We are heading into the long weekend here in Newfoundland and Labrador. On the east coast of the island where I live, the forecast is calling for snow flurries on Monday the 24.

Now I’m not expecting that much snow as seen in the gif above, but we can get a couple of inches in the spring. An old folk cure recommends collecting May snow as it is good for sore eyes.

One thing I do know: May snow isn’t good for soothing sore muscles. However, I expect to get a couple of workouts in as we tidy the garden, and as I have managed to keep up my twice weekly workouts, I’m not expecting them to complain too much. This year’s spring cleanup is later than usual because I read a number of articles recommending we leave the grass undisturbed to encourage useful insects and wildlife.

I know lots of other places in North America are further ahead on the greening spring front, but this is as good a time as any to remember outside work is functional fitness too. The American Heart Association considers gardening moderate in terms of impact, and there’s lots of other benefits too.

The lovely crowd at Michigan State University have a a great resource on their website. The authors say gardening offers a range of physical activity, from pulling weeds to digging new beds. They suggest mixing up activities — try 15 minutes of weeding with 15 minutes of raking or 15 minutes of bagging garbage.

Being outside also means you can help rewire your brain. Fresh air, blue sky ( we will get some before the snow!) and happy trails all add up to some gentle low impact walking or higher impact running or jogging opportunities.

Quite a number of places are offering group walks engaged in forest bathing. Originating in Japan, forest bathing is all about experiencing nature through all senses. It offers comfort, helps you relax, and supports calmness and serenity by connecting you with the natural world. One of my favourite parts of being in the woods is taking time to notice all the tiny things, and some of the big things that winter has wrought.

If you still feel the need to be more active outside, you may want to build in some plogging while you are out on the trails or sidelwalks. A Swedish concept, plogging refers to the practice of cleaning up while walking or jogging. I wrote about plogging here a couple of years ago.

More and more often now, people are toting garbage bags, gloves, garbage picker, and recyling bags to collect trash along their walking routes. Sadly, you can fill a garbage bag in less than half an hour (don’t get me started on all the discarded paper masks blowing around!). Nonetheless, plogging helps you get a good walk in, vary your activities, and helps clean the planet.

I might not be pitching a tent this weekend, but I will still make time to get outside and enjoy the natural, green spaces around me. What’s on your fitness agenda this long weekend? Share in the comments. We love hearing from you.

Today is World Migratory Bird Day. You know, those flying creatures with feathers. I’m not a birder but I am very fond of the wee yellow finches that show up every year in my garden. They remind me spring has finally arrived and the trails are open for walking, or running, or both. However, other birds not so much.

The gif above accurately sums up my experiences with birds while enjoying some outdoor fitness. I’ve been pooped on twice, which I have been told is lucky. I am not sure why. Bird poop is weirdly liquid and solid at the same time.

My truly horrific bird experience occurred when a pigeon landed on my head as I was heading homeward after an epic trail walk. I didn’t know what hit me. It wasn’t until the pigeon dug its feet into my ponytail trying to stay steady that I realized there was a freaking bird on my head.

Did I stay calm? Nope. I brought my heart rate back up to stratospheric heights as I was flailing around. The bird was flapping like crazy (and goodness, wings whacking at your head hurt like the dickens too). At some point, I realized I had shrieked as various people came to my aid.

The bird finally flapped away, taking my dignity with it. I still go walking but I keep a wary eye out for our feathered neighbours. I’m pretty sure I wear this look on my face.

Have an excellent weekend and if you can, get out, enjoy the world, and watch out for birds.

A couple of weeks ago we watched as Rachael Homan won her grand slam title in curling three weeks after giving birth. This was presaged by her big win when she was eight months pregnant, just a few weeks before.

The media was agog: she was inspirational, a super woman. Homan herself was careful to say her experience was not one every one could replicate. She told CBC Sports: “I want to be clear that every pregnancy, delivery and recovery is different and you can’t compare from person to person. I feel so fortunate to be able to play and I know that wouldn’t be the case for a lot of people.”

