Fitness, Flexibility, and Family: How Busy Moms Can Achieve Their Goals with Lucy-Anne Carney

In this episode, we chat with Lucy-Anne, a busy mom and former corporate powerhouse who made a bold leap from her demanding finance career to becoming an online fitness and nutrition coach. After 16 years in the corporate world, Lucy-Anne realized that her role as a major incident manager wasn’t compatible with the life she wanted for her new baby. Sound familiar?

Now, she specializes in helping people just like you—busy moms and working professionals—who struggle to find the time for fitness and nutrition in their hectic schedules. In this insightful conversation, Lucy-Anne shares her personal journey, from postpartum challenges to building a thriving fitness business around motherhood. She reveals practical tips for balancing fitness goals with a chaotic lifestyle, demystifies online fitness coaching, and provides realistic, sustainable strategies for eating well without giving up your favorite foods.

Whether you're looking to lose weight, gain strength, or simply carve out a little more time for self-care, this episode is packed with motivation and actionable advice. You’ll learn how to tailor fitness routines to fit your schedule, strategies to manage emotional eating, and how to make small, impactful changes to your diet without the pressure of restrictive diets. Tune in to discover how you can build a healthier, more balanced life—without sacrificing family time or burning out.

Get ready to be inspired, motivated, and equipped with the tools to thrive as a busy mom!

Get in touch with Lucy-Anne: https://linktr.ee/lucycarney?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=d2138419-5c65-42ab-83a5-4f1708cdba5f

Chapters

• 0:06 Transitioning to Online Fitness Training
• 9:54 Building Sustainable Nutrition and Fitness
• 19:21 Nutrition, Emotions, and Building Strength

Transcript

Cindy: 0:06

welcome back to the podcast now. I know it's been some time, but, as you can hear, my voice is still totally recovering from just back-to-back um, illness and then chaos, uh. So I just wanted to take a moment to check in. Welcome you into into this episode. It is going to be a really resourceful conversation. It was for me and this was pre-recorded so you don't have to worry about listening to my hideous voice in this state. So, without further ado, I want to introduce my guest for this podcast.

Cindy: 0:44

Her name is Lucy Ann. She is an online fitness and nutrition coach. As a new mother, she took the leap and switched from a high demanding finance role of 16 years, where she was a major incident manager and time management expert, to supporting clients achieve their health and fitness goals. She's now specializing in people just like you and I, with high demanding either jobs, lifestyles or a combination of just a lot of things where time is limited. So my conversation with Lucianne was truly valuable. I had it a few months ago and not only did I implement some of the things that she talks about in my life, but she really gives you the insight.

Cindy: 1:36

Look on what you might be missing in your fitness or your nutrition goals and or mentality. So I would suggest, after this episode, check her out. Her Instagram will be linked in all of our socials, but let's get started with the podcast and no worries, this voice will recover soon and we'll keep rolling, and I'm excited to have you on because you are essentially doing something that hits all of us and it should be hitting us if it's not which is nutrition and fitness. So I want to give you a second to kind of talk to me about your journey, where you started from transitioning into your corporate job and jumping into this brand new field that you're in yeah, okay, so thank you for having me on um.

Lucy-Anne: 2:34

So I worked in banking for 16 years, so basically straight out of school, and then, um, I, I was always training around it. I was always going to the gym and doing lots of cardio classes and things like that and trying to fit that in around what was quite a demanding job. And then a few years ago I competed in bodybuilding, which was really demanding, and so it's one of those things where you weren't just going to the gym once a day, you're going twice and you were very hungry and um, and had a lot of things going on personally at the same time. My um, my grandfather, passed away just before I competed. Um, but then, yeah, um, so I had a baby last year, uh, so I was working for the bank at that point and I was a major incident manager and I was only one of two for the whole bank.

Lucy-Anne: 3:33

They are quite a big bank in the UK. They're not that big in America, but they are one of the major, major five banks in the UK. So it was quite a demanding job in the UK. So it was quite a demanding job and whilst I was on my maternity leave, I kind of. I think it just having a baby shifts how you think about things, your priorities, everything totally changes and I kind of said to myself that I didn't think I would be able to go back and do that job to the same capacity. I didn't think I didn't feel that I would be able to be there to watch my daughter grow up in the way that I want and be able to give that career everything that you deserve, because it wasn't a nine to five job. You know the mobile banking app doesn't break between 9 a and 5pm, it breaks at seven o'clock at night when you're trying to do a bath time. Or you know companies going to administration at 6am in the morning and you know the bank needs you kind of thing.

