Strong Able Free

Strong Able Free I'm Stacey Segstro, a personal trainer, and this is my strength and exercise coaching practice.

Happy October everyone! My Fit Tip for October is Roasted Butternut Soup. We have several favourite butternut recipes ...
10/04/2025

Happy October everyone! My Fit Tip for October is Roasted Butternut Soup. We have several favourite butternut recipes but this soup is new to us and we love it. It is Fall in a bowl!
1 tbsp oil
1 onion, chopped
1 large butternut (2.5-3 lbs), peeled, seeded and chopped.
3 parsnips, peeled and sliced lengthwise
4 cups vegetable broth
1 tsp Thyme
1 tsp salt
1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Place the chopped butternut on a baking sheet and drizzle with oil and toss to coat. Rub the parsnips with oil and wrap tight in tin foil and place on baking sheet with butternut.
3. Roast 40-60 minutes, until butternut is easily pierced with a fork. Meanwhile, in a large pot add the 1 tbsp of oil and saute the onion until soft & translucent.
4. Add roasted butternut and parsnip and broth to soup pot. Add Thyme and salt and bring to a boil then reduce to Low for 10 minutes.
5. Add more broth to desired consistency.

It is Fit Tip Friday! My Fit Tip for September is Stuffed Eggplants. Eggplants came into our life quite late but they...
09/05/2025

It is Fit Tip Friday! My Fit Tip for September is Stuffed Eggplants. Eggplants came into our life quite late but they are now a seasonal staple.

Preheat oven to 350
With spoon or knife carefully remove flesh from 2 small or 1 large eggplant, chop into bite size chunks. Leave the 1/2 shells intact to stuff later.
Drizzle eggplant shells with oil and salt.
Bake for at least 20 mins, up to 50 minutes for large eggplants. Meanwhile, heat some oil in a pan over MED heat.
Add 1 small sweet onion, finely chopped. Saute until translucent.
Add 1 ripe plum tomato, finely chopped.
Add 1/4 cup fresh basil or 1 tbsp dried and salt & pepper to taste.
Reduce to LOW and cook for 3 minutes.
Add the chopped eggplant and 2 or more diced sundried tomatoes. Raise heat to to MED heat and cook stirring for another 3-4 minutes. ***if mixture is dry add a little oil***
Add 1/2 cup of nutritional yeast or cheese. Remove mixture from heat and stir to combine.
Spoon mixture evenly into eggplant shells.
Bake another 20-30 minutes.
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It is Fit Tip Friday! My Fit Tip for August is our favourite summer recipe, Mojete.2 Red bell peppers, sliced2 yellow b...
08/01/2025

It is Fit Tip Friday! My Fit Tip for August is our favourite summer recipe, Mojete.
2 Red bell peppers, sliced
2 yellow bell peppers, sliced
1 red onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup or more of olives
6 -10 ripe Roma tomatoes
1 tsp brown sugar
3 tbsp sherry or balsamic vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a large roasting pan.
Season with salt and pepper. Stir well. Cover with foil.
Bake 45 minutes at 400.
Remove and add; 2 tsp Rosemary and 2 tbsp olive oil.
Stir. Bake another 30 minutes with foil removed.
Serve with fresh bread.

It is Fit Tip Friday! July's Fit Tip is to eat some scrumptious summer salads. Visiting the farmers markets is a deli...
07/04/2025

It is Fit Tip Friday! July's Fit Tip is to eat some scrumptious summer salads. Visiting the farmers markets is a delight, I saw so many different lettuces & greens.

This is our go to dressing.
3 tbsp each of Balsamic vinegar and (dijon) mustard
1 tbsp honey
1/4-1/3 cup of olive oil
a bit of salt and pepper
I have used this recipe for years and I like to switch it up by using different vinegars and mustards.

And don't forget to buy some strawberries!

It is Fit Tip Friday! Fit Tip Fridays over the Summer will focus on seasonal recipes. When I see asparagus at the farm...
06/06/2025

It is Fit Tip Friday! Fit Tip Fridays over the Summer will focus on seasonal recipes. When I see asparagus at the farmer's market, I know Spring is here. This is one of my favourite asparagus recipes.

Grilled Veg & Quinoa Salad
1- 3 cups cooked Quinoa (I use 1 cup dry Quinoa)
1 red and 1 yellow pepper, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
12 asparagus, chopped
Grill or lightly saute the vegetables.
Combine cooked Quinoa and vegetables.
Make dressing:
3 tbsp oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp each salt & pepper
1/4 tsp chili flakes
Stir well and add to the Quinoa and vegetables.
Serve with toasted Pumpkin seeds (don't omit these, they add a nice crunch), Feta (for a plant based option we use Daiya dairy free Feta) and fresh cilantro.
Enjoy!

