Every year, right around the time Winnipeg finally starts to flirt with spring, I get some version of the same message:

“Mitch, I need to lose 25 pounds by summer. Let’s go.”

It always arrives with urgency, like fat loss operates on panic. And I get it. People want to feel better in their clothes. They want energy back. They want the belly to shrink. They want to head into warm weather with some confidence.

But there’s a problem with most weight-loss plans, and it’s not a lack of motivation.

It’s that time of year again. Your group chat’s buzzing. You’ve been eyeing your gear since August. You’ve treated the off-season worse than the old NHLers used to with a steady program of beer curls and burger raises.

Recreational-hockey season is back, and if you’re over 40 like me, that first skate is a reality check. The lungs burn. The legs give out faster than you remember. And your hands… well, they feel like they haven’t touched a puck since the Jets came back.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. As a fitness coach, I want to help you make this your best season yet.

Whether your goal is to drop a few pounds, get your wind back or just avoid pulling a groin in warm-up, this column’s for you.

This summer, Manitobans aren’t just sweating under the August sun — we’re coughing, wheezing and blinking through a haze so thick you could mistake Portage Avenue for a foggy morning in San Francisco.

Recent air-quality readings put Winnipeg at the worst in Canada, with PM2.5 levels soaring well past the “very unhealthy” threshold. Health experts aren’t mincing words: prolonged exposure to this kind of pollution can increase risks of heart attacks, worsen asthma and even impact brain function and mental health. It’s not just your lungs feeling the burn, it’s your energy, recovery and overall resilience.

And while the headlines are everywhere, the lesson isn’t: you can’t out-train bad air. The basics of health — movement, nutrition, recovery — don’t change, but how you approach them needs to adjust when the environment throws you a curveball.

Here’s how to stay fit despite the forest-fire smoke.

If you’ve been on Instagram lately, you’d think the fountain of youth is hidden somewhere between a cold plunge and a capsule of the NMN supplement.

Everyone’s chasing vitality right now with hopes of living longer, looking younger and “bio-hacking” their way into immortality with infrared saunas, hormone cocktails, red-light helmets and supplements you can’t pronounce. (NMN, by the way, stands for nicotinamide mononucleotide.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for stacking the odds in your favour. I’m bullish on the role AI advancements will play in our quality of life going forward.

But let’s be honest. If your foundation is broken, none of this new-age stuff really matters. You can’t out-stimulant chronic poor sleep. You can’t undo a junk-food diet with 10 minutes of red-light therapy. And you definitely can’t fix a sedentary lifestyle through supplements.