This past weekend, 3 lovely clients of mine graced the stage at the Kelowna Figure and Bodybuilding Show. It was the first-ever show that offered a Grand Masters (over 45) category. And they rocked it!

After 5 months of hard work (we work hard year round, but the pre contest months are toughest!), these ladies shed the fat, and toned and tightened their 50+ physiques into their best shape yet! Their stage presence and posing was spot on! They simply radiated!

As older mature athletes, we are building in numbers. There is no mistaking the energy when a mature woman steps on stage…there is something intoxicating and real about it! (No offense to you younger gals, but you have age-related bonuses that come with being young that you won’t understand until you are older!). And each of my competitors did it the Warrior Woman Way – without drugs, fat burners or estrogen blockers….real, organic, and honest.

As older women, we have come to honour our bodies, to respect its yearly changes and work within this moving landscape of ours, and to know that we stand proud as a tribe. We work hard. We eat plentiful and clean. We train with intention. We are focused and committed. 

Many thanks to Francesca McCallen (center, 2nd place), Sherry Findlay-Russell (left, 3rd place) and Lynn Willard (right, 4th place) for putting their faith in me. But more importantly, thank you for believing in YOU! You are a moving, gaining force and you are parting the waters for other mature women to enter through a door once thought to be closed to us older gals. You are redefining what over 50 is….

Because 50 is not the new 30. Fifty is the new 50!
Rock on ladies!

Coach Karen

I love teaching fitness and wellness, but running all over the place – from gym to gym – isn’t my cup of tea any more. I want to spend more time at my oasis I call home, a home we’ve been building and adding to for over 10 years. I want to spend more time with my family, rather than travelling, and to provide clients with an intimate setting in which to train, learn and grow!

So I built a fitness studio. I’ll be offering small fitness and nutrition classes for women, and I’ll be teaming up with various practitioners in the field. (First up, my Spiritual Intuitive teacher, Cheryl Forrest of Kelowna. Look out Universe! More info to come!) 

Studio 8 is here. Funny, I still have the tattered napkin that I first scribbled out its plans on (as well as a few other things I want to accomplish), because creating is about envisioning, and putting it out there to the Universe. But it’s not magic: we had to work very hard to make it happen, but happen it did!

Please take a tour of my lovely space (video below). I think you’ll agree that it’s a pretty cool place to hang out and get healthy. Once I get my feet wet and start getting a schedule of classes and programs in place, I’ll put it out on this blog or on my McCoy Fitness Facebook page at …So stay tuned! We’d love to have you join us!

.

Our recent 10-Week Challenge Luncheon at my home is always something I look forward to. Each participant brings something yummy to eat, and we eat and talk about our journey over the last 10 weeks.

It’s so interesting how each lady weighed in on a different facet of the journey. Some ladies said they now look at a plate of food differently, or they look at what others are eating and realize they too used to eat that way (and they too thought it was healthy). They can now see more clearly when / how they procrastinate with their own healthy living efforts, and recognize how and when they question their success and sabotage their efforts.

See, something like the 10-Week Best Shape Challenge is not just about losing weight (there is always some woman who says she doesn’t need to join because she doesn’t need to lose weight). It’s about finding your power again, recognizing your worth, and knowing that life can indeed begin at 40 (or 50, or 35), and that the body can change, indeed, in amazing ways, regardless of its age.

See, us older women (in my book, that’s 40+) are the largest population group on this planet, but we are still not being catered to in the proper way. (If I see another 20+ trainer putting another 40+ woman through burpees, I think I’ll go insane!). We need someone who knows about hormones, juggling career with family, having acquired injury, being on medication….we need someone to validate us and hear us!

That’s why I do what I do…because I know how women feel. I’ve been there. Heck, I’m still there, juggling career with family, struggling to fit in fitness amongst all the other things I must do in a day, watching certain bodyparts sag, mopping up after hot flashes….LOL!

And all the women on the Challenges have these, or similar, issues. We share, support, and know that we are not in this alone. That’s why so much of what I teach is spiritual / emotional stuff, life stuff, really. And I don’t pretend to have all the answers…but we just keep on trying…

We are a powerful force, us women, and we deserve to be supported and aided along in our journey in the best way possible, for the Warrior Women that we are! And that’s my promise to you: to try to give you what you need in a sincere, supportive and honest way, and to help move you forward in whatever way I can.

