Author: Lisa Barnes Dolbear

Back-to-school time is the perfect time to freshen up your fitness goals. Whether you’re a stay-at-home parent or a full-time employee, the beginning of the school year brings offers a chance to regroup around a new schedule and updated goals. Here are a few ways you can turn back-to-school time into you time. Create Your Agenda Outline your day in blocks of time. If you have children going to school or engaging in virtual learning, how much time can you carve out of the school day for yourself while managing other responsibilities? A good fitness routine can take as little…

A few years ago, I commented to a friend that I’d recently finished a book and was surprisingly exhilarated with how good I felt having made it through something that was purely mine. Over the course of a slow week in the winter, I found myself turning pages, unraveling a story, getting into the heads of the characters and feeling momentarily transported to a different world. When it was over, I immediately looked for another one to start. As a mother of two young children and with a demanding job working at an advertising agency, carving out time for myself…

A few summers ago, I had a life-changing experience. I dug my pre-pregnancy clothes out from the back of my closet, deciding it was time to see what should go and what could stay. I was ahead of Marie Kondo—I knew there was a dress back there that didn’t bring me joy. And it wasn’t because it didn’t fit me anymore: It was because in keeping it, some part of me thought that I was supposed to wear it again. Sadly, women are expected to “bounce back” after having babies. Spend a few minutes in the grocery store checkout line…

As a fitness instructor, I know that health and wellness play a major part in fresh starts. I see the gym packed with new people in January, and I notice their energy as they feel the exercise high for the first time. It’s a hopeful time, but it’s also a mere moment in time, since many of these people will be gone by March. Health and wellness goals are some of the hardest to stay committed to because they usually require changing behavior. What’s more, progress can be slow at the start, with little to show for your efforts. This…

Motherhood is a blissful time of getting to know your new baby, and a not-so-blissful time of coming to terms with your new baby weight body.