I think it is great that we no longer treat pregnancy as a time of fragility. Yes, some pregnancies can be precarious, and luckily, for most conditions, we have options, treatments, and interventions. I also think it’s great that if you are a fit and active person before achieving pregnancy, you are encouraged and supported in being fit and active during pregnancy and after.

There’s been a trend though to treat pregnancy as a time of fatness; to see the weight gained to grow a tiny human as a negative unless you can achieve a perfect basketball shaped bump. And horrors, should you gain weight and change shape in a non-artistic manner, then it would behoove you to eliminate the weight and return your body to its pre-pregnancy shape as quickly as possible once the tiny human arrives.

There are any number of reasons an individual can return to a pre-pregnancy state swiftly. Some are good and some are not. There are also any number of reasons a person could achieve an international curling title before delivery of tiny human and also achieve a record breaking grand slam title after.

The big issue here is there’s a lot we don’t know about pregnancy, athleticism, and post partum recovery. Standard advice today says eat well and be reasonably active, but there’s a lot of safety, caution, and care wrapped up in that package. While it might be reasonable not to pick up running while pregnant if you’ve done neither before, what if you were always training hard for competition? What’s reasonable or safe then?

Go back a few decades and you’ll find moderate to challenging exercise was a non-no during pregnancy. Was this evidence-based? Nope. Pregnancy was a get-out-of-research card and there were, and likely still, biases and assumptions baked into those guidelines.

Here’s a charming piece of advice from The Canadian Mother and Child (1947 edition). Forget being athletic, pregnant women weren’t supposed to even attend athletic events: “Attendance at sport events, such as hockey and football matches, is not suitable during these momentous months because of the excitement, and also at times on account of the prolonged exposure to cold.”

It wasn’t that long ago that female athletes delayed child bearing until after the pinnacle of their athletic career, while others risked injury for returning too soon post partum because they needed the income and to keep their sponsorships. Check out this link for some forward-thinking work that resulted in paid maternity leave for pro athletes.

When I was pregnant, a little more than 20 years ago now, I maintained a level of fitness that was pretty consistent. In fact, I was an active potter and kept working in clay up until my eighth month. I stopped only because the baby bump got in the way of my reaching the wheel. I also moved house part way through that pregnancy and held down a demanding job. I didn’t worry about maternity fashion, I ate well, and I walked a lot. Post delivery, I focused on recovery from a difficult birth and enjoyed achieving my goal — a healthy happy baby.

Homan also had goals and she met them. Yay Homan! Many athletes are training and competing while pregnant, and it shouldn’t be that big a deal when they recover and return to competition after they deliver. They know how to train and they know how to fuel their muscles. What really matters is making room for that kind of recovery and also for the kind that requires more time and care.

So just because Homan did doesn’t mean you have to. Is she super human? Perhaps. She’s very fit, very skilled, and an amazing curler. Is she inspirational? Probably. If you too entertain dreams of winning titles before and after pregnancy, great.

But if you aren’t, that’s okay. You don’t have to accept Homan’s bar of success as your own.

It’s all right to treat yourself kindly while growing a tiny human. It’s hard work. It’s okay to eat well, work out, and feel good about the process. It’s okay to cocoon and nest. Pick a reasonable goal for you; develop a realistic plan to make it happen, and then get to work.

What you can take away is Homan’s own advice: “every pregnancy, delivery, and recovery is different and you can’t compare from person to person.” Or as SamB often says, you do you.

Last week I made a quilt. It wasn’t a quilt with a fitness theme, but I did get my fit on. I deliberately set up my cutting mat on a table quite far away from my sewing machine, and I positioned my ironing board equally far from both the mat and the machine.

The end result, I easily got my 10K steps in. I had previously noticed that when I spend time on housework, I get my 10K steps in be it going up and down stairs, carrying baskets or vacuum cleaners, cleaning, sweeping and the like. I tend to think of sewing as sedentary, but last weekend I realized the only sitting I did was when I bound the quilt.

The next day I felt in my shoulders the effort required to push three layers of a 70 inch by 50 inch lapquilt through the sewing machine. Upper body workout for the win!

I work as a writer so I am often at my laptop for long stretches. Generally though, I try to move around in between those stretches. I’m glad to find out that even without my regular workouts (suspended during this winter’s lock down), I’m reasonably active.

