Author Archives: Beth Learn

It all started with one member’s post in our private facebook forum when she wrote, “My husband and I are going to start F2B90 starting Nov 1st. A Fit2B 90-day challenge. 🙂 Complete with before and after photos, weights, and measurements.” Thirty-seven comments later, almost 10 other gals had jumped on board, and now they’ve […]

This is an interview with Mommy Baby Spot, Darlene Watson. A birth educator and mother of two, she is also a member of Fit2B Studio! Bethany: Welcome Darlene! You are very passionate about helping moms have healthy, fit births. Can you tell us little about your own births?  Darlene: My own births are what made me […]

When I first watched this video about why exercise does NOT need to be hard or hurtful to work, I felt like standing up and cheering! As a mom who understands the quest to get your abs back, I nearly destroyed my post-birth body doing too many crunches and crazy workouts. My diastasis was still […]

Anne Marie Gurney is a a homeschooling mom friend of mine, and she’s running – and I do mean running – for the Oregon House of Representatives. When I asked if I could interview her for Fit2B Studio, she said yes! Here is her video, and our interview follows. Bethany: How does fitness play a […]

Our April, 2012 trip to Montana Montana is a place of rugged beauty and stark contrasts: Immaculate Escalades with cattle-grill-guards parked next to beat-up Subarus still displaying blood stains from last year’s hunting season; the sharp cut of the Mission Mountains against the rolling plains; the dirt on the faces of beautiful children out playing […]

This high-energy and high-impact workout is sure to help you burn major calories and tone your muscles along the way, yet as I analyze turbofire clips on youtube, a few things make me cringe.   As a fit mama with a bachelor degree in exercise and sport science, multiple certifications, and 16 years of experience […]

Yes, that’s me. I’m wishing myself a happy birthday. I’m 33 today and I’m so excited for the coming year of my life. Here are some of my favorite pics from the past year 🙂 That’s me: The minivan mama with my two kids smiling behind me! A cute shot of my kiddos playing at […]

When my college bestie Tricia of Seriously Smitten wrote on facebook about a running experience she had a couple days ago, it moved me to tears and I begged her to let me share it with my readers: “As my feet hit the pavement, I see a woman up ahead who I can see is clearly […]

We had just finished the step aerobics portion of class, but she left – walked out – after just a few Yoga warrior poses. I had been wondering if she was another instructor because she had such great form, fancy moves beyond the ones I was teaching, strong arms, and she wouldn’t make eye contact. […]

Jenn Bonner is endorsed by Fit2B Studio as a health coach. She shares more of her story about being obese during pregnancy with us today… Shame – what a shameful word.  Unfortunately too many of us women live with shame every day.  There is a range of shame women and moms go through on a […]

Valentines Day = Love … Love = dancing … Dancing + Pink = Pink Glove Dance to raise breast cancer awareness. I know, the brain of this fitness chick works in mysterious ways. But this became a blog post when I went on youtube to watch the “Pink Glove Dance” that was originally filmed at […]

Subscribe to our newsletter if you want more 🙂 Every personal trainer and fitness instructor worth their weight knows about “The Principle of Progression.” It means that you start with small motions and work up to bigger motions. It means you start with light weights and work up to heavier weights. It means that – […]

We always take some pictures while the Fit2B Studio camera is rolling, and so we’d like to share a few with all the moms, dads, and families who follow us, along with exercise tips of the movement that was captured. This one was posted on our facebook yesterday, and it’s such a good one! Gate […]

We launched our facebook fitness page just shortly before we launched Fit2B Studio. The name “Fit to Be Us” is based on our domain name. We wanted a dot-com name, but we couldn’t afford one at the time. When fit2b.us popped up as a possibility, and we said it out loud to each other, we […]

We have some amazing things coming up, and I just want to take a moment to inform our blog followers about all of it. 1. We are partnering with Nisha Riggs of Healthy Moms Kitchen to create an amazing new product that will bring fitness and meal planning right to your email inbox every week. […]

