Freedom Fitness YQR

Have you ever been exercising or participating in an activity and thought, “man, I just don’t seem to have my normal energy. I feel tired, sluggish.” Maybe you even felt a little shaky or light headed.
If you answered YES to any of the above, there is a good chance you were not properly fueled for your activity. I wasn’t yesterday when I hopped on the bike and my ride ended earlier than I planned
Keep the following in mind to ensure you are properly fuelled:

💪If eating a meal before activity, aim for about 2 hours before
💪If your last meal will be greater than 2 hours before your activity, then eat a snack about an hour before
💪What to eat...a combination of carbs and protein is key (don’t skimp on the carbs, your body will use carbs as its primary fuel source and because our bodies can only store limited glycogen (how our body stores carbs) in our muscles, you will need to have carbs readily available
Snack ideas:
🍓Fruit smoothie with protein powder
🥛Cereal and milk
🍌Oatmeal and banana
🍞Toast and peanut butter
🍎 Fruit and yogurt

Food is fuel!

What if our body isn’t aging as fast as we think? What if our habits of walking less, sitting more, scrolling more and a life of convenience at our fingertips are making us feel old?

Perhaps our aches and pains are not signalling our body is falling apart, but our bodies way of asking to move more. Your body isn’t fragile it will respond to what you do/don’t do with it.

So move your body. Even if it’s slow. Even if it only for 5 minutes. Your body is adaptable.

Your story isn’t over and it’s not too late.

Quick weekend trip to Montreal with the family, turned into a little longer trip when a winter storm rolled thru and we spent two extra days in Montreal. Unfortunately a couple of the family ended up sick but we are always grateful for time spent together and an opportunity to binge watch Netflix when you don’t feel like doing anything else. 😉

Life will always get on the way of our plans. Some days you will have time and energy for a full workout, other days not. So having backup plans is a simple way to help ensure you are able to stay consistent with your exercise routine. It may not seem like much when you only stretch or walk for a few minutes- but it is something and you are keeping a commitment to yourself. You don’t need fireworks and confetti on an ap to prove your movement was worthy. Your watch/ap isn’t living your life, so don’t let it be the only thing telling you your movement was good/bad on a given day. Show up for a few minutes each day, put the day behind you and move on.

Happy New Year 🥳 May 2026 bring you much happiness & health.

Think about training for the last decade of your life. What do you want to be able to do then? Where do you want to live? Absolutely, things out of our control can impact those decisions, but we do have control how we live in the here & now and those decisions will affect our future. Train for tomorrow and beyond!

Changing or establishing a new habit can be hard and takes time. But how we think about that change is super important.

All too often when it comes to improving our health, we think and are often told, we need to change or take something away from our life to be healthier. Lose weight, sit less, don’t eat this....the list goes on. This mentality can lead to feelings of self doubt, disappointment and guilt; especially if we have tried but are unable to “remove” something from our life.

Try focusing on ADDING healthy habits and choices to your life. Move a little more, eat one more serving of fruits & vegetables each day, drink one more glass of water/ day, connect with one person each week you don’t normally see....

It is a powerful choice to ADD rather than take away and is improving your health; mental and physical.

Start where you are, be consistent and build from there. Consistency over time is what gets lasting results.

Remember perfection doesn’t exist and what is ideal is irrelevant if you don’t do it.

** THIS STORY HAPPENED A COUPLE YEARS AGO BUT STILL IS RELEVANT**

Last week a client came in all smiles and showed me her recent bone mineral density test. Over the past 2 years she had improved her fracture risk from high to moderate and improved all her T scores, except one, which remained constant. Do you know what changed for her over the last two years? RESISTANCE TRAINING 2-3x/week.

These moments are why I love doing what I do. A reminder that the reason my clients choose to exercise are varied but all equally important.

Why do you exercise?

It’s never too late to start-

I get asked this question all the time. It takes time to grow muscle and notice visible changes, but ensuring you are challenging yourself and your muscles is key. Within your own personal limitations and taking your own situation and/or injuries into consideration, keep the following in mind:
💪 at the end of your set you should only be able to do a few more reps (2-4)
💪 if your final few reps are being performed more slowly- that is a good thing
💪 if you are making weird faces or possibly noises to get thru your last few reps- also a good thing
💪 you feel like you are giving a 7/10 or higher on effort

Seeing and feeling the benefits of resistance training is hard work and takes time, but it so worth the effort.