Now that the weather is better, I aim to get outside more frequently as a walk outside beats housework any day!

Luckily for us, lockdown has been lifted and I’ll be back training with my socially distant, but no less enthusiastic trainer this week.

It’s March, and we’re in between seasons, when it is neither winter nor spring in my part of the world. Every day is a challenge. Should I wear boots or sneakers? Do I need a hat and mitts or a windbreaker? Put things away too soon and a winter storm dumps 40 cms of snow. Keep the winter clothes in the closet and all we need is a sweater. Decision-making becomes a chore and predictability, at least for a short time, looks appealing.

Every year I think it will be different, but nope. Yesterday SamB shared this graphic:

I actually felt better. While I couldn’t put my finger on a specific irritant, I felt seen. The fact is while I am not bored, nor am I hungry or thirsty, I am feeling disenchanted, discomfited, and dare I say it, disturbed.

To disturb means to interfere with a normal arrangement or the smooth functioning of a process. To feel disturbed then is to feel ruffled, much like a cat rubbed the wrong way.

The pandemic has left many of us disturbed. Our usual arrangements have indeed been interfered with, and none of our processes are smooth, and in some cases, they are definitely non-functioning. We may feel very much like my favourite Baby Yoda gif, wanting to hide in our comfortable travelling cradle, sheltered from the annoying sharp pointy bits of life in pandemic time.

In military parlance, a retreat can be a strategy and not a defeat. In wellness circles, a retreat is an opportunity to withdraw to a place of shelter or seclusion for reflection and renewal.

Last year in the late summer, I went on a retreat. A friend lent me her little house around the bay. As we start on our second year of life in pandemic times, I realize I need to retreat more than once a year. The batteries need recharging as the demands of daily living and working remotely, without regular contact outside our bubbles, drain them more quickly.

Self care strategies can be immeasurably helpful when we feel less than optimal, and in more severe situations, counselling and ongoing support can offer necessary lifelines. A friend going through a rough patch has embarked on a course of anti-depressants.

The key is to pay attention, to notice, to examine, and yes, to retreat. It may be the pandemic, it may be the never-ending winter, it may be your last nerve, or it may be something that needs more than a cookie, a cup of tea, or a hug. Be well, stay well.

MarthaFitAt55 lives in St. John’s where it often feels like spring will show up in the first week of June.

I don’t know how many people remember the car ad from a few years ago where an adorable little tyke watching a sleek car drive into the distance whispers with awe “zoom, zoom.” I think of the kid a lot as I log into yet another Zoom meeting and imagine our teams zooming along the Internet highway.

Recently I facilitated a two-hour session on line and the next day I got a note from one of the participants who thanked me for including a ten minute break in the session. It was the first time they had attended an online session with a break built-in. I was shocked. I asked a few of my friends and several confirmed it had been their experience too with some meetings.

Now we are almost a year away from the anniversary of the WHO calling the pandemic. I don’t know about you, but even when we had face-to-face meetings, we had breaks to refresh, refill beverage containers, or get a snack.

Online meetings aren’t any different, even if you are wearing pyjama bottoms or leggings for most of them. Here are some ideas on how to make your next meeting more energetic and less draining:

Think about your meeting format — Does it have to be an online video call? If there’s only one person and it’s someone you see regularly, consider picking up the phone instead. You’d be surprised how much shorter telephone chats can be compared to online video calls. You can always take your call standing up too. Consider using chat, texts, emails or direct messages to focus your conversation. Having to type or dictate can also make meetings brief.

Consider how long your video session should be — If your meeting is an update on project activities, consider a walk and talk if people are able to do do so and it’s not chucking down with rain or snow. Assign each person five minutes to focus their update. If you can’t get outside to walk, have everyone stand for the meeting if they are able. Heaven knows we sit enough through the day. There’s an added benefit: meetings where people stand are shorter by 25% according to Forbes. Just because you are online doesn’t mean you have to sit for the whole of it.

Turn the camera off — Last month I started work with a new group and we don’t use our cameras at all when we have our meetings. It’s been quite freeing as no one knows if I am standing, stretching, or lying on the floor with my foam roller.

