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If you’re not familiar with the powerhouse that is Kate Strong, you will be by the end of this episode. Kate is a 3x world record holder in cycling, world champion triathlete, passionately plant-based and a purpose-led coach and consultant. Her upcoming challenge, Challenge 3,000, involves her cycling 3,000 miles around the circumference of the UK and planting 3,000 trees- on a bamboo bicycle. Do we have your attention? Important topics and points you don't want to miss: >> Kate’s story of going vegan for health and performance reasons, but those reasons expanding to others as well. >> Her 3 world records in cycling: 1 hour, 12 hours, 24 hours on stationary bike (furthest distance). >> Being a plant-based athlete, and how connecting to nature relates to our performance. Connect with Kate: >> Kate's website >> Kate on Instagram and LinkedIn Episode Transcript >> Access the full transcript of this episode here. Get not one--but two--vegan fitness and nutrition coaches! ​ Only a few spots available! If you're ready to level-up your fitness and vegan nutrition, our award-winning coaching programs are for you. Coach K and Coach Zoe will build a customized workout routine around your busy life so you don’t have to reorganize your entire schedule. We’ll create a nutrition action plan that lets you eat your favourite foods, while supporting both your fitness and your physique goals. Most importantly, we'll provide an in-depth support and coaching system to keep you accountable and moving toward your goals. Learn more here. To share your thoughts: Comment on the episode's Facebook post. To support the show: Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help, and I read each one! Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

Pause and answer immediately: who are your five favourite voices in the wellness industry right now, or those you see represented the most? Would you say that there is diversity represented in your responses? Does your answer surprise you? Let’s get into it. Stacy Lee Kong is a writer, editor and the founder of Friday Things, a weekly newsletter and social media account about pop culture stories. We discuss the way white supremacy is embedded in the wellness industry, and how we can collectively work to decolonize wellness. Important topics and points you don't want to miss: >> The way white supremacy is embedded in the wellness industry. >> Why it matters that we think about race in the context of our consumer decisions and belief systems. >> What you can do to decolonize your wellness practices. Connect with Stacy: >> Stacy's website, Friday Things >> Stacy on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok Mentioned in this episode: >> Sign up for Stacy's weekly newsletter, Friday Things, here! Episode Transcript: >> Access the full transcript of this episode here. Get not one--but two--vegan fitness and nutrition coaches! ​ Only a few spots available! If you're ready to level-up your fitness and vegan nutrition, our award-winning coaching programs are for you. Coach K and Coach Zoe will build a customized workout routine around your busy life so you don’t have to reorganize your entire schedule. We’ll create a nutrition action plan that lets you eat your favourite foods, while supporting both your fitness and your physique goals. Most importantly, we'll provide an in-depth support and coaching system to keep you accountable and moving toward your goals. Learn more here. To share your thoughts: Comment on the episode's Facebook post. To support the show: Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help, and I read each one! Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

“Bro culture” is the thing we chuckle about sometimes, or see featured in memes. What happens when we explore this term further, not only within a fitness realm, but in relation to women in business as a whole? Holly Burton joins me to discuss women in business and in fitness: oppression, prejudice, expectations; “taking up space” physically and socially; the problems with so-called “bro culture”, and how to build your own path forward. Holly is a leadership coach for women in male-dominated industries. She's also the founder of Women in Male-Dominated Industries [WIMDI], a community of over 4,000 ambitious folks who connect with each other and get delicious career and leadership resources that help them create the working world they deserve while they wait for the rest of society to catch up. Important topics and points you don't want to miss: >> Holly was a mining engineer for 10 years. She shares why she left the field and started a coaching business for women in male-dominated industries. >> “Bro culture” in business and fitness: it’s tied up in white supremacy, and is a cultural celebration of toxic masculinity. We discuss how the concept of “biohacking” fits in here. >> Parallels between how women in business and women in fitness are perceived: expectations of them, and the types of oppression in both industries. Connect with Holly: >> Holly's website, and the