Onward Warrior Women! We’ve still got a lot left to do in this lifetime…!
Karen

PS We have 3 days left to sign up for my Spring / Summer 10-Week Best Shape of Your Life Challenge….we starts Friday April 11th! Next Challenge does not run again until September! (Challenger Graduates, you now qualify to join the 12-Week Advanced Best Shape Challenge…!). Let’s get Summer-Ready, ladies!

After 30 years in the business, I thought I had heard it all.

But when a woman sheepishly told me she decided to not joing the  April 10-Week Challenge after all, I had to ask why. First, she said she didn’t want to do it because she would ‘lose her social life’. 

Did she mean she wouldn’t have as much time to socialize? Or she wouldn’t be able to indulge in excess food choices like she used to? Or perhaps she didn’t want to pair back her alcohol consumption. (All of these, by the way, are workable ‘lifestyle’ habits we can still maintain under certain conditions…). I told her that wasn’t the case.

Then she spilled the real goods. “I fear my friends will be jealous of me. You know, it’s kinda vain, don’t you think?”

To what…want to get into awesome shape? Too look and feel great? To be able to have energy to spare and stay strong and healthy?

I was dumb-founded. Nope. Nada. No Way. That’s something I would hear from someone from my mom’s generation (sorry mom!). For this woman, the explanation I would have offered her would ahve been way too much trouble for me to get into, and probably way too much for her to absorb. She just wasn’t at the proper place to listen.

In any case, she simply isn’t ready. When women have a burning desire and a sense of excitement about positive change in their lives, then it’s an easy fit. And I simply love being the catalyst for these transformations! I’ve always said I have the best job in the world!

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear,” so goes the saying. Maybe one day you’ll be ready, S.T., and I’ll be here waiting for you. Honest!

karen

P.S. Sign up has begun for my Spring session of my popular 10-Week Best Shape of Your Life Challenge, now in its 5th year! It’s the last one before we break for summer! Only 20 seats! Registration closes April 9th. we start April 14th! JOIN US! (I’ll save you a seat, S.T…..in case you change your mind!) For a more detailed description, GO HERE!

“As I look back on the challenge I can see that I have learned so much and for that I am grateful to you. I have gained strength, a smarter way of eating and a stronger belief in myself. I realized that lifting weights and seeing results in how we look and feel is a product of a few things: Consistency, Patience and Lifestyle. This has been a journey for me and it is not done. Thank you for the inspiration on so many levels Karen…you are truly remarkable.” – Alison West

Today my son is off to Canuck Place Hospice in Vancouver for a visit. It’s an amazing place for kids with terminal illnesses, a place for them to get away from it all, and to offer up a rest to parents.

Many years ago, Tristan was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. Since then, we have learned to live every day to the fullest, to treasure what we have while we have it, and to accept the lot we have been given. Because to deny the truth, and to live in resistance to what is, is surely damaging to the body’s delicate cells.

I know. I lived there for many years. And for years, my body was awash in pain, depression, chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. The labels or the diagnoses never mattered to me: I knew it was a result of a broken spirit, and the subsequent 8-years of my ill health were due solely to this single event.

As a coach and a trainer, I am keenly aware of my health, and the health of the people I coach. I know when something is amiss, it has its physical manifestations, sure, but the emotional and spiritual are running the show. Truly. If you are sabotaging your eating, if you just can’t motivate yourself to go train, then you need to go inward….what’s standing in your way? What are you really saying to yourself? Maybe you’re just not ready to change, or don’t want a healthy physique just yet….believe it or not, this is true also.

Fitting in yet another training session, and having to spend the extra time to shop, cook and prepare clean food can be time consuming. But it’s a choice we need to take if we want a healthy, fit, active body, and a healthy mind. Because good health never happens by accident. It is a constant choice and a movement into action. Period.

So when people ask me why I continue to train well into my 50’s, I say I train because I can. Because my son does not have the luxury of living in a strong, capable body. So when someone makes an obvious excuse for not training, I listen to their reasons, but deep inside, I silently wish I could trade that moment of opportunity and give it to my son, so he could feel the wonder of being able to move his body with strength and purpose. Sometimes health is wasted on the capable among us.

So next time you go to over indulge in poor food choices, ask yourself why you want to hurt yourself. Next time you feel you are too busy to train, think of those who cannot experience the pleasure of that movement, people like Tristan, and the many others struck down with disease and ageing, who can only hold the dream of one day being able to enjoy what we all sometimes take for granted.

karen

I love muscle.

I love watching it move. For me, muscle represents life and vitality. It’s graceful and sensual. It oozes health and confidence. 

As a competitive bodybuilder, it was only natural that I write a fitness book. In fact, this book was originally written as a how-to training book about a year ago. Then I threw it out and started again. I needed to tell the real story, my story, of what real health and wellness means to me and to women everywhere.