Pinterest allows users to download a button for their browser. When they see an image or graphic or quote that they like on a blog, they “pin” it by clicking the button and selecting the image. It’s a fun way to build traffic as you inspire others. Here’s another one I made for a new […]

Kim Vopni has two boys, and she is the founder of EPI-NO Canada. We met through a twitter conversation about the damage that crunches can do, and I learned that she has been trained in diastasis recti rehab. Kim holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Western Ontario and a Post Graduate Diploma in […]

Before I became a mother, I thought fitness would be just as easy as it had been for me all my life. “I’ll just put the baby in the stroller and go for a jog!” I wasn’t accounting for a screaming baby half-way down the block, leading to a let-down that would soak through two […]

“I cooked dinner last night. I need a padded room now.” Even though dinner turned out great, and my kids (3 & 6) both asked for seconds, that was this mom’s facebook status last night. Having a glass of wine while I cook seems to help counteract the rise in blood pressure that happens when […]

I want to thank Selena Moffitt from 1momsmission.com for being our guest blogger today … Do you use the same advice you were given as a child: “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”? Do you model what you preach?  Do you treat this meal as THE MOST IMPORTANT meal?  Between the kids’ needs […]

When people ask me if I like to cook healthy meals, I usually look at them sideways and mutter something about being a fitness mama not a “Betty Crocker.” I find joy in making people burn calories, not consume them, so most of my aprons are wadded up in the back of my kitchen towel […]

The signs are all around us, and they tell lies. Lies about nutrition. Lies about health. Lies about fitness during pregnancy. Lies about what kids really need. Just this morning, I saw a billboard by Burger King that had a picture of an ice-cream cone, a goody-covered sundae and a milk shake. It proclaimed that […]

  As creators of our own yoga and pilates workout videos for kids, it could be a conflict of interest for us to review other kid yoga DVD’s. But unlike other exercise business owners, we don’t believe we are THE ONLY ONES with ALL the answers. So we don’t see the Storyland Yoga DVD as […]

One of my friends who has lost nearly 200 lbs was facebooking about how she is now going to rehab her abs, shrink her midsection and tighten her core by going through diastasis rehab with The Tummy Team like I did. Then an interesting comment popped up on her facebook comment thread about the notion […]

Last week was a hot one here in Camas.  Specifically last Wednesday, the 7th at 4:00 in the afternoon on the Captain William Clark trail in Washougal.  On that trail it was about 95 degrees with little to no shade.  Somewhere during the day I thought this would be the best time to go for a […]

Your muscles‘ ability to move in various ways is a lot like a government employee’s vacation time: Either you use it, or you lose it! As you move past your prime, it is crucial for you exercise in ways that maintain the motions that will contribute to your quality of life when you are 50, […]

I see my triceps meeting my posterior deltoids. I see the blur of the background as I leave it all behind me. I hear the rhythmic worship music blasting from my shoulder speakers. I feel my sweat-plastered shirt sticking to my sports bra … and I am proud. Because I am four months post-op from knee […]

When hundreds of relay running teams leave Mt. Hood, and hundreds of relay walking teams leave Portland, and they are all trying to reach Seaside, Oregon in the shortest time possible … well, things can get a little sticky and stinky and FUN!!! Hood to Coast and its sister event, Portland to Coast, have been […]

How does one survive Hood to Coast, the world’s largest relay running race that also includes Portland to Coast, a walking relay race? Having just placed sixth with my Team Toe Jammin’ #2100 means we have a guaranteed place in next year’s race without submitting to the lottery … but are all the funny team […]

Hi, my name is Kate, and I have recently started writing a blog called Spirtually Obese. It’s been on my mind for a while to start a blog writing about my own struggles with weight and faith. As an overweight Christian woman, I have often been told that if I just relied on God enough, […]

Guest Blogger Luci Smith: For a few years now, it’s been a dream of mine to do a marathon. But for a mother of two very energetic girls and a wife of 17 years, I was seriously lacking the motivation needed to train for such a thing. But that all changed last Spring when I […]

