Product Review - STAUDT Knee-Cuff

So I was asked by Somnishop to try out and review one of the health products that they sell and I thought it was a perfect opportunity because using a knee cuff would really help my knees to recuperate  after exercise and the hockey training that I do as I often have alot of aches in my knee joints as they are the joint that holds the most physical weight of your body during running on the pitch or at the gym.

Size?

The sizing given is pretty accurate and the material is stretchy, its based on measuring your thigh a hands width above you knee to get the right size for you. I chose a medium and it fitted perfectly. 

Appearance? 

The design of the cuffs are simple and practical, with just the brand logo on the front, this isn’t an issue as this product is best and advised to be worn at night during the sleeping period when you are most still, to get the full use of the smart materials massaging your joints therefore appearance is not as important at practical use of the product. 

How it worked for me? 

The cuff kept my knee joints warm after I had done  2 hours’ worth of exercise during the day, I put them on before I went to bed, the ventilation was very good and did not make it uncomfortable or too warm to wear. The materials used are soft and stretchy and therefore are comfortable against the skin and do not restrict any movement in your legs during the night.

Comfort? 

The materials used to create the products are super soft which is good because wearing them at night it will need to be as comfortable as possible. The smart material used to create the cuffs aid ventilation through the night ensuring that your skin under the cuff has a non-sweaty sleep. The sponge material create a soft bed like state for the knee to rest on in the cuff.

Ease of use? 

Very easy to use you just slide on the leg and pull up to the knee and fasten to your own preferred tightness using the Velcro straps,

Does it achieve its purpose?

So far in my opinion I do believe the knee cuff helps to aid and prevent aches after sport, its comfortable to wear and has definitely had a positive impact on my knees  in the short term however I will carry on using it for the long term and do an updated opinion of the knee cuff in a couple of months when my hockey season has started and I will be using the product more often to prevent knee aches and swelling after the training and matches.

I highly reccomend this product to anyone that does vigorous sport exercises and experiences aches in their joints after sport, the customer service is also super friendly and cooperative to any questions or requirements you have. 

They have all the product listings they sell on there Amazon page 

Or you can find out more about their products or about the company at: 

www.staudt.at

www.somnisleep.com

Little Update!

4/5 months slightly over due but I have finally organised myself into a routine to get back into what I do best and that is blogging! The past 4/5 months have been super full on with uni and a ton of other stuff which I know is no excuse to have such a long ‘break’ from blogging.

Now work load is starting to calm down with at uni I will have a lot more time to focus on the content of my blog and improving my communications with my audience.

In the essence of health and fitness, I plucked up the courage to join Coventry Uni Hockey Club and couldn’t be happier with the pals I have gained as well as being part of a team of crazy and ever so slightly alcoholic girls. Training every Monday helps to keep on top of my fitness as well as going to the gym throughout the week. I am glad I have kept to an active regime and not just packed it in since moving back to uni.

On the other hand I am not being as strict as I was over the summer with my diet. I am a lot more lenient with what I eat, not in the sense of stuffing my face with shitty foods but after spending the months from April 2015 to September 2015 with no carbohydrates or very little, I have reintroduced certain carbohydrates into my diet these include; whole wheat pasta, whole wheat bread and the usual sweet potato that I love, I had to do this due to training for hockey and playing matches, I needed to re think my diet for energy levels in sport.

I still go to the gym when I can each week which is usually 2-3 times because it helps a lot with letting out stress from uni work as well as keeping the weight I have worked hard to lose, off.

I have a whole list of blog posts that I want to write each week to keep my blog active for my audience and keep my motivations going on my own journey to improving and maintaining my health and fitness. 

This is a pretty simple recipe that can be 'sassed' up by any other ingredients of your choice but for the main dish ingredients I have put together a little recipe for you. 

