A message from the Wellness Team, Office of the Chief Medical Officer

Theresa Ducharme of Lemon Cree Health & Wellness, which offers Zoom fitness group classes as well as training sessions either in-person or online. Get two free Zoom sessions by emailing lemoncree@gmail.com.

Some of us were able to keep up our health and wellness routines during self-isolation, modifying our workouts and doing our best to remain active. Those of us who may not have been able to do so can now look forward to restarting our health and wellness routines as things start to reopen.

Because we've had to stay home so much and everything was closed, we may have spent more time than usual watching Netflix and eating comfort food. The combination of less activity and more eating may have negatively affected our energy, mood, health and weight.

The good news is, today is a new day and we can each choose to get back on our health and wellness journeys! It's a good idea to set realistic goals including gradually resuming physical activity, aiming for 30 minutes each day to begin with.

Although gyms and recreational centres aren't open yet, many parks have reopened, and online fitness classes are widely available.

Here are a couple of great options:

​• FitNation's YouTube Channel for home workouts for all levels.

• Lemon Cree, a Vancouver-based, Indigenous-owned-and-operated fitness company with classes on the Zoom platform: www.lemoncree.com.

Returning to sports and fitness routines. Sports organizations and fitness centres are starting to re-open. If you are returning to one of these, check that it is following a detailed safety plan. Under BC's Restart Plan, sport organizations can consider re-opening if they have a public plan with sport-specific guidelines as recommended by ViaSport and WorkSafeBC. These guidelines include, but are not limited to: washing or sanitizing your hands before entering the facility; maintaining physical distancing; bringing your own equipment, water bottle and hand sanitizer; minimizing the sharing of equipment; cleaning shared equipment after use; limiting participants in group activities; and staying within your own community as much as possible.

Of course, if you don't feel well, are displaying symptoms of COVID-19, are returning from travel outside of Canada, or you live in a household with someone who has COVID-19 or is showing symptoms of COVID – please stay home. If you choose to participate in physical activities outside the home, you are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19. For more information, about returning to sport, click here. And for more information about eating healthy and being active, click here and here.