People want to glamorize recovery with fancy tools like the recovery boots and massage guns but what really matters?

Really, there are four important parts of recovery. If these points are not a priority, those fancy recovery tools aren’t going to do much!

Did you know that the average adult needs 7-9 hours of sleep per night?

Did you know athletes may need even more?

Lack of sleep or sleep deprivation can cause slow reaction times, can alter pain reception and can even decrease accuracy. All things every athlete needs to stay in tip-top shape.

When most of us look to change our lifestyle to lose weight we often turn towards a healthy diet and exercise. Up at 4 am for our first workout, lots of fruits and veggies, and maybe an evening weightlifting session. By the end of the week we are exhausted, hungry, and wishing for an extra hour of sleep. Is it worth it to press the snooze button and get that extra hour of sleep? Will that really help you reach your goals? You better believe it….

This Cherry Almond Oat Muffins recipe is a great option for breakfast or snacks!

Sleep. People aren’t getting enough. And that’s not an exaggeration. People are not sleeping nearly as long or as well as their bodies need. Our bodies NEED it to function, to recover, to fulfill our potential each day.

Deep sleep is a period of sleep when your brain waves are at their lowest frequency. This is when it is hardest to wake you up. Usually, people get spurts of it within the first couple of hours of the night. Some with genetic mutations are able to get more deep sleep, but studies are showing that around 20% of deep sleep for adults is optimal. This equates to around 1.5 hours a night or more. You can track deep sleep through tracking devices such as an Oura ring, Fitbit, Whoop, and other brands. You may be able to tell if you’re not getting enough deep sleep if you’re waking up a lot early on in the night, not feeling rested in the mornings, even with 8+ hours of consistent sleep every night.

There is a myriad of chemicals, amino acids, enzymes, nutrients, and hormones that work together to help regulate our sleep cycle and improve the quality of our sleep. These include, but aren’t limited to…

Just because you hired a nutrition coach and put “fat loss” as your goal, it doesn’t mean you’re going to start a caloric deficit right away. I try to put my clients on maintenance calories most of the time when we first start together (excluding special scenarios like yo-yo dieters and chronic dieters/under-eaters).

Our bodies need to recover. The harder you train, the more important it is to make time for it. Preventative care is so important, yet many of us wait until we’ve pushed ourselves too far. I hear it all too often, the frustration from clients who’ve suffered an injury because they weren’t proactive or they ran themselves into the ground. Recovering from an injury is stressful and a test of our mental strength. Trust me, I’ve been there myself.

It’s 2:45 AM and I’m lying in my bed listening to my husband snore. My mind is racing - thoughts like “I’m never going to fall asleep”, and “my day is going to be ruined” stream across my mind. After flipping over onto my side for what feels like the thousandth time, I accept defeat. I lost the battle. I crawl out of bed, stomp downstairs, and flop onto the couch, much to the dismay of my 4-year old Rhodesian Ridgeback…