WIMDI website >> WIMDI on Twitter and LinkedIn Mentioned in this episode: >> Holly's September initiative: Coachstravaganza [30 spots available!] Episode Transcript: Access a full transcript of the episode here. Get not one--but two--vegan fitness and nutrition coaches! ​ Only a few spots available! If you're ready to level-up your fitness and vegan nutrition, our award-winning coaching programs are for you. Coach K and Coach Zoe will build a customized workout routine around your busy life so you don’t have to reorganize your entire schedule. We’ll create a nutrition action plan that lets you eat your favourite foods, while supporting both your fitness and your physique goals. Most importantly, we'll provide an in-depth support and coaching system to keep you accountable and moving toward your goals. Learn more here. To share your thoughts: Comment on the episode's Facebook post. To support the show: Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help, and I read each one! Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

Aesthetics-based fitness competitions are all the rage these days (and they have been for a while). In the context of this post, I'm talking about female-specific competitions, particularly the bikini division. All the power to you if you decide to compete in competitions like this -- it's your body, after all. However, here's why we don’t work with clients who want to compete in these events, and why you should think twice about competing: 1. You’re training yourself to care what others think of your body. Don’t we have enough of this harmful B.S. in the fitness industry already? 2. Erasure of gender fluidity and rigid expectations of gender expression. Bikini competitions present women in an extremely gendered way. “Female competitors are required to display femininity and implied heterosexuality on stage through their attitude, gestures, posing, make-up, hairstyle, and adornments.”* 3. Conflating health and fitness with looks. Bikini competitions further the myth that fitness has a “look”. (It doesn’t.) It also furthers the harmful concept that an extremely low body fat percentage is healthy, fit, desirable, and attractive. 4. Fat phobia has racist roots. Read Fearing The Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings. Fat phobia isn’t about health, Strings argues. It’s about using the body to validate race, class, and gender prejudice. 5. Lack of diversity. There’s one standardized ideal of beauty to aspire to in these competitions, which works for only a small percentage of the population that happens to have the genetics for it. 6. Sexualization. Bikini competitions involve hyper-sexualized posing routines. Sexualization in the fitness industry furthers the harmful rhetoric that females exist solely for the benefit of the male gaze. 7. Extremely restrictive dieting protocols that often lead to disordered eating patterns, problematic language around food like “cheat meals”, and expectations of such low body fat that many competitors lose their periods. The following quotes are from the Social Sciences journal article: Rival Bodies: Negotiating Gender and Embodiment in Women’s Bikini and Figure Competitions by Favor Campbell, Myra B. Haverda, and John P. Bartkowski (2021). “Bikini and figure competitors must struggle to negotiate how to exhibit the muscle that is expected to be displayed in these competitions without ‘sacrificing’ their femininity.” “In fact, a good case could be made that women’s bodybuilding has become further marginalized with the rise of women’s fitness competitions because women’s bodybuilding risks blurring the lines between men’s and women’s bodies. The bikini competition preserves and even underscores that gendered boundary.” “Many competitors develop strategies to distance themselves from being labeled “too masculine.” The most common strategy used by several competitors to enhance their femininity entailed getting breast implants.” “Undoubtedly, these attitudes…suggest that prevailing ideas of femininity are reinforced even through fitness competitions”, and this attitude “substantiates how conventional views of femininity are prevalent in these shows.” *Tajrobehkar, B. (2016). Flirting With the Judges: Bikini Fitness Competitors’ Negotiations of Femininity in Bodybuilding Competitions. Sociology of Sport 33 (4), 294-304. These are the types of wins we love to hear about from our clients: Want to work on increasing your strength? Building long-term habits? Improving your nutrition in a non-restrictive, healthy way? ​ Only a few spots available! If you're ready to level-up your fitness and vegan nutrition, our award-winning coaching programs are for you. Coach K and Coach Zoe will build a customized workout routine around your busy life so you don’t have to reorganize your entire schedule. We’ll create a nutrition action plan that lets you eat your favourite foods, while supporting both your fitness and your physique goals. Most importantly, we'll provide an in-depth support and coaching system to keep you accountable and moving toward your goals. Learn more here.

