Foster Health

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Foster Health

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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.

10/13/2026

One of the simplest health habits takes less than two minutes, and you can do it anywhere.

In this video, I share the 5-5-7 breath: inhale for 5, hold for 5, exhale for 7. The longer exhale tells your body it is safe to slow down.
That helps you move out of stress mode before a meal, after a long day, or before sleep.

It is one of five small habits we will practise together at my free webinar, Too Busy to Be Healthy?
Proven health habits that work, even on your busiest days.

Join me Thursday, October 15, at 12:00 pm MT on Zoom. Everyone who registers will receive the replay.
Link to register in the comments.

10/12/2026

Something I keep coming back to since straining my back at the gym: every healthy behaviour has a point where more starts working against you.

→ More exercise becomes less healthy. Push past what you can recover from, and you end up with injury, poorer sleep and time off.

→ More food becomes less energy. A big, heavy lunch on a busy day leaves you sluggish rather than fuelled.

→ More work becomes less productivity. Long hours look like commitment, but over time they show up as fatigue and mistakes.

→ More stress becomes less performance. A bit of pressure can help you focus. Pressure with no recovery is how burnout builds.

→ More information becomes less clarity. Another podcast, another article, another plan. If none of it gets acted on, it's just noise.

None of this means doing less of everything. It's about knowing where your line is.

I see this most with health plans in busy seasons. When life gets full, a lot of us decide the answer is a bigger plan. New routine, earlier alarm, three new habits at once. Then one rough week hits, it all falls apart, and we file it under "too busy to be healthy."

The fix is usually smaller than we think. One habit, attached to something you already do, small enough to survive your busiest day.

That's what I'll cover in a free one-hour webinar on Thursday, October 15 at 12:00 pm MT (2:00 pm ET). It's online, so you can join from your lunch break, and you'll leave with a 12-month health goal and a first small habit ready to start the next day.

Which one of these "more becomes less" moments feels closest to home for you right now?

10/07/2026

How many of us keep saying, "I'll get back to healthy habits when things calm down"?

I said it for years. In 25 years of healthcare improvement, I never had a job anyone had held before me. I was the first Leader of Integration, the first Director of Quality Improvement and the first VP of Quality Improvement. None of these roles came with a map, and the work improved care for whole populations. I was honoured to be part of it.

So yes, I sometimes put my own health on hold. I expected it to be temporary. I trusted my body to wait for me.

It didn't. Stress, eating on the go and skipping workouts do matter. Our bodies don't care about deadlines. Health isn't a place we arrive and stay. It's built on everyday habits.

A lot of us plan for the week we hope to have. Then new demands and interruptions show up, and our good intentions get pushed aside. Here are three ideas that help habits hold up anyway.

Use a cue. Attach the new habit to something you already do every day: after you pour your morning coffee, when you park the car, as you close your laptop. The cue does the remembering for you.
Start with a mini-habit. Two minutes of stretching. One glass of water. Two flights of stairs. Make it small enough for your busiest day. Doing it consistently starts to change how you see yourself, as someone who follows through. Build up once it's steady.
One habit at a time. Habits take longer to settle in than we expect, and that's normal. Trying three new ones at once can get overwhelming fast. Pick one, track it, and add the next only when the first feels like part of your normal routine.

This week I'm wrapping up my Health Habits Beta Bootcamp. The participants are busy, well-informed people, and these simple supports still made a real difference for them. I'd like more people to have access to this, so I'm hosting a free webinar.

Too Busy to Be Healthy? (free, one hour, online)
Thursday, October 15
12:00 pm MT / 2:00 pm ET
Join from your lunch break

Link to join in the comments

You'll leave with your own Health Habit Trail: a 12-month health goal that matters to you, and a first small habit ready to start the next day.

So I'm curious: what's one small habit you've managed to keep, even in a busy season? Share it below. Your answer might help someone else get started.

10/05/2026

Are you too busy to be healthy? You're not alone.

So many of us know what we should be doing for our health. It's fitting it in between work, family, and everything else that's hard.

On Thursday, October 15 at 12:00 pm MT, I'm hosting a free one-hour webinar to help with exactly that. We'll talk about simple, evidence-based ways to build habits that hold up when life gets busy, and everyone will leave with their own Health Habit Trail mapped out: a 12-month goal and a first small habit to start the next day.

It's free, it's one hour, and you can join from your lunch break.

You can register with the link in the comments

Please share with anyone who's been saying "when things calm down…"

10/01/2026

Have you come across Choosing Wisely?

It's an international movement that encourages patients and clinicians to have honest conversations about unnecessary tests and treatments. In Canada, Choosing Wisely Canada works with clinical societies to name the tests and treatments in their own fields that often aren't needed.

