An appology?

Just recently I was asked to apologize for a blog I had written some time ago about holding ourselves accountable to our families, especially our children, when it comes to our overall health. In this blog I also called out men to step up to the plate and get themselves in much better shape than they are currently in, because our future generations only follow our lead and if we are in poor health, it doesn’t give them much hope of achieving much more. How embarrassing is it when you have to have someone else teach your children how to ride a bike or have someone else teach your children the fundamentals of a given sport that maybe you participated in when you were younger. How embarrassing is it when your children follow after other famous athletes because, well, you just don’t cut the mustard any more.
Well, an apology I will not give and here are my reasons why…


• In this life we have made it so that anyone who challenges another to improve on anything is shunned and told that being average is all we need to shoot for. Imagine if our past generations had settled for just being average where we would be today, or not be for that matter. Imagine if MLK did not step out and just accepted the fate of people of color or if JFK decided that going to the moon was just not possible. Many laughed at those men but look at where their efforts have brought us to.


• In this life of political correctness anyone who brings up the possibility of controversy, so that we don’t’ create waives, we are told to just agree to disagree, no matter how wrong the other person may be. “In this life my kids are going to be tempted by people who are going to want them to drink alcohol socially. So that I can keep control over their habits I will allow them to drink only at home while I am here. It doesn’t matter if they are under age. They are going to do it anyway.” Or “Johnny has a girlfriend and I know if he hasn’t done it yet he will be soon so I think I will just give him condoms so that he could practice safe sex.” What is fundamentally wrong with these two statements? Are we just to smile and agree to disagree? I think not! I hope Not!


• I have been told that as a Christian I need to be sensitive to others feelings and always show compassion and kindness. Strange, in my bible I don’t always see that. In my bible I see people being called out to follow Christ and walk towards the light and truth. I see people standing steadfast on their belief that there is only one way to Heaven. I don’t ever remember reading a verse that says, “There are many ways to Heaven and as long as you are a good person and do good to others and don’t hurt anyone you will get in.” I think my Bible says that there is only ONE way to heaven and that is thru Christ Jesus not any other way. I must have a bad edition.


With that said, I stand by my writings. We have become a fat and lazy society and we are losing our ability to be the power house we once were. Going towards the norm and feeling comfortable there should not be even a thought because every year our norms diminish quicker and quicker. Oh, you don’t believe me? We have more people now with Type 2 diabetes than ever before. Taking medications are no longer an exception but the norm just to keep us alive. High cholesterol and High blood pressure have become objects of common dinner conversations as we compare whose blood pressure or cholesterol are higher. Now I am suppose to apologize for stating that we all need to get off our fat butts and get moving. I am suppose to apologize for holding my generation accountable for the illnesses of our children and generations to come. I think not, nor will I ever.


My blogs are meant to motivate you to make a difference in your own life and health. My blogs are to make you feel uneasy with your current situation. My blogs are to make you want to prove to me that I am wrong and that we aren’t as bad as I think we are. I WANT YOU TO PROVE ME WRONG! I DARE YOU!


I will apologize for one thing though… for not writing this earlier. For that I am sorry.

The Holidays

Well we are coming up on the holidays and it is the time when we give thanks for all the blessing we have received. It’s time to be with family and friends and make good memories and share good laughs. It’s a time to give to others and receive from others. But it also the time when glutteny, over endulgence and weigh gain show their ugly faces. The question I want to answer is what we need to do to enjoy the holidays without being a joy-kill.


It’s not fun when you have all that food right in front of you and then when you eat it you feel guilty. What should you do so that you can eat all you want to eat and not gain a single pound. The answer is… right before you eat and right after the meal, get active. Now I am not saying go to the gym and get in a 2 hours session, but what I am saying is after you eat, take your family on a walk or go play some football in the back yard. Play some inter-active game on PS2. Do something that will allow your body to use the fuel (food) you consumed. By doing this you may not experience the weight gain like most Americans do at this time and you may just create memories that will last you a life time.


Now go enjoy your holiday season...

Desire-Temptation-Effort-Results

I was sitting in Sunday school the other day and the teacher was talking about the progression that we go thru when it comes to sin and its outcome. What I believe he said in a nut shell is that no one I know wakes up in the morning looking to sin and there needs to be steps before anyone person really sins. They are desire and temptation then sin and finally that leads to death.

Desire is the ability to think about something or someone and we want to follow thru with that thought. Once that desire has been dwelled upon for a period of time, it births temptation. Now we all know what temptation is. Our desires weaken our ability to stand strong against what we know to be wrong and when we dwell enough on that thing, we become tempted to act upon those thoughts. Those thoughts once acted upon breed’s sin. Now some people think that just the thought breeds the sin and there are bible verses to substantiate that claim however, even with that said the thought once acted upon definitely breed’s sin and once sin has fully matured in us there is only one outcome and it is never good.

