Calorie counting works — until it doesn’t. For some people, tracking calories creates clarity, structure and momentum. For others, it quickly becomes overwhelming, obsessive or unsustainable. And that’s where the confusion starts. So is calorie counting good  or bad ? The honest answer is: it depends . I know, that's an annoying answer LOL...but here me out. It doesn't depend on your willpower or discipline, but on your goals, your history with food and what you can realistically maintain long-term. Calories matter. But they’re only one piece of the picture. Understanding when calorie counting helps and when it hurts is far more important than blindly following another trend. What Is Calorie Counting? Calorie counting is tracking how many calories you eat in a day compared to how many you burn. The idea is energy balance: if you eat more than you burn, you gain weight; if you eat less, you lose weight. In theory, it’s straightforward. But in practice, it’s not always that simple. When Calorie Counting Can Be Helpful? For many people, tracking calories offers structure and clarity. It can: Reveal hidden eating patterns Help you understand portion sizes Identify why weight trends aren’t shifting Give a baseline for adjustments If you’re someone who enjoys data and consistency, calorie counting can be a useful tool, especially when you’re trying to refine your habits. When It Might Not Be the Best Tool? Here’s where calorie counting starts become a hindrance: It’s time-consuming It can lead to obsessive behavior Tracking every bite can drain motivation It may trigger stress around food ** For people who’ve struggled with food rules, restriction or anxiety around eating, tracking can do more harm than good. If calorie counting causes more stress than insight, it’s not serving your goals. Why Context Matters More Than Numbers: Two meals with the same calorie count can impact your body and your hunger very differently. Protein, fiber, satiety, timing, stress, sleep and activity all influence how food feels and how your body responds. Focusing exclusively on calories ignores the bigger picture of health and performance. So, Is Calorie Counting Good or Bad ? The short answer: It depends on the person and the strategy. Calorie counting can be a helpful awareness tool, but it’s not essential for everyone and it’s definitely not the only way to make progress. Calorie counting isn’t good or bad — it’s just a tool. Used intentionally, it can build awareness and help people break through plateaus. Used at the wrong time or for the wrong person, it can create stress, food guilt and a short-term mindset that doesn’t last. That’s why I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all nutrition. Some people thrive with numbers. Others do far better focusing on habits, consistency and structure without tracking every bite. The goal isn’t to count calories forever. It's to build a relationship with food that supports your training, your energy and your life. If you’re unsure which approach makes sense for you, that’s exactly where coaching helps. The right plan isn’t the strictest one, it’s the one you can actually sustain.

Chasing that muscle soreness you feel after a workout is a popular phenomenon for gym novice to advanced people alike. I too find gratification from some that post workout soreness.  And if you think soreness equals success, that belief might actually be holding you back. Muscle soreness, especially the kind that shows up a day or two after a workout, is often mistaken as proof that you trained “hard enough.” But soreness is not  a reliable indicator of progress. It’s simply a response to something new. I'll explain.   What Is Muscle Soreness? The soreness most people feel after training is known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) . It’s caused by stress to muscle tissue. Typically when you perform movements your body isn’t accustomed to or increase volume suddenly. Here’s the key takeaway: DOMS reflects novelty, not effectiveness. You can have a great workout and feel very little soreness. You can also feel extremely sore after a poorly planned workout.   Why Is Soreness Misleading? Imagine doing: 100 air squats 200 bodyweight lunges Looooots of box jumps There’s a good chance you’ll feel sore the next day. But that soreness doesn’t mean the workout was making you stronger, it just means your body experienced an unfamiliar stimulus. On the other hand, a structured strength program designed for long-term progression might leave you feeling strong, energized and not very sore at all . That’s not a bad thing. That’s just smart training. Soreness is a reaction. Progress is an adaptation.   What Actually Defines a "Good" Workout? Instead of asking, “Am I sore?”, ask these questions: 1. Did something measurable improve? More reps than last time Increased load or resistance Better control, balance, or range of motion Progress doesn’t need to hurt to count. 2. Did the session support your goals? A good workout aligns with what you’re trying to achieve: Fat loss Strength development Improved mobility Better energy and consistency Pain is not the goal. Results are. 3. Did you recover well enough to train again? Training that leaves you too sore to move, sleep or perform well in your next session works against  consistency, which is where results come from. When Soreness Matters (And When It Doesn’t): Some soreness is normal. Especially when learning new movements. But it shouldn’t be the only benchmark. Soreness that’s generally fine: Mild discomfort Fades within 24–48 hours Doesn’t affect movement quality Soreness that’s a red flag: Sharp or joint-based pain Lasts several days Changes how you move or train Disrupts daily life or sleep How to Train Smarter: If you want sustainable results: Track performance, not pain Progress gradually and intentionally Prioritize recovery and movement quality Choose training that supports your long-term goals A well-designed program builds you up, it doesn’t just break you down. Final Thoughts? Soreness should not be the goal. Results are. If your goal is to get stronger, leaner, healthier and more confident in your body, focus on progressive training, smart recovery and consistency over time . Soreness may show up occasionally — that’s okay. If you’re looking for structured, goal-driven personal training (in-person or online) you can learn more about my coaching services at here. *Updated January 2026

