state by some agreed time. And here, again, trust is so important. If the athlete doesn't believe a coach can do all that, he's probably not going to want to do the exercises either.
A coach should also look believable. It is probably possible to be the best coach in the world even when you're overweight and out of shape, but it definitely doesn't help being a good coach. Being strong and being fit gives some extra backup for the things the coach is saying. And makes the communication so much easier by allowing the coach to demonstrate exactly what she wants  the athlete to do, all the movements being perfectly perfect.
And then, not last and definitely not least, a coach needs to manage the whole thing. There can't be a weight training in the weight room at 8 o'clock if the weight room is closed at 8. It's not possible to do shot putting if there's no shots. You can't go to competitions unless you pick and get the right ticket to the right place; and so on and so on and so on.
There's many more things a coach has to be very good at, in order to be very good at coaching. And bossing people around is just one and very small thing, coming with the job.

Not to make this post a praise to Simon Stewart or something, but I believe he is really good at a lot of those things. And I'm so glad to be learning from who I believe to be the best.
Check him out, I'm sure you'd wanna be trained by him ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N64tKY8uGtM

Internship

I did mentally hard last summer. This summer it’s physically hard.
It’s so different, those two challenges of those two summers. If last summer, working in a camp for physically and mentally disabled people, in USA, everything was mentally hard, then this summer working for Team Denmark in Denmark, is physically hard.
Last summer, Camp Atlantic was wearing me out from the brain. Physically, it was tiring but not really unbearable, but the mental part suffered so hard that at some points I was wondering if it still exists. As my co-counsellor Paul very well put it: “We’re probably all gonna leave this place with no social skills what so ever,” and from time to time I was in no doubt that we’ve lost these and all other skills already. But it was a great challenge and loads of fun as well, so I’ve not once regretted that I did it. Rather sometimes regretting that I’m not going to do it again this summer.
But as USA and mentally disabled world were strange and far-from-familiar for me, so is the sports world. Im starting to see how being a sportsmen is like a whole different world, lifestyle and even mentality. And how much it really takes to be a professional. And how little, in the regular understanding, it gives. – Just the joy of being good (if) and possibly the fame.
It’s also new to me to be so physically tired all the time. While being mentally very very refreshing, my work as a trainer is physically quite hard. Tho it’s not the tiredness as in ‘I can’t do anything and just wanna sleep’ but more like..you feel you’ve done a lot.
I also don’t think I’ve ever had this much trouble going to sleep as now, body being kind of unable to suddenly stop with all this moving around and mental part being so alert and thinking of all the new things it knows and making plans and being..annoying when you’d rather sleep. And then, in the morning, so much trouble getting up. I feel as if being ran over by a bus and just want to lay in my bed, my brain doesn’t really start functioning and my body doesn’t really  wanna move. But once I realize who I am where  I am and what is it, Im supposed to wake up for, I have all the energy and willingness in the world.
And as a girl I kind of like this new world, as I can really leave home with my sweatspants, put no make up on, just wash my face, brush my teeth and pull the hair back. (AND remember to put the watch on as it turns out to be impossible to live without.) And that feels so nice in the mornings J. Plus no waking up earlier for the morning run, cause you can do it at your work. HOW nice.
…Gotta love. J.
So this is my first impressions.