It is Fit Tip Friday! May's Fit Tip is to Look Up. We spend most of our time looking down, especially at a computer or...
05/02/2025

It is Fit Tip Friday! May's Fit Tip is to Look Up. We spend most of our time looking down, especially at a computer or looking ahead but we do not spend much, if any time, looking up. Looking up extends our neck and gets us out of the “laptop hunch” position. Throughout your day, take a moment to look up, for a few seconds. We spend most of our time looking down, especially at a computer or looking ahead but we do not spend much, if any time, looking up. Looking up extends our neck and gets us out of the “laptop hunch” position. While sitting at your computer take a moment to look up at the ceiling. Before you get into your car, look up at the sky, what colour is it today? What do the clouds look like? You can also do this lying down, before you get into bed lie sideways so you can lie with your head hanging off the edge of your bed.

It is Fit Tip Friday! April's Fit Tip is to think outside the breakfast box. Breakfast means different things to diff...
04/04/2025

It is Fit Tip Friday! April's Fit Tip is to think outside the breakfast box. Breakfast means different things to different people all over the world. Historically, the human diet was determined by geography, we ate what was available to us. Breakfast is interesting because there has been a lot of marketing around breakfast, from being the “most important meal of the day” to what we think of as “breakfast foods.” For me“ breakfast” simply means the first meal of my day and it could be anything from beans on toast, to soup, a stew, leftovers, anything goes! I encourage you to think about your breakfast ritual, why have you chosen those foods for breakfast? Where did your ideas of what constitutes breakfast come from? Have your breakfasts changed from childhood to adulthood? If so, what prompted the change? My breakfasts have changed quite a bit throughout my life, as a child I ate mostly cereal, on week-ends my Dad made pancakes then eggs were a staple breakfast food for years and now with a plant based diet most days my breakfast is black bean dip on toast (see photo, recipe from Spilling the Beans by Rosendaal & Duncan.)


This is a great video on the history of breakfast.
https://www.pbs.org/video/is-breakfast-the-most-important-meal-xas6ug/

It is Fit Tip Friday! This months' Fit Tip is, "What is your bother factor?"(and get to know Dr. Jen Gunter pictured h...
03/08/2025

It is Fit Tip Friday! This months' Fit Tip is, "What is your bother factor?"(and get to know Dr. Jen Gunter pictured here). I heard Dr. Jen Gunter say this and I think this is very helpful advice. For example with menopause symptoms ask yourself “How much are these bothering me? How disruptive are they to my daily life?” If your answer is not much then perhaps you do not need to take any action. “What is your bother factor” is a useful lens through which I assess whether I need to take action regarding a particular health issue.

Joe and I switched to a vegan diet several years ago. It was a slow transition. We used to eat eggs every day for bre...
03/02/2025

Joe and I switched to a vegan diet several years ago. It was a slow transition. We used to eat eggs every day for breakfast and it was hard to imagine a substitute. Then we found this recipe,
Black Bean Dip (from Spilling the Beans, Rosendaal & Duncan)
2 cups rinsed and drained black beans (use canned beans)
Oil for cooking
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tomato, chopped
1/2 cup salsa-sometimes I just add another tomato if I dont have salsa.
1 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
we use 1/2 cup nutritional yeast instead of 1 cup cheese
1 tbsp lime juice
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
In a large skillet/pot, heat the oil on med-hi. Saute the onion and garlic for a few minutes, until soft. Add all the ingredients in order listed.
Served on Joe's homemade sourdough bread, this is tough to beat! It is also a favourite post strength workout meal because beans combined with whole grains is a complete protein.

02/19/2025

What is SIT, Sprint Interval Training? Stacy Sims explains.

02/18/2025

Snow day, snow much fun!

02/18/2025

It’s time to HIIT back on cortisol myths and misunderstandings.

“Don’t do HIIT, it increases cortisol!”
“Don’t have too much caffeine, it increases cortisol!”
“If you have a 'stress belly' your cortisol levels are too high!”

I see post after post on the “evils'' of cortisol for midlife and menopausal women. But honestly, when you scratch beneath the surface, most are aimed at scaring women into buying supplements or tests to reduce cortisol and “balance our hormones”.

It’s time to have a serious talk about stress and its related hormone, cortisol, which contrary to this popular (and I’d argue predatory) narrative is absolutely necessary, and is not an evil danger that threatens to impede our health and longevity, or should prevent us from doing anything more strenuous than going for a walk. Ready for Action?

Cortisol is a steroid hormone your body uses to mobilize the resources it needs for action, specifically to respond to stress, which we commonly know as the “fight or flight response.” When you experience stress–be it physiological like illness, injury, and trauma or psychological like work anxiety–the hypothalamus and pituitary glands in your brain send an SOS signal via the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis to your adrenal glands atop your kidneys to secrete cortisol.

Once released into the bloodstream, cortisol helps the body respond to stress by increasing fuel (blood glucose), alertness, cognition, and improves cell responses to inflammation; all in anticipation of the body having to run or fight.
Read more on my blog >>> https://www.drstacysims.com/newsletters/articles/posts/Midlife_Women_Can_and_Should_Do_High_Intensity_Exercise%20

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