Build in different kinds of breaks — If your meeting will go for an hour, build in a stretch break at the 30 minute mark. If you are planning a working session between two and three hours, build in a five minute break for every hour online, and make the break at the halfway point at least ten minutes and up to 20 (depending on how many time zones you are working with).

Breaks can be anything you like. Most people want to refresh their coffee, tea or water; grab a snack; or have a bathroom break. I sometimes play a song for the break; that way, people know when the music stops, it is time to come back to work.

I like including a specific activity break because it reminds people that they need to move in a conscious way and not just to fetch something. A group activity can bring people together by boosting energy and shifting gears from one agenda item to another. Here are some things you can try:

1. Chair yoga (doesn’t require standing). This video (Chair Yoga with Adriene) is an especially nice one to do and at six minutes is a good length for a mid-session break.
2. Shake it out (can be done standing or sitting). Have participants turn their camera off. Starting with your right arm, tell people to shake it out five times, then move to the left arm and do the same. Repeat with each leg. Then repeat each cycle, counting down from four to one and picking up the pace with each number.
3. Play a happy bouncy song and ask people to move in whatever way they like to the music (again with cameras off). This is one of my favourites.

Finally, think about blocking out parts of your week as meeting free zones. Or limit yourself to only one or two online meetings a day if you can. Look at your energy levels and your productivity. If you can’t avoid online meetings, make sure the agenda includes breaks including one using movement. What are ways you are incorporating activity in your online meetings?

MarthaFitat55 lives and works in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.

I came to yoga late. I think it was because I associated it with looking a certain way and being a certain size. A friend introduced me to hatha yoga about 15 years ago, and I quite liked the mix of bodies and levels of experience represented.

My favourite is yin yoga. I have very tight, cranky muscles and ligaments. This yoga practice helps me focus as it stretches me out. Throughout the pandemic I have heard of many people picking up yoga for relieving emotional tightness and anxiety. My friends have found online yoga classes to be helpful.

If you are new to yoga, look for someone who is wiling to provide modifications for various body types and abilities. It is perfectly acceptable to use props like blocks and bolsters to get you in the position. No one starts off being able to get into crow position or reach a headstand. Begin where you are, even if you start at breathing.

Be well, stay well.

We are socked in lockdown mode in Newfoundland and Labrador. We had been doing well. Fewer than 390 cases around the 1st of February, and then boom — almost three weeks later, we doubled that number with an outbreak of COVID-19 variant B.1.1.1.7. and the number of cases on Feb 18 is at 803.

Our chief medical officer of health was swift and decisive. Once we knew there was a significant outbreak the city locked down in what the MOH called a circuit breaker. Two days after that, once the variant was confirmed, the whole province shut down.

Yes, we had been doing well. I had returned to working with my trainer in the summer. I had missed the gym during our first wave. I missed the weights. The bar. The bands. All of it. I was glad to go back with just me and my trainer, six feet apart. Doing all the right things.

And now I am not in the gym and I expect that will be on hold for a while. What isn’t on hold is my training. No, I did not invest my own set of plates and barbells. I gathered up the various bits and bobs I have collected over time — a skipping rope, a yoga belt, TRX bands, an ab wheel, some kettlebells etc, and in a scene reminiscent of the film Apollo 13, I sent a snap to my trainer and said here’s what I have — what can we do with it? In another, I sent a list of all the exercises I could remember to do without prompting.

And now, I’m back. My trainer built me a plan, even using the odd terms I adopt to remind myself what an exercise looks like. I have a checklist, I have a plan, I even have two small portable whiteboards that I can write out my activity work for each day. I also have a good supply of dry erase markers in different colours so I can tick things off with joy and funky colours.

It’s the little things, and the big things. When I saw how likely it would be for Lockdown 2.0, I noticed I was stressed, but I was not anxious. Unlike last March when we had so little information, now we have a lot. Lockdown still isn’t a picnic but we have tools and we can make do quite well. It’s not the same, but it’s fine for what we must do to be safe and well. And I’ll take getting closer to fine over anything else. Even if I have to use a foam roller to get me there.