9 to 5 Wellness
Do you have the knowledge you need to help your organization get the best return on the time and capital invested in employee wellbeing? Are you a busy professional or C-suite leader looking to introduce wellbeing program at your work?
Discover the art and science of helping organizations grow their most important resource, their people. In this podcast we discuss how organizations can utilize the potential of wellbeing programs to deliver high return on investment (ROI) to employers. We talk about the radical impact that holistic employee wellbeing programs can have on overall quality of work and productivity. We will be sharing insights on investing in human capital. Such as:
🌟 What has helped their organizations gain a competitive advantage?
🌟 How they see the future of employee wellbeing?
🌟 Misunderstandings that are out in the corporate market today
🌟 Advice to other leaders to create a happier, healthier, and more productive workplace
Our guests are C-suite leaders, and wellness innovators across the value chain: HR managers, wellness champions, community wellbeing ambassadors, service vendors, and wellness consultants.
9 to 5 Wellness
I ran every day this month - Here's what happened
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In this epsiode you can learn about my 30-Day Running streak starting on January 1st, 2026.
I'm sharing the significant physical and mental benefits that experienced from running daily.
🌟 🌟 🌟 If you liked this episode and would like to learn more about wellness training and workshops offered by 9 to 5 Wellness, email us at info@aeshathair.com. You can learn more about our programs at: https://toneandstrengthen.com/workshops-trainings/. 🌟 🌟 🌟
My passion is helping organizations create a culture of wellness, and I do this by setting up health programs that prioritize the most important asset they've got – their employees. Cheers to a healthier and happier journey ahead!
🌟 🌟 🌟 You can learn more about ME- the host at https://www.aeshatahir.com
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Hello and welcome to episode number 107 of the Nine to Five Wellness Podcast. So today I'm going to talk about something really fun for me. I think it's gonna be fun for you too, because you're gonna get to learn a little bit about, my running journey this year, like 2026.
So January 1st, 2026. Yes. New Year's Day. I decided to start a 30 day run streak. I've been running kind of inconsistently last year, and I know there was a lot going on, but still I didn't like that. So I was like, this year I want to be more consistent with my running.
And for that, I was like, Hmm, let's try. To see if I can run every day this month. And so far I've been running for 34 days straight. So let's see how far I can go.
And hang on, before you lace up your sneakers, you may wonder what happens when you run every day. How does it affect your body? So today I'm going to break down the benefits of running daily and the science behind it all. And I wanna give you guys a heads up here. I'm saving the best benefit for last, so make sure you listen to this episode to the end.
Let's talk about the physiologic changes first. My muscle fibers have become much more fatigue resistant. I can easily go for double back to back strength training workouts. While I could do back to back strength training workouts before I took up the challenge, but I used to get really sore after them. Now, I don't get as much sore if I add strength training volume, so, my endurance has gotten way better. My slow twitch muscle fibers, which are responsible for endurance are doing their magic.
Behind these adaptations are physiologic changes in my body, such as my blood vessels multiplying in my muscles to improve blood supply. Increase in mitochondria in the cells, which improves oxygen extraction and energy production. I've also lost belly fat. My runner girl four pack is back.
Hopefully this year it'll turn into a six pack. It will. I know it will. Just watch me. So why is that though? Because my insulin sensitivity has increased. Running improves insulin sensitivity. I want to go a bit deeper into insulin sensitivity here because that's one of the most important reasons for weight gain and obesity.
Running enables muscles to take up glucose independently of insulin because when muscles contract during running. That forces muscle cells to take up glucose from the bloodstream. A process that continues temporarily after the workout, reducing the immediate need for insulin, so that enhances post-exercise insulin independent glucose uptake, and lowers body fat.
Consistent running like running every day increases the density of glucose transporters, especially the glucose transporter four, which goes by GLUT four and muscle cells.
These transporter cells trigger the translocation of GLUT four proteins , from within the muscle cells to the cell membrane, allowing glucose uptake for energy independent of insulin. Running activates signaling molecules such as. A MPK
and calcium dependent protein kinase, which triggered the movement and production of more of those glucose transporter cells. So. What essentially is happening is we are bypassing the hormone insulin for the uptake of glucose in our bloodstream because of running or because of doing consistent cardio activity.