For months — honestly, closer to years — I would get to the bar and tell myself the same thing. Just pull yourself up. Just do the damn thing. And I couldn't. Not for lack of trying. Not for lack of showing up. I trained consistently. I worked on my back, my grip, my shoulders. I did the progressions. I did the regressions. I watched people around me knock them out like it was nothing and told myself that someday, if I just kept working, I'd get there too. Then one day — no dramatic moment — my chin cleared the bar. Wait. What just happened? I hung there for a second, genuinely surprised. Then I did it again to make sure it wasn't a fluke. It wasn't. And I waited to feel the way I thought I'd feel. The satisfaction. The arrival. The sense that I had finally become the person I'd been working toward. It was smaller than I expected. It took me a while to understand why. It Was Never About the Exercise From the time I was young, pull-ups meant something specific to me. The people who could do them — in gym class, at the park, in the weight room — were the people I associated with being athletic. Strong. Capable. Like they belonged in spaces I wasn't sure I did. So somewhere along the way I decided: If I could do a pull-up, I'd be like them. I'd have earned my place. I'd be enough. That's a lot of weight to put on an exercise. What I was actually chasing wasn't the movement. It was the narrative underneath it — the one that had been quietly in the background for years telling me I was weak, not athletic, not the right kind of person for this. The pull-up was just the thing I'd attached that story to. When I finally did it, the story didn't automatically disappear. But for the first time, I could see it clearly enough to start questioning it. And that — not the rep itself — was the actual breakthrough. Why I Became a Trainer I've thought about that moment a lot over 15 years of working with people in Edmonton. Because what I experienced — the years of feeling like I wasn't enough, the quiet belief that fitness was for a certain kind of person and I wasn't quite that person — I see it walk through the door with almost every new client I work with. It doesn't always look the same. Sometimes it's a 67-year-old man who spent his whole career behind a desk and is convinced his body is too far gone to respond to training. Sometimes it's a woman in her early 60s who has been active her whole life but an injury knocked her confidence and now she's not sure what she's capable of anymore. Sometimes it's someone who has simply never felt at home in a gym — who spent years watching other people move through those spaces with ease and assumed that ease wasn't available to them. The specific story varies. The feeling underneath it is almost always the same. I'm not sure I belong here. I'm not sure I'm enough. That's what I got into this industry to address. Not just the physical stuff — though the physical results are real and they matter. But the deeper thing. The belief system that keeps capable, intelligent, motivated people from starting, from continuing, from trusting what their bodies can actually do. I do that through fitness. But the work we're doing is bigger than any single exercise. What This Means for You If you've ever stood at the edge of a gym and talked yourself out of walking in — this is for you. If you've ever started a program, hit a wall, and decided the wall meant something was wrong with you rather than just with the approach — this is for you. If you've ever looked at someone stronger, faster, or further along than you and felt that familiar quiet voice that says that's not for people like me — this is for you. That voice is lying. You don't need to already be fit to start. You don't need a history of athletics. You don't need to look a certain way or move a certain way or have a certain kind of body. You just need to show up. Consistently, imperfectly, one session at a time. The rest gets built from there. I've watched it happen hundreds of times. The Pull-Up Wasn't the Point The point was proving to myself — slowly, over years, through a lot of frustrating sessions — that the story I'd been carrying wasn't true. I wasn't weak. I wasn't unathletic. I wasn't less-than. I was someone who hadn't learned the skill yet. That's a very different thing. And the day I understood that difference, everything about how I train and how I coach changed. Whatever your version of the pull-up is: the exercise you've written off, the goal you've quietly abandoned, the capability you've decided isn't available to you.. It's not about the exercise. It never was. [Book a free intro call →] Here [Download: 5 Things I Wish Every New Client Over 55 Knew Before We Started →] Here

A few years ago, a client walked into the gym and told me she had a cold. She was in her late 50s. Busy career. The kind of person who ran hard at everything — work, family, responsibilities and somehow still carved out time to train. I'd watched her build real strength over months. She showed up consistently, worked hard and made a lot of progress. But that day, something was off. A few minutes in, I could tell this wasn't about a cold. "Can we go outside?" she asked. We walked. For almost half an hour, neither of us said much. When we finally sat down at a park bench, she let out a long breath. "I feel like I've lost everything. Everything I worked for. Like I physically went back three years." Life had caught up with her. Not an injury. Not an illness. The pressure of a busy life and a routine that quietly fell apart over weeks. She hadn't stopped caring. She'd just run out of capacity. And in the silence that followed, she'd convinced herself the progress was gone. I hear this more than almost anything else I hear as a trainer in Edmonton. Here's what I told her and what I want you to know too. Progress doesn't disappear the way we think it does. The strength you built doesn't vanish because you missed three weeks. Or six. The muscle memory, the movement patterns, the cardiovascular adaptations your body made — they don't pack up and leave when life gets hard. Your body is more resilient than your moment of self-doubt. What actually happens during a forced break is this: You decondition somewhat, yes. You may feel weaker, slower, more winded than you'd like. That's real and it's frustrating. But the return curve is dramatically faster than the original climb. You are not starting over. You are starting again and those are completely different things. For people in their 50s and 60s especially, this distinction matters enormously. Because the setbacks at this stage of life can feel heavier. A stressful season at work, a family health crisis, a stretch of poor sleep and poor eating — these don't just disrupt your schedule. They can make you feel like the window has closed. Like you missed your chance. You didn't. What "good enough" looks like when you're rebuilding: When that client and I walked back into the gym that day, we didn't try to pick up where we left off. We started smaller. The goal wasn't to reclaim everything in one workout; it was to prove to her nervous system and her confidence, that