AND 

2 chicken breasts

1. So the first step is to peel and chop your sweet potato into cubes, not too small but not too big, then put them onto boil. Just to make them softer before adding it to the rest of the dish
2. Chop up the rest of the ingredients and dice the chicken. 
3. Using oil, (I used coconut oil but you can use any type of oil) fry the onion and pepper al dente (oh fancy vocab shan) then add the chicken and fry until the chicken is cooked throughout. 
4. Take your peas and broccoli and put them onto boil for around 5 minutes. (until starting to soften)
5. when the chicken is cooked through, add your quinoa with 1 -2 cups of water to the chicken and let it simmer until the quinoa is cooked. 
6. The 5th step can be quite tricky to work the quinoa:water ratio so if you don't want to do it that way, cook the quinoa in a separate pan, drain it, then add it to the chicken, onion and pepper mix.
7. Next, add your sweet potato, broccoli, spinach, peas and kale into the mix and let it simmer away for 10 minutes on a low heat. 
8. Serve it up still hot and enjoy!

You can literally add any vegetables you want into this dish, and also you can use vegetable stock for the quinoa to simmer in for extra flavour. 

This dish works perfectly with frozen vegetables which means can easily be affordable us students out there because most of the time frozen veg is cheaper than fresh veg, but can be just as nutritional! ( its just the quinoa that can be a tad pricey, well for a students budget anyway...) 

This amount lasted me for 4 meals, I just dished it into tuppa wear and put it in the fridge for the next couple of days.

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Setting goals and running a full marathon in Canada?!

So from my past experiences of talking to people about them wanting to workout or go to the gym or even just work on eating healthier, the main conclusion I can make is. EXCUSES.
I feel that 101%, ( added that 1% to emphasise my feeling for this point, hello drama queen!) excuses are one of the top reasons as to why goals that people set don't get smashed.

If I ask someone to come to the gym or on a run with me or if they even ask for some advice on health, fitness and lifestyle, I watch the cogs start turning in their head and almost straight away a lot of them reel out all the things that could stop them and use an excuse as to why they "CAN'T".

So this led me to thinking that a major part of setting goals isn't just about the positives of the journey but also how you will overcome the factors that could prevent you from achieving the goal. One of the major flaws is people putting their work, social or personal life in front of their health and fitness life. You should make the swap and make your work, social and personal life fit around your health and fitness life. 

'The only bad workout is the one that didn't happen' - Unknown. 
Eliminate the excuses one by one to progress with your goal setting! Willpower
I think willpower, goes hand in hand with motivation especially when it comes to working towards goals. The willpower you build up will help to prevent yourself from skipping that workout or not running that extra mile and it will result in a massive push in the right direction of your goals. Our brains can be the biggest competitor to try and destruct your goals, we've all been there...

KEEP THOSE LEGS MOVING AND YOUR WILLPOWER WILL GET STRONGER
The achievement from having the will power to fight back to all the distraction and preventions can boost your motivation. The fact that your will be able to prove your negative thoughts wrong will make you even more determined to push the negative thoughts to the back burner. 
I'm not saying anyone is perfect and everyone gets off track once in a while (definitely including me!)but by adding will power to the 'goal achieving' equation It will be a whole lot more enjoyable seeing your progression.

When people say keep your goals small and reachable, In my opinion I feel like they are selling people short a bit, why not have a couple of bigger goals that can get smashed by the smaller goals you set? Im not saying set unrealistic goals and it'll be rainbows and unicorns, but keeping to small goals can sometimes get repetitive. I think you need a bigger goal to set the bigger picture.
These past couple of weeks ive kind of gone running crazy and although I didn't enjoy it as much before and used to see it as a 'chore' in my workout routine, I am finally really starting to get into it since I have worked on my pace, timings and distance. This has lead me to set some new goals for me. One long term big goal that will be achieved by smashing some smaller goals along the way.

Long Term Goal:
By the time I finish my degree in 2017, I want to be able to run a full Marathon either in England or in Canada (Where I want to go as soon as I have bagged this degree)

So I wrote this goal down and then thought of all the things that can boost me towards smashing that goal. Below are the events I want to take part in to propel me into being ready for a full Marathon and of course with other frequent training in order to build up my mileage background and training tolerance.

Smaller Goals:
Tough Mudder- Mud Run 2016
Race for Life - 2016
London Royal Parks Half Marathon - 2016

Wolf Run - 2017
Full Marathon- London or Canada 2017

I know to reach these goals I am going to have to build up some more willpower to prevent myself from slacking during training.
Seeing the goals I have set myself helps me tons to keep focused on what I want to achieve.