Lucy-Anne: 4:32

So I decided that it was time to follow something I was passionate about, um, and that I would be able to do around my baby. So it was difficult because it meant that I had to study whilst I was still very early postpartum. I was doing going away and doing full days, training to learn to become a personal trainer and taking the breast pump with me and leave. Leaving the baby is a terrifying thing the first time she's left with her dad on their own, um. But yeah, it's good because, like I say, it fits around the baby and it fits around child care. And whilst I miss my corporate job and I loved that job I know that because of the challenges I'm having as a mother and you know, the day that she's sick and can't go to her grandparents or whatever I know that I feel like my corporate job wouldn't have been able to support that in the way that having online clients does.

Cindy: 5:30

That are a bit more flexible the one thing that I hear here, too, is so you're doing online fitness. Could you tell us a little bit? What is online fitness?

Lucy-Anne: 5:41

so, as I say, it works a lot better around the baby and my clients and everything. But the great thing about doing it online means I can support anyone all over the world, so they don't have to come to me, we don't have to go to a gym. Um, I write my clients a training program and their nutrition program and it's all in an app on your phone. So you all you have to do go to your play store or apple store, whatever your phone is, and you download my app and in there each week you put in your check-in, so you put in your pictures, you put in your measurements if you're trying to lose weight. That's how we track that and you let me know how you're feeling and how you're getting on with your training program and then I update your training program and in there it's got what your sessions look like. It estimates how long it should take you to do the sessions and in there you put in that you lifted, I don't know five kilogram dumbbells or 20 kilograms, whatever it is, so that we can track your progress to see that you're getting stronger and you're getting thinner. If that's your goal or if you're trying to put on weight, we can track it there as well.

Lucy-Anne: 6:49

So it's a really great way to be able to keep in touch with clients, and I give clients the option that they can have check-in calls with me. So we do it over zoom or teams or whatsapp, whatever works for them, um, but yeah it. It kind of helps for people that want to go to the gym at 4am, or they want to go to the gym at 10pm and having a personal trainer there doesn't work for them, or clients that um have worked with a personal trainer in the past and think I know what I'm doing. I just need to. I need some guidance on structuring my training programs, so they don't want someone there, but they want someone to tell them how to structure their training so that they're getting the best out of themselves yeah, and I'm gonna give you an example of so.

Cindy: 7:39

I have always paid for a membership to a gym, but I go maybe once I do the initial day that I paid for it, and maybe once every other month or um I'll switch it up. And we recently moved to Texas, um, in the in the US, and I there's this like sauna gym and it's called hot work, so I signed up for that and that's what I go to when a friend drags me out there. But other than that, I exactly what you're saying, like the, the schedule of trying to run to the gym you have to figure out childcare and the I'm going to be honest the anxiety of being in the gym with all of the equipment and, like I've thought about having. Maybe you know they sometimes offer personal trainers there, but I just feel kind of embarrassed sometimes of, like I'm going to ask them how do you use this equipment? Like it's just sometimes I think, like having.

Cindy: 8:40

I'm a solo learner, so I think I really like that. You work at people's pace and kind of interacting with them when they're ready to interact with you and your questions. Can you tell me a little bit about the people that that you're working with? Where have you found that they're getting the most results or what strategies are you using um with them that you're seeing there's some success?

Lucy-Anne: 9:10

um. So it's really good in that I'm able to build each client a very tailor-made program to them. So I've got some clients that, like you, will like you will go to the gym once and then not go again. So people like that. Sometimes I'll build them a training program that starts with I just want you to go for a 20 minute walk three times a week or you don't feel comfortable going into the gym, get some cheap dumbbells and we'll start working out at home and we'll build up to you going into the gym. The good thing about the app is we can record videos, and so there's demonstrations in there on how to use the equipment. But even if you are in the gym and it doesn't look like what's on the video, there's always going to be someone there to help you.