she could still do this. That's the approach I use with every client who comes back after a difficult stretch. We don't chase the peak from six months ago. We build a new foundation and we build it quickly because the body remembers. Some days your best is a full training session. Some days it's a 20-minute walk. Some days it's getting eight hours of sleep and eating one solid meal. That's not failure. That's the actual work of long-term health — meeting yourself where you are instead of punishing yourself for where you aren't. The clients I've worked with in Edmonton who make the most lasting progress aren't the ones who never fall off. They're the ones who stop treating a stumble like the end. The question worth asking: If you've been away from training — whether it's been two weeks or two years — the question isn't whether you've lost your progress. The real question is, what you're going to do today? Not perfectly. Not at full capacity. Just something. Because the gap between where you are and where you want to be closes faster than you think when you stop waiting to feel ready and just start. If you're ready to have that conversation, I'd like to be the person you have it with. Book a free consultation at shanekokas.com/contact

A question we all want the answer to. Instant gratification rocks, so immediately would be ideal, right? However, every person is different and unique, so you should expect that your results would also be unique to others. It may be quicker or it may be slower. If you do not see results immediately, do not panic. Your body is already getting stronger and healthier after your first workout. What is the order I should see changes happen? John Romaniello explained the order of change typically occurs with strength first. You'll notice the weights you’re using seem lighter than they were before, resulting in you lifting heavier. This happens because your brain learns to recruit more muscle fibres in order to lift heavier loads. The second adaptation to occur would be with your performance. Meaning you are becoming better at moving. Your body and nervous system are developing and become more efficient at the movement patterns and building endurance. Endurance means you’re able to lift weights or perform a certain amount of work without tiring easily. This occurs because your body is increasing the number of Mitochondria – the cell's espresso machine. The more mitochondria you have, the more energy your muscles will have. However, this is where many people can become frustrated. In my earlier years this is where I would jump ship and swap programs because I wasn't seeing these visual changes. The issue is they don’t really start to appear until after your strength increases and performances improves. I wasn't giving the program enough time to actually run it's course. The method of program hopping was a detriment to my progress. This is why consistency is so important in your workout regime. “Okay, but when do I see the results of my hard work?” If you don't make the errors I made early on, within the third adaptation there will be a decrease in body fat. After approximately 4-6 weeks you are able to notice a fat loss, because your body is more efficient and able to perform more work (burning more calories). Lastly, after strength and endurance increases, better movement patterns, and fat being lost to energy expenditure, you gain muscle. This is where you really start to see the results in the mirror. This lean muscle you have will also burn fat to help maintain itself, in addition to the more intensive calorie burning workouts. Of course this is a general outline of the body adaptation process and you can very likely notice measurable differences along the way giving a proper nutrition and workout regime.​ ​ BOTTOM LINE: the process of “getting fit” is a journey that expands over months and years, but the benefits start on the first workout. If you’re consistent, you should start seeing the visual results after 4-6 weeks.

I just joined a gym—now what? So you have mustered up the nerve and signed up for a gym membership. This is an exciting point in your endeavour, but with that may also comes some confusion and anxiety. “Okay, well now what?” “What do I focus on?” “What equipment do I use?” are all common and completely normal questions, and we can combat this. I am about to lay out some of my general tips to help guide you through the next steps after purchasing your membership. 1. Get a coach/personal trainer Being a Personal Trainer myself, I am biased, but signing up for a few sessions with a trainer or coach will significantly help offset any anxiety or confusion with exercise. This is also an opportunity to ask questions, go through proper form and get an idea of how an exercise should “feel”. 2. Focus on the big blocks There is a lot to absorb when it comes to getting started in the gym/working out. I recommend focusing on the biggest 3 factors to get you going. Exercise form comes first. It’s important to ensure that you are using the equipment safely, moving in the best way for your body and using the targeted muscles. Also, using proper form is incredibly important for injury prevention. It’s normal to maybe want to go a little “easy” on the first 1-2 workouts. I often ease new clients in to see how they manage during and recover after the workout. You might feel great during, but it can be quite demotivating not being able to move your arms or walk properly for 2-4 days after. That said, you do want to be challenged in the workout. Choose a weight where you can execute every rep with perfect form, but having the last 2-3 reps of the set a struggle. If it isn’t a struggle, go heavier. If you cannot complete all reps, go lighter. Lastly—progressive overload. Progressive overload is a gradual increase in stress on the body during exercise. Building on the last point, eventually what was once challenging will no longer be. The body adapts—becomes stronger. Because of this you want to ensure you’re increasing the weights to ensure that the last few reps are still a challenge. 3. Get a plan and/or partner Signing up with a trainer is a great strategy to increase your accountability and have a plan created for you. Also joining a friend or asking them to come along with you, is a great way to increase some external accountability and comfort with support/familiarity. 4. Patience One of the biggest hindrances to people not reaching their goals is lack of consistency. We want quick results, but we need to remember that this takes time. I have laid out the process of “body change” here. Every workout you complete is moving you one step closer to your goals, and at times the wait can be frustrating, but hey,– Beyoncé wasn’t built in a day and either will be your body goals.