There are loads of ways to keep yourself focused on your goals,

• Set daily/weekly reminders on your phone, computer, tablet of what you're heading for and why
• Keep a journal of the journey towards your goal! when you get to the end of the journey being able to read back over everything your achieved and overcame will boost your confidence!
• If you start to slightly slip off task, sit down and remind yourself of what you want to achieve and revamp the motivational willpower

Don't let the negatives, preventions, distractions beat you!

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So It is August 1st 2015 and last night whilst watching Pretty Little Liars (My reward from me to me as long as I have worked out during the day. It works.) I was listing ideas that I could incorporate into my blog as permanent fixtures throughout this journey to a healthier lifestyle and a fitter future and to make this blog a little more 'alive'. 

The first idea that I came up with is 'Monthly Motives' ( some fine alliteration there, Shan.) the whole idea around this is to get back into setting regular reachable goals at the beginning of every month. Since being home from uni I have admittedly slacked on the mentality side of my journey. At uni I used to set reachable goals each week whilst in the gym of what I wanted that week. Some of the goals included things such as not allowing myself to leave the gym unless I have worked out for at least an hour each day or No snacking between meals, substitute with water, making sure I am asleep by 10:30pm to get the most out of a sleep ready for a workout in the morning...you get the idea. These are the kind of goals I set myself every week when I first started this journey to force myself and push me into a strict routine (I needed to do be this strict for it to work).

Since being home although I haven't given up on eating clean or working out everyday ( I never will, I love it too much). I feel I have really lacked in keeping my mentality in shape. My motto is 'Mentality Over Physicality' because I believe your body will do anything you push it to do, its the mentality you have that will make or break your dreams (cheesy but true).

So this is where Monthly Motives come in. At the beginning of each month I will be setting 3 new goals for myself one for fitness one for health and one for lifestyle. Then at the end of every month I will be looking at how I did, focusing on whether I carried it out for a month, if I didn't, WHY? and if I did, what I did well and what the next steps/goals are.

So here goes...

AUGUST FITNESS:

The motive I want to set for this month is to work on my running pace to improve my running time and distance. Running outside and not on  treadmill is a lot harder because your legs have to do more work to keep pushing you along whereas on a treadmill the floor moves and your legs just go with it. I find when I run I rush, I become very impatient and try and power through the run all the way although this can be a plus because it makes me do a high intensity interval run, I want to work on my running distance and time to improve my long distance running. I was reading an article the other day on About Health on '13 Tips for Running Farther' and one of them stood out to me which is: Run at a Conversational Pace. I d never heard this before and thought it was such a good way to put it. So this is how I am going to judge my pace, if I can talk and hold a conversation easily without being out of breath my pace is good, even if it is at slightly slow pace I will be building up over 4 weeks. 

AUGUST HEALTH:

For my health motive I am going to make sure I have at least 1 glass of water as soon as I wake up. Before I have a morning coffee, my breakfast or anything else. I am following the well loved saying 'Hydrate before you caffienate' 

AUGUST LIFESTYLE:

This is a kind of big one, cutting the alcohol. Now I'm not a massive drinker I don't go on a 'mad one' every weekend but lately ive been drinking almost every weekend due to going to festivals and going out for birthdays so ive decided im going August with absolutely no alcohol intake. This is also mainly because I will be moving back up to uni at the beginning of Septmeber and although I have pretty good will power and self control, trying to go through freshers week without some alcohol induced nights out just wouldn't be the same( the excuses of a student everybody).

So... the 3 goals above will be my monthly motives... the laws of august...the great goals! that I will be working towards,at and with throughout the month of august. On August 31st I will be doing a follow up blog post to update on how I did and continue through to September 1st to set 3 new goals!

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How To: The Glorious Green Smoothie

Check out the video below on how to make my Glorious Green Smoothie!

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Workout Routine Change Up!

I did a post near to when I first started this blog explaining the ins and outs of my old workout routine. Although I felt like that was a good routine to start this journey off with, I felt like I was hitting a brick wall and it wasn't really benefiting me because it was purely cardio based. So I stepped it up a level and worked out a new workout routine. After doing research into different styles of workouts I wanted to make sure I had plenty of muscle building and toning exercises because it is a really good way to burn fat.

Whilst researching I also came across the Cardio Bum horror stories, and that was when I stepped up the squats and glute exercises. No one wants a cardio bum! Peachy Perfect, always. 