Now I am not a Pastor but a Certified Personal Trainer so let me see if I can put my opening statement another way. Desire, the willingness to think and dwell on the promise of getting in better shape and once we dwell on this thought long enough we become tempted enough to try and put in action those desires (every January for most Americans, hint hint). Now not acting on those desires breeds sin. As much as we don’t want to admit it, anything we do to the body that harms the body in any way is a sin against the body and thus is sin in the eyes of God. Don’t kid yourself it is. If you smoke or are addicted to drugs or drink excessive alcohol or over eat you are sinning against the body and we all know where that will lead us and it’s not good.

But there is a fork in the road at temptation. There is a decision that one needs to make. If you want to sin and keep on sinning then take the road most traveled to the left and continue but please note that we all know where that will lead us in the end. However, if we want to take the road least traveled then go to the right and understand that this road leads us to a quality of life that will be the envy of most people. There you will find a physical freedom that is very hard to put into words. But I will tell you that this road has no medications, we are able to do anything we wish to do without physical limitations and in the end this road leads us to a great quality of life. Yes, a life worth living.

Thanks for the Bible lesson Titus!

Being Average

Average adult Americans are about one inch taller, but nearly a whopping 25 pounds heavier than they were in 1960, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The bad news, says CDC is that average BMI (body mass index, a weight-for-height formula used to measure obesity) has increased among adults from approximately 25 in 1960 to 28 in 2002 and now in 2013 it is 34.

Meanwhile, the average weight for men aged 20-74 years rose dramatically from 166.3 pounds in 1960 to now pushing 240 pounds in 2013 , while the average weight for women the same age increased from 140.2 pounds in 1960 to now in 2013 an average weight of 180 pounds. Here are some more average facts;

• Men in their 40- 49 age group weigh 35 pounds more now in 2013 than their counter parts of the 1960’s.
• Men in their 50-59 age group weigh the same 35 pounds more than their counter parts of the 1960’s.
• Men in their 60-69 age group weigh 40 pounds heavier than their counter parts of the 1960’s.
• Women in their 40 – 49 age group weigh 35 pounds heavier than their counter parts of the 1960’s.
• Women in their 50-59 age group weigh 39 pounds heavier than their counter parts of the 1960’s.
• Women in their 60-69 age group weigh 15 pounds heavier than their counter parts of the 1960’s.

Here are some troubling statistics I have read from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

The average 10 year old boy weighed 74.3 pounds in 1963 and now a ten year old boy in 2013 weighs an average of 105 pounds. The average 10 year old girl in 1963 weighed 77.4 pounds and now in 2013 that average is 84 pounds. The average 15 year old boy in 1966 weighed 153 pounds and today in 2013 that has skyrocketed to 170 pounds and the average girl at age 15 has gone from 124.2 pounds in 1966 to now 140 pounds in 2013.

Now not to over dramatize anything, yes the height of a 10 year old has increased but insignificant compared to the weigh in percentages. In 1963 the height of a male age 10 was 55.2 inches now it is 55.7 inches and for a female of the same age 55.5 inches as compared to 57.2 inches today.

As for the 15 year old boys they have gone from 67.5 inches (5’7.5”) in 1966 to 68.8 inches (5’8.4”) and there was really no notable change in the females (63.9 inches and the same today)

What troubles me is that shooting just to be average has gotten us to where we are today. We all need to step up our games and get healthier lifestyles so that High Blood pressure, High Cholesterol, and diabetes stop becoming common place. Or your other option is to become the average American and well… be a statistic. It’s your choice.