It’s not out of the ordinary for us to hear about self-care, ideal ways to practice it, and why it’s so imperative. It is rare, however, to hear it discussed within the culinary world. Enter Chef Stephanie Michalak White, who developed and launched a plant-based program at the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts [currently ranked as the #1 culinary school in the entire world.] Stephanie and I discuss her program development, what self-care means for chefs and folks in culinary worlds, and the major topic of food insecurity. Important topics and points you don't want to miss: >> How Chef Stephanie came to veganism, and got her start in the culinary industry. It involved realizing that food is political! >> The plant-based program she helped to develop and launch at the Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. >> The market need for a plant-based-specific culinary diploma and degree program. Connect with Chef Stephanie: >> The Escoffier School of Culinary Arts on Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube. >> Stephanie's plant-based program at Escoffier School. Episode Transcript: Access a full transcript of the episode here. Get not one--but two--vegan fitness and nutrition coaches! ​ Only a few spots available! If you're ready to level-up your fitness and vegan nutrition, our award-winning coaching programs are for you. Coach K and Coach Zoe will build a customized workout routine around your busy life so you don’t have to reorganize your entire schedule. We’ll create a nutrition action plan that lets you eat your favourite foods, while supporting both your fitness and your physique goals. Most importantly, we'll provide an in-depth support and coaching system to keep you accountable and moving toward your goals. Learn more here. To share your thoughts: Comment on the episode's Facebook post. To support the show: Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help, and I read each one! Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

Many folks come to veganism later in life, but there are a select few who start slightly earlier! Kingston Zoom Walters, also known as King Zoom the Vegan Kid, has been vegan since birth. Kingston is an 18-year-old vegan, neurodivergent, feminist social justice activist and environmentalist. His early passion for speaking up against injustices towards animals, humans and the planet evolved into speaking at many events across North America. Kingston joins me to discuss what he’s learned as a child activist, self-care for vegan animal activists, and his brand new book. Important topics and points you don't want to miss: >> What Kingston learned as a child activist, as well as his inspiration for and approach to his work >> Self care for vegan animal activists. What does it mean? Why is it important? How do we do it? >> Kingston’s brand new cookbook: King Zoom's Quarantine Cook Book: Plant Based Recipes To Save Our Planet Connect with Kingston: >> Kingston's website and Youtube channel >> Kingston on Facebook and Instagram >> Kingston's new cookbook "King Zoom's Quarantine Cook Book: Plant Based Recipes To Save Our Planet” Episode Transcript: Access a full transcript of the episode here. Get not one--but two--vegan fitness and nutrition coaches! ​ Only a few spots available! If you're ready to level-up your fitness and vegan nutrition, our award-winning coaching programs are for you. Coach K and Coach Zoe will build a customized workout routine around your busy life so you don’t have to reorganize your entire schedule. We’ll create a nutrition action plan that lets you eat your favourite foods, while supporting both your fitness and your physique goals. Most importantly, we'll provide an in-depth support and coaching system to keep you accountable and moving toward your goals. Learn more here. To share your thoughts: Comment on the episode's Facebook post. To support the show: Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help, and I read each one! Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

What constitutes a "vegan legend"? Let’s start with almost 40 years of veganism, being listed by VegNews among the "Top 10 Living Vegetarian Authors", establishing the Main Street Vegan Academy…and more. Meet Victoria Moran. Victoria first joined me on the podcast for episode 46, and this is our second discussion. We talk about the Main Street Vegan Academy training and certification program [where she is Founder/Director], healthy aging, leaving a lasting legacy, and the intersection of compassion with both faith and spirituality. Important topics and points you don't want to miss: >> Victoria's remarkable journey in establishing the Main Street Vegan Academy, training and certifying Vegan Lifestyle Coaches and Educators for the past ten years [on six continents!] >> The intersections of veganism and spirituality >> How the concept of healthy aging needs to be addressed [and take more factors into account] Connect with Victoria: >> Victoria's website >> Main Street Vegan on Instagram // Victoria