One Rep at a Time is a book about women and health told from a very different place. It is carved out from that most mysterious of all journeys, the dark night of the soul – as described by mystic John of the Cross – that moment in time when we are faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges that offers us a kind of rebirth, and the chance to live life from a greater place. It’s a journey we must all take toward wholeness, perhaps more than once, in order for us to live our best life physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

I have spent most of my life teaching women how to build strong, shapely muscle, yet I gave birth to a child with a terminal muscle-wasting disease. The irony has not been lost on me. Looking back, I see that I had no choice really. This story needed to be told and I had to tell it for women everywhere.

My own dark night spanned eight years when my son was first diagnosed. Needless to say, I was ill-equipped for the ride. My body, which had once been my pillar of strength, became the focal point for all my anger, fear and confusion, and I lived in constant pain. I had to learn how to listen to its language, and open up to my journey in order to heal. Our bodies hold all our past stories, and I was a walking, breathing example of this, and so are you.

In today’s exercise-crazed world, most of us have missed the point: building great abs is great, certainly, but it’s not going to fix a broken marriage, or change destructive habits, or help us understand the connection between emotional pain and physical pain. We are multi-dimensional beings whose intuitions, dreams and energies are powerful tools we can use to create a strong, vibrant body and spirit, and build a life of meaning and purpose. I say we best get on with the journey.

That’s why I’ve included in this book the 8-Week BLISS Body Makeover Program, complete with videos and workout cards, and nutrition and lifestyle teachings to help you every step of the way. This is my thirty years of healthy living all wrapped up lovingly into one program, with hard-won lessons from my own life, which I know many of you will relate to. I guarantee you it is unlike any other exercise program you will ever encounter.

For me, my sport of choice has always been weight training, because I believe in that above all other exercise regimes. The skills required to build a strong, shapely body are the same skills needed to overcome intense challenges – strength, tenacity, focus, dedication and faith. The simple act of grabbing a weight and lifting it up is life-affirming. It’s simple, clean and succinct. There’s a start and an end. It doesn’t get any more basic than that.

Life is hard. Few of us get through life unscathed, but surviving your own dark night means opening up to what is. It’s about the intimate dance between holding on and letting go, and embracing its lessons. You learn to live fearlessly and with an open heart, and you learn to muscle into every moment like it was your last, because it just may be. This my son’s journey has taught me.

Life isn’t always lived in giant leaps and bounds. It’s often lived in the small steps in between, the good and the bad ones, the glad and the sad ones, and the ones we often take for granted.

Sometimes life is lived just one step at a time … and One Rep at a Time.

With much love and respect,
 Karen

 – Excerpt from One Rep at a Time, by Karen McCoy. Available at Tanner’s Books in Sidney, BC and on-line at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

Awhile back, I had lunch with a friend in Victoria who was looking pretty fit! When I asked him what he was doing, he said, “I just use a Fitness App.” Then he added, “and that’s what you’re up against in your business. Anyone can get this fitness stuff for free.”

I was struck by his comment, and I mulled it over all day. Was I really up against all that? And if so, how could I ever expect to keep my business going with all that ‘free fitness stuff’ out there, including the ever-increasing world of apps?

Then the clouds cleared. I got it. He was wrong (sorry Jose, I love you!) and it all made sense….it worked for him, but he’s one sector of the population. But I’ve always been on another horizon, one that’s getting brighter every day.

See, people can learn to tune their own car engine, but they don’t: they take it to Midas or something. You can learn to prime your own pump, dig your own well, or insulate your own attic. Heck, you can even build your own house (and often times it looks like it too!), but most people get the experts to do it for them.  

Some people choose to do it themselves because they want to save money, so they download free music, videos, apps, and the like. But many other people (especially women) are making their way back to the personal touch, something that’s been missing in our society (and in business) for years, when we drifted off course and away from the ‘family-run grocery store’ in favour of the big box stores, the cheap deal, the sales, the freebies. But the tide’s a’shifting…

I offer my clients the personal touch. Fitness – and our bodies – is our temple, and with all precious things, it deserves the personal touch (in my opinion), and I’m that touch. I’m the Mother Ship, so to speak, the lifeline, and I’m there every step of the way. And I know the road you women are on, the long journey, from ill health to good health, and all things in between, the struggles with family, responsibilities, motivation, temptation! LOL!

My programs are organic – built by me, overseen by me. Period. I’m at the end of every email – every email – and with over 100+ on line clients, it’s a daunting task, but it’s the way I run it. That’s my philosophy. That’s my promise. To you.

