Happy Monday! With colder weather beginning, many athletes find that they begin to suffer from exercise induced asthma. If you find yourself suffering from coughing, wheezing and feel a tightness in your chest and are very short of breath while you are exercising – then you are experiencing the effects EIA. I have issues year round, but mornings like today, I definitely notice more pronounced symptoms.  It’s not an excuse to not get your butt up and exercise though, because it can be managed. Depending on how severe, you can manage EIA with medication and with breathing techniques.

Learning to breath and getting into a rhythm with your breaths while  you are exercising can help manage it. I personally am working on my breathing techniques all the time, because when you do have asthma, you also have to manage how you react to being short of breath, so you don’t freak out and make it worse.

The American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology has some good info on EIA to check out and if you think you may be experiencing it, talk to your doctor.

Asthma can make your workouts tougher, which can lead to you not wanting to workout. It’s cold, dark and you know you will be really challenged during your workout. All of those factors can make it that much tougher to find the motivation to get your butt up and put in the work. Here is a list of 40 Things to Try When You Don’t Want to Work Out to help you dig deep and find what resonates and motivates you to make you and your health a priority.

This quote speaks to so many of us every single day: Why Not You?  

Here’s some interesting stuff I have ready the past day or so:

• Why The Paleo Diet Works for Me
• Bread Production in the US Industry – This is interesting because it looks like folks following Paleo or other similiar approaches are affecting bread production in the US. 
• A Weightlifting Lesson From Miley Cyrus
• Beyond Paleo: moving from a “paleo diet” to a “paleo template”  – I like this because I believe that one approach does not work for everyone. You have to figure out what works for you. Period.