Joanne’s Fitness Journal – Issue #1

February 20, 2015 7:53 pm / Posted in

fitness journal I am all for physical fitness. Well… in theory. I try my best to eat well, and get in some exercise where I can, but like most wives, moms, and marketers, I am riddled with to-dos and deadlines, which leaves little time for the gym. Don’t get me wrong, I wish I had more time (or is it motivation…) to jam some fitness training back into my schedule. And maybe with a personal trainer like Burke Cleland, I could get back on the wagon, as they say.

Personal fitness and working out has been a part of my life for a long time – the last 13 years or so at the gym, and a bit of team sports back in high school. I have always really liked weight lifting, so that is something I have done regularly. I really enjoy working out on my own. For most of my career I have had a stressful job. Very scheduled, lots of meetings. So I really just like being on my own, occasionally with a buddy. Some women really like all the classes at the gym, but I find it augments my scheduling pressure, so going to the gym for my own workout lets me get away from that scheduling stress – I put my music in and go to it! For a few years before I had my daughter I was a dedicated 4-days-a-week kinda gal. It made me feel energized – I felt better during the day, I managed my stress and slept well.

But after my daughter was born 4 years ago and I went back to work full time after her first year, I definitely had some challenges getting to the gym as regularly – to put it mildly. If I get there twice a week I am happy. I find the only time I can get there is at lunch time, as the mornings are packed with getting everybody dressed, fed and out the door, and the evenings… Well, the evenings I need to just relax.

You can’t always relax, and you can’t always work – trying to find the balance of it all is the challenge. And for the past few months I have been seeing Burke, a very knowledgeable personal trainer who has been trying to help me get that balance back. Logically, I know that personal trainers are there to help you to develop a program that works for you with initial and ongoing assessment, but having worked out a lot and done my own fitness reJoanne's Fitness Journal - Burke Cleland Ottawa Personal Trainersearch, I wasn’t convinced that I had any more to learn. But Burke is so different than the other personal trainers. He has so much varied experience and a certain way of approaching the “coaching,” as he calls it. He really does involve you in determining your motivation.

I really found it helped – Burke is a coach – physical, emotion and motivational… and should I say executable? He has a way of having you tell him the answers to formulate a plan that he already thought of… what? I know – he’s good!

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