I want to tell you something that nobody in the fitness industry says out loud enough: You're going to be frustrated. And that's exactly where it's supposed to feel like this. Not because something has gone wrong. Because something is actually happening. The Moment Most People Quit In 15 years of training people — most of them in their 50s, 60s and 70s — I've watched a predictable pattern play out hundreds of times. Someone starts strong. They show up consistently. They feel better. Their friends notice. Their energy improves. Things are clicking. And then... somewhere around week four, six or eight — it stalls. The scale stops moving. The workout that felt manageable last month feels hard again. Life interrupts. Progress feels invisible. That's the moment most people decide the program isn't working. Here's what's actually happening: that moment is the program working. The Messy Middle Is Not Optional There's a phase in every meaningful change that nobody posts about on Instagram. I call it the messy middle — the stretch between "I've started" and "I'm seeing results consistently." The messy middle is uncomfortable. It's the Tuesday morning when you don't feel like coming in. It's the week your sleep is off and everything feels heavier. It's the plateau that makes you wonder if any of this is worth it. And here's the hard truth: you cannot skip it. Not at 35. Not at 55. Not at 70. The messy middle is not a detour around the destination — it is  the path to it. What separates the people who transform from the people who cycle through programs endlessly isn't talent, genetics, or even discipline. It's the ability to keep showing up when showing up feels pointless. What Frustration Actually Means After 60 I want to speak directly to something that's specific to the people I work with. When you're in your 60s and you hit a wall in your training, the frustration carries more weight than it did at 30. Because the stakes feel higher. You're not training for aesthetics anymore — you're training to stay independent. To keep doing the things that make your life yours. To not become a burden to the people you love. That's not a small thing to put at risk when progress stalls. But here's what I've learned from sitting across from hundreds of people in exactly that position: the frustration you feel when progress slows is almost never a sign that change isn't happening.   It's usually a sign that the change happening is deeper than what shows up on a scale or in a mirror. Improved bone density. Better balance. A nervous system learning to coordinate movement it hasn't done in years. Reduced inflammation. A body quietly rebuilding itself. None of that is visible. All of it is real. The Only Question Worth Sitting With At some point, everyone faces a version of this choice: You can push through the discomfort of change — the frustrating plateaus, the hard sessions, the slow progress — and come out the other side stronger, more capable and more independent. Or you can stay comfortable. Keep things as they are. Avoid the frustration of the process. Both paths have frustration. The person who never starts is still frustrated — by limitations, by stiffness, by the slow loss of what they used to be able to do. So the question isn't whether frustration is coming. It is. The question is: which frustration are you willing to live with? The frustration of growth has an end point. It pays you back. The other kind just compounds. You Don't Have to Figure This Out Alone The messy middle is a lot easier to get through with someone in your corner who's seen it hundreds of times and knows exactly what's happening — and what to do next. That's what I do. I work with adults in Edmonton who are serious about their strength and independence and want a coach who will be straight with them, push them when they need it and keep them on track when motivation runs dry. [Book a free intro call with Shane →] Here [Download: 5 Things I Wish Every New Client Over 55 Knew Before We Started →] Here

I want to tell you something that took me years to actually believe myself. The number on the scale is one data point. It is not a verdict. It doesn't tell you how strong you are. It doesn't measure what you're capable of. It has nothing to say about your energy, your balance, your bone density, your grip strength or whether you can get up off the floor without using your hands. And it has absolutely nothing to say about your worth as a person. I know that intellectually, most people already understand this. And yet — the scale still wins. Still dictates moods. Still determines whether it's going to be a good day or a bad one. I know, because it happened to me too. The Day a Number Sent Me Sideways It was the fall of 2009. I was a NAIT student, sitting in my room working through physiology assignments, when I calculated my BMI for the first time. The result put me in the "overweight" category. I ran the numbers again. Four times. Same result. Am I overweight? Have I always been overweight? When did this happen? I sat at my desk trying to absorb what a formula had just told me about myself — and felt the weight of it settle in. Not physical weight. The other kind. The kind that follows you into the next day, and the one after that. What I didn't know yet was that BMI is one of the most blunt instruments in health assessment. It takes two measurements — height and weight — and produces a single category. A competitive athlete and a sedentary person of the same height and weight get the same result. It tells you almost nothing about body composition, muscle mass, metabolic health or functional capacity. I learned that the next day in class. But I spent the night before believing a number. What I've Watched This Do to People Over 15 Years I've been training people in Edmonton since 2011. The majority of my clients are in their 50s, 60s and 70s — and almost every single one of them arrived carrying some version of the same weight I felt that night. Not from one bad weigh-in. From decades of them. Decades of being told by a doctor, a chart, a program or a well-meaning family member that the number wasn't right. Decades of tying how they felt about themselves to a reading that fluctuates based on hydration, sleep, time of day and what they had for dinner. I've watched genuinely strong, capable, remarkable people walk into my gym and immediately apologize for themselves. For their body. For where they are. As if they owe me an explanation for showing up. They don't. And neither do you. What Actually Matters After 55 Here's what I measure with my clients and why it matters far more than scale weight: Strength.   