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