If you’ve recently had a baby and your thinking of joining a fitness class for new moms-please make sure the instructor has training in working with pregnant and postpartum women. Even coaches with University Degrees in Exercise Science may not be qualified. Pregnancy and Postpartum fitness isn't a part of the curriculum unless you take a Special Populations course, which I speak for at the University of Western Ontario. Some of these programs set unrealistic expectations. For many women, in the first year postpartum, their bodies are stressed. Most of the stress is due to lack of sleep. Other ..read more

Yesterday, I had posted an article in my free Facebook coaching group from Girls Gone Strong called Why Fat Shaming Doesn’t Promote Health and What You Can Do Instead. Then, I explained it had been 2 years since I stopped having my clients weigh themselves. I had seen dozens of women step on that scale and feel like they had failed themselves. To me this is a shameful practice and sets the wrong tone when anyone starts a fitness program of any kind. There are other methods of tracking progress. If stepping on a scale is an emotional trigger, then it isn’t going to be an empowering experience ..read more

About ten years ago, I started my personal training career at a small women’s gym here in London, Ontario. Since then, I have worked with hundreds of women and the strong majority of them set fat-loss as their primary fitness goal. It was surprising when a client set strength or performance as their main goal. Even working with women in their 60’s 70’s and my oldest client who was 80, had set some sort of fat-loss goal. Fat-loss or weight-loss is nothing new in the fitness industry. With fitness and diet marketing targeting those who wish to drop a few pounds, it’s always front and center of e ..read more

During pregnancy, your body needs to adapt to your growing baby so the abdominal muscles will begin to move away from the midline of your core. This is known as diastasis rectus abdominis (DRA). This is made possible thanks to the connective tissue called the Linea Alba. ,To learn more about DRA, click here Your body is pretty incredible when you think about it. It makes all of these changes to support a pregnancy. With that being said, your Linea Alba loses tension and post-pregnancy, leaves you with that “mom pooch” or “mummy tummy” If you feel like you still look 6-months pregnant and you ..read more

I’ve been a mom for almost six years now and a trainer for nearly a decade. In that time, I have seen fit pros, fitness and lifestyle bloggers, social media fitness gurus, magazines, and celebrities proudly glamorizing the “bounce back” post-pregnancy. I can’t begin to tell you the strange and downright crazy claims can be. Targeting women who have just had babies, telling them they can have the exact same incredible results as they’ve achieved in such a short period. This is also extremely irresponsible of any trained and qualified fitness professional with any experience training prenatal an ..read more

Christmas is come and gone, now New Year is approaching fast! It’s the time where you start fresh, pack away bad eating habits and commit to a ridiculous fitness plan that not even The Rock can keep up with. But you have to. It’s your New Year’s Resolution, after all. Let Me Introduce You to Kim Kim is a mom of a one-year-old daughter, has a successful career where she is very well respected. On the outside, she has a perfect life, but couldn’t seem to get her weight under control. Kim tried everything from Weight Watchers, to skipping meals, to high-intensity fitness programs that included di ..read more

Christmas is almost here and If you’re anything like me, you’ve just started your shopping because every year, the holidays seem to sneak up on you before you know it! This is also the time of year for diets, detoxes, and transformations. Fitness and diet marketing is in full force, designed to shame and guilt you into buying their products. Let’s face it, the diet industry is worth over 65 billion bucks for a good reason. They bank on you failing within the first few weeks. Frustrating, isn’t it? A system that is supposed to help women get to a healthy place, sets you up to fail so that you w ..read more

You’re awake at 2 am with, feeding your new baby and trying desperately to get him back to sleep. You’re tired and you haven’t had a solid sleep in what feels like years. You find yourself on Facebook killing some time. You see an ad, promising you a quick transformation with flat abs. Sounds good seeing that you’ve been trying to do this all on your own and nothing is working. You click on the ad, see that it includes workouts, meal plans and an accountability group. Sounds like a great deal, right? I hear you. You want to feel a little like yourself again and it’s important for you to have t ..read more

You find yourself in a decent fitness routine. You’re able to fit it in a couple days a week without too much issue and you’re really enjoying the time that you’re focusing on you. For the most part, you’re able to stay on the schedule that you set for yourself. Your young child(ren) have even learned how to enjoy themselves as they see that you’re getting a little exercise in. You found something that work and it feels great! Now you find yourself returning to work in a few weeks and the anxiety begins to set in. As you’re busily trying to sort out daycare and prepare your young child(ren ..read more

Being diagnosed with a pelvic organ prolapse (POP) can be devastating for any woman and these emotions are very intense. There is a lot of fear,anxiety, shame and blame that comes along with this and there are so many women who suffer alone digging through google to make sense of how to live the rest of their lives as normal as possible. Many women feel completely dismissed when it comes to the symptoms of a POP. The first place they turn is usually a loved one or family doctor and these symptoms are brushed off as a normal part of having a baby. Sure, sometimes these symptoms resolve themselv ..read more