Below I have written out and illustrated my workout I do everyday. ( Do excuse my ever so slightly green bean looking illustrated people) 

• 30 minute run 

I go for a 30 minute HIIT, where I will do exactly what I did on the treadmill in the gym:

Ill start with a slow jog then move into HIIT:

standard run for 1 minute

sprint for 30 seconds

standard run for 1 minute

sprint for 30 seconds. 

I will do that in 10 minute intervals.

4 days a week followed by my workout routine below which I do 6 days a week:

 Non equipment exercises:

 Burpees -  20 reps

Alternating push-up plank 30 seconds

Reverse plank - 20 seconds hold, repeat 3 times.

If you cant raise your body high enough, try straight arms instead of bending them.

Mountain climbers - 30 seconds. 

2x 30 second reps

 Plank - 20 seconds hold, repeat 3 times

Plank on your front.

Medicine ball:

5kg V up- 30 reps 

Medicine squat, rise lift above head - 20 reps.

Keep back as straight as you can and keep medicine ball to chest.

Mason twist /Russian twist with medicine ball - 30 reps

If you cant lift your legs at first, keep them bent with your feet flat on the floor whilst doing the twists.

Kettle bells: 

Pass through lunges 6kg - 20 lunges

Kettle bell swings 8kg - 30 swings 

Make sure you are lifting from your legs, it is super important to bend your legs when you swing down, lifting from your back will cause your lower back to become uncomfortable and ache later on. ( trust me, I learnt the hard way. This heads up will save you the pain)

One arm kettle bell push press 4kg - 15 reps on each arm 

Kettle bell single leg deadlift 6kg - 10 reps each leg 

Squat, kettle bicep curl, rise, push above head 4kg - 20 rep

This one is similar to the medicine ball squat:

• Hold the kettle bell at the "horns" close to your chest 
• Squat down, complete a bicep curl with the kettle bell
• Rise from the squat 
• Push above head

Repeat the whole workout 2x.

Post Workout Warm Down
I then move onto warming down because I want to reduce as much ache as possible the next day. I use the app 'DailyYoga' which has a ton of cool yoga workouts tailored to what you want.

• DailyYoga

I know this workout routine wont be perfect for everyone but I wanted to put it up to show that you don't always need to pay for a gym membership to workout and to give some ideas for other routines. If you don't have kettle bells or a medicine there are a ton of exercises that you can do that can have a similar effect on your body without using equipment, do your research and put your own routine into practise! 

My Food Shopping Habits.

When I moved out my accommodation a few weeks ago I found all my food shopping receipts from the first half of the year at uni and my gosh it was horrendous what I was eating! ranging from buying big packets of crisps to 3 packets of biscuits and numerous ready meals and fizzy drinks. yikes what was I thinking?!

So I now do a food shop for all my long lasting foods every 3/4 weeks. e.g. sweet potatoes, tins of tuna, rice, quinoa, pasta and so on... which would be an online shop because being at uni without a car makes it difficult to get 3/4 weeks of shopping in 2 hands whilst walking home, so that's done online and then every 2 weeks ill do a fresh food shop that I do myself in the supermarket (im super picky on the state of my veggies and fruits when I buy them). A lot of people think doing 2 types of separate food shops would amount to a lot of spending, when if you do it properly it definitely doesn't amount to a lot of spending.

Before I started my huge lifestyle change I made myself cut a lot of shit out of my diet which then led to me spending less money on food shops, and it was easier that I thought it would be, not having the rubbish foods in my cupboard because I cut them completely out of my shopping lists made it a lot easier to just forget about them and not be tempted by them.
The main foods that I have cut out my regular diet are:
Bread/doughy type products.
Chocolate
Sweets/sugary treats
Crisps
Fizzy drinks.

So how do I make my fresh food last 2 weeks?
Your freezer is your new best friend.
I know buying frozen vegetables wont be as fresh and as fabulous as fresh vegetables but we are students paying £9000+ a year for Uni so buying frozen veg will be a lot cheaper and will last longer in your freezer than buying a ton of fresh veg that will probably go out of date before you can eat all of it! So most of my veg is frozen, apart from spinach and the odd salad veg that I buy. I buy fresh spinach because I love spinach cooked and uncooked, however I do eat spinach like there is no tomorrow so I don't have much of a problem with it going out of date quickly.