on Instagram >> Victoria on Facebook Episode transcript: Access a full transcript of the episode here. Get not one--but two--vegan fitness and nutrition coaches! ​ Only a few spots available! If you're ready to level-up your fitness and vegan nutrition, our award-winning coaching programs are for you. Coach K and Coach Zoe will build a customized workout routine around your busy life so you don’t have to reorganize your entire schedule. We’ll create a nutrition action plan that lets you eat your favourite foods, while supporting both your fitness and your physique goals. Most importantly, we'll provide an in-depth support and coaching system to keep you accountable and moving toward your goals. Learn more here. To share your thoughts: Comment on the episode's Facebook post. To support the show: Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help, and I read each one! Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

In 2019, I suffered from a severe panic attack and anxiety episode that incapacitated me for 3 weeks. It took many months until I felt fully functional again. Part of my healing process was completely restructuring my work, which involved not just my calendar schedule, but also deep-seated beliefs about productivity, social media use, and all of my workflows. Even for people who don’t experience full-blown anxiety—getting on top of these things can help to keep you in a good place mentally. I’ll go into this in more detail below, along with eight tools and approaches that you may find helpful in dealing with stress, anxiety and dread. "Work-life balance" is a nebulous term that means different things to different people. Achieving this elusive balance also looks different from person to person. It can be difficult to define, but it's pretty easy to tell when we don't have work-life balance! To me, work-life balance is achieved when work-related stress is minimized, work issues don't "spill over" into personal time, and there's ample opportunity for non-work activities (including spending time with family and friends, working out, and musical pursuits). Work-life balance doesn't necessarily mean devoting precisely equal time and mental energy to work and personal life -- it means finding a balance between the two that works for you in a way that's most conducive to your mental health. Redesigning my work day/week As an entrepreneur, this is something I'll be working on in some capacity for the rest of my working years. Redesigning my work days, along with meditation and medication, were the 3 most effective anxiety-management strategies I've used. I’ve been attempting to decrease my weekly work hours and take weekends off regularly. As I’m sure most entrepreneurs have experienced, work tends to expand to fill the available time. If you’ve got 4 hours to write a report, it’ll take 4 hours. If you’ve only got 2 hours, you’ll find a way to get it done in 2 hours. So, I’m assigning my tasks as little time as possible. In 2019 I took my first real no-work vacation in two years, having my awesome assistant Izzy take over my coaching practice for a week. Since then, I've been able to take many mini-vacations now that I have two other coaches on the team. Two books, both by Cal Newport, have been particularly useful in redesigning my work schedule: Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, and Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. Moving away from “busy” as a proxy for “important” or “productive” I’m working hard to change my mindset about busyness (this has been a work in progress for many years). We often use being “busy” as a way to boast about the meaningfulness of our lives, and to signal that what we do is of utmost importance. Just remember that we’re judged on our output, not on the number of hours we put in. Cal Newport writes, “Knowledge workers…are tending toward increasingly visible busyness because they lack a better way to demonstrate their value.” “In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner.” “Very busy!” used to be my default answer to, “How’re things going?” Not anymore. I’m still productive, but I’m not “busy” doing it. I’ve got a clear plan for my work priorities each day, and I aim to complete them in as little time as possible. Here’s a brilliant passage from Tim Kreider’s The ‘Busy’ Trap: “Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence. Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day. Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.” Social media I find that a distracted brain is more likely to be an anxious one, so I institute regular blockout periods from social media, using the SelfControl app. In Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport writes: “The urge to check Twitter or refresh Reddit becomes a nervous twitch that shatters uninterrupted time into shards too small to support the presence necessary for an intentional life.” The days I feel the most productive and the least scattered are the days where I’ve blocked myself out of social media for several hours at a time. Managing email In keeping with my goal of minimizing distractions, I have email open only when I’m actively checking and answering messages (twice a day, scheduled into my calendar). In Deep Work, Cal Newport writes: “…by seeing messages that you cannot deal with at the moment (which is almost always the case), you’ll be forced to turn back to the primary task with a secondary task left unfinished. …this is a foolhardy way to go about your day [checking inboxes], as it ensures that your mind will construct an understanding of your working life that’s dominated by stress, irritation, frustration, and triviality. The world represented by your inbox, in other words, isn’t a pleasant world to inhabit.” Saying “no” I’ve unsubscribed from everything. When requests come in that aren’t related to coaching awesome vegan clients (i.e., the main focus of my business), my default answer is “no”. Recently my husband and I were asked to participate in a video project that would have featured us and our work. We passed. I said “no thanks” to a $5000 project that related to veganism, but didn’t immediately relate to my coaching practice. Going analog As someone who runs a 100% online business with clients all over the globe (and as someone who attempts to keep things as paper-free as possible), I use a ton of tech. I do try to stay mindful and use only that which is useful for my business, but in any given week, I use Asana, Google Calendar, iPhone reminders, Trainerize, Zoom, DropBox, Skype, Voxer, various screen recording apps, at least 3 different text editing applications, iMovie, GarageBand, and much more. For the first time in almost a decade, I went back to using an analog, paper-and-pen planner, and it’s been an absolute game-changer. It’s not just any ol’ planner – it’s the Full Focus Planner by Michael Hyatt (and no, I’m not an affiliate). It’s brilliant. My main schedule, commitments, and reminders still live in Google Calendar, but the planner functions to prioritize my daily “big 3” tasks, list smaller To Dos that aren’t in Google Calendar, and create a rough schedule of when I’ll work on those To Dos. There’s something about writing things down that feels better than entering them digitally, and there’s lots of research to back this up (e.g. people who write down their goals are much, much more likely to achieve them versus people who keep them in their heads). Instead of keeping a running To Do list as a text file on my desktop, which always felt like a losing battle, To Dos are now listed in my planner. This particular planner also has a fantastic Weekly Preview, in which you take stock of the previous week and plan ahead for the coming week. Using this old-school paper planner along with all my digital tools has decreased my feeling of overwhelm (like the never-ending To Dos), and increased my focus. If you’re a planning and productivity nerd like me, check out the Full Focus Planner. Prioritizing non-work life Music has always been a part of my life, but since the Anxiety Shitstorm of 2019, I’ve made a commitment to have it be more prominent. Along with saying “no” to additional work projects, I’m saying “yes” to more music projects. In June of 2019 I started a project with a new performance partner: we rehearse and perform the entire soundtrack to the Amélie movie, composed by Yann Tiersen. I’ve also been playing didgeridoo more often, including performing at our town’s biggest street festival, a studio recording session, and performing for local schoolchildren. My accordion teacher/performance partner and I also founded our city's annual Accordion Fest, the first of which happened in May of 2022, and was a great success! Hiring help and finding accountability buddies: Over the years, I've had nine different business coaches. So why not hire help for other areas of my life, too? In 2013, when I picked up the accordion, I started taking weekly lessons. In 2018 when I moved from Vancouver to Powell River, I started working with a new teacher and soon increased my lessons to twice weekly. Seven months ago I added weekly piano lessons to the roster; I've been playing since the age of 5 but wanted to expand my skillset. All these music lessons force me to practice regularly, and take time away from my "default mode" of work. For my fitness, I hired a swim coach for ongoing stroke analysis, which keeps me accountable to my swim training 4-5 days a week. An ocean swim buddy takes care of my weekly open-water session. To keep myself consistent with strength training (and to keep it fun!), I have three training buddies who together take care of all 7 of my weekly lifting sessions. This way, I've created an environment that forces me to step away from work and engage in something that's equally important to me (but more challenging, sometimes, to get done on any given day!) If you need an extra kick in the butt to fit healthy habits into your life, my team and I can help! Check out our fitness and nutrition coaching programs that help you build lifelong, bulletproof health habits.

