Meet Katherine: an amazing plant-based garden coach, landscaper, and professional organizer extraordinaire. She’s an active member of my Vancouver Women’s Weight Lifting Meetup Group (which holds workshops on different strength training topics every month), and has been gardening in our city of Vancouver since she moved here 12 years ago!
When we started working together, Katherine’s main goals were to make exercise consistent, keep workouts fun, and fit in training even around a busy work schedule. She also wanted to refine her already excellent vegan diet to ensure it was supporting her hard work in the gym.
After 6 months of online coaching, Katherine had completed her first-ever chin-up (a major feat of upper body strength!) and had made regular, intentional exercise part of her weekly routine. Mission accomplished!
Here’s some insight from Katherine on the benefits of online coaching, changes and adjustments she had to make in order to improve her fitness, what good health means to her, and more.
What was easy for you as you got started with coaching?
Motivation was easy for me as I started because I had someone to help hold me accountable to the goals that I had set.
As you were getting started, what were some challenges you faced?
I think that one of the biggest challenges for me was to maintain timely contact with Karina. She was always there for me and timely in her correspondence, but I did not always do the same for her.
What are some of the day-to-day changes/adjustments you had to make (and continue to make) to maintain and improve your fitness?
Some of the day-to-day adjustments that I have made and continue to make are around fitting in fun, functional and challenging workouts in my daily life while the rest of my life is not always easy to predict, schedule wise. Keeping up the motivation can also be a bit challenging, but it is nice to know that I feel better when I exercise so that is usually good motivation.
What does health mean to you? Why is good health important to you?
Health means a good wholesome lifestyle, where exercise, diet, fun, relaxation, creativity, contribution, connection and personal growth and development are all working together to create a vibrant and peaceful way of life. Good health is important to me because it means that I am able to do the activities that I love and that I am able to be a good daughter, friend, colleague, and partner in life.
How has fitness and nutrition coaching helped you to reach your goals?
Karina's steadfast coaching has helped me achieve a long-term goal of doing my first chin-up! The nutrition side of coaching definitely helped me become more aware of balancing out my macronutrients (fat, carbs, protein). Karina was able to provide simple, tasty recommendations on how to increase my daily protein intake, and as a consequence balance out the rest of the macros.
In your experience, what are the main benefits of online coaching (versus in-person coaching)?
One of the main benefits of online coaching for me was the fact that I could work out in my neighbourhood at a time that worked well with my schedule. I also really liked being able to have accountability for every workout that I did, by inputting the weight and reps that I actually did for each exercise and sharing that with Karina through the Fitness Builder app. It was so easy and helpful!
What’s your secret superpower?
I think that my superpower is being able to be slow and steady. : )
Want your own online vegan personal trainer? Wanna level-up your health and fitness, and show the world what plant-based athleticism is all about? Check out my award-winning fitness and nutrition coaching programs.
Calories and macros on a vegan diet: A free e-book for you!
Download Karina’s free 32-page ebook that shows you how to track your food, calculate calories, and set macro goals on a vegan diet. You’ll even get step-by-step instructions – complete with a printable grocery list – for how to prep a week’s worth of delicious Buddha bowls in 60 minutes or less.