Blog
Understanding Nutrition
When looking to make changes in our diet, it is important to make sustainable choices to optimize chances for success with our health goals. Setting intentions is all well and good, but it’s in doing the math and making a plan that we can actually create a system for change. This can feel overwhelming. In this article we will help you understand what you will need to do in order to optimize your nutrition and feel your best.
Sleep Deprivation: Causes, Effects & Solutions
Chronic sleep deprivation is the ongoing lack of adequate sleep over time, often due to lifestyle, medical issues, or stress. Those affected struggle to get the recommended 7-9 hours per night, resulting in cumulative sleep loss. Its effects can severely impact physical and mental health, leading to fatigue, cognitive impairment, mood changes, and a weakened immune system. Luckily, there are plenty of things within our control that we can do to promote better sleep.
Flu Season & How Viruses Work
Cold, flu and covid-19 season is upon us and we all know it's a thing but it's something we generally actually know little about. So I thought I would take this time to explain how a virus works, its timeline and some considerations that I believe we should keep in mind when dealing with viral infection, so that you can keep yourself and loved ones safe this fall.
Buckets: A Visual System for Balanced Health
Each bucket represents a different aspect that contributes to our overall health. This system will allow us to check in to see which buckets are being filled up easily and which ones are dangerously low or empty that need our attention.
What I’ve Learned in 3 years of Living in the Forest
I grew up in the suburbs of Ottawa. I spent 5 years in Waterloo for University. I moved to downtown Victoria when I was 25. Then Mike and I bought a property in the middle of the forest in the Slocan Valley. While there are pros and cons to being a city mouse or a country mouse, here are some of my reflections since living in the sticks for the last three years.
What Is Progressive Overload? And Why Does It Matter?
You are never too young or too old to start practicing progressive overload, you just need to be smart about implementing it and take a sustainable, long term approach.
Pre, During and Post Pregnancy Training Considerations
When you ask people what they are training for, common answers include an upcoming race, a sporting event or league, a big hiking trip, general health, a wedding, a vacation, to change body composition… It’s rare to hear “I’m training to be pregnant”; however this may be one of the most important reasons to train.
Movement is Always the Answer
Our bodies were designed to move. We evolved this way. To walk, to run, to climb, to crawl, to dance…and also to sit.
The problem with how our jobs and lifestyles have changed is that our amount of movement has declined significantly. This is due in part to environmental design but also cultural shifts and technological advances.
Where movement used to be built into our commutes or free time, has been replaced by more time sitting.
We are now seeing the impact that this reduction of movement is having on our species…
Renewing Your Commitment to Building Stronger Immunity
Affirmations and ideas about taking care of yourself
The Pros and Cons of Food Tracking
If you approach it with an open and curious mind, then food tracking can be the best thing you ever did to improve your lifestyle. It admittedly takes some patience and up front effort, but once you understand what your body needs, you have that knowledge for life.
Immunity & Visualization
I’ve come to find that the difference between pursuing a healthy future resides in the ability to do when you do not feel like doing. And the best way to overcome the mental or physical barriers we create for ourselves is to visualize doing the thing(s) and then feeling really good afterward.
Immunity & Patience
This year I wanted to give each month a theme to act as an umbrella under which all the little daily decisions become based around. Themes are general ideas, or universal messages that everyone can connect with and relate to aspects of their own lives. I wanted to develop a theme for the entirety of 2024, as well as themes for each month.
A Strategy for Improving Your Relationship With Sugar
One of the most powerful things we can do in life is practice restraint. With how convenient things are nowadays, we forget what it’s like to go without. We can literally have ice cream delivered to our houses at any moment.
How to deal with S.A.D.
We ultimately recommend to embrace the change in light and live more in accordance with the natural way of the seasons. This means slowing down, doing less, and resting more in the winter. However, we recognize that in our fast-moving culture, this isn’t always possible for everyone. So, here are some strategies to help you combat what has come to be known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)…
How To Exercise When You’re Injured
In this post we will discuss ideas on how to approach exercise when you’re dealing with an injury. We will lay things out thoroughly, in consideration of those who have never been injured.
The Consequences of Exercise
There is a long list of positive consequences of exercise. But all too often we avoid talking about the negative consequences. There are always pros and cons to everything, but luckily there are a lot of things we can do to manage the negative consequences as we continue to reap the many benefits of exercise.
How to Adapt our Training as we Age
If training has been a part of your life for years or decades, you have surely experienced an evolution from what training in your 20s was like compared to your middle and upper years. Here are a few tips to feel your best during training throughout your lifetime.
Are you Outcome-focused or Process-focused?
We believe that both mindsets are important. You need a clear goal to be your north star, but you also need to educate yourself on the processes needed to achieve that goal.
Pre and Post Exercise Nutrition
Learn about what to eat before and after exercising.
The Mental Side of Training
There are many ways to help you positively change your mental state such as listening to music, journaling, talking to someone, or partaking in other art forms. But between increasing blood flow throughout your body, and encouraging endorphins to be released, movement is up there as one of the best mood shifters.