Can you carry groceries, lift luggage, open jars? Can you get up off the floor independently? These aren't small things. They are the difference between independence and reliance. Balance and coordination.   Falls are one of the leading causes of serious injury in adults over 65. Improving balance is one of the highest-return investments you can make in your long-term health. Mobility and pain.   Are you moving through your day with less stiffness? Can you do things that hurt six months ago? Energy.   Do you finish the day with something left? Are you sleeping better? Consistency.   Are you showing up? Week after week, month after month — that is the real metric. None of these show up on a scale. All of them will change your life. The Story We Were Handed Here's the part that took me the longest to understand: we weren't born with the relationship to our bodies that most of us carry. We absorbed it. From magazines, from comments made in passing, from charts on a doctor's wall, from a culture that spent decades equating a number with health and a size with worthiness. That story was handed to us. Which means we're allowed to put it down. That's not a small thing to say. It's genuinely hard work to separate your self-worth from a measurement you've been tracking since your 30s. I'm not suggesting it happens overnight. But I am suggesting it's worth starting. A Different Way to Think About Progress When I work with a new client, one of the first conversations we have is about what we're actually trying to build. And it's rarely about a number. It's about getting back to hiking. Playing with grandkids without getting winded. Feeling confident in their body for the first time in years. Moving through daily life without pain. When we aim at those targets, the scale often moves anyway — because we're building muscle, improving metabolism and making sustainable lifestyle changes. But it moves as a side effect of doing the right things, not as the primary goal. That shift — from chasing a number to building a life — is where real transformation happens. And I've watched it happen hundreds of times. You Are Not a Category The numbers and categories that health systems use are tools. They can provide useful feedback when understood in context. They are a starting point for a conversation, not a conclusion about a person. You are not your BMI. You are not your scale weight. You are not the size on your clothing tag or the category on a chart. You are what you can do. You are how you show up. You are the strength you're building, the habits you're keeping, and the life you're choosing to invest in. That's what I care about. That's what we work on. Ready to measure what actually matters? I work with adults in Edmonton — primarily in their 50s, 60s, and 70s — who are done letting numbers run the show and ready to build real, lasting strength. [Book a free intro call with Shane →] Here [Download: 5 Things I Wish Every New Client Over 55 Knew Before We Started →] Here

I've heard a version of this sentence hundreds of times over 15 years of coaching: "I've just never been a gym person." And I always ask the same question back: When did you decide that? Usually, it was a moment. A bad experience in a gym class as a kid. A trainer who made them feel stupid. A workout program they couldn't stick to at 35 that they've been carrying as proof ever since. That's not a fact. That's a false narrative — and it might be the most expensive story you own. A narrative is simply a story.  It's how we make sense of our experiences. But the problem is, we fill in the gaps ourselves — and those gaps are shaped by our insecurities, our past and our fear of being embarrassed again. Author Erin Brown Conroy puts it plainly: we "misconstrue the meaning of entire situations" because we're only ever seeing through our own lens. So a single tough experience becomes "I'm not an athletic person."   One failed attempt becomes "It's too late for me."   Someone at the gym glancing over becomes "Everyone is judging me." None of that is true. But we repeat it enough that it feels true. And here's the real cost:  false narratives don't just keep you out of the gym. They keep you out of your life. They keep people in their late 50s and 60s accepting stiffness, low energy and dependence as inevitable — when I've watched people in their 70s completely rewrite that story in six months. So what do you actually do about it? Whenever I catch a false narrative forming — in myself or in a client — I ask one question: What am I actually basing this on? Not the feeling. Not the fear. The actual evidence . Nine times out of ten, the "proof" falls apart under scrutiny. The story was never real. It was just comfortable, because staying in the narrative means you never have to risk being wrong again. But once you see it for what it is, the work isn't over. You still have to unlearn  the story. That's where the discomfort lives — and it's exactly where the change happens. I've watched people walk into a gym for the first time at 62 and leave three months later standing taller than they have in years. Not because they suddenly became athletes. Because they finally stopped believing the story that said they couldn't. Your best years of strength aren't behind you. The narrative just made you think they were. If you've been telling yourself it's too late to start — I'd like to challenge that story directly. Reach out and let's have a conversation. No pressure, no judgment. Just an honest look at where you are and what's actually possible. Book a free consultation here .

