December 16, 2019 · By Sarah Conklin

66: Building A Healthy Relationship With Food, Family Dynamics and Sport, Playing Music, Training While Sick, Training “The Right Way”

Juggling work-life balance can be a real three-ring circus, which Lauren & Jesse know first hand. Led by listener questions, the Work, Play, Love Podcast is all about sports, biz, and family. [ASK YOUR QUESTION]

66: Building A Healthy Relationship With Food, Family Dynamics and Sport, Playing Music, Training While Sick, Training “The Right Way”

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Description:

The holiday season is in full swing and your favorite Work, Play, Love hosts are going bananas with packed schedules for Picky Bars, sport, and family. And, no. The use of “bananas” is not a food pun. Lauren and Jesse catch up after not seeing each other for a bit and then dive into your WPL questions. They talk meditation and visualization, training while sick, and sponsorships. Plus, Lauren and Jesse go deep on developing a healthy relationship with food and body image, how to deal with a sibling taking over the title of “runner of the family,” fitting music into your busy life, and much more.

What’s goin’ on?!!

Lauren and Jesse talk about their super fun, sport-filled getaway at Hood River (home of Ferment, pFriem, and Full Sail brewing). Then they catch up on their action-packed weeks apart. Lauren shares her experience at the USATF Annual Meeting and talks about how—whether we like it or not—politics play a role in almost every industry, including track and field. She also gives an update about the book(s)—plural—that she’s working on.

Jesse talks about how the holiday has been looking for Picky Bars since Black Friday and Cyber Monday and how the busier-than-expected holiday kickoff has affected order fulfillment. He also talks about The Running Event 2019, and (possibly) nabbing the world record for fastest 5K in a dinosaur suit.

Other what’s goin’ on links:

Protest on Nike Campus

Tasty Bites

18:18 - When is Jude making another appearance on Work, Play, Love?

No scheduled appearances as of December 2019, but we’ll look into booking him (or Zadie) for a chat about science (or anything thing else) sometime soon.

18:51 - Why is there a delay in my Picky Bars order?

This holiday has been busy! And that’s awesome. We’re so appreciative of the support, and we want to get Picky Bars, merch, and other snacks in your hands ASAP. We’re working hard to get orders out as quickly as possible. We don’t work with a big-box fulfillment center, so our same super-hero Picky team is busy packing orders, and we’re a bit behind at the moment. We’re catching up and are super grateful for your patience.

19:24 - Do you use meditation or visualization for yourselves or your athletes?

Meditation is so good for your health—calming yourself and slowing down have a ton of benefits. And learning to center your mind, calm your mind, and re-focus on one thing over and over again are essential skills for achieving excellence in almost anything. There’s no one right way to meditate, but here are some ways Lauren and Jesse have used meditation for themselves or their athletes:

Use an app like Head Space
Take naps
Notice and focus the meditative aspects of running, a repetitive workout, or other activity
Sit down and visualize—or do a mental rehearsal for your workout, race, business meeting, and more. See yourself do it in your mind, and see how it’s going to go!

23:28 - What business arrangements do you prefer to have with your sponsors? Compensation based on appearances or results? Social-media traffic? Percent of sales for a particular product you’re promoting or have helped to develop?

Here are some of the things that Lauren and Jesse look for in a sponsorship agreement:

Guaranteed compensation for using image and likeness
Values alignment between your personal brand and the sponsor
A clear list of deliverables (appearances, social media content, blog-writing, photo shoots, etc.)
Less focus or equal focus on race results compared to social media or other activities

30:22 - What’s an “age-grouper”?

An age-grouper is an athlete that is not racing professionally. Age groupers are competitive in their age group and measured against the performance of folks in your age group.

31:08 - What are your recommendations for training and running while sick?

Here are some go-to rules for running and training while sick:

No running or training if you’ve got a fever!
If the throat and below (lungs!) are affected, prioritize letting your body heal and get better
Be conservative—take it easy at first signs of sickness! If you keep working out, you could accelerate your illness or make it worse

Meat & Potatoes

36:28 - Lauren has talked about how her relationship with food has changed, and that today she has a value-free relationship with food. Can you share some of the work you did to change your relationship with food?

Working towards a healthy relationship with your body and the food you eat can give you peace, freedom, and gives you a chance to reclaim the head space otherwise spent thinking about food and comparing yourself to others. It’s important to recognize, though, that there’s a biological and genetic component that makes change different for every person—what works and doesn’t work, and how easy it is to change behaviors is different for everyone. That said, we believe that a healthy relationship with food and body is available to everyone.

Here are some tips and resources for understanding and shifting your relationship with food and body image:

There’s a ton of helpful resources on the National Eating Disorders Association website
Learn about the Health At Every Size paradigm—you can read the principles here
Find teachers and social media accounts that promote body acceptance, like Dr. Melody Moore
Work with a therapist on changing your relationship with food
Awareness is key: examining your relationship with food and body can alert you to unhealthy habits
Remember that being lean has diminishing returns when it comes to athletic performance

55:04 - How do you handle a sibling (or other loved one) taking the “runner of the family” title?

We’ve all been there. You’re at a family dinner or other gathering and a well-intentioned family member asks you about that passion that you’re secretly not feeling that confident about, sending you into an angsty spiral of all the worst feelings. You’re. not. alone! This is a super common experience. If you’re taking a break from sport due to an injury or just changing interests and suddenly someone else in the family is getting attention for their performance in sport, it can bring up feelings of jealousy and insecurity.

Here are a few things to remember: your identity is much more than your sports performance—and your family probably sees this more than you do. Family-gathering talk can be some of the most uncreative, unstimulating chatter ever—so switch it up! Shift the conversation to your other interests so you can share those parts of yourself, too. Lastly, lean in to your loved one’s recent achievements in sport. Believe it or not, this can take a lot of pressure off how you feel about it.

1:03:00 - How can you fit playing music into your life while still balancing family, work, and sports?

Fitting that extra thing into your life can be really, really tough. Here are some tips to fit music into your life when you’ve got a ton of other things going on:

Keep music in your life in other ways outside of playing it
Try listening to and discovering new music through podcasts
Introducing others (like your kids) to music you love while doing things around the house
Find a way to keep your playing alive in small ways. Before you go for a run, can you play a few scales or a short piece for five minutes?

You may find it pretty satisfying to play music for even just a few minutes a few times a week!

1:09:14 - How do you balance trying to improve your practice with an abundance of choices and information availability?

With all of the information out there, it can feel like you need to perfectly nail every aspect of your training—sleep, recovery, workouts, etc. It can be disorienting and lead to decision fatigue, or a general feeling of not living up to some perfect way of doing things. A good rule of thumb? Know that there’s no “right way” to train and recover—a diverse range of strategies and approaches have worked for world-class athletes for as long as sport has existed. Here are some other things to consider:

Build on what’s worked for you in the past—take data and your previous template and work from there
Recovery days should simply be easy—don’t overthink or overdo recovery
You can over-optimize! There are aspects of training that deliver diminishing returns if you try to make every variable perfect

Follow Ups

1:16:48 – This episode features a ton of follow ups and excellent listener advice. Lauren and Jesse read through them rapid-fire style and touch on topics like: