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When we think about holiday weight gain, most of us blame the endless treats laying around and indulgent family dinners. But there’s a surprising culprit that often flies under the radar: stress. I’m sure most of us are very aware of how the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, from packed schedules to family dynamics, can leave us overwhelmed and frazzled. But this stress doesn’t just affect our mood—it can have a profound impact on our waistlines. For many of us stress

The holiday season is a whirlwind of activity: gatherings, travel, food, and gifts. While it’s a time of joy and connection, it also brings unique challenges, especially for those striving to maintain their health and fitness goals. Disrupted routines, indulgent treats, and mounting to-do lists can make your health goals lose their priority. Stress during this time doesn’t just weigh on your mind—it affects your body, too. Elevated cortisol levels from chronic stress can impa

Thanksgiving dinner probably isn’t going to ruin your progress. Have the turkey. Eat the stuffing. Put gravy on it. Have a piece of pie. If there’s a food you look forward to once a year, enjoy it. One meal is rarely the problem. What gets people into trouble is when Thanksgiving dinner starts sometime around the beginning of November and doesn’t end until January 2. There’s leftover pie for breakfast Friday. Then leftovers all weekend. Someone brings cookies to work Monday.

Fitness culture spends a lot of time talking about progress. Lift more. Run faster. Lose more weight. Build more muscle. Beat your last time. Improve your body composition. Set another goal as soon as you finish the first one. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to improve. Chasing a goal can make training more exciting and give you a reason to push harder than you normally would. But you don’t need to spend all 12 months of the year aggressively trying to improve everything.

One of the reasons summer can be good for your health is that you don’t have to try very hard to find ways to move. You might go for a walk because the weather is nice, spend a few hours working in the yard, take the kids to practice, go swimming, walk around an amusement park, or spend a weekend doing something outside. None of those things necessarily show up in your workout program, but your body doesn’t care whether movement was scheduled as exercise. Movement is movement

There’s a point every fall when being active starts requiring a little more effort. In May, going for a walk in the morning feels pretty good. The sun is up early, the weather is comfortable, and getting outside can be one of the best parts of the day. By November, that same walk might mean leaving the house when it’s dark, cold, and windy. Suddenly the routine that felt effortless a few months ago takes some convincing. I notice it in myself too. As the weather gets colder a

When people decide they’re finally going to get healthy, they usually want to change everything at once. Starting Monday, they’re going to work out five days a week, eat 1750 calories, hit 10,000 steps, drink 100 oz of water, completely cut out sugar, go to bed at 9 and get up at 5, meal prep, stretch every day, and somehow fit all of it into the same life they were living last week. The motivation is there. The intentions are good. But you’ve taken habits and routines that h

Most people already know the basics of getting healthier. They know vegetables are good for them. They know protein matters. They know exercise is important. They know they should probably sleep more, move more, drink more water, and be more consistent. So why is it still so hard to actually do those things? That’s the part people don’t talk about enough. The problem usually isn’t a lack of information. It’s the gap between knowing what to do and turning that knowledge into b

“I eat pretty healthy, but I’m still not getting results.” I hear some version of that all the time (once from a guy who had 2 energy drinks and a Pringles can in his trash can.) Maybe you cook most of your meals at home. You don’t eat much fast food. You buy foods you consider healthy, try to make good choices, and generally feel like your diet is better than the average person’s. So why aren’t you losing weight, building muscle, or seeing the changes you expected? The answe

People spend a lot of time looking for the perfect workout program. Should you train full body or split your workouts by muscle group? Should you use machines or free weights? Should you lift heavy or do more reps? Should you run, take classes, do circuits, or combine everything together? There are countless ways to exercise, and you'll find people getting great results with almost all of them. That's because there isn't one magical workout program that works for everyone. Wh

Getting healthy has become way more complicated than it needs to be. Decide that you want to improve your health and it doesn't take long before you're buried in questions. Should you lift weights or do cardio? How many days should you work out? Should you fast? Do you need to track your macros? Which supplements should you take? How many steps do you need? Should you be using a sauna, cold plunge, fitness tracker, or some other tool that promises to optimize your health? The

A lot of people treat health like something they temporarily do. They go to the gym for an hour, follow a diet for a few weeks, complete a challenge, or decide that they’re going to “get healthy” for the summer. They make a concentrated effort for a period of time, but eventually that period ends and they go back to normal. The problem is that if your normal life consistently works against your health, temporary periods of healthy behavior can only accomplish so much. That do

When people decide they want to improve their health, one of the first things they think about is exercise. Maybe I need to start working out. Maybe I need another training day. Maybe I should add more cardio. If you aren’t exercising at all, adding regular exercise is one of the best things you can do for yourself. But if you’re already working out consistently, another workout may not be the thing that improves your health the most. There are only so many hours in the day,

You go to the gym four days a week. You spend an hour lifting weights, taking a class, or doing cardio. You work hard, break a sweat, and leave knowing you did something good for your health. So you’d probably consider yourself an active person. But what happens during the rest of your day? Maybe you drive to work, sit at a desk for eight hours, drive home, eat dinner, and spend most of the evening sitting on the couch. Outside of those few hours you spend exercising each wee

A good workout can do a lot for you. It can make you stronger, improve your cardiovascular health, help manage your weight, reduce your risk of disease, and make you feel better physically and mentally. If you’re consistently getting into the gym three, four, or five times per week, you’re already doing something incredibly valuable for your health. But even if every workout lasts an hour, that’s only a few hours out of a 168-hour week. What happens during the rest of those h

It’s hard to believe we’re already halfway through the year. For some people, that thought is exciting. They’ve built momentum, developed better habits, and are starting to see the results of the work they’ve put in over the past six months. For others, it’s discouraging. The goals they set in January feel farther away than they expected, and it’s tempting to think they’ve fallen too far behind to catch up. No matter which group you fall into, I want you to look at the second

One of the biggest misconceptions in fitness is that achieving a goal will somehow transform you into a different person. People often think that once they lose the weight, build the muscle, or hit the milestone they’ve been chasing, everything else will fall into place. They’ll finally be confident. They’ll finally be disciplined. They’ll finally feel successful. But after years of coaching, I’ve noticed that the process usually works in the opposite direction. The goal does

Now that you’ve taken an honest look at the first half of the year, it’s time to decide what comes next. For a lot of people, this is where they make things harder than they need to be. They sit down to make a plan and end up with a list of everything they want to improve. “I need to lose weight.” “I need to eat healthier.” “I need to meal prep.” “I need to drink more water.” “I need to work out five days a week.” “I need to get more sleep.” “I need to do more cardio.” Every

Last week, we talked about taking an honest look at where you are. Not just the number on the scale or whether you’ve hit your goals, but whether you’re actually closer to the life you want than you were six months ago. This week, we’re taking the next step. Because once you’ve figured out where you are, the next question becomes: How did you get here? A lot of people finish a mid-year review by deciding whether they’re happy or unhappy with their progress. Then they move on.

We’re halfway through the year. For a lot of people, that realization immediately leads to a review of the goals they set back in January. Maybe you wanted to lose weight, build muscle, get stronger, improve your health, or finally become consistent with your workouts. Whatever the goal was, there’s a good chance you’re now comparing where you are to where you hoped you’d be six months ago. And if you’re like most people, the first thing you look at is the outcome. What does