Lucy-Anne: 9:54

Um, one of my clients in particular she's someone. She came to me and she was like I really want to come and work with you, but I don't know that I can go to the gym three times a week. I've got two kids, I'm running my own business, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, and I worry that if I've got a training program and I only go once that week, I'm not going to get the results. So what I did for her was I built her a full body routine so that if she could only go once a week, or she can only go twice in a week, it's not like she's trained her legs and she hasn't trained her upper, or she's trained her biceps but she's not trained her triceps. So by having a full rounded routine for her, her whole body's still getting a workout, even if it's not as often as she would like. So she's still got that sense of accomplishment. Um, and you know I keep checking in with her and asking how she's doing and you know, sometimes she says, you know what those I've only been once this week like, yeah, but actually in six weeks she's lost nearly 10 kilograms, which is about 20 22 pounds. So she, she is making a difference. So what she's got to remember is okay, she's not always hitting it in that particular area, but she's sticking to the food she's doing, she's logging all the food in her app. She's um logging her weight and her pictures. So she's still got that sense of accountability, um, even though she's not able yet to get the balance in her life quite right.

Lucy-Anne: 11:23

Um, and what I've said to some clients, um, you know everyone's got extracurricular stuff. You know the kids have got cricket and football. While you're waiting for them, go for a walk around the football pitch, you know, and get your steps in that way, because a lot of my clients have got sit-down jobs. They sat at a desk for nine hour, eight, nine hours a day, so they're not burning the calories like someone that's running around after the kids are as much. So what I try and do for people like that is set them a step target. So try and get 80,000 steps a day and you know some of them do, like me. I've got a walking pad here like a little treadmill to keep in the office, to get my steps in. Or do simple things like don't go to the drive-thru for a coffee, get out of the car and walk to get your cup of coffee, things like things as simple as that. It all adds up like go and play football with the kids, you know, rather than sitting and watching.

Cindy: 12:19

I'm loving your approach because you didn't say don't go get the coffee, don't go through that. You said just a simple, like baby step, like get out of the car and walk in. And sometimes it can be daunting to think about changing your lifestyle all at once, and I think that's what draws us back, especially with nutrition at once. And I think that's what draws us back, especially with nutrition. And for me I'll overshare again I work from home all day and we, you know, have a little one so we don't go out as much.

Cindy: 12:51

Covid just scared us in general and now there's RSV and there's hand, foot and mouth disease, all these things out there. So we're definitely inside people. But what I started to look into was what's the best, you know, nutrition plan that I could kind of work with. And there's so many like fad or like things that it gets really confusing. You know, I went from maybe I'll do the like Mediterranean diet or maybe I'll do keto and then after like being like this is not sustainable, like I can't just eating this, now I'm on intermittent fasting, which I'll say has been helpful but still is difficult. There's always a challenge what is your take as a nutritionist? Where do you start people off. Where can people take their first step to think about nutrition?

Lucy-Anne: 13:54

I would say don't restrict yourself. Don't say I'm going to cut out carbs or I'm gonna cut out chocolate. It just does not work. If you are someone that every, every other day, has a bar of chocolate candy, um, then saying I'm not gonna have any will not work for you, because it takes it takes 21 days to make a change, become a habit. So you need to start off very little little things like focus on adding more fiber into your diet. So whole wheat, whole grains, you know, oats, brown bread, rice, things like that, stuff that's going to fill you up so that you're going to be less inclined to go and grab a bar of chocolate. And, um, what I do with my clients is I don't give them a massive calorie deficit, because if you do that, you're either gonna end up in a binge restrict cycle or you're gonna end up, um, you'll just fall off the wagon completely and go. Do you know what? I can't do this? Try and make it so that you're having a little bit of what you like every day. So, um, I've got a terrible sweet tooth. You know I'm guilty of it, but I'll go. Do you know what? I'll be good all day and then at the on my evening I'll have a little bit of dark chocolate with my yogurt, and that makes me feel a little bit better. I've been really good, you know, um and my app.

