Tag Archives: injuries

Foods for Increased Health, Healing, Energy and Performance

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Damian Stoy is the founder of Wholistic Running, elite ultra marathon runner, certified Chi Running instructor and renowned coach

I am often asked what are the best foods to eat for health, increased energy, recovery, healing injuries and performance.  I believe certain foods are beneficial for everyone and I will share my thoughts including what has worked for me.

Eating for Overall Heath and Well Being

I suggest eating a variety of food that is whole, unrefined, local, and organic.  Eat real food!  Keep it creative and fun and try not to be too restrictive.  Include lots of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, seeds and nuts.  What you eat everyday is the foundation of health.  Do not rely on supplements, pills and miracle foods for health.

I highly suggest getting rid of dairy products (cheese, milk, yogurt) as well as other highly inflammatory and mucus forming foods such as refined flours, sugar, wheat, eggs, alcohol and fried foods.  Excessive mucus lines the GI tract and severely hampers your body’s ability to assimilate nutrients and digest food.  Also, these foods are common allergens and produce symptoms such as runny noses and phlegm in the throat or lungs.  This is not normal!  If you have these symptoms, play around with eliminating certain foods for a week or two and see if you notice any improvements.  Foods that help rid the body of excess mucus includes lemons, apple cider vinegar, ginger and cayenne.

Read this article co-authored by Damian on how to recover faster with the help of nutrition.

For runners specifically, I suggest nutrient dense foods such as quinoa, buckwheat, amaranth and brown rice.  Try to limit pasta, non-whole grain and wheat products.  Enzyme rich foods provide energy and include sprouts, raw foods, fresh juices, miso and wheatgrass.  Include foods rich in healthy fats including flax seeds, avocados, olive oil and coconut oil.

Foods for Performance

Incorporating specific performance enhancing foods is something you may want to try.  Foods known as adaptogens are beneficial for many reasons including increased endurance, stamina, energy and a healthy immune system.  Adaptogens include ginseng, maca, astragalus, chia seeds and goji berries.  I also recommend flax oil, turmeric, ginger and wheatgrass for their anti-inflammatory properties and greatly reducing recovery time.  For runners, I recommend foods high in iron and those which build the blood.  Those include dark greens, spirulina, cherries, seaweeds, beets, parsley and molasses.  Incorporating these foods will allow you to assimilate oxygen more efficiently and result in greater performance.  Ample fresh herbs and spices are recommended for anti-oxidants and to benefit digestion.  Examples include ginger, cayenne, garlic, cinnamon and oregano.

Supplements

I don’t use supplements most of the year but during the race season I incorporate a few to recover faster and improve performance.  I highly recommend Tissue Rejuvenator from Hammer Nutrition for healing, reducing inflammation and speeding up recovery.  Zyflamend is another great product with similar benefits.  Hammer Nutrition provides a variety of super high quality supplements that increase performance and overall health.  Click on this to get 15% off your first order!

Choosing healthy substitutions can make an immense difference in overall health.  Don’t just get rid of the bad, enjoy the good!  Since we all have cravings, here are some recommendations for alternative foods that satisfy and actually provide healthful benefits instead of dis-ease.

  • Replace ‘bad’ fats with coconut oil, olive oil, avocados and flax oil.
  • Replace table salt with Celtic and Real Salt.  Seaweeds, herbs and spices provide the real flavor and nutrients we crave.
  • Replace white sugar with maple syrup, honey, molasses, dates and agave.
  • Snacks:  seaweed or kale chips (salty), apple with almond butter.
  • Hydrate with herbal teas and fresh juices not soda or coffee.

To find out specifically which foods benefit you, I suggest listening to your body.  Remember, eat real food and play with what works for you.  You’ll have more energy, greater health and will be able to do more of what you love to do in life.

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Yoga and Running

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What can yoga do for you?  Give you more energy.  Reduce injuries and recovery time.  Increase patience, courage, and clarity.  Increase endurance, lung capacity, performance, speed and mental determination.  Reduce dis-ease including aches and pains, digestive issues, arthritis, tendonitis, sleep issues, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, skin issues and more.  Yoga will help bring you more into the present moment and give you abundant peace of mind bringing more happiness and joy.  Now who doesn’t want that?