So go ahead you techies and download your fitness apps…that’s what they’re there for, for techie-saavy people like you who want it clean, simple, downloadable, free, and at your fingertips. That’s one niche market. But I’ve got my own with my growing female clientele that want and crave the personal touch, and who want someone – not something – that lives and breathes the journey alongside with them. For them, it’s about inspiration over information, I guess you could say.

karen

REMINDER: Both the 10-Week Best Shape and 12-Week Advanced Best Shape Challenge are starting again in April! Sign up has begun! Only 20 seats in the 10-Week and 20 in the Advanced 12-Week! Do it for YOU! YOU deserve it!

We all have ’em. Emotional Escape Hatches. You know, those little things we do to soften the blow of those little feelings we just don’t want to feel…..

Often clients who start on a healthy living journey (or even those who have been on it for some time) surprise themselves when those little habits they once had – diving into a pint of ice cream, settling into a plate of pastries, eating a bag of M & M’s at the movie theatre – suddenly take over, again, like a body possession of sorts.

I’ve seen this many times, especially when a new batch of 10 or 12 Week Best Shape Challengers start the program. Why does this happen, they wonder, and what’s behind it all?

Well, it’s called being human. We all have our emotional excape hatches. The trick is to know them, name them (call them out, really) so we can start to create something fresh.

See, our patterns of behaviour are like well-worn tire tracks. Our behavious are so well-worn, with year after year of patterned reactions, that the grooves are deep, so deep in fact that they are often unconscious, and our reactions take over: you have a bad day at work, you’re tired and stressed out, your hubby is ignoring you again, your boss reminds you of your controlling father, your sex life is running on empty, your career is stale, your work is unfulfilling….and you over-eat, drink, carouse, fight….

See the problem is that most of us know when we are displaying self-destructive and unhealthy behaviour. We all know that eating  a pint of ice cream probably isn’t the best thing to do…but let’s look deeper, shall we (uh oh…I just know a bunch of you are running for the hills right about now!) Why are you eating that ice cream / souffle / donuts? What feeling / memory / are you trying to dull? Loneliness? Fear? Abandonment? Feeling unloved? Unworthy?

See…if you can learn to NOT fall into those well worn tracks that keep you stuck in the mud, and ask the question in silence…without reacting by reaching for sweets, treats, smoking, alcohol, brawling, an extra marital affair….but how do you do this?

The first thing you do when you reach for that escape item….stop. Sit in silence…be aware, be courageous and ask what sits behind it…what are you trying to not feel? Write it down, cry, breathe, listen, be curious and stand outside yourself, like an observer……

The second thing you do is create a new action…go for a walk, turn on some music and dance, write, do some deep breathing. See nature abhors a vacuum, so you simply can’t NOT do the offending behaviour….you have to replace it with another action. Pretty soon, you will create fresh tire tracks that cut deeper and deeper, and will soon replace the old tire tracks of your destructive behaviour. You will automatically fall into the fresh, new, healthier pattern (tracks) you’ve created. And that soon becomes your default button-a healthier way to soothe and heal your emotional chaos.

We all have our Emotional Escape Hatches. When I was younger, it was drugs and alcohol. But as I ‘matured’, I replaced it with being an over-acheiver and a workaholic. (Yep, I thought I had put my childhood behind me!) But as I continued to dig deeper, I could see the pattern again: while being a ‘workaholic’ seems to be a more approved addiction, it is still an addiction. Hmmm…more work to be done.

Now, when I feel those feelings of anxiety and uncertainty, surely left over from a dysfunctional and chaotic childhood, I turn off the computer and take my dog for a 20 minute walk, breathing in the air, looking up at the sky, and finding things to be thankful for….

There. My anxiety starts to pass, and I feel filled up with power and gratitude, ready to take on the rest of the day. A new set of tire tracks has been created, but it took a very long time to create it (and longer to recognize the hidden feelings under it all) but now it’s my new default. And somehow life seems easier.

Come to know your Emotional Escape Hatches. Be gentle with them…they were created (by you!) to protect you, and you are able to handle them in all their scariness. Emotions can’t hurt you, they just need to be validated, and in doing so, they don’t get bigger (this is what most people fear), they actually diminish and their hold over you starts to dissolve. Ah….freedom at last!

Ladies, be brave. Dig. Open. Look. Feel. And feel it blow right through you…and away from you, into the cosmos. We are the strongest force in the Universe, us women. And we can do this! You CAN do this. I promise. 