Lucy-Anne: 15:20

What I've done is I've taken some time to put in a lot of recipes that appeal to people, so there's like a healthy cheeseburger in there, there's fish and chips, there's chicken and leek pie, sausage, mac and cheese, and it's all food that's healthy, nutritious, but it tastes just like you're getting a takeaway, and a lot of it is. It serves two people or it serves four people, so you can feed the family, because that's the other thing. If mum or dad suddenly decides I'm gonna eat chicken and rice for the next six weeks, well, if that was my plan, I'd be like fine, you cook it, because I ain't cooking one meal for you and one for me and one for the baby. We either all eat together or we don't eat. I ain't cooking for 10 different people. Do you know?

Lucy-Anne: 16:03

Having a meal plan that works, that you can all eat, that you can eat as a family is, is really key to it, and that's why I think a lot of my clients are able to stick to what I'm prescribing them, because they haven't got to cook one meal for themselves and the rest of the family something else, and they sit there eating chicken and rice while everyone else is having a pizza. You know there's options. There's pizzas in the app. You know that you can make and even if there isn't something in the app that you like, you can factor in those calories. You can build your calories to fit that.

Lucy-Anne: 16:38

So as long as you are hitting your macros, you're hitting your protein, you're hitting your overall calories that keep you, for example, in a deficit. There's no reason why you can't have a pizza. You know you can't have something that you enjoy. Goals is exactly what we're aiming for and it makes it more of a lifestyle rather than a six week fad diet. Or you know, things like keto and atkins, things that cut out particular micro or macro nutrients, do not work for people. They're not sustainable. They might work for six weeks. You know if you're like I've got to get into that dress or I've got to get into that bikini, but once you've got into that bikini, chance to are you're just going to eat it all again. You're just going to start all over again and find yourself in the same place you were before.

Cindy: 17:27

Yeah, and that's such a great approach to behavior because when you think about it, you know if we are. I'll speak just for me. I've lived 25 years choosing and picking and feeding myself. I'm going to give myself the grace of my parents dictated to all this baby seven what I ate and then after that it was all me. But we have these habits that we've had for such a long time and the thought behind of like I'm just gonna flip the switch today on everything. It's just unrealistic and maybe some people can do it and they have the extreme discipline to go through. But um, it doesn't seem like it's. It's at least I want to believe it's not just me, it's not.

Lucy-Anne: 18:18

It's not sustainable. You can't go from nothing to everything. You can't go from whatever your diet is and whatever your training routine is to something completely different. It's just not achievable. I think it really does help sometimes when your kids are at the age that they are trying new foods or you're weaning them. Because you want to give your kids the best start, you want to ingrain in them good habits and good eating habits and lots of different foods so it makes you eat better. And the thing is my daughter's at the age now where if I'm eating a biscuit it's getting taken out of my hand and someone else is eating it. So I want to eat better so that she's better. I think it's.

Lucy-Anne: 18:58

It's a really important time when a kid's growing up that they develop these good habits around food and even things as simple as don't watch the tv. When, when you're eating because you're not listening to your body tell you when it's full you're watching the TV, so many of us will put us kids in front of the TV just so that we can cram food down the mouth without noticing it. When they're tiny and they're weaning, chances are they weren't hungry. That's why they're not eating it. That's why they're not picking at it themselves.

Lucy-Anne: 19:27

You know their diets, their hunger changes so much at that age. Their diets, their, their hunger changes so much at that age. But we really need to listen to them when they go, when they're just pushing it away and flicking it off the high chair. They just didn't want it and they need to know their bodies and we need to respect that. But we need to listen to our bodies too. What's your body saying? Is your body full? Chances are it is. Give yourself a minute, or give yourself 20 minutes before you go back seconds, because chances are you're full, but your body's not told you yet yeah, yeah, I, I, I understand that more than I care to admit.

Cindy: 20:05

Uh, especially with my son, he, for the longest time, you know, we would set the food out and we would have our time and it was, we were on a routine and he wouldn't eat it and it would sit there and it would sit there and then he would just grab the celery and just start eating. And you know, it's just one of those things where, like, you get to have a flashback or at least, um, if you knew in the past or some parents may have never known you know your body will kind of tell you what you need, what nutrients you need, what you know if you're hungry, at least for them. I hope my signals are clearer for me as an adult. The last thing I wanted to kind of throw out there, to get your thoughts on really quick so, is the connection that people have with their food and their emotions.