For runners, yoga can be an incredible asset and complement to your training.  I have experienced many benefits in my running because of yoga.  I often say,

“yoga keeps me in better running shape than running does.” 

And it isn’t a joke.  As an elite ultramarathon runner, I don’t run as much as you may think.  Yoga and Chi Running allow me to run far and fast.  Some benefits I have experienced from yoga include reduced injuries, faster recovery time, increased performance, more speed and endurance, and less effort and more joy while running.  This all sounds too good to be true?  Let me share how yoga may benefit you.

How does yoga reduce injuries?  Yoga is all about balance.  Contrary to what many people may believe, yoga isn’t just about stretching.  Yoga brings the body, mind and spirit into balance bringing overall health and well being.  Hatha yoga (physical yoga) increases flexibility and range of motion, strength, and balance.  In order to prevent injuries, the body must have a balance of flexibility and strength.  Too much or little of one and you are more susceptible to injury.  Yoga challenges the entire body bringing strength to every muscle and encourages your body to move correctly and efficiently.  By practicing balancing postures, we teach the body to move with strength and fluidity.  Increasing flexibility promotes a more graceful and light running pattern which reduces impact and effort.

How does yoga increase performance?  Yoga increases lung capacity, efficiency, mental strength and reduces recovery time allowing you to train harder and more often.  Breathing exercises in yoga expand your lungs allowing you to run faster and harder while more efficiently bringing oxygen to your muscles.  Breathing with your entire lungs, especially the lower lungs where more oxygen exchange occurs, is a more efficient way to breathe requiring less effort and producing more energy.  You will run more efficiently because of increased range of motion and flexibility.

By ‘opening’ up the body, you will run more like when you did as a kid.

With ‘open’ hips, your stride will be more graceful and fluid.  Yoga promotes spinal twisting which will allow your body to move effortlessly and efficiently.  Yoga reduces recovery time by detoxifying metabolic wastes produced by the body when running and increasing the healing potential of your body.  This is done by ‘squeezing’ and releasing body parts which flushes the body of wastes and opens the body bringing healthy, healing oxygenated blood to your whole body.  Yoga greatly increases mental strength and determination allowing you to train and race harder and faster.  You will develop patience and acceptance while practicing yoga which will help you accept the increased effort and sensations of running harder.

Yoga helps reduce dis-ease.  Everyone experiences dis-ease of some sort whether physical, mental, emotional or spiritual.  Yoga benefits your entire physical body including your organs promoting overall health and well being.  Yoga treats your entire body, it is a wholistic practice.  Many times, we suffer physically and the cause is mental or emotional.  Yoga brings your whole life into balance encouraging health on all levels.  With yoga, you learn and experience Self awareness and therefore you can treat the real cause of your symptoms whatever they may be.

Experience an increase of joy and happiness by practicing yoga.

This will help you be a happier, healthier runner as well.  Yoga teaches you to be in the present moment. By being in the present moment, you will be released of unnecessary suffering and on your path to happiness and health.  Acceptance, love, gratitude and patience are experienced while practicing yoga.  How does yoga do this?  I’m not exactly sure to be honest.  But from my experience as well as many other practitioners, it just ‘happens’.

Chi Running has many similar benefits to yoga.  They are both a great complement to each other and will enhance your running as well as your entire life.  Just like yoga, Chi Running is a practice.  I highly recommend finding a yoga practice that best suits you.  In my opinion, it usually isn’t the easiest practice.  Find a studio, teachers, and community you connect with.  I personally connect most with Bikram Yoga and it is the most physically healing practice I have tried.

Most importantly, practice.  Reading about it and wondering if it may help won’t get you anywhere.  Experience the benefits of yoga for your Self by practicing.

Combine Chi Running, yoga, amazing food and Big Sky country at Molte Yoga Retreats.

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