This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - Robin O'Grady

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

Health and fitness expert Robin O'Grady joins us from Calgary for an enjoyable discussion.

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Hello, everybody, welcome to the podcast. I have another great guest with me today. today go ahead and introduce yourself please hello my name is robin algrady i am here from calgary alberta canada today all right so that makes you the second canadian i've had on my podcasts yeah i'm i'm in the states and uh i do apologize for our uh recent electoral the uh menace uh that we're about to leash upon you but that's not what we're talking about today. Thank goodness.

That's not what we're talking about today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So today you approached me because I was looking for guests to talk about health and wellness. And that's your specialty. So could you give us a little more background into what's your health and fitness and wellness training and all that? Sure. Yeah, you bet. So I'm a professional speaker and I work in the fitness and wellness world. My background for that comes from the fitness world where I work and have worked as a personal trainer, a group fitness instructor, and then also management in the gym facilities that I've been at, director of operations, director of group fitness. So I've done lots of work within the gym spaces as well.

well. I had sort of a big turn of events in, I'm going to say eight or nine years ago when I decided that being in the gym is amazing and I love it there. But I'm really just preaching to the choir in those spaces. So I'm leading leaders. And that's, that's a really big part of what I do. But there are a lot of other people out there who need the messaging and who need to know what to do to make their help better. Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. I have. used a personal trainer at least once in my life but I can tell you

from that experience they are not cheap neither is joining a gym that I'm thinking about it so a little more about me I was an athlete's when I was younger not so much anymore a few years ago I had

what I could best describe as a mini stroke. Fortunately, it was no permanent damage, but they did, I did find a doctor and they put me on some meds and say, you need to eat better and get some more exercise. Okay, I'm trying to eat better. The exercise thing, that's a bit hard to do because my job requires me to drive a lot. and I don't get a whole lot of exercise and like I just said it's finding a gym that's cheap to join is a difficult task so yeah and you know what my messaging now is and I work for

gyms and like I said I love those spaces however it isn't for everybody and everybody has this sort of idea or there's this social sort of idea out there that it has to be that it doesn't really it doesn't really movement and and and taking care of your health and your body can be free you don't have to spend money to take care of yourself so obviously the nutritional side is one piece and that's a whole rabbit hole that we can get down a little bit if you want to but we might need more than one session to sit down and really get into that and then there's the sort of like the fitness or the movement side and honestly there's also the third part which is taking care of your soul, right? Making sure that you're feeding your brain and making

your reading books and trying to learn every day and then doing things that make you feel good just inside, not physically, but just in your heart, make you feel good. So some people love to dance. Well, that encompasses all three things. Dance requires you to challenge your brain. It requires you to challenge your body. And for the people who love it, it fulfills them. So really, It's just about taking those three categories and seeing how you can best balance the three. You don't have to spend money to do that. Okay. Yeah.

So what will be some good examples of free exercise that someone can do that would be of some benefit to them? Sure. Yeah. Honestly, sometimes my industry frustrates me because it constantly. complicates things a little bit too much. And so there's a little bit too many options out there and people feel sort of obligated to go into this diet or that diet, this exercise or that exercise or whatever trend is sort of at the top of things right now. So my big message for everybody who is just trying to do something is simplify everything. Come back to the most basic thing that you can. Go for a walk. Go to the park. If you have a dog, great. Now you have a partner. should do it with, you know, this is something that is very simple. And then if you want to do something that's more conditioning or weight training, you can add things to your walk. You can do some lunges, you can do some squats. Maybe you'll look like a crazy person walking down your street,

but who cares? It doesn't matter. You're just taking care of your body. So that's just one example of something that you can do that doesn't cost you anything. As an adult, when it's maybe not time for the kids to be at the parks, but you can go to the park and there are things that you can do there you can lift your body weight move your body if you have children take them and instead of sitting on the bench and watching them play or in some cases i've seen some parents sitting in their car over in the street watching their kids play play with them get out play soccer get some friends out get a frisbee all of these things take very little time they are fun and they don't cost any fail.