Cindy: 20:58

Right now that I'm doing this intermittent fasting, I let's say, go maybe like 20 hours where I'm just like I'm not going to eat. I'll eat, you know the four hour window, but what I did notice during that time is that when I'm stressed or when I'm sad or whatever it is, there's a void that I used to fill, probably, with, like running downstairs and picking up something quick and you know telling my husband like, oh, I just had this really rough call and right now it's not, it's not there and so and so it made it more aware is there? Is there a quick tip that you kind of help people with when navigating, separating the two, I mean, other than you know, go to therapy but, um, I think it's.

Lucy-Anne: 21:47

I would say you need to take the time to consider what that emotion is and what is it that eating that cookie is going to give you. So, cookies, chocolate candy, it's. It's giving you that happy hormone, it's giving you the oxytocin. And is there something else that you could do in that moment that could give you that? Could you go and give your child a hug? Or could you just go outside and stand in the garden for 10 minutes and just try and ground yourself, center yourself and go? Do you know what that was? A really rough, crappy call. Let's just have a minute and just come back to myself before I go in and deal with whatever that is.

Lucy-Anne: 22:25

And sometimes, just distraction, just distract yourself, um, because you're not hungry. You're just wanting a hormonal hug, really aren't you? That's what you're wanting, um. So is there something else that you can do that makes you happy? Um, or releases the frustration, you know? Can you go and scream into a pillow because that conference call didn't go well and that guy wasn't listening? Or, like, say, you can go and give your kid a hug, go and get out into nature for five minutes, or having a herbal tea, just just sitting with a cup of tea, just doing that, just releasing it, releasing it from your shoulders, releasing it from your brow that's got all stressed where you, where you're holding all the tension and just feel your body. Allow yourself to feel your body, sometimes just touching along your face, along your brow, and just being able to be a little bit more present in your body than in your head. Just to bring that connection back a little bit.

Cindy: 23:29

Those are really great tips. I'm learning a lot and I'm going to re-evaluate things you know, because there are some things you can't know it all right, like I think that's what, as busy moms, you can't figure it all out all at once. We weren't born with it. You learn it, um, and to that point, I want to give you the chance to tell us about one, your app, because I want to know the name of it to see if I it downloads for me, um. And then any projects that you have in the future, or anything that you want our listeners to kind of um, know about. You look into, uh, and and reach out to you yeah, um.

Lucy-Anne: 24:13

So best place to reach out to me is through my instagram, which is the busy fitness coach. So I'm what it says on the tin. I'm the coach for people that are very busy, um, and from there, if people are interested in working with me and we can have a chat from there and then we can talk about the app and how I can support them. And one of the projects I'm working on at the minute, based on how my current clients are getting on, is I'm just building a winter program for clients. So it's a 12-week program which launches on the 19th of September, um, but you can put your name down for the 18th of August, um, and it is a 12-week program and it's about building muscle. It's, um, not for people wanting to cut. It's about building some strength, some muscle.

Lucy-Anne: 25:10

It's ideal for people that you know want to have a great Christmas and Thanksgiving and be able to enjoy the food without having to restrict themselves. Um, as I say, it's like, um you'd be focusing on your macros and your protein and getting those really high, um, and just building some strength up in the gym. So what we do on the first week is test your strength and then have a program that is built for 12 weeks and then the week before Christmas we test you again to see how strong you've got. And, as I say, it's people that are wanting to build rather than having to over restrict, because, let's face it, that time of year no one's wanting to get skinny. We're all wanting to enjoy the Christmas food and enjoy the um, but still be able to keep fit and strong. So it'll help people kick off the next year in a really positive way, in a really strong way, and then we can get slim in January that's the cycle, right.

Cindy: 26:08

It's like enjoy gain game and then try to lose. Lose and I and it makes sense that it is because for building muscle you need to eat, is what I hear. So it works out food is fuel. That's the main thing so it's a good time to re, re-energize and re-inspire. But thank you so much for spending this time with us and thank you for having me yeah, and to our listeners uh, check the box below the description will have all of lissy's social media handles um and any contact info. And till next time.