"I've got a great opportunity for you to start your own business and earn extra income on the side!" -- most of us have received an MLM (multi-level marketing) pitch like this from a distant acquaintance after some small talk. Although they're declining in popularity, MLM is a business structure rampant in the fitness, nutrition, and health space. Beachbody, Arbonne, Herbalife, Younique, Amway...the list goes on. In this episode I share 6 reasons why MLM is unethical, and why it's problematic within the fitness -- and vegan -- realms. I also discuss why MLM decreases the brand equity of existing businesses, as well as the future of, and alternatives to, MLM. Important topics and points you don't want to miss: >> What exactly a MLM is, and how they strategically structure their companies [not to the benefit of those who work with them] >> The differences between an MLM and a pyramid scheme business structure >> Why MLM's are problematic within the fitness and athletic industries [and veganism, too!] Connect with Karina >> Karina's website >> Karina on Instagram and Facebook Karina's new book >> Resistance Band Workouts for Seniors: Strength Training at Home or on the Go Resources and references used in this episode: https://christopherjohnlindsay.com/2015/09/06/mlm https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29779808 https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/public_comments/trade-regulation-rule-disclosure-requirements-and-prohibitions-concerning-business-opportunities-ftc.r511993-00008%C2%A0/00008-57281.pdf https://www.crueltyfreekitty.com/news/mlm https://www.business.com/articles/mlms-target-women-and-immigrants https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/15/17971410/lularoe-lipsense-amway-itworks-mary-kay-mlm-multilevel-marketing https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/mlms-are-not-the-answer-if-you-need-money/100006992 https://jojobonetto.medium.com/accountability-and-ethics-in-multi-level-marketing-6c6581a83f6a https://www.talentedladiesclub.com/articles/why-the-mlm-industry-is-dying-out-and-why-thats-good-news-for-everyone https://cmghealthfitness.com/2019/05/17/multi-level-marketing-and-its-impact-on-the-fitness-industry https://www.authorityhacker.com/affiliate-marketing-vs-mlm Episode transcript: Access a full transcript of the episode here. Get not one--but two--vegan fitness and nutrition coaches! ​ Only a few spots available! If you're ready to level-up your fitness and vegan nutrition, our award-winning coaching programs are for you. Coach K and Coach Zoe will build a customized workout routine around your busy life so you don’t have to reorganize your entire schedule. We’ll create a nutrition action plan that lets you eat your favourite foods, while supporting both your fitness and your physique goals. Most importantly, we'll provide an in-depth support and coaching system to keep you accountable and moving toward your goals. Learn more here. To share your thoughts: Comment on the episode's Facebook post. To support the show: Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help, and I read each one! Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

It’s no secret that our podcast episodes often contain at least a few mic drops. This one may set the bar. Earlier this year, Registered Dietitian Desiree Nielsen joined me to discuss all things food and nutrition. Our conversation was so expansive, we needed to bridge it into a separate discussion, and invite Coach Zoe (my fellow BS-buster) to join the talk. We discuss dismantling certain structures within the ‘fitness industrial complex’ (a term coined by Fitness for All Bodies), the problematic components of the diet industry, nutrition, when veganism is used as weight loss incentive, and so much more. Important topics and points you don't want to miss: >> Why veganism needs to stop being touted as [only] a tool for weight loss >> The foremost problematic component of the fitness/wellness space that stands out for myself, Desiree, and Zoe >> Busting the notion of larger bodies = bad // smaller bodies = good (and why diet culture needs to be critically assessed) Connect with Desiree and Zoe: >> Desiree's website >> Desiree on Instagram and Twitter >> Zoe on Instagram and Twitter Episode transcript: Access a full transcript of the episode here. Get not one--but two--vegan fitness and nutrition coaches! ​ Only a few spots available! If you're ready to level-up your fitness and vegan nutrition, our award-winning coaching programs are for you. Coach K and Coach Zoe will build a customized workout routine around your busy life so you don’t have to reorganize your entire schedule. We’ll create a nutrition action plan that lets you eat your favourite foods, while supporting both your fitness and your physique goals. Most importantly, we'll provide an in-depth support and coaching system to keep you accountable and moving toward your goals. Learn more here. To share your thoughts: Comment on the episode's Facebook post. To support the show: Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help, and I read each one! Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

