In a studio segment celebrating National Women’s Health Month, host Speaker A interviews Reena Vokoun, founder and CEO of PassionFit. Reena highlights alarming 2026 U.S. women's health statistics—over 40% obesity, 60% risk of cardiovascular disease, and double the depression rates of men—emphasizing the need for proactive physical and mental care. She demonstrates three light, Pilates‑style compound movements using small weights: an outer‑thigh leg lift with overhead press, plié squats with arm fan, and curtsy lunges combined with bicep curls, explaining the targeted muscle groups (outer thighs, core, glutes, hips, spine, arms). After the workout, she recommends a post‑exercise snack of Greek yogurt mixed with berries and cashews, detailing its probiotic, protein, antioxidant, and healthy‑fat benefits, and advises eating within 30–60 minutes to aid muscle recovery and overall energy. Reena promotes PassionFit’s website (passionfit.com) and an upcoming three‑part YouTube video series on quick workouts, nutrition, and wellness. The segment concludes with a contest to win tickets to a Pink concert supporting CuraBound, and acknowledges sponsors CuraBound, TrueCare, The Travel Mom, PassionFit, and SDCCU.
Chapters
Let's just keep talking about our health, specifically women's health. Reena, we couldn't think of anybody invite— better to have in studio to talk about women's health because you are the founder and CEO of PassionFit. Tell me why May is so important.
Yeah, May is National Women's Health Month, and while we've talked about women's health on the show many times, I think this month in particular is just a great national reminder for women to focus on their physical and mental health. According to research, the obesity rate for women in the US as of early 2026 is over 40%. Wow. Women are— 6 in 10 women are most likely to be impacted by cardiovascular disease, and women are twice as likely as men to suffer from depression. But it doesn't have to be that way. And I want to show women that they can do physical exercises that can also help them with their breathing and their mental health and moods, and then also post-workout recovery snacks that can help feed their brain and their body.
Okay, wonderful. Well, normally I jump into these exercises with Reena Vokoun, but today there was just no time with all the running around we've been doing. I got my exercise in. Why don't you show us one of the first moves we can all do, and hopefully everybody at home has a small pair of weights.
Yeah, exactly. And there's a time and place for heavy weightlifting for women, so this though is going to be a little bit different. So we're gonna focus on light weights doing Pilates-style exercises. The first is going to be an outer thigh leg lift with an overhead press. So you're gonna start with your feet together. You're gonna bring those weights overhead and you're gonna lift your leg and lower the weights. You're gonna point your toes down towards the floor and really pull in your core. So this move is working your outer thighs, your core, and your glutes.
Excellent form, if I do say so myself, Reena. You always look amazing. Uh, you wanted to show us how to Plié squats as well.
Yes, plié squats. So these are squats where you start in, for any of you that have taken ballet, second position. You start from the hips, turn your hips, legs, and knees and toes out, and then what you're gonna do is you'll be coming up in a relevé, which means you'll be on the balls of your feet. So you're gonna come down into that squat and you're gonna fan the arms up. So you come down, plié squat, and then fan those arms, really using your upper body, your torso, your core, your glutes, and spine. I'll do one more just to demo. Come all the way up and down.
It's killing me not being able to participate with you today because these all look like such great movements. Okay, what about the curtsy lunges?
Yeah, so we're gonna do bicep curls and curtsy lunges. So these are compound— all of these are compound exercises because we always don't have a lot of time, right? So we're going to step behind and do that bicep curl with the curtsy lunge and then go behind on the other side. So your knees and toes stay in the same direction. You pull in the core and bring those weights up to shoulder height.
Well, one thing I can— I know, good, good job. One thing I can participate in is a snack. Uh, tell me a little bit about the post-workout recovery snacks because what you eat is just as important as how much you move, right? What do we have here?
Absolutely. So after we get that workout in, we do our lateral breathing exercises. This is a Greek yogurt mix berry and cashew mix here. So what you're getting here is probiotics with the Greek yogurt, calcium and protein, antioxidants with the blueberries and the raspberries, and healthy fats with the cashews.
Oh my gosh, that looks so good. Um, is there like a, a window with when you should eat after a workout, or is it just when you feel hungry? What can you— what kind of advice can you give us for the snack?
Yeah, that's a great question. So you do want to eat usually within that first 30 to 60 minutes after the workout to really replenish your muscles, especially getting protein, getting energy again back into the body after you've used up a lot of energy, and just getting those healthy carbohydrates as well through the fruit. So I definitely would recommend, yeah, you don't want to do a hard workout and then just not eat or drink water either. You want to hydrate and get that nice post-workout recovery snack. And again, this is good for the gut health, the brain health, and just overall energy.
Yeah, I know everybody who watches regularly knows I never shy away from eating on camera, but our photographer, Jesus, said how delicious this looks, so I'm saving it for you.
Yes.
He's carrying a very heavy camera around. If people want to stay in the know, website real quick?
Yeah, passionfit.com, and I'm excited to share I'm working with my team on creating a 3-part video series for the PassionFit YouTube channel starting this summer. So there'll be 3 sets of videos that come out once a month with quick workouts, nutrition tips, and then there'll be overall wellness and work-life balance tips.
Cool, congratulations! Well, we'll look forward to that, and guess what, you guys? You're going to look forward to something else right now. If you missed the beginning of our show, we are giving away tickets to see Pink. All you have to do is head to fox5sandiego.com and head to the contest area, and you could see Pink Friday, May 15th, all to support CuraBound and their efforts to raise money for cancer research that all stays local. All right, thank you for watching today. We also want to thank our sponsors. There they are: CuraBound, TrueCare, The Travel Mom, PassionFit, and of course SDCCU. Have a great day.