Good deal, good deal, yeah. Yeah, we do have a, oh, I've, obviously, yeah, every, I think every city has at least one park that you can utilize for that sort of thing. At least one park. At least, yeah. For sure, for sure. And if you can find some friends that are interested, there's also community groups that you can join where people are looking for like-minded people to go.

do these types of things as well. So if your current group or your current community isn't into that, that's okay. You can just find another community to just spend some time with as well that is in the same sort of frame of mind. Listen, you only get one body. It's the only one. So let's take care of it so that as we age, which is happening to us, whether we want it or not, but as we age, we can continue to function. I don't think anybody is hoping that they end up in a senior citizen's home unable to get out of bed. I don't think anybody's wishing for that or hoping for that. But the actions that you're taking today are going to sort of detail what happens down the road. So it doesn't have to be complicated. It can be very easy. But just commit to yourself

that every day you'll do something 10 minutes 15 minutes just something a little something small all right all right good deal good deal um what are your thoughts i'm going to get a little more advanced here but uh sure uh yoga let's start with that um where are your thoughts on uh doing yoga um i know that can be pretty expensive trying to find a qualified yoga instructor director. And are there any guidelines to doing that? And I know that yoga videos exist. Are any of those any good? Sure. Yeah. I mean, honestly, there's a ton of online content that will cost you nothing. And yes, some of them are better than others. What I would look for is certification and qualification.

If people are teaching fitness or health or movement type things, yoga or any other kind of fitness thing, they shouldn't be doing that if they don't have some sort of a certification behind them. So if you're looking for someone to follow, I would ask those questions about what types of certification that they have so that you can make sure that the person you're following is actually qualified to teach.

Because lots of people do it and they love it themselves so they want to share. but they don't have any education behind them on the anatomy of the body and how it functions and what potential problems their clients might be coming in with, like your health issues, for example, as a certified instructor, we would have questions about that just to make sure that we are providing safe workouts for you to do. So, yes, there's lots of stuff online. On Facebook, I have a group. It's called O'Grady Fitness. You can request to join that group. It is a private group, but anybody who requests to join can come on in and will we post some

things in there, and that is completely for free. But you can go to YouTube, you can go on TikTok. Now that it's back, you can go kind of anywhere and find people that are delivering this information. But for the safety of you as someone who doesn't really know, I would definitely just shoot a message over or read their bio or whatever they have there and just look for the words certified or qualified or ask them, just send them a message and say, hey, what are your certifications for teaching yoga? I'm just curious. And then if they are certified, they should send that over to you without any problem at all. Good deal. Good deal. I'll ask you about what's your thoughts on swimming as a exercise. It's a great exercise. Yeah.

And it's so funny because it's like, it's such a personal thing, you know. I've done triathlons before and the swimming is the worst part for me. I just hate it. But that's just for me, right? So am I going to choose swimming as my movement thing? No. But I have some clients, especially my elderly clients actually who go to like aqua size. They go to like the water aerobics.

And because of the low impact that the water has, it's really good if you have like joint challenges in your joints knee injuries that sort of thing because there's no impact to it and you can get a really good cardio and strength workout from the water without that impact so it is a really great option yeah yeah it's a good thing i brought that up because i do swim at least once a month so oh good yeah you should change it to once a week I'd love to. I'd love to, but there aren't enough pools to accommodate my needs. So full disclosure.

Where do you are? So full disclosure, I am a member of a natureist group that does monthly nude swims. Oh, fine. Okay, that's fun. Yeah. But they only do it monthly. So, yeah, it's a monthly thing. Yeah, you just can't pop in and strip off.

swim naked wherever you can. It's, you know, although that would be a good business plan idea long term. If people are there, you know, people want all kinds of different things. So if there are providers that are willing to offer that, then, you know, there's probably somebody who will come out. Yeah. Yeah. And I also keep an eye on, I use that Swimpley app that you.

Okay. And I did find at least one pool that allows for nude swimming and everything completely private, left alone, no problems. Awesome. See, you're already starting to find some things that you enjoy. This is the key. We have to find something that we like because then we'll do it. You know, you talked about driving all the time for work and being busy. You know, these types of things, I always talk to people because I don't like to use the word excuse.

And but in fact, it's what they are. We're giving excuses for why, but really there are reasons. It's a fact. You drive a lot. You are a busy person. Those things are fact. So the guilt that comes with the word excuses needs to be excused. And we need to come into a space where we are just sort of giving more permission instead. So instead of offering excuses, as to why you can't do it, give yourself permission to do it. So you have found this thing that you really enjoy. You've now given yourself permission. You're doing that once a month. And then maybe with a little looking and a little, you know, checking around, you could find some more and do it more often because you really do enjoy it. So these are the things that people have to do is just, what do you love to do?

Go do that thing, right? Without judgment and give yourself the grace for the things that come up, that kind prevent you sometimes just let that be it is what it is and then the next day get back to the thing that you love all right all right um so so we talked about walking we talked about yoga we talked about swimming um i think bicycling might be a good option for a lot people yeah it depends where you live obviously yeah here in canada we get a lot i don't know if you have cold weather where you are i'm in kansas city it is current currently single digits right now.