Ah, progress photos. The lifeblood of any fitness business, the inspiration for countless folks to start (and stick to) a workout program, and an accurate representation of body transformations that anyone can achieve. If you believe any of these things are true (they’re not), read on. Progress photos are often called “before and after” photos or “transformation” photos. I don’t use either of these terms. If you’re building a new fitness habit with an end date in mind, you’re setting yourself up for failure. This is why there’s no such thing as “before” and “after” in fitness — there’s only “during” and “during”. And the word “transformation” reeks of massive, unsustainable, short-term changes, and implies that someone wasn’t awesome or perfect or worthy enough before their so-called “transformation”. I usually use the term “physique photos”, but when some sort of physical change is implied, especially when photos from two different time periods are compared, I’ll begrudgingly use the term “progress photos”. Here at K.I. Health & Fitness, my team and I made a deliberate decision not to use physique photos on our website, on social media, or anywhere else in our marketing. And why is that, you may ask? Here are the three main reasons: 1. The comparison trap You come across a friend’s photos that show major changes in their physique. Apparently they’ve lost 20 pounds in 2 months. So this specific person achieved a certain result in a certain time frame. Does that mean you should be able to achieve the exact same result? If you don’t lose 20 pounds in 2 months, are you “doing it wrong”? Progress photos normalize a certain pace of seeing results. Reality check: there’s no such thing as a “normal” pace of seeing results. Progress photos give us zero context about the individual who’s achieved those results. Work situation? Family responsibilities? Big life stressors? Amount of time available to dedicate to fitness and nutrition? Chronic conditions? Physical disabilities? Socioeconomic status? Ability to hire help for childminding, cooking, house cleaning, etc.? The variables are endless. Progress photos invite us to compare ourselves to whoever is in the photos. You’ll always be comparing apples to oranges, however. Even if, in a hypothetical world, all the aforementioned variables were equal, 20 people could go through the exact same fitness and nutrition program, and you’d still get 20 different results. (See this article: When comparing our fitness and physiques to others can be useful, and how to do so like a scientist.) 2. An inaccurate representation of progress as linear Meaningful progress toward a long-term goal is never linear. “Before and after” photos simplify and misrepresent progress as a simple upward trajectory toward someone’s end goal. They also fuel the “all-or-nothing” mindset that’s very prevalent among fitness-minded folks, and holds them back from getting the results they want. Folks with this mindset are likely to give up and quit working toward making long-term habit changes when they don’t see consistent, short-term results (whatever “results” means to each person). Here’s James Clear, from his must-read book Atomic Habits: “We often expect progress to be linear. At the very least, we hope it will come quickly. In reality, the results of our efforts are often delayed. It is not until months or years later that we realize the true value of the previous work we have done. This can result in a "valley of disappointment" where people feel discouraged after putting in weeks or months of hard work without experiencing any results. However, the work was not wasted, it was simply being stored. It is not until much later that the full value of previous efforts is revealed.” 3. “Aesthetics first” is a very limiting scope of progress. We don’t want to come across as coaches whose main selling point is, “We can help you look better!” Everyone wants to look good and feel good about themselves — that’s just human nature. But if that’s all we’re focusing on, we’re setting ourselves up for failure and disappointment. Also, by the way, you look great as you are now! Looking good means something completely different to each individual. Progress photos also make health seem secondary, and often conflate body size with health. In our coaching business, we use client stories instead of client photos. Stories can highlight both struggles and accomplishments, and present a much more well-rounded picture of progress. Here are some examples of achievements that reach far beyond aesthetics: “I am learning not to deprive myself, to find joy and pleasure in food again, and to find joy and pleasure in movement!” “In addition to finally nailing a chin-up, I now go the gym on a regular basis, have a love of lifting weights, and honestly, changed my perception of what I’m capable of.” “I feel strong and ALL of my aches and pains are gone. No more achy knees and back. Truly amazing. I will never quit consistent strength training now that I see what it can do!” “How I feel about my body has changed significantly. I feel more confident, have more energy, and can feel myself getting stronger.” These are all very powerful “wins” that our clients have achieved, and none of them would have been communicated in progress photos. Read more client stories here. We do still use physique photos in our business (but not anywhere in our marketing) We do still use physique photos within our coaching programs. But these are used on an individual basis with each client, just for that client, and the photos are never shared anywhere. Photos are one data point that can be useful in tracking progress, along with many other variables, including body weight, body measurements, strength progress, and more. For some folks, seeing physical change brings motivation and confidence. Each client decides on their own whether (and how often) to do physique photos. Here’s my colleague Coach Zoe, from a podcast episode in which we discussed f*cked up parts of the fitness industry: “For some folks who are maybe coming from another coaching situation, or just another space in general, where they were exposed to this rhetoric around the scale