I really like this idea because it pushes back on something most of us believe without questioning. More testing feels like more certainty. More treatment feels like more care. But too many diagnostics and too many interventions can create their own problems: follow-up tests for findings that didn't matter, side effects from treatments that weren't needed, and a lot of worry along the way.

It got me thinking about how we manage our own health, too.

When a lot of us decide to get serious about our health, we add. A new supplement, a stricter plan, another app to track something. Each one feels responsible on its own. Together, they can become more than anyone can keep up with.

Sometimes the better move is to take something away and see what actually matters.

More isn't automatically better. In medicine, or in our own lives.

Has a clinician ever told you that you didn't need a test or treatment you expected? How did that conversation land for you?

09/29/2026

Ever heard of Exercise Snacks?

An exercise snack is a short burst of movement attached to something you already do. Every time I go to the kitchen for water, I do a minute or two of wall push-ups or squats. When I started, I did my squats from the couch.

Those small bursts add up: better blood sugar regulation, better cardiovascular markers, more energy. And the next time you want a pick-me-up, movement can do the job a food snack usually does.

Pick one to start with and notice how it builds through the day.

09/28/2026

A bit of honesty from me this week.

A few weeks ago I got a little too confident at the gym. I felt strong, so I added extra weight. And I strained my back.

More wasn't better. More became less.

I'll admit there's some irony here. I spend my days helping people build small, sustainable habits, and I did the exact thing I'd gently steer anyone else away from. Feeling strong convinced me the next step should be a bigger one.

I have a feeling a lot of us do this. Something starts working and the instinct is to add. More reps, more rules, more hours, more effort. If a little is good, surely more is better.

But it doesn't always work that way.
Not for our bodies, and not for our habits.
I see it in healthcare, where more tests and treatments don't always lead to better care.
I see it at work, where longer hours slowly turn into less focus.
And I see it when people try to change everything at once, and that big start becomes the reason they stop.

More effort doesn't always mean better results. Sometimes it means the opposite.

Has this happened to you? Where has doing more ended up giving you less?

09/25/2026

A few weeks ago I opened this series with a physician's voice in my head: "Please don't get diabetes."

Since then I have shared the stroke research, the diabetes trial where lifestyle beat medication, the dementia risk factors, and the way blood pressure and weight quietly connect to so much else. Underneath all of it is one thing I believe more now than when I started. Most of what determines whether we get a first chronic condition, or a next one, is more within our control than it feels in the moment of a diagnosis.

I am determined to prevent chronic disease for as long as I possibly can. I built Foster Health, and this Bootcamp, to help other people do the same.

This cohort is underway. There will be another.

If you have been following along, I would like to know which piece stayed with you. The stroke numbers, the diabetes trial, the dementia research, or something else entirely?

Comment HABITS and I will add you to the waitlist for the next Health Habits Beta Bootcamp.

09/23/2026

Something I am already hearing from this Bootcamp cohort: several people joined not to prevent a first diagnosis, but to stop a second one.

That is exactly who this was built for too.

A lot of us are already managing something. If that is you, whether it is hypertension, arthritis or another chronic condition, prevention does not disappear from your story. It shifts to preventing what comes next.

The same peer-accountability model that has helped chronic disease self-management programmes succeed for more than 25 years is built into every week here. A small group, a specific plan, and people who notice when you show up.

Managing what you have well is one of the most protective things you can do for what you do not have yet.

I am curious about this one. If you are managing a condition, has anyone ever talked with you about protecting against the next one, or has the focus mostly stayed on the one you have?

This cohort is underway, but comment HABITS and I will add you to the list for the next one.

09/22/2026

Today is a good day to take a look at your own health support system.

A 2025 WHO report found that 60% of avoidable deaths from chronic disease trace back to a small set of everyday, changeable factors. Not rare conditions. Not bad luck. The same handful of levers show up across nearly every major chronic disease: blood pressure, movement, eating, sleep and stress.

Foster Health works through those levers one at a time:

How to start
How to add a new habit area
How to sustain it
How it connects across conditions
And how to build the support that makes it actually stick.

If you have been following along here these last few weeks, you have seen the stroke research, the diabetes trial, the dementia risk factors, and the "please don't get diabetes" moment that started all of this for me.

This is where it turns from reading into doing.

The Health Habits Beta Bootcamp has started.

So, a question for all of us, whether you are joined or not.

Who is in your health support system right now- the people who would notice if you let something slide?

Address

Calgary, AB

Telephone

+15872244468

Website

http://www.fosterhealth.ca/

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