WLC 2013 Great Day Lessons learned

This week I felt as though we needed to go and have some fun outside of Parkers Place. However we needed to do something different and relearn some life lessons along the way. So, what do we do? Go rock climbing. Not just any ole rock climbing but scaling 20 and 30 foot walls. Now what’s the point? When they first arrived, some had fears of heights, some had fears of mot being able to accomplish climbing, some were afraid of thinking they were making a fool of themselves. Well, today is the first day in the process of putting those fears to bed and for good. Thank you Adventure Rock for helping us in this process. After our instructor gave us the once go around and some safety tips, I then had a few instructions for them. They were: 1) Before going on the wall, plot a course and then stay true to the course 2) Don’t look down 3) Use your legs not your arms when scaling the rock 4) Even when you want to, don’t quit As each person went I began to notice a few things, 1) They would all get to a point, and with the exception of a few, they would panic and begin to listen to everyone down on the floor and ultimately fail and fall off the rock. 2) They would use their upper body more than their lower body 3) Once a person looked down and saw how high they were, they would panic and come down. I noticed something else, once a person failed to complete the course everyone would come along side that person and stroke them telling them that it was ok and try and make them feel better. They would give them excuses as if it were ok to not make it to the top. There were a few times when a person would get stuck because they were either tired or confused on what they should do next and I noticed how every person would start shouting commands to them which in turn only made them more confused and in the end they would repel off the rock. In the end not everyone made it up the rock but life lessons had been relearned and here they are. Have you ever tried to overcome something, especially when it comes to getting in better shape, and everything you read and everything people are telling you only get you more confused? So confused that you just give up? Have you ever sat down and asked yourself what your real goals were and then plotted a course to achieve those goals? I wrote about that just a few months back, I called it the Business Fitness Plan, please read it. When we fail, don’t we look for people to stroke us to make us feel better? When we fail, don’t we enable others to do the same, on some level, so that we feel better about our own effort? When it comes to overcoming a big obstacle, we must first look at it in its entirety and then break it down to its smalls achievable pieces and then a little at a time begin the climb to get ourselves to the goal we set. We must find that one person who can give you realistic professional advice and only follow that person. Don’t ask a lot of people because each person will give you different advice. We must use our strong points to achieve (our legs) and not our weak points (our arms) because we will never accomplish much and ultimately we will fail. When we feel like we have reached the end of our rope and we just can’t make it anymore. We need to stay calm and remember the plan. Stay focused and block out the rest of the world and what they are telling you and put one foot in front of the other until we reach that ultimate goal… much better health and fitness. When I asked those who had completed the course how they felt, every one of them told me that they at first felt nervous but once they got started and they kept their head up and their eye in the prize, and they made it, they felt great. They felt as though they could finish any other course put in front of them and they were more willing to try the harder ones. I did one final thing for them. I started them on the easiest rock there. Why? Because once they could finish that course and gain confidence in their abilities as a climber going to tackle hard course became a doable challenge and something they looked forward to. The lesson here is, never take on more than you can really do. If you take too much on you may become overwhelmed and within a short time quit. Whereas if you just take a little bit at a time before you know it, you will have just not scaled that wall but much harder ones. What are those rocks in your life that are keeping you from better health? Look at those rocks, plot a course and begin the process of breaking them rocks down.

Legs and Shoulder workout

Please start with a 20 minute cardio warm up. Then everything is done in 3 sets of 20 reps per set. This is strength training. lunges 20 each leg Leg extensions Leg Curls Single Leg squats Calf raises Shoulders: Military press Front Lat raise

Uprite Rows

Shoulder Flies

enjoy your day

Do we need supplements in our lives

So in the end the question still remains, do we all really need supplements and vitamins? Is there a point in our lives those supplements are essential? The answer is maybe. Depending on who you are and how active you are and how old you are will depend on whether or not you should be supplementing your diet with additional vitamins and supplements. As an example women in their 20’s should be supplementing their diet with Folic Acid (vitamin B). This is because they are in their child bearing years and this vitamin plays a very important role in child fetal development. Men in their 20’s, in my own opinion, if they are eating right and abstaining from those things that can have a negative effect on their bodies, all they need to do is eat a proper diet. For both men and women in their 30’s they should be consuming an additional dose of vitamins C and E because those vitamins will help them fight the development of cataracts and macular degeneration. This will set them up for better vision and better muscular tone later on in life. Yes, what we do when we are young will have an effect on what happens to us when we are older. Men and women in their 40’s need to begin to take extra doses of vitamin D and B12. As we get older our body cannot make Vitamin D as regularly as it did when we were younger and by this time in our lives we have screwed up our diet so badly that B12 will help us with absorption and overall energy. Here is the problem however, when we are in our 20’s, especially at age 21, we begin thinking that we are adults and have the RIGHT to consume alcohol. By doing this, even as our bodies are trying to get strong, we are inhibiting them from reaching their full potential. Women are having babies that are premature or way under weight. Men are, well, looking that they are about ready to give birth any minute. Yes, when we are young our bodies are more resilient, however at some point we will pay for the sins we have committed and that happens later in our 40’s and 50’s. In our 60’s and above supplements begin to play an important role in our everyday life because of the minerals and vitamins our body cannot create or needs help supplying for purposes of everyday energy. For an example ATP in our muscles as we get old is depleted and is vital to the consistency and strength or our muscular system. Our body, as we get older, makes less of it, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need it any more, we still need it and as we get older, even more than when we were younger. Protein drinks such as Quadplex and supplements such as BM&C (Bone, muscle and cartilage support) are very important in replacing what the body is no longer making on its own. The problem all starts with our diet and no amount of supplements or vitamins can cover the sins we are causing. Milwaukee has a week where, every year, many people go down to the lake front and consume foods where, well, I wouldn’t think about giving my worst enemy. They are just not bad for you, they can be deadly. The cholesterol alone that a person WILL get from eating those foods WILL clog their arteries and WILL cause heart attacks, strokes and major obesity (oh it’s done that already). There is no doubt about it. We need to start eating right when we are young especially in our 20’s when we are beginning to make life choices and everything we do will have a definite effect on our future health. By doing that our quality of life, in later years, will be so much better and your body will thank us for it.