Calum Shaw, 172 St Helens Avenue, Toronto, ON (2026)

10/05/2022

Her Royal Highness

10/04/2022

Sometimes things just suck.

You can't really make them suck less, but you can usually make the suck more valuable.

I spent most of last week thinking about the previous decade of my life, and one of the things I'm most happy about is this:

I am very good at finding opportunities in challenges.

I'd say most of life is a series of challenges that all have a variety of solutions of varying degrees of desirability.

Sure, you can resolve an interpersonal conflict by telling the other person they're an as***le and never speaking to them again, but you never know when you're going to need a favor, and sometimes as***les can be useful.

I'm honestly not really sure what the value of this post is, but I think it's this:

Not all sh*tty things are sh*tty. You don't have to "win" every scenario. Knowing which "losses" you're willing to take can be really helpful, and understanding that you can "lose" the battle and "win" the war can make kind of crappy situations way less intense.

Most of my problems (after a brief period of being upset) tend to resolve well simply because I've worked (a lot) on being able to ask myself "why is this upsetting me" in the moment, and not engaging in an argument until I have a very clear answer to that question.

Knowing that answer ensures that I'm responding to the issue, and not reacting to it. The difference is massive.

Anyway, just food for thought.

10/02/2022

Well gang, I made it out of my 20's!

Big thanks to everyone who was a part of seasons 1-29, looking forward to the plot development moving forward.

You can expect:

More great fitness stuff, including continuing to build an awesome gym which if you haven't checked out, you probably should.

A lot of great music from myself and which you should also follow.

Probably lots more, but these are the immediate 2.

10/01/2022

Welp, it's the last day of my 20's.

So, I've got a lesson just past this for anyone who wants to read, but I'd like to ask for something for my birthday this year.

This photo is my band

I think we're actually pretty good. We just recorded 3 songs that are going to be released soon. It would mean a lot to me if you'd follow that page, and listen to it when it comes out.

Honestly, probably enough people don't say this but, your 20's kind of suck. I think you probably look back on them fondly (as I am currently doing), as so much changes, and so many of the really scary, uncertain decisions you make in your 20's set the stage for the rest of your life, but when you're in them, it's kind of awful.

So, if for some reason you're in your early 20's and you follow me, just know you're not supposed to have things figured out, just make the best decision you can with the information you have at hand, and if you're going to be wrong try to do it quickly.

The best thing I learned in my 20's was it's completely ok to be wrong. You can make a stupid decision and not be stupid. You can lose a lot of money and not be bad with money. You don't have to make your mistakes part of your identity.

Anyway, I would say my 20's were a net positive. Probably 60% good. I'd say that's really solid.

Thanks for reading all my essays this decade. I really hope you got something useful from them.

Love as always,
Coach Calum

09/30/2022

Why would you ever hire someone to help you do something you could do yourself?

Anyone I speak to who doesn't see the value in personal training tends to have this stance on what I do.

I'm likely never going to convince those people that I'm useful, but it did spark an idea, that maybe a lot of people don't actually fully grasp the complexity of helping someone manage all of the stresses in their life while trying to change the way their body looks/feels.

So, I'm going to start a little series just talking more about all of the things that I think about, that even my clients likely don't know unless they ask.

My goal here is that you get a better understanding of how your body works, and ideally at least one person will be able to stop beating themselves up for not losing weight or something by better understanding everything that makes change hard (and harder even for some).

Anyway, chapter 1. Volume

Volume here is referring to training volume; a.k.a. the amount of work you can do in a workout/program while still being able to recover from said workout.

Every person will have an individual volume threshold (amount of work they can tolerate and recover from). This threshold is influenced by EVERYTHING in your life. Slept poorly? Less volume. Not enough food? Less volume. PCOS? Less Volume. Not enough sunlight? Less volume. Drank alcohol? Less volume. Fought with your spouse? Less volume.

Everything you do in the rest of your life that applies any form of stress to your system (good or bad) will take a toll on the amount of work you're capable of recovering from in a timely manner. This means that depending on your goal, it is really important to account for the amount of volume we subject you to as a trainee.

If your goal is body composition change, it's more important to train more frequently, than it is to train more intensely, especially for people new to exercise. So working really hard and fast, and then needing 3 days to recover is actively working against your body composition goal, even though it "feels" like you're working super hard.

More is not always more. Less is not always more. The right amount is the right amount.

06/09/2022

Your day isn't likely to get better once it's going badly.

Your morning routine and the way it makes you feel has a lot of sway over what you get out of your day.

Starting your day eating well, getting high value tasks done, learning or engaging with interesting topics or just generally doing what you need to do to set a positive intention for your day is really key to getting the most out of your time.

Win your morning. Do whatever you can to protect the first hours of your day and fill it with the things that make you feel good.

I've had a variety of morning routines over the years, that reflect the priorities of the time, but some permanent fixtures are:

Protein and fat focused breakfast

Supplements (zinc and vitamin D)

Some kind of learning/reading/watching etc of a topic I'm interested in, related or not to my work.

Exercise of some kind, whether structured, or walking/biking into work.

For me, these activities done before my day gets away from me helps me stay positive and engaged with my day, and let's me show up consistently and do what I need to do.