being the only marker of success, or for folks who may have a strong, perhaps negative response to something like weight gain, you can then say, “Okay, I acknowledge where this response is coming from. I'd like you to pause. Let's just move over to the visual and observe some of the differences that you can really see.” They can then share the way they think about that weight gain because it's presented in a different way than what the scale may have indicated.” Responding to clients' physique photos We as coaches are careful and deliberate about how we respond to a client’s physique photos. Often, we don’t respond at all, other than to acknowledge that a client has decided to take new photos! (These are uploaded into their private profile on our app.) Clients will usually bring their feelings and comments to us. We often use language that focuses on the consistent work someone has been putting in, since aesthetic results are “outputs” — things you don’t have direct control over. (Variables you can control, like your workouts or what you eat in a day, are “inputs”.) We like focusing on the actions someone has taken to get a specific result, versus commenting on the physical result itself. Coach Zoe says: “I think that [not commenting on physique photos] creates a safer space in general because whenever you're making a comment about someone's body, you don't know how it will be received and what that comment will mean for them. The reason that we move away from saying more specific things like, “Your waist is looking super small” or, “Your arms are looking really jacked”, is because maybe for that person having “jacked” arms is not what they want, and it's going to impact them really negatively.” Also remember that we know each client very well after we’ve worked with them for a while. Building solid relationships with our clients is what sets our coaching far apart from other programs out there! We know what each client is working on, what their goals are, the challenges they’ve faced between sets of physique photos, and much more. A solid relationship with each client also informs us of our individual responses. In conclusion... If you’re a fitness coach who uses progress photos anywhere in your marketing, we urge you to rethink your approach. If you’re someone who’s inspired by others’ “before” and “after” photos, we’re not urging you to be less inspired. But we are urging you to view them with skepticism, and with the knowledge that what you see doesn’t necessarily translate into your specific situation. And if you use progress photos to document your own fitness journey, all the power to you! Just make sure you’re also tracking other variables, like strength and athletic performance, body measurements, and overall energy. Get not one--but two--vegan fitness and nutrition coaches! ​ Only a few spots available! If you're ready to level-up your fitness and vegan nutrition, our award-winning coaching programs are for you. Coach K and Coach Zoe will build a customized workout routine around your busy life so you don’t have to reorganize your entire schedule. We’ll create a nutrition action plan that lets you eat your favourite foods, while supporting both your fitness and your physique goals. Most importantly, we'll provide an in-depth support and coaching system to keep you accountable and moving toward your goals. Learn more here.

We’re all relatively familiar with the term and concept of meal plans. For years, they’ve been offered to us as the fail-proof, non-negotiable element that will help you nail all of your nutritional goals. What if there was a completely different approach that didn’t involve meal plans? Furthermore, what if they actually have a detrimental impact? Certified plant-based sports nutritionist Philip Bryden joins me to talk about this- and much more! He also holds certifications in Integrative Nutrition, Nutrition Science, Nutrition Coaching, Anatomy and Physiology, Plant-Based Nutrition, Sports Nutrition, and he’s a certified Yoga Instructor and Ultra Running Coach. Philip works with international professional athletes across a variety of sports, including soccer, tennis, and ultra running; and he’s Club Nutritionist for the world’s first vegan rugby club. Important topics and points you don't want to miss: >> A sometimes unknown fact: meal plans are not within the scope of practice for fitness coaches >> The importance in approaching sports nutrition with a unique and personal approach >> Why (and how) a plant-based lifestyle improves performance and recovery in athletic endeavours Connect with Philip: >> Philip on Instagram >> Philip's website [Philip has offered our listeners 1 month free when they sign up for 3 months of coaching. Mention the podcast episode to get this special offer!] Episode transcript: Access a full transcript of the episode here. Get not one--but two--vegan fitness and nutrition coaches! ​ Only a few spots available! If you're ready to level-up your fitness and vegan nutrition, our award-winning coaching programs are for you. Coach K and Coach Zoe will build a customized workout routine around your busy life so you don’t have to reorganize your entire schedule. We’ll create a nutrition action plan that lets you eat your favourite foods, while supporting both your fitness and your physique goals. Most importantly, we'll provide an in-depth support and coaching system to keep you accountable and moving toward your goals. Learn more here. To share your thoughts: Comment on the episode's Facebook post. To support the show: Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help, and I read each one! Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.