Another tip: if you're buying fresh veg, look at the back of the product section. Whilst working in Tesco for a bit as an online shopper I HAD to pick from the back because that is where the product with the furthest away used by date is, meaning you'll most of the time get a product with a longer used by date. Don't grab from the front they are normally nearing the end of their used by date.

My fruit that I buy varies from frozen to fresh, I buy frozen fruit for my smoothies and breakfast, like blueberries and other berries because they last for agessss! and then fresh fruit for eating on a daily basis, I do keep a lot of my fruit in the fridge as I find that normally keeps it fresh for quite a while I mainly get fruits such as apples and bananas because I find they last longer than maybe a mango would.

Top Tip On Fruit: Buying un-ripe fruits, like slightly green bananas, these will slowly ripen over time meaning they will generally last longer than buying ripe or over ripe bananas which will go squashy and gross in a shorter time!

When I am fresh food shopping I often go for the supermarkets own brand purely because of money and it is often cheaper, it may seem like an effort at the time but spending more time on comparing prices of fruit and looking for longer used by dates of the fruit will definitely be worth it in the long run.

Happy Shopping!

Being Healthy On A Night Out? Ew.

There is no such thing as staying healthy on a night out as a student, because let's face it (as much as I love my green smoothies) standing drinking one whilst your friends drink their body weight in Jäger bombs WOULDN'T BE FUN. However there are some things that you could do that would make you feel less guilty. So how I look at it is I use the nights out as my cheat days because I'm consuming alcohol containing ridiculous amounts of calories, instead of eating cheat food for a day I'll have cheat drinks on a night out and eat super clean the during the day before a night out. You get my drift... I don't go out every week purely because I'm a broke ass student half the time and for some sections throughout the year I'll be focusing on my health and fitness so I won't allow myself to go out (boring I know, but work hard now and play hard later and all that). When I do go out I have some tips on making it work for me and maybe with you too. EARLY HOUR CRAVINGS Being students and stumbling home at 5-6 am after a night out through a street filled with shitty takeaway food that seem like heaven at the time, everyone gets cravings for it. I'm no exception cheesy chips all the way! BUT that's where I draw the line. Chips. I don't get burgers, pizzas, kebabs because I know I will gain nothing from it and I've gotten used to not having bready/doughy type carbs in my diet, but because I'm a student, and always starvin' marvin' after a night out I limit myself to chips (don't get the cheese on top, you can get through it...DONT DO IT). This all depends of course on the money I have left which is normally none. Next tip... COOK SOMETHING BEFORE Honestly, the amount of times I've thought about how future Shan is going to feel in situations. So during the day before your wild night out, quickly cook up some pasta with sauce or a jacket potato and put it in a container in the fridge ready for your slightly intoxicated 6am arrival to your fridge to find your self thanking your past self for thinking of you in a time of need. Pros to this? Saves you money, it won't have half the greasy shit you could intake in a takeaway on the way home AND your stomach is content (using the word 'content' loosely depending on how long you'll spend laying by the toilet for the next few hours getting rid of the 'good time' that is alcohol). DANCING On a night out when I've gotten to the stage of drinking when I don't know some people's names (we've all been there) you will not stop me dancing until they play the last song. Love. It. This can also be a super way to burn some of the calories you're pouring into your body through drinking, ITS A WIN WIN, drink more? Dance more! WAHEEEY! EAT CLEAN DURING THE DAY So chances are you're not going to want to work out or do any type of exercise the day after a night out (or like me, even move from bed unless the word food is mentioned) SO what I do is, eat super clean during the day and do a good workout during the day before the night out. If you're busy, start a couple of days earlier, eat super clean for a couple of days, it's worth it. THE DREADED HANGOVER I don't think there is ever a solid cure for hangovers it's just enduring it. However there are some things that can help. On a night out while your bladder is getting full but your mind is telling you to not 'break the seal' because you'll be back and forth weeing all night, this is the main way your body is going to lose potassium, now I'm no body nutritionist/scientist whatever, but potassium is needed for your body to function properly and if you're alcohol weeing all night you'll be losing a lot of potassium. So that hangover is basically your body trying to get all your bodily levels back to normal. Bananas are a smashing source of potassium so have a 1 or 2 bananas on your bedside table for when you wake up as they can help ease the symptoms of a hangover. WATER
Everyone says it but it's so true, drink plenty of water before you go to sleep. The alcohol will have made you super dehydrated which will cause your hangover headaches, I make sure I drink 2 glasses of water before I sleep and have a glass of water ready for me when I wake up. But it's down to your own body so drink as much water as is comfortable for you. So they are some of the pointers I use on a night out, it's just based on what I am comfortable with and how I see things for my own body it's nothing professional or based on scientific facts of food and life, just a few handy tips. I'm going to do another one of these kind of posts a couple of weeks before freshers week in September on how I'm going to stick to my routine and keep my strict mind set, although I'm not a fresher any more this coming year, I will for sure be having one hell of a week pretending I still am a fresher because fresher life sounds better than 2nd year life!