Good luck. And happy trails.
karen 

With the start of a New Year, we all have dreams of getting in awesome shape….we start with good intentions, then things fall by the wayside and we go right back to the familiar again…

Why do we do this? Well, life starts to encroach again, we recognize we actually have to carve out time – every day – for our fitness goals. And honestly, fitness take time! And we have to move stuff around and let some things go in order to make it work.

Well, that’s life. If it were that easy – if we didn’t have to give up time, certain foods, our beliefs – then we’d all be fit non-stop! But what I know is that the older you get, the faster time marches on, and along with that, the results of this – a not-so-tight physique and a lack of energy, focus, and, well, a lack of pizazz!

That’s why I created my 10-Week online Best Shape Challenge, which is now in its fifth year. This way, all women need is a computer and a gym to train in, and the rest takes care of itself. Easy, very affordable (3 different workouts and weekly food and lifestyle lessons to get you up and running the real way, without gimmicks, crazy diets, or marketing hype). Considering that a Personal trainer costs $35-$70 an hour, it’s an amazing deal for even the most cost-conscious woman, and I’m there every step. But the onus is on you to do the work.

Last fall a bunch of us went to the Sandra Wickham show and I’ve included a few photos of some before and afters of several hard-working ladies who competed. Now, I know most of you won’t be looking to compete, but that’s not the point – these women are all over 40, came from meager fitness backgrounds and had to come a very long way. And they did. And what and how I teach is not that far removed from competitive-style eating and training (clean, real, no drugs or fat burners), because the woman who makes great gains simply must follow along this continuum, a teaching method I’ve used for 30 years with all my women because it works! I just don’t label it as such because when you say ‘competitive style’…well…all sorts of myths and misconceptions abound!.

We start the 10-Week Best Shape of Your Life Challenge in 5 days! I’ve got 3 spots left. Why not join us? I promise you, if you do as I say, and you follow the program, you will see amazing results. And it’s real training and eating, as a lifestyle that we can learn and embrace for life!

Join us! We kick off this Friday!

karen

Well, I did it again….

I didn’t mean to do it, really. I just happened to hold a sold-out seminar at my house in the summer called How to Eat, Live, Train and Think like a Competitor. Seems they were all interested in how Competitors live and prepare for stage.

Since I went back into competition last year, I’ve kept video journals of the process and I regularly share it with my female clients. For me, it’s always about sharing our experiences with each other: our highs and lows, our triumphs and our pitfalls, the interesting and the mundane, in an effort to share with each other. Because what I’ve learned in my 30+ years of teaching health and wellness is that no woman is an island: women need (and want) a community, a support network of like-minded women to share and learn from.

After I shared my philosophy of how to properly train and eat for show – how I did it 25 years ago and how I still do it today – clean, no drugs, no diuretics or fat burners, applying hard training, gentle cardio, organic foods, no artificials and quality sports supplements (and a healthy amount of calories!) – well, someone asked the inevitable: “why don’t you coach us in competition?”

Uh oh….I just opened another door. “I’ll think about it,” I said.

Then Jane Henson approached me, a dear, long time friend who quietly asked if I would coach her into her first show. “I’ve searched around, interviewed other coaches, and honestly, I don’t want anyone else as a coach except you. And I want to do it your way.”

I thought for a minute, then said, “Alright, let’s do it!” And we went to work.

That was 5 months ago, and what a ride! Just two weeks ago, me and a bunch of ladies all headed over to the Vancouver show to watch and cheer Jane on. And when Jane stood on that stage, she just oozed energy, health and confidence! And she was feeling really, really good! She was truly a Warrior Woman that day, and we were all so proud of her! 

What’s next? Well, I’m heading back into show again next summer, so I’m busy training for that. And it looks like I’ll be coaching 3 lovely ladies along the way, ladies who have been with me for some time and whom all want to compete the Warrior Woman way, the healthy way. And it will be my sheer pleasure to do so. Thank you Sherry, Francesca and Lynn for walking the walk with me. We’re gonna have a fabulous time! (Guess you can’t back out now, eh?)

Coach Karen

PS Still looking for a Christmas idea? Why not give someone an 8-Week full-on training, eating and lifestyle program the Warrior Woman Way, with health, vitality and wellness in mind. My 8-Week BLISS Body Makeover Program, included in my One Rep at a Time fitness book is perfect! And it’s FREE with purchase of my book! Videos, workout cards, eating plans, tips and tidbits, and of course, email support from me! Available at Amazon and at Tanners Books in Sidney and Russell’s Books in Victoria.