When was the last time you looked in the mirror and thought "there she is." 

6 months ago, I couldn't tell you when I last saw myself. 

Deep in the year of the pandemic, every time I looked in the mirror I thought...

"Why do I look so tired? Why do I feel so tired? Is my skin aging faster than usual?"

...or I thought of all of the things I had to do that day, or wasn't going to get to, or wasn't doing very well. 

But I never thought "here I am."

It's a funny thing realizing you are lost...not in direction outside of yourself, but in direction INSIDE of yourself.

You check the boxes as you go...

• Marriage...check
• House...check
• Enough cutlery and bake wear to host Thanksgiving in your home...check
• Dog...check
• Children...check
• Work Hard to Lose the Baby Weight...trying to check
• Career Path that fulfills me...check-ish
• Things that bring you joy outside of motherhood and marriage that remind you who you are and how to always have a good laugh at yourself.....oops...forgot to...

Seriously….do you ever notice how your energy and motivation waxes and wanes like the moon?!?! Well sister…apparently it isn’t just in our heads…it is in our HORMONES, and TRULY happens! There is a REASON we feel like we can TAKE ON the world as our period wraps up and like we can barely get out of bed (unless it is for chocolate) the closer to Aunt Flow’s visit.

In FACT….there is actually something called CYCLE SYNCHING that is a proven and researched method for working alongside your hormone cycle to get the MOST out of your workouts….Now as much as I am SURE you would love to get lost down a rabbit hole researching all the info you can on this (notice the sarcasm) I know that if you are like ME…YOU DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT INSANITY….so, I am going to summarize this stuff for you quick and dirty so you can take advantage of these perks and know what workouts to do when Aunt Flow visits and when she says ‘peace out’ until next month.

Cool? Cool.

Here we go…in laymen’s terms.

Days ...

 I didn't need to step on the scale to know. I FELT lighter. In my body and in my mind. 

In my personal training and health coaching practice I was beginning to notice a pattern of women over 35 doing everything they could to lose weight. Calorie restriction, intermittent fasting, dozens of various diets and nutrition philosophies paired with consistent, high intensity interval workouts. This was the way to lose weight wasn't it?

But instead of losing weight they were gaining weighting, or feeling stuck and more depleted than ever.

I was baffled.

Everything I knew as a trainer and coach was working backwards for my poor exhausted, peri-menopausal clients.

Then some time around the age of 37, I noticed a very similar shift in my own body. My same HIIT workouts were leaving me depleted. My afternoon‘s plagued with brain fog, my skin felt like it was rapidly aging before my eyes and I noticed excess weight gain around my belly that hadn’t been there before.

As much as I wanted to bla...

She asked me "What is the best workout to target belly fat?"

It's a question I have been asked hundreds of times...and even though I have a few clarifying questions to be sure, chances are, I already know the answer.

No workout.

As in, do NOT workout.

Her shocked and sceptical response no longer surprises me. I felt the exact same way when I learned this information and have seen the same response from hundreds of women when I give this answer. 

It wasn't that long ago I was feeling frustrated with my own pants starting to feel tighter. As a personal trainer and avid fitness lover for more than a decade, I found myself scrolling through my favourite online workout platform wondering which ab workouts to add on to my routine to target the extra fluff that had been starting to make my high rise leggings feel a little uncomfortable lately as they pressed on my belly. 

Was I going to have to give up my weekend love affair with Ben & Jerry? Or the blissful few nights a week where I si...