Regular running also increases the number of insulin receptors on cells, which reduces inflammation, which is another very positive adaptation of daily running. I don't feel sore after my runs anymore. However, I do feel sore if I lift heavy. That's for another podcast. I guess my lifting sessions.
Another positive change that I've experienced from running daily is that I enjoy these easy aerobic Zone two runs now. Honestly, it's been a while since I've enjoyed zone two running this much because to maintain the streak, I knew I won't be able to go too hard on most of my runs or I'll get injured.
Before the streak, I felt like since I'm running only four or five days a week, I have to go at a tempo pace or I won't get the benefits of running. Now I care less because every run is part of something bigger Also. Another thing is that I'm so relaxed when I'm running now because I don't care if I didn't hit five miles or whatever my training plan calls for, for that day because I can always make up the distance the next day.
I am mentally so relaxed because of that. Another reason for attempting this streak for me was because I wanted to build a strong base for my running and for my races this year. So I wanted to keep my runs at an aerobic pace, so I thought to myself, what better way to do that than running daily? And I was right. Mission accomplished there. I wanna continue to build my base for another couple of weeks though.
Okay, so this good of running slow or running at an aerobic pace is accompanied by some bad, which is that my VO two max has dropped because I dropped my running pace.
My Garmin watch thinks that I'm decreasing my training load and my VO two max has dropped by a couple of points. It's okay though. I started with a very high VO two max, and it'll come right back up when when I start introducing some speed work and heavier lifting sessions, I'm trusting the process here, so it's gonna be all okay.
Let's talk about my running form, because that has improved from running daily as well. The first few days my calfs were really sore. Where my gastroc and soleus muscles insert into my right knee actually, so I experimented with changing my stride and cadence, taking shorter steps and increasing my foot turnover. That was a game changer. My lower body strength has improved and my average power has gone up because the very act of running fires up these muscles to produce great power, mile after mile. Fun fact for you guys here. Calf muscles are your body's second heart. They pump the blood upstream towards your heart. My peak power has dropped though because I'm not doing speed work yet. I know it'll come right back up. My leg muscles, including calves, quads, and glutes, are more effective at absorbing force and storing elastic energy. Which ultimately translates to greater kinetic energy or force production. So those are some of the physiologic adaptations, most of which have been positive.
Now let's talk about the mental effect of daily running. In my opinion, the best benefit of running daily has been , that it has removed the decision fatigue about running, having an objective to run daily, made it easier to go out and run.
There was no discussion and no decision to be made. I made the decision to run at the beginning of the streak, so I just had to run. When I moved from should I run to when am I gonna get my run in? The magic just happened.
I was suddenly able to make it happen. That is so beautiful and it feels so wonderful. I admit that I might be in trouble now because I was already so addicted to running and exercise I might have taken this addiction to a whole other level. Just saying, I think there's no limit to my crazies. I wanna talk about the decision making here, though. I realized how much making repeated decisions depletes our mental resources, making us more prone to impulsive actions, poor judgment, and even avoidance of decision making altogether like we procrastinate, right? So I'm trying to limit the number of decisions I need to make daily in other areas of my life now, especially for my business. You might have heard of the example that Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are known for wearing the same outfit every day to eliminate unnecessary choices. That sounds too extreme to me, since it's related to my wardrobe and fashion choices. But there are other work areas that I'm implementing this in. Running daily, remove decision making by converting that intentional choice into an automatic habit, bypassing my brain's decision making center. Our brain has limited willpower that depletes with every decision we make.
Running daily has freed up so much cognitive energy in terms of my exercise decisions. I don't have to constantly evaluate, plan or question when I'm gonna run. Hopefully I can keep up with this good habit and train all year without any interruptions. It has been a fun experiment so far.
I'm having so much fun. Maybe I'll push it to 60 days. I'll see how I feel tomorrow. Right now, I gotta go and run. Bye.