Why did it take me so long to figure out that my children are ALWAYS hungry? When they start whining for food, I start digging through the diaper bag, giving them whatever is in there. It used to be that if I came up empty, well, then it was McDonalds! The reality is that having […]

Having chiropractic work done on my spine has literally kept me on my feet through all my years of bouncing around as I teach group fitness and play hard. So when I met “Dr. Doug” at a networking event here in Portland, and he offered to guest blog for me, I jumped at the chance […]

For my 2011 New Year’s resolution, I swore off drinking soda pop for a year. This has been hard for me, but not as hard as I expected. Please know that I’ve never been a pack-a-day pop drinker, but I did enjoy a can of Mt. Dew with lunch on a regular basis … or […]

We are blessed with a life estate in Montana where my husband grew up as a boy, running wild and free. Twenty acres of land currently used by his father for hay and cows and chickens now also holds a tiny, blue cabin. It’s a shabby little 12×20 shed with two levels, making it roughly […]

Lunges are an effective way to tone and tighten your entire lower half, and they can also contribute to pelvic stability during pregnancy and as we age. All of your lunging should leave you saying, “Ooooh, I look and feel good!” Not, “Ow, I pulled something!” However, when you don’t have a mirror  – or even […]

Whether you worship the “Universe” or the One who breathed it into existence – or even if you don’t worship anything at all – it seems we all have stages of life where a certain soul-message is continuously weaved through every single situation we experience. Things that happen to us, things we observe and hear – […]

Some people like to cook. I don’t. I derive no joy from making a mess in my kitchen and cleaning it up. So when I find a simple recipe that makes my family happy and healthy, it gets written down on a receipt or envelope. If it comes back for a second round with good […]

Summertime means road trips with the family, friends or by yourself with one hand surfing on the airstream and the radio cranked all the way up. As fun and exciting as road trips are, though, the road map often directs adults toward weight-gain and children toward boredom. We know, because we – the two families […]

Last week my daughter, who will be six soon, had a huge epiphany. We were driving in the car, going through our usual routine on the usual days when she said, “Life is just circles, Mom.” In the moment, she really wasn’t too happy about these “circles” because she was craving a change. But we […]

It’s a rap about organic food stores. It will leave you laughing and wordless, and it tells you where I’m at. If you have no idea why I have deviated from my usual fitness rantings, you need to know about something special that happens on twitter on Wednesdays. Well, two things really. One is “Wordless […]

If you have ever labored to bring a baby into the world, you know what a workout it can be, and you know how in-tune with your body you must be, especially if you want to be in good shape for a natural, drug-free childbirth. Well, over coffee with Lisa Johnson, a dear woman whom […]

Here’s to all the daddies who are fit to be fathers who are more than just sperm-donors who really invest. Here’s to all the fathers who are fit to be the coach Fit … 2 … B the strong man the one the children cling to   Here’s to the men who are fit to […]

Guest Post: Health Coach Jenn Bonner My reality used to bite. Being an athlete at heart, morbidly obese and hopeless was my reality and I hated it. I wanted to be ‘normal’ – whatever the definition of that is anymore. I wanted to be able to do the activities I used to enjoy so much. […]

Youtube is full of free workouts for all fitness levels. The problem is that they aren’t categorized or monitored, and any “Tina Trainer” can post what they think is the best workout of all time. You need to look for three things when downloading or purchasing an exercise video: Is the professed workout instructor or […]

How can your pilates and yoga workout help victims of the Joplin Tornado? Fit2B Studio has partnered with Victor Knowles, president of Peace on Earth Ministries in Joplin, Missouri to help fund tornado relief efforts.  Join for a year and mention “Joplin” at checkout, and we will give HALF of that amount to POEM and send […]

I recently entered Circle of Moms’ contest for Top 25 Fitness Bloggers, and it’s been an exercise in humility! Even though the top 25 bloggers will get quite a bit of PR on Circle of Moms, my reasons for entering were mostly out of sheer curiosity. Who are these other women who label themselves fitness […]