If you're not feeling great, look at your morning routine and see if you can find some opportunities to make it work better for you.

❤️

05/04/2022

I have this conversation pretty frequently with my new clients.

At some point (usually a few weeks or a few months into training after the initial excitement has worn off), the reality of consistently having to work at something for a long time starts to spark feelings of frustration or envy at the people on social media who "have it all figured out", and can do no wrong.

I mostly post videos of me screwing things up, being tired, and just generally being a stronger than average guy working away at things because it's SO important to me that people see that it mostly kind of sucks. I then occasionally throw up a picture of me being shirtless and leaner than last year because it shows that the training isn't that interesting, but the committing to doing it and showing up regularly is what yields the result.

I eat some not "ideal" food at least once a week. I drink on occasion (this was a big change for me, it used to be a lot more than it is now). I work too much. I don't always manage my stress well. I don't help out at home as much as my wonderful partner would like.

And you do all those things too.

And the point of training is not to never do those things.

What we work towards, is helping you establish a clear set of priorities, so when the inevitability of you not being able to do it all arises, we can rest assured knowing that we picked the things that mattered most, and can keep you moving in the right direction.

So, be nice to yourself, and if you find yourself stressed about not doing enough- it's your inner critic being a jerk 😉

If you made it here, leave me a food emoji.

02/25/2022

As always, big thanks to the Nite Owl for the tune up.

Here's my face.

Back to regularly scheduled exercise programming.

02/14/2022

Decided to post a photo that wouldn't make you angry this year.

You're welcome

11/17/2021

If you follow our social media, you'll have seen over the past few days/week we've been talking a lot about emotional eating.

Emotional eating is a response.

It's a behaviour that we engage in when our regular, more ideal coping mechanisms aren't sufficient to deal with the stress we're facing.

This is true for most of the behaviours we'd rather not engage in but can't seem to help ourselves. We experience more stress than we know how to handle, it puts us in a state where an immediate solution or release feels like the only way to reduce the anxiety/stress, and we resort to the mechanism that has the highest likelihood of short term relief; regardless of the long term cost.

If this sounds like you, you're definitely not alone. This is something almost all of our clients, friends, family members, staff and definitely myself work with every day.

Below is an image, and in that image there are 6 categories of stress that we experience.

Because stress is such an abstract thing sometimes, it can be really hard to even identify what's bothering you, let alone deal with it.

If you've got a moment, and are up to a little challenge, go through each of these categories individually, and write down what's bothering you. Write it down. Get it out of your head, and into the real world.

Once it's in the real world, it's a real problem; which is terrifying sometimes. But real problems can be dealt with. Real problems can be worked on. Real problems can sometimes be solved.

This is a long process, but if you take the work on, the likelihood of you getting control of your behaviours and your life goes way up.

Have a question or want to talk? I will always make time for you. Just message us, leave a comment, or email me ([email protected]) and I'm always happy to set up a time to work on these complicated problems.

You're not alone ;)

Coach Calum

Image: Precision Nutrition

10/06/2021

Hey team!

The PRE-REGISTRATION for our next online course is now available.

Introducing WEIGHT LOSS 101

What's that, you say?

Well, may I start by saying what a handsome question that was.

Weight Loss 101 is the no-nonsense know-how course with everything you need to know to make a change and lose weight.

We'll talk about nutrition, supplements, exercise, relationships, stress, sleep and everything else you would need to know to make a change stick.

If this sounds like the sort of thing YOU or someone you love would get a lot out of it's going to be FREE for anyone who pre-enrolls, and the pre enrollment will be open for the entire month of October.

SO, here's the link https://strongeducation.thinkific.com/ and feel free to pass this on to the people you care about.

Love as always,
The STRONG. Team

09/30/2021

🤣

Is processed food bad for you?

I guess it depends on your definition of processed!

Smoothies? Processed.

Crackers? Processed.

McDonalds? Processed.

Margarine? Processed.

Any food that's different from its original state before consumption is processed food.

So, the question is not, "is processed food bad for you?" Moreso the question is "how much processing is the right amount of processing?".

Some foods are better absorbed and easier on your digestive tract when they're cooked. A lot of vegetables, especially 'healthy' vegetables and "superfoods" like kale contain compounds that protect it from being digested. These "antinutrients" can be broken down during short cooking, and will actually allow you to get more of the good vitamins and minerals out of your food. Combine that with a little bit of fat and you've got yourself a vegetable flavored multivitamin. Yum? 🤷🏻‍♂️

So, a little bit of cooking or processing can actually go a long way here.

But that same vegetable cooked in a deep fryer and turned into chips will definitely break down the "antinutrients", but will also likely torch any of the vitamins contained in the food. This processing is enough to make it delicious, but kind of defeats the purpose of eating kale, and at this point you may as well eat potato chips cause at least they're what you actually want.

Anyway, I just thought that photo was funny but hope you learned something about processing.

Make it this far?

Put a little 🥕 in the comments.

Calum Shaw

10/05/2022

10/04/2022

10/02/2022

10/01/2022

09/30/2022

06/09/2022

05/04/2022

02/25/2022

02/14/2022

11/17/2021

10/06/2021

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