Okay. Okay. And do you get snow? Oh, yeah. We had a big snow storm a couple of weeks ago and when I put out the call for interviews. And yeah, we're still, we're still underneath a whole bunch of snow up here. Yeah. So I don't know if it's the same there because here, fat biking has become really popular. So they have the bikes, they have the really big, thick tires so that they can really ride well. in that inclement weather so in here where i am we're close to the mountains as well so a lot of people will do trail biking as well so biking as actually something that has multiple versions of what that looks like so if you're like me and you're fair weather because i don't love going outside in

the cold weather even though i live in the cold weather um i'm most likely only going to bike in the summertime so that limits me quite a bit because our summer is pretty short but lots of my friends here are really outdoorsy and they love to get out and bike all year long. So, yeah, that's another great option if you don't mind getting a little cold. And that brings like skiing and snowboarding and those types of outdoor activities as well, hiking, all of that stuff. Not all of it, but a good chunk of that stuff doesn't cost you anything either, right? Good. Yeah.

And that's what we're looking for. There's things that you can do that are cheap or free to do. Yeah. What about like skateboarding? You know, I'm, I'm turning 50 this year. And I'm not that far behind. I get out and skateboard with my kids, you know.

So there's all kinds of things. There's no limit to what you can do if you can just get a little creative. Good deal. Good deal. And we only have a few more minutes left. So we talked more about the exercise type of thing. I had another expert on talking about the eating side of things, and I think diet is a very important part of what we're discussing here too.

Unfortunately, my diets consist of a lot of fast food. I'm not going to lie. But once in a while, I'll just do like one or two meals a day. I'll do a buffet and just eat one big meals. meal and that that's sometimes enough to get me through the rest of day and um but uh but are there uh or some keys uh for uh just good eating yeah it's you know my my philosophy is very much the same as with with movement simplify it just get back to what makes your body feel stronger and feel healthier every day

I can tell you, honestly, fast food is not it, but there are better options now than there used to be as far as getting stuff on the road, you know. So think about when you're eating, just bring it up to your conscious mind when you eat. And so you're more just aware instead of that mindless eating that we tend to fall to because we're busy, right? So we're busy. So we just grab something on the go and off we go and we head out you know and we think okay this is good this is good and really we are not even taking any time to enjoy the food that we're eating because we're just eating to get to the next meal so some people like to do intermittent fasting some people like to do you know there's all kinds of different diets out there that are trending right now and people just choose

all these different options that they want if you feel like following a diet is the right thing for you okay cool find one that suits you and feels good in your body but at the end the outcome should be that you have good amount of energy every day that you feel strong in your own body if you're tired all the time if you feel like drowsy or the word lazy is coming to mind but this not quite the word but not strong um if you're if you're not feeling good in your own body like you can't accomplish thing you can't get up the stairs you can't do those things nutrition is part of that so your movement is a part of that but nutrition is part of that too so if you're if you're fueling your body in a poor way the outcome will be that poor thing so you have to fuel your body in a good way

and what that looks like for each individual is different so i wish i wish i could put a diet out there that would work for everybody i would be a millionaire multi-billionaire if i had one diet that worked for everybody, what will get you the best results is to really pay attention to how you feel after that meal. So if you go to a fast food place, I don't want to give any of them any credit here by saying your name on the podcast. But if you go to a fast food place and you eat the food and then after you feel tired and you feel a little bit like yucky, now you know, that's probably not the best meal for you. The truth is that in North America, we're at We're not dumb. You know that a hamburger is a different nutritional thing than a cucumber, right? You know that if you eat a chocolate bar is probably not the best thing for you. I'm not telling you never to eat a chocolate bar because sometimes we have to fill our soul, you know? So sometimes we eat the chocolate bar, but be aware of it. Don't just shove it in for no reason. Have it because, you know, if you're out with your friends and you're having a great dinner and then you have dessert.

with your friends and it's part of the environment, eat the cake, have the pie, eat the ice cream, enjoy it in that moment. But if you're sitting at home alone and you're sad and you're cranky and then you pull out a tub of ice cream, maybe not the best choice. So just pull yourself back up to a conscious space and stop letting your lizard brain dictate what you're eating every day. All right, all right. All right, good deal.

a good deal uh so yeah so simplify simplify exactly simplify so that's a good that's good advice uh and uh we're almost out of times so uh any any last words for in the recording yeah i think you know honestly i believe that humans can feel so good in their own bodies so just think about today what that could look like for you and don't wait for a health emergency to do it. Today is the day. Tomorrow's going to happen anyway. So just start making small changes today.

Do a little something extra. Add one thing to your week and reach out any time. I'd love to tell you all. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you, Robin, for coming on the podcast. And I would like to have you back on at some point. We could easily do a part two of all this.

Awesome. I love that. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. This podcast is Uncalled for. It's hosted, produced, and edited by myself, Mike Chernevsky.

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