Foster Health

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Foster Health

It focuses on lifestyle to improve life & prevent disease.

Foster Health is a health habit behaviour change program led by Eileen Patterson — the healthcare leader who brought the first peer leader training for chronic disease self-care programs to CAN.

07/14/2026

The biggest barrier I see isn't motivation. It is the size of the commitment people think they need to make.

If the only version of 'active' in your head is a gym session, you'll skip it on a busy day. Most days are busy days.

Start smaller. Small tests, not big commitments.

Ten wall push-ups while the coffee brews. A posture check at the start of every meeting. A few trips up and down the stairs after you load the dishwasher.

None of this requires a plan or extra time. Each one attaches to something you're already doing.

Consistency beats intensity.
A body that moves a little, often, adapts. A body that moves a lot rarely gets sore and discouraged.

Enough for a lot of busy people is just the accumulation of small, repeated movements woven into a day that was never going to include a gym session anyway.

Where do you find the easiest places to sneak movement into your day? I am curious what's actually working for people.

Join The Habit Practice Newsletter: https://www.fosterhealth.ca/newsletter

07/09/2026

The professionals I work with who report the biggest shift in how they feel rarely change what's on their plate first. They change the conditions around eating.

Some slow down. Fewer bites taken standing up, fewer meals finished in four minutes.

Some change where. Eating away from a screen, at an actual table, even for ten minutes.

Some change when. Drawing a line a few hours before bed, not because of a rule about weight, but because of what it does for digestion and sleep.

Some change what they eat, not by restricting, but by adding. One new food that actually nourishes them, out of curiosity instead of guilt.

None of this requires a plan or a kitchen overhaul. One variable, for a couple of weeks.

This isn't about appearance. It's about whether your eating pattern is giving you steady energy or working against you by 3 pm.

Which lever sounds easiest to experiment with first: how, where, when, or what?

The Habit Quiz takes 2 minutes: https://www.fosterhealth.ca/health-habit-quiz

07/08/2026

A breakdown of the CLEAR Process

Clarify: She named the routines she actually valued, and why. Not someone else's idea of a good day. Hers.

Let go: One habit, not ten. She emptied one box that had been sitting by the stairs for months. Done.

Energize: A few intentional breaths in the morning. A meal each day with food she genuinely liked, not food grabbed on the run.

Align: She anchored the new habit to journaling, something already in her day, so it had a place to live instead of competing for her attention.

Renew: We planned how her habits could flex around upcoming work trips and family visits, instead of falling apart.

Less than five minutes a day. And she described feeling more in control because she had made one small change within her existing schedule.

Most habit advice skips this part. It's not just about choosing a habit. It's about building a small structure around it that lets it last.

Where does habit-building most often fall apart for you? Would love to hear what people notice.

Join The Habit Practice Newsletter to learn more: https://www.fosterhealth.ca/newsletter

07/07/2026

Holding your breath tells your brain to pay attention, then the extended exhale signals your nervous system to shift out of stress mode and into something closer to calm.

You're not thinking your way out of overwhelm. You're breathing your way out of it.

I've watched this move people from scattered to settled in under a minute. Not because the situation changed, but because their physiology did.

The people I work with who use this consistently — first thing in the morning or right before a high-pressure meeting — describe feeling more proactive and less like they're reacting to everything.

I use it myself at night, to cue my brain that it's safe to rest.

No equipment, no app, no extra time. Five seconds in, five seconds held, seven seconds out.

Has anyone tried breath work as a regular habit? What's your go-to when overwhelm hits?

Join The Habits Practice Newsletter: https://www.fosterhealth.ca/newsletter

07/02/2026

The research is consistent: people running on chronic under-sleep make slower decisions, take more risks, and recover worse from stress. That shows up in our lives and in our organisations.

But the fix usually isn't 'sleep more.' It's 'prepare for sleep more consistently.'

I've seen this play out differently for different people. For one, the lever was putting the phone away 30 minutes before bed. For another, it was waking up 20 minutes earlier, consistently, even on weekends. That person reported deeper, more restorative sleep within two weeks.

Same goal. Different lever.

Consistency is what matters most, not the specific habit. The same sleep routine, same wake time, same wind-down cue, day after day, teaches your nervous system when it's safe to power down.

Which lever sounds most like yours? Would love to hear what people are actually noticing.

To get to know what fits you better, take The Habit Quiz.
It takes just 2 minutes: https://www.fosterhealth.ca/health-habit-quiz

07/01/2026

A client came to me wanting one thing: to feel present. Not just physically there. Actually there.

She wasn't burned out in a dramatic way. She was stretched thin between two versions of herself that felt like they were competing for her attention.

We didn't overhaul her life. We started with two small habits.

At the end of her workday: five minutes setting herself up for tomorrow. Closing loops, a short list, clearing her desk. Just enough that her brain could stop running tomorrow's to-do list overnight.

At home: chopping vegetables the moment she got back from the grocery store on the weekend. Not meal prepping. Just removing one piece of friction from weeknight dinner.

Two habits. Five minutes a day; 15 minutes on the weekend.

She described feeling more organised, and that feeling gave her energy she didn't know she'd lost. She started playing more freely with her kids after dinner.

Behaviour change isn't about doing more. It's about removing friction from the things that already matter to you.

A lot of us are carrying some version of this. What's the one place in your week where a small friction removal would make the biggest difference?

Join The Habits Practice Newsletter: https://www.fosterhealth.ca/newsletter

06/30/2026

Your mindset is either guiding you toward what you want to build, or pulling you somewhere else. There's no neutral setting.

Every day, your brain produces thousands of automatic thoughts. Not necessarily true, but very familiar.

The high performers I work with aren't the ones who never have an unhelpful thought. They're the ones who've learned to notice it before it takes over and redirect.

Noticing your self-talk is the key skill. Not forcing yourself to feel or think differently.

You need just enough awareness to ask: Is this thought helping me move toward what I want, or pulling me somewhere else?

Once you can see a thought clearly, you get to choose. Redirect it. Question it. Let it pass through without acting on it.

That small, deliberate redirect is what makes behaviour change sustainable. Not willpower. Not motivation.

This is trainable. It gets easier with repetition, like anything else.

A lot of us wait for our mindset to settle on its own. It won't. But we can build the skill that settles it.

Where do you notice unhelpful thoughts showing up most — at work, at home, or somewhere in between?

Link to join the Newsletter, where I go deeper, is in the comments.

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Calgary, AB

Website

http://www.fosterhealth.ca/

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