Mentality Over Physicality

In this blog post I really want to talk about how I have kept the right mind set for the past 4/5 months in sticking with working out 6 times a week and improving my general lifestyle.

For a pretty competitive person that hates quitting or failing I am surprised its taken me this long to get my shit together and stick at this new, much better lifestyle but I’m finally there and sticking to it because of how much better I feel now.

So the major point that I have noticed is for me it is definitely my mentality over my physicality, since going to the gym I can quite happily say my body will do most things I push it to do, but its the mind set that you’re in that is the most important, by far!

I’ve tried numerous times in the past to diet, exercise and all that jazz but looking back now I definitely did not have the right mind set in making sure I reach my goals and that ultimately made me fail in keeping up the diet and exercise. ( I hate failing).

What was the thing that kick started your new lifestyle? 

If I am being totally honest, the boredom I had of my degree. Yes, I am paying £90000 a year for a degree that I am quite bored of BUT I came to uni to get a degree and that is what I am going to leave with. I do Graphic Design, so there is a lot sitting on your arse all day in the studio in front of the computer or sketchbook and I was so bored of not doing something physically active with my days. SO off I went to the gym one evening and came out feeling so much better! not only does exercise make your fitter and healthier but it can help clear your mind of all the unnecessary shit, which is what that evening did and I have been going 6 days a week ever since because I love the refreshing feeling after. 

In my previous blog post I explained how I fit time for the gym with going to uni every day too. ( My Morning Workout Routine)

After cracking down on myself to get my butt to the gym 6 days a week I then went onto dealing with my lifestyle and my key word for this change is 

STRICT!

I am uber strict on myself, not as much as I was at the beginning of this journey because my body has adjusted. To change my sleeping routine and eating routine I had to make sure I stuck to it. So from going to sleep at 2/3ish in the morning and getting up at 8 for uni (wild one, yes I know), I had the big change of making sure I was trying to get to sleep by 10pm each night, it was not easy but I kept at it and now I have a much better sleeping routine getting 8 hours of sleep a night and I am not tired during the day.

Eating routines were not as hard to change, two of the major changes I made was cutting snacking out completely and replacing it with drinking water and not eating after 6:30pm until the morning for breakfast which can be challenging but I occupied myself with either going to see friends for the evening or doing work until l went to sleep to keep my mind off having that cheeky mid evening snack (don’t do it)

Being in the studio all day at uni with Cost Cutter just over the road also made it very easy to snack throughout the day and just generally buy shit foods due to boredom and just generally being sociable with others in the studio often turned to eating. As well as filling myself with crap I was spending ridiculous amounts of money each day on food, and looking back I can see how horrendous it looks on my bank statements (sorry HSBC x)

I managed to cut that whole shabang out my day pretty abruptly due to being very strict on myself and felt a lot better for it knowing my money was better in my bank and not CostCutters pockets.

so yeah thats kinda how all this came about, im going to do another blog post on how I eat when I have uni all day and don’t have time to go home and use the food in the cupboard instead of spending money and things like that. 

My general advice after doing it myself and changing my whole lifestyle is be mega strict, if you feel like you cant maybe get a friend of a family member to help you out/keep reminding you of what you want, because I promise you will feel 100% better. Its probably not the most appealing thing to do as a student but for myself it is definitely what I wanted/needed to make me happier, not that I was unhappy before but I definitely feel happier now rather than before.