The last couple of weeks I have not exactly been walking my talk. While I live by the 80/20 rule (eat well 80% of the time), I would say I was probably following the 40/60 rule! Lots of snacking, lots of sugar and very little veggies. Oh and then there is this thing called sleep. To maintain good health you need to go to bed and get up around the same time each day as well as get enough sleep each night. Well I have been very inconsistent in this area as well. Not good when you are trying to up your weekly mileage and increase the intensity of your speed work!

My first clue that something was wrong was Saturday when I woke up after 1pm after almost 12 hours of sleep! All Saturday, I was just drained. I laid around on the couch reading blogs all afternoon. Normally I go for a long run on Saturday, but since I was so tired I decided to go for a short easy run that evening and do my long run Sunday afternoon. However, about an hour before I had planned to run on Sunday I got that scratchy feeling in my throat.

Thankfully I didn’t feel tired so I grabbed my favorite go-to remedy when I’m feeling a little run down, USANA ‘s Booster C 600. This little packet of powder packs a punch with zinc, elderberry, echinacea and 600 mg of Vitamin C in the form Poly C which includes magnesium, calcium and potassium. I love that it contains no artificial sweeteners and yet is only 10 calories and its easy to add to my water.

Unfortunately my long run turned out not to be so long. About 3/4 of a mile into it I knew I was pushing my luck and walked back home. I crawled into bed a little after 7 pm with some magazines that never got read because I was asleep in no time.  The next morning I felt much better and went for a 7 mile run!

Before I became a health coach and learned how to implement small lifestyle changes that improved my health and my running, it seemed I was good for at least a couple of sinus infections per year that ultimately wore me down and turned into bronchitis. I would be starting to make some real progress in my training and Bam! Sick and out of commission for several weeks. I might still be able to run, but certainly not train hard. It was a vicious cycle with my immune system never fully recovering and if I wasn’t sick I battling nagging injuries, aches and pains. 

Since committing to changing how I take care of myself  back in October 2013, I have only been sick twice. I had the stomach bug the week between Christmas and NewYears a few months ago. Prior to that I woke up the day of my sister-in-law’s funeral with a sore throat and fever. (Pretty sure stress played a role in that one.) Turns out I had a sinus infection, but after the first 3 days I was back to running and even ran a 5K at altitude later that week in Salt Lake City while there attending the international convention for my product partner, USANA Health Sciences. I was even the 13th lady to cross the finish line out of more than a thousand runners! By the way, the highlight of that race was high fiving Dr. Oz as I was running towards him after the turn-around!

Here’s the thing, for the most part I do eat better than I did when I used to get sick frequently, though it’s not perfect.  I still have way too much sugar in my diet and not enough vegetables. I snack more than I should. I am working on these things and realize it is a process and a journey. The goal is improvement and progress, not perfection.

The one thing that I have done consistently different though since November 2013, is to take high quality supplements daily. I never falter on this. I admit that I did take supplements on a consistent basis prior, however as I began to research on how to improve my health I discovered that the expensive supplements I was taking did not rate very well in third party independent ratings. My research lead me to USANA Health Sciences, which is consistently a top rated supplement in North America on the basis of completeness, absorbability and potency.

I am certain that the reason I escaped this past weekend with a only few hours of a scratchy throat and just feeling tired, is because of the caliber of supplements I take. They help me fill the nutritional gaps when my diet is less than stellar. Even my husband, Michael, noted that he has not been sick (except for the time I share my stomach bug with him) since we changed to high quality supplements. 

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that if you take supplements you can or should eat whatever you heart desires all the time. Quite the opposite, in fact while studying at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, I observed that every doctor and nutritional expert who taught, recommended dietary supplements in addition to whole foods, clean eating and healthy lifestyles practices. Sometimes life happens and you want to set yourself to maintain optimal health when you don’t make the best choices.

For those of us who run high intensity workouts in addition to logging in lots of miles, our bodies need all the support we can give them to recover quickly and keep our immune systems healthy and functioning at optimal levels. I am confident that taking high quality supplements has allowed me to train consistently without illness or injury for now almost a year and a half.

I take and recommend USANA Health Sciences to all my clients. Are you ready to take control of your health? If you would like to learn how USANA can help you start your journey to better health Click Here and leave me a message!