I was listening to a podcast when the interviewer asked their guest a question that stopped me cold. "What are you afraid of?" I set down my phone and lay there in the dark, asking myself the same question. Images from across my life came forward in a matter of seconds — moments I hadn't thought about in years, some I thought I'd dealt with, some I clearly hadn't. My answer came quickly and it surprised me with how certain it was. I am afraid of not being enough. Not smart enough. Not fit enough. Not healthy enough. Not masculine enough. Not outgoing enough. Just — not enough. And then I started tracing it back. How far did that feeling actually go? Further than I expected. Where It Started I was held back in grade 2. I was an energetic kid with a short attention span and some trouble with reading and math. Watching every friend I had move forward into the next grade while I stayed behind — that was the first time I remember feeling that specific weight. The weight of being behind. Of not measuring up. Of something being wrong with me that wasn't wrong with everyone else. Not long after, I spent stretches of my childhood in and out of hospitals. A ruptured appendix in grade 3. A blood disorder that took until grade 10 to stabilize. I remember lying in hospital beds asking myself why I couldn't just be healthy like the other kids. Grade 6. Standing at a bus stop, desperate, apologizing to friends for being "annoying and girly" and telling them I could change. I was an easy target through junior high — the kind of kid who got picked last in gym class, who cringed at team selection because it always confirmed what I already suspected about myself. Then drama class in high school. Talking about career paths after graduation. A classmate looked at me and said, with complete confidence: "I don't think you could be a personal trainer. People aren't going to want to be trained by you. You're not fit enough." I tried to shake it off. And then I graduated, started training clients and received an email from a complete stranger — someone who had seen my name in an ad — telling me I'd probably get more clients if I lost weight. For a moment — just a moment — I went back to that drama classroom and wondered if he'd been right. He wasn't. But I went there. Why I'm Telling You This I've been a personal trainer in Edmonton for over 15 years. The majority of my clients are in their 50s, 60s and 70s. And I can tell you — with complete confidence — that the fear of not being enough does not disappear with age. If anything, it gets more complicated. At 60, it's not just about being fit enough or smart enough. It's about whether you've done enough with your life. Whether you're still relevant. Whether your body is failing you in ways that feel like personal shortcomings rather than just biology. Whether starting something new — a fitness program, a new habit, a new chapter — is even something people your age are allowed to do. I watch people walk through my door carrying decades of that feeling. The woman who spent her entire adult life being told she should be smaller. The man who retired and suddenly doesn't know who he is without the career that defined him. The person who had a health scare and now feels like a stranger in their own body. The fear of not being enough wears different clothes at different stages of life. But underneath, it's the same feeling it was in grade 2. And it deserves to be addressed — not suppressed, not performed away, not fixed with a diet plan. Actually addressed. Here's what I've learned — from my own work and from watching hundreds of people do theirs. 1. The Comparison Will Always Beat You When the feeling of not being enough surfaces, it almost always has a reference point. Someone you're measuring yourself against — consciously or not. Someone who seems further along, more capable, more put-together, more whatever-it-is-you're-afraid-you're-not. Here's the problem: you're comparing your internal experience to someone else's external presentation. You know every doubt you have, every failure, every hard morning. You see only their highlight reel. It's a fight you will never win because it's not a fair fight. The only comparison worth making is between who you are today and who you were six months ago. That's a real measurement. Everything else is noise. 2. The Hurt Has to Go Somewhere Here's something I learned the hard way: if you don't deal with the hurt, it deals with you. The moments that created the feeling of not being enough — for me, the hospital beds, the bus stop, the drama classroom — I didn't actually process most of them at the time. I moved on. I got tougher. I built a life. But those moments didn't disappear. They went somewhere. And they came out in impatience, in defensiveness, in moments where I was harder on the people around me than the situation called for. Your body keeps score. The things you don't deal with don't dissolve — they resurface. Sometimes in a random moment of frustration. Sometimes in the way you talk to yourself after a bad workout or a week where you didn't eat well or a day where you felt like you'd slipped back to square one. Dealing with the hurt doesn't mean reliving every difficult moment. It means acknowledging what happened, giving it the weight it deserves and making a conscious choice not to let it keep running the show. That work is harder than any training program I've ever written. It's also more important. 3. Most People Aren't Thinking About You Nearly As Much As You Think This one is uncomfortable to hear but genuinely freeing once it lands. Most of the time, when we take something personally — a comment, a look, a perceived slight, it had very little to do with us. The drama class kid who told me I wasn't fit enough to be a trainer wasn't delivering a well-researched verdict on my potential. He was a teenager saying something thoughtless, probably not even aware of the impact. The stranger who emailed me about my weight? That email said everything about where he was and nothing about who I was. When we stop taking everything personally — when we start seeing other people's comments as reflections of their own experience rather than facts about ours — we free up an enormous amount of energy. Energy that was being spent on defense, on rumination, on trying to prove something to people who weren't even paying that much attention. You're allowed to let it go. Most of it was never yours to carry. 4. The Hard Stuff Becomes the Foundation I want to be careful here because this can sound dismissive if it's said too quickly. I'm not going to tell you that everything happens for a reason or that your pain is secretly a gift. Sometimes hard things are just hard. In 2015 I became aware I was being included in a string of malicious messages from former colleagues. The messages were designed to hurt someone — and my sexuality was the weapon they chose to use. Being a gay man wasn't the target. I was just the instrument. I won't pretend that didn't land hard. It did. Having something that personal used as ammunition — by people I'd worked alongside, was its own specific kind of hurt. But I credit every hard thing that came before it for what happened next. I walked into that boardroom. I sat across from those people. I said what needed to be said, clearly, without flinching. Not because I wasn't affected, but because I'd been building that backbone for a long time without knowing it. That's what the hard stuff does when you let it. It doesn't make you immune. It makes you sturdy. What I will tell you is what I've observed in my own life and in the lives of the people I've worked with — is that the experiences that felt most like setbacks often became the most important building blocks. The years in hospital beds gave me an understanding of what it feels like to have your body betray you. It makes me a better coach to people who are navigating health challenges and feel like strangers in their own bodies. Being picked last in gym class gave me a bone-deep understanding of what it feels like to walk into a fitness space and not believe you belong there. Every client who feels that way — I know exactly where they are. I've been there. The drama class comment, the email, the moments of feeling like I wasn't enough — all of it built something in me that couldn't have been built any other way. Not strength in the gym sense. Resilience . The kind that makes you get back up not because you're fearless but because you've learned you can survive the fall. That's available to you too. Whatever you've been through — it's not wasted. It's working. 