This week, I celebrated my 49th birthday! I know next year is the “big one,” but this last year of my 40s feels significant. Birthdays always make me reflective—kind of like the start of a new school year or the New Year.

When I look back, it’s amazing how much has shifted since I entered this decade. My life has changed a lot —and I’m so grateful for it.

Here are a few things I’m celebrating from my 40’s as I head into this next year…

I have a confession…I am a naturopathic doctor and a fitness and nutrition coach who loves to sometimes drink Old Fashioneds and eat Salt & Vinegar chips. I’m definitely not perfect. I generally find it’s easier to be more consistent with my nutrition than my workouts. But over the past six weeks, I’ve dialled in on both (not every day… I still had some of the above, but most days)—and not surprisingly, I feel really good!

Not eating enough food can really affect your metabolism. It’s what I see with almost all of my FASTer Way clients when they start out. It takes intentional effort to eat enough, but it’s so worth it! It’s hard to know what eating enough looks like without tracking. Initially it’s a bit of a learning curve, but I can do it now in under 5 minutes/day (and so can you!). The FASTer Way app now has photo and voice tracking (that’s right - it can calculate the macros of your meal from a picture or by saying what you are eating!), which makes it so much faster and easier!

Something big is happening tomorrow that I’ve been thinking about for pretty much my whole adult life. You may have seen me share in my social media stories that I’m having a breast reduction. To say that I am nervous is an understatement. Having surgery involves trusting the people who will be taking care of me and that my body is going to know what to do to heal after. As a bit of a type A personality, that’s tough for me.

Have you seen any “A haunted house, but…” posts on social media? I didn’t get them at first, but I think I’ve figured them out now that I’ve seen them pretty much all over Instagram. They play on the idea of a haunted house and replace the usual creepy parts with everyday challenges or annoyances, bringing some humour to them. Here are some I found funny….

I spent last weekend in Kingston celebrating my 25th Queen's University Homecoming Reunion.  I had the best time with my former housemates remembering how fun my four years there were.   Something happened while I was there that sparked a little revelation for me and I wanted to share it with you…

When I started cooking for myself as an adult, I would just go to the grocery store and randomly buy food that looked good. Each day I would try to make something out of the random bits and pieces I had. I ate a lot more packaged food, food went to waste, and I definitely didn’t eat very healthy. Once I had kids, I realized that we needed some sort of plan. As time went on, I learned to cook better and became more creative with what we made. To my surprise, I also found that I really enjoy cooking! It’s now my love language and it makes me feel good physically and mentally to know that I am fuelling me and my family with healthy food.

I often hear from my patients and FASTer Way clients that they feel overwhelmed and confused about what to do to improve their health and where to start. There is no shortage of information out there about what may be helpful for you and a lot of it is contradictory. Eat this. Don’t eat that. Skip breakfast. Don’t eat breakfast. Take this supplement. This supplement is harmful. How the heck do you make sense of it?

I remember when every day was a struggle for me. I did the things I needed to do and thought that was just the way it felt to be a working mom. I didn’t even realize how tired I was until I wasn’t, but I’m glad that I found my way through to where I am now. If you are struggling with your energy, I want you to know that you aren’t alone. I hear this all the time from the women I work with. It’s easy to chalk it up to “regular” life or age and think that’s just the way you have to feel. It doesn’t have to be that way though.

“We absolutely have within each of us the power to prevent or significantly decrease our risk for the majority of the top killers and contributors to disability in the world.” Oof, isn’t that a powerful statement? It’s from a podcast I listened to this week with Dr. Austin Perlmutter, MD that got so many wheels spinning in my brain. Read on to see two main points from it that stood out to me.

I love when my own health journey leads to me learning something that also helps me better help my patients. Here's one accidental discovery that has made a big difference in my energy and quality of life, and that I now also often consider for patients.

Healthy eating is so confusing, isn’t it? You can find conflicting information for just about everything. There is no one size fits all approach that works for absolutely everyone, but there are some general guidelines I teach that are an effective framework to determine what works best for you. Let’s take a look at them…

Now why the heck would you want to do intermittent fasting? There are so many health benefits! A major one is that it helps to make you more metabolically flexible. Many people spend most of their time burning mainly sugar (or carbohydrates) for energy and then the extra gets stored as fat. When you go for longer periods of time without eating (ie when you fast), your body will switch to burning fat as a fuel source.

It is 100% true that your collagen production decreases with age, starting in your 30’s, but increasingly so as you get closer to menopause and beyond. The loss of collagen has an effect on your skin and joints. Collagen is kind of like the springs in your mattress. That’s why as we lose it, we get more wrinkles and fine lines. Collagen is also an important component of your joints and helps keep them springy.

As I type this, my family and I are getting ready to take a road trip to Washington, DC for the kids’ March Break. We have always wanted to go there, and now that the kids are old enough to appreciate the history and the museums (it also helps that they are free… travelling with 6 of us is not cheap!), we decided this is the year! I often hear that it’s challenging to figure out how to eat healthy when you are eating away from home, so I thought it might be helpful to share what I do. There are actually lots of good options that make it possible to keep your wellness goals on track while you are exploring somewhere away from home or eating out to give yourself a break from cooking.

As your hormones change with peri/menopause, your body starts to break down muscle at an increasing rate. Muscle is very metabolically active, so less muscle means a slower metabolism, more inflammation, more insulin resistance, lower bone density, and less strength. This has a huge impact on your ability to stay healthy and active as you age. It’s also why so many women I talk to are frustrated because they find themselves gaining weight despite their best efforts to change that.

The good news is that this isn’t just something we have to accept as part of aging. We have the power to change that trajectory with what we eat and how we exercise. When you build your muscle, you will speed up your metabolism, reduce inflammation, improve insulin sensitivity, increase bone density, and get stronger!!

Have you heard of macronutrients? Maybe you know a little, maybe you are super confused by all of the information available, or maybe you’ve never even heard of them. That’s okay! I am going to simplify what macros are…

It’s that time of year where the weather is getting cooler, the leaves are falling and warm and cozy comfort food is on everyone’s mind. What better way to celebrate fall than with a delicious and nutritious soup recipe that not only satisfies your craving for comfort foods, but also nourish your body as well?