Uncategorized Archives - Winterberry Family Medicine

As cooler weather approaches, so does respiratory virus season — and Winterberry is here to help our patients stay protected.
Starting Saturday, October 18, our Winterberry Flu, RSV and Covid-19 Vaccine Clinics will run every Saturday, making it easier than ever for our patients to get vaccinated on a day that fits their schedule.

📅 Saturday Vaccine Clinics Begin: October 18th
📍 Location: Winterberry Family Medicine – Upper Centennial Location Only
📞 To book: Call 905-575-9004 to schedule your appointment

Why Vaccination Matters
Respiratory illnesses such as influenza (flu), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and COVID-19 are expected to circulate widely again this fall. Getting vaccinated helps reduce your risk of serious illness, hospitalization, and complications — especially important for older adults and individuals with underlying health conditions.

According to Hamilton Public Health, these viruses spread more easily in cooler months when people spend more time indoors. Vaccines, along with healthy habits like good hand hygiene and staying home when you’re unwell, remain your best defence against severe illness.

Learn more about these vaccines and respiratory illnesses on the City of Hamilton website:
🔗 Respiratory Illnesses – Hamilton Public Health

Stay Well This Fall and Winter
Vaccination is one of the simplest ways to protect yourself, your loved ones, and your community.
If you’re due for a flu shot, RSV vaccine, or COVID-19 booster, we encourage you to book an appointment.

📞 Call us at 905-575-9004 to schedule your Saturday appointment.
Together, we can help keep our community healthy and strong all season long.

At Winterberry Physiotherapy, we’re dedicated to Helping you Live your Best Life.

We know that excellent care starts with an excellent team. Our clinic brings together physiotherapists, a chiropractor, massage therapists, and strong administrative support — all working together to help you move, heal, and live well.

Here are the dedicated professionals who make up our team:
Abagail – Physiotherapist
Joshua – Physiotherapist
Joya – Physiotherapist
Tani – Physiotherapist
Mike – Chiropractor
Caitlynn – Registered Massage Therapist (RMT)
Manpreet – Registered Massage Therapist (RMT)
Sydney – Administrator

Why Our Team Matters
Each member of our team plays an important role in supporting your recovery and long-term wellness. By combining different areas of expertise, we’re able to offer comprehensive, coordinated care that fits your needs. Whether you’re here for physiotherapy, chiropractic or massage therapy, you’ll find a team that is professional, approachable, and focused on helping you feel your best.

What to Expect
From the moment you walk in, you’ll be welcomed and supported. Our administrative staff ensures everything runs smoothly, while our clinical team works with you to assess your needs, design a plan, and guide you through recovery. Because we’re a multidisciplinary team, you’ll have access to different treatment options under one roof.

Here for You
We’re proud of the care we deliver — and even prouder of the people who make it possible. The Winterberry Physiotherapy team is here to help you move better, feel stronger, and live with confidence.

We invite you to book an appointment, meet our team, and see firsthand how we can support your health and well-being.
365-218-0088 or email us at physio@winterberrymedical.ca

For weight loss, it’s all in the timing.

When we’re trying to lose weight, we tend to focus on the what and the how. As in what should we eat and how should we adjust our behavior. After all, nothing has proven to be more effective than a healthy combination of diet and exercise. But it means that we tend to overlook the when of our diets. And for many of our body’s most important functions, timing is everything.

Nearly every organism on the planet lives their lives on a 24-hour cycle of waking and sleeping. This is what’s known as the circadian rhythm — it governs our metabolism, restores our energy, and structures our days. Doctors have known about the connections between our circadian rhythm and our health for centuries, and its effects on weight loss have long been a focus of study.

The conventional wisdom is that we shouldn’t eat right before going to bed if we want to lose weight. We can’t burn those calories in our sleep, right? Well, yes and no. It turns out that an early dinner can be a very good thing, but not necessarily for the reasons you might think.

Last year, scientists found that by aligning mealtimes with your circadian rhythm, your metabolism doesn’t burn more calories — but it does reduce appetite and burn more fat. People who ate breakfast at 8 a.m. and dinner at 2 p.m. produced less ghrelin, the hormone that causes hunger, and had higher rates of fat-burning than people who ate breakfast at 8 a.m. and dinner at 8 p.m. In other words, eating when we’re most active rather than when our bodies are winding down.

The longer period of fasting (18 hours versus 12) seems to have a noticeable impact. Not only was hunger reduced, but hunger pangs were more reliable, evenly spread out and easily anticipated. The fat-loss seems to come from increased oxidation, which is also tied to our metabolism. More study into the science behind this is necessary, but what it tells us so far is quite valuable.

This practice of Early Time-Restricted Feeding (ETRF), a type of Intermittent Fasting, could be a useful tool for people working to lose weight as well as their physicians. Anyone who’s struggled with obesity knows that appetite is a major challenge to sustainable change. Controlling or suppressing appetite without the use of medication or surgery can be a major supplement to the rest of your regimen.

Of course, it’s not easy to just move your dinnertime ahead by six hours. We tend to schedule our lives to match the people around us, and it’s hard to tell the rest of the family to get ready for dinner at 1:30 in the afternoon. But the principle of ETRF is still handy, and it can be adjusted to fit your lives. With the unconventional schedules that COVID-19 has introduced for so many of us, now could be a good time to give it a try.

If you are struggling to lose weight effectively, have a conversation with your doctor about developing a mealtime schedule that puts your circadian rhythm to work.