5. You Are Not a Category You are not your health history. You are not your fitness level. You are not your age, your size, your diagnosis, your past attempts or what someone said about you in a drama class twenty years ago. You are a specific, unrepeatable person with a specific combination of experiences, strengths, and capacities that has never existed before and will never exist again. That's not motivational poster language. That's just true. Eight billion people on this planet. Not one of them is you. That's worth something. That's worth quite a lot, actually. The fear of not being enough is real. I'm not going to tell you it goes away completely. What I can tell you is that it gets quieter the more you stop waiting for external validation to answer it — and start building something that answers it from the inside. For me, that something has always been fitness. Not because it makes you look a certain way. Because of what it teaches you about yourself in the process. You show up when you don't feel like it. You do the hard thing. You get stronger. You find out, repeatedly, that you're more capable than you thought. That's the work. And it's available to you at any age, at any starting point, in any body. You're enough to start. You always have been. Every rep matters. [Book a free intro call with Shane →] Here [Download: 5 Things I Wish Every New Client Over 55 Knew Before We Started →] Here

It was around 2015 when I went to Vegas with some friends. One night we went out for dinner — nothing out of the ordinary. We had drinks in the room beforehand, grabbed a to-go cup for the walk to the restaurant, ordered more drinks at the table and finished the night with appetizers, mains and shared desserts. A couple days later, my waistband was tighter and my shirt buttons were snug. "Damn alcohol," I thought. Most of us have been there. "If I want to lose weight, I need to cut out all the alcohol." But here’s what the research actually shows: it’s not moderate alcohol consumption that makes us gain weight — it’s the choices we make after we drink. That’s a meaningful distinction, and it’s worth understanding why. What Does Alcohol Actually Do to Your Body? Your liver processes alcohol at a rate of roughly 7 grams per hour. That’s easy to exceed — a single glass of wine contains about 14 grams. Once your liver falls behind, alcohol enters your bloodstream and reaches your brain. This is when reaction time, memory and judgment all take a hit — and your brain’s reward and pleasure-seeking systems kick into high gear. You’re not broken. You’re just human. It’s Not Really the Calories — It’s the Appetite Effect Alcohol calories do add up. Three glasses of red wine is around 375 calories. Four pints of beer is roughly 830 calories — more than three McDonald’s hamburgers. But the bigger issue isn’t what you drink. It’s what you eat after . Research shows that moderate alcohol consumption can increase how much you eat by up to 30% . And not just quantity — it also blunts the signal that tells your brain you’re full. The point where you’d normally feel stuffed? You may not feel it at all. That Vegas night? We stopped at the lobby fast food spot on the way back to the room. I’d estimate 1,500 calories before my head hit the pillow. One practical strategy: Eat about 10% less than your usual intake earlier in the day before a night out — but don’t skip eating altogether. Eating before you drink slows alcohol absorption significantly, from 100% on an empty stomach to around 66% on a full one. Why Does the Scale Move Even When You Didn’t Overeat? You wake up two to four pounds lighter? That’s dehydration, not fat loss. You wake up two to four pounds heavier? That’s water retention from alcohol and salt — not fat gain. This is exactly why stepping on the scale every morning is misleading. There are too many variables at play. Give yourself two to three days after a night out before drawing any conclusions from the number. How to Plan Alcohol Into Your Routine Most of the clients I work with do best with a habits-based approach rather than rigid calorie counting. With that in mind, here’s what actually works: •  Plan for one to two drinks, not six to eight. •  If you’re tracking calories, subtract your drink calories from your food budget for the day. •  Eat a real meal before you go out. •  Try not to eat once you’re actively drinking. Small decisions made before you’re three drinks in are far more effective than willpower at midnight. What About Drinking Water While You’re Out? Alcohol is a diuretic — it makes you urinate more, which flushes out water, salt and electrolytes. Drinking water throughout the night helps, but it’s not a complete fix because you’re still losing electrolytes. The more effective approach: hydrate well before you go out, and rehydrate with electrolytes when you get home. Gatorade works. So does coconut water or an electrolyte supplement if you have one on hand. The Hangover and the Day-After Cravings The day after a night of drinking, your goal shifts to “just feel better.” That’s normal. The craving for greasy, salty comfort food isn’t weakness — your body is depleted and dehydrated and those foods deliver electrolytes and quick energy. The problem is that Uber Eats at noon becomes a 1,400-calorie meal you didn’t plan for. A better move: stock your kitchen with nutrient-dense, lower-calorie options before the weekend. Eggs, fruit, Greek yogurt, and soup can satisfy the same craving without the damage. Training After a Night Out If you know you’re going out, train earlier in the day. Don’t skip it waiting to see how you feel. Can you train hungover? Yes. Should it be a max effort session? No. A light workout — a walk, mobility work, or a low-intensity session will actually help you feel better by getting blood moving. Just be honest with yourself about your output and adjust accordingly. The Bottom Line: You don’t have to choose between having a social life and making progress in the gym. The goal is to make better decisions around your drinking — before, during and the day after — so that one night out doesn’t derail a week of good work. If you have questions about how to structure your nutrition around your lifestyle — not around a rigid diet plan, that’s exactly what I help people with. Every client’s situation is different and yours is no exception. Ready to build a plan that actually fits your life? Book a free consultation and let’s figure out what works for you .

