Holiday fitness & nutrition

I did not manage to stay totally gluten, sugar or dairy free during our month-long holiday in Estonia.

80% of the time I stuck to my regular diet of fruit, veg, meat, eggs, etc. but non-dairy or non-soy milk was impossible to find and towards the end of my second week some pastries started to sneak in.

I’m not beating myself up over the fact that I didn’t stick to my clean eating, I think it’s ok to let loose a bit during holidays.

However, my running suffered – I felt really heavy, sluggish and slow on almost every run. My stomach was unsettled and I could not have done any long runs (my longest was 16km but all others were 8-10km).

Now I’m back to eating the way that my body likes and my first run here felt already so much better than all my holiday runs. It’s good to feel light on my feet again and not worry about tummy issues – it’s great to get confirmation from your body that the way you’re eating is making it run better. Literally 🙂

Other than running I cycled every day with the 4-year old at the back of my bike, I tried double unders a few times and did a few sessions of pull-ups / toes to bar at the playground with rubber bands aiding. Those sessions were never full-on because all the neighborhood kids loved the bands so we ended up giving all of them a go and those who finished went straight back to the end of the line 🙂

I also used the opportunity when we took the kids to the pool to swim some laps. Because I’ve always had glasses I can only swim breaststroke with my head staying above water – a speedy swimmer that does not make.

Several times though I swam 1km a a time. It took me exactly 30 minutes and I was actually pretty tired when I stopped and it wasn’t as boring as I always have considered swimming to be 🙂

So all in all it was a very active holiday and it was great. Now I’m back to eating clean and lifting weights at CrossFit. Just how much I missed CrossFit and how much I love it – that will be in the next post!