A few summers ago I was getting ready for a backyard BBQ with my partner. Nothing fancy — just friends, food, a good evening. I had two shirts picked out. Both ones I liked. I'd worn them before. I tried on the first one, looked in the mirror and felt it immediately. That specific, heavy, deflating feeling. I feel fat. I tried the second shirt. Same feeling. I stood there for 45 minutes cycling through options, frustrated, unable to land on anything that felt right. My partner kept telling me I looked great. I couldn't hear it. Eventually I got dressed and went to the BBQ and had a perfectly good time. But that 45 minutes stayed with me — not because it was unusual, but because I recognized it. I'd been there before. A lot of people I work with have been there before. And I started thinking about what was actually happening in that moment. Because it wasn't really about the shirts. "Fat" Is Not a Feeling Here's something I've come to understand after years of having these conversations with clients and with myself: Feeling "fat" and actually being fat are completely separate experiences.  One is a physical description. The other is an emotion that's borrowing a word because the real word is harder to say. Think about it. "Fat" is a descriptor — like tall, or slow, or strong. It's neutral on its own. But somewhere along the way, for most of us, it got loaded with meaning. Shame. Failure. Unworthiness. Not-enoughness. So when something hard surfaces — frustration, anxiety, guilt, grief, feeling out of control — and we can't quite name it or don't want to sit with it, "I feel fat" becomes the shortcut. It's familiar. It's a feeling we know how to have, even if it's not the feeling that's actually there. Standing in front of that mirror before the BBQ, what I was actually feeling was frustration. Specifically — frustration with myself. I'd spent a few weeks over-indulging at celebrations and I knew it. Nobody forced me. I made those choices. And the mirror was where that accountability landed, uncomfortably. The frustration was valid. The self-directed anger made sense. But I was calling it "fat" because that was easier to reach for than sitting with the actual feeling underneath it. What I Hear in the Gym I've been training people in Edmonton for over 15 years — the majority of them women in their 50s, 60s and 70s. And this comes up alot. Not always in those exact words. But the same current running underneath. Someone comes in after a holiday weekend and spends the first ten minutes apologizing for themselves. Someone steps on a scale and goes quiet in a way that has nothing to do with the number. Someone says "I just feel so blah about my body right now"  and what they actually mean is: I'm stressed, I'm not sleeping, I feel out of control in one area of my life and my body is the thing I'm taking it out on. The body becomes the target because it's visible. Because we've been conditioned to believe that if our bodies were just right, the uncomfortable feelings would go away too. They don't work that way. The body is rarely the actual problem. What's Usually Actually Going On In my experience, when someone tells me they feel bad about their body, there's almost always something else underneath it. Not always the same thing — but something. Sometimes it's frustration, like mine at the BBQ. Sometimes it's genuine grief about aging — the body changing in ways that feel like loss, and not knowing how to process that. Sometimes it's anxiety about health, about independence, about what the next decade looks like. Sometimes it's shame about consistency — the feeling that you know what you should be doing and you haven't been doing it, and your body is the evidence. None of those things are "fat." All of them are real. And all of them deserve more than being collapsed into a word that doesn't actually describe what's happening. The moment you can name what's actually there — frustration, grief, anxiety, shame, loss of control — you can actually start working with it. You can't work with "fat." It's too blunt. It's a door that leads nowhere. This Doesn't Mean the Physical Doesn't Matter I want to be clear about something, because this can get misread. None of this means you shouldn't care about your body. None of this means physical health is irrelevant or that wanting to feel strong and capable in your body is somehow shallow. It's not. It's one of the most important things you can invest in — especially in your 50s, 60s and 70s, when the returns on that investment are independence, mobility, energy and quality of life. What it means is that the emotional  relationship with your body — the internal monologue, the guilt cycles, the way a bad mirror moment can derail an entire day — that's worth paying attention to separately. Because if the emotional piece is driving the bus, it'll sabotage the physical work every time. The most successful clients I've worked with aren't the ones who hated their bodies into change. They're the ones who started showing up for their bodies out of something closer to respect. Not perfection. Not unconditional love every single day. Just — this body is worth investing in, and I'm going to show up for it. That shift is quieter than motivation. It's also a lot more durable. What You Can Do With This Next time you catch yourself saying — or thinking — I feel fat , try pausing for just a second and asking: what am I actually feeling right now? You might be frustrated. Tired. Overwhelmed. Disappointed in yourself about something specific. Anxious about something coming. Grieving something you've lost. Whatever it is — that's the thing worth addressing. Not by punishing yourself at the gym. Not by restricting what you eat until the feeling goes away. But by naming it, sitting with it briefly, and then deciding what you actually need. Sometimes you need rest. Sometimes you need to move. Sometimes you need to talk to someone. Sometimes you just need to get to the BBQ and stop standing in front of the mirror. Your body is not the problem. It is almost never the problem. [Book a free intro call →] Here [Download: 5 Things I Wish Every New Client Over 55 Knew Before We Started →] Here