It’s that time of year folks, you know THAT time when getting on a machine in the gym is an impossibility due to the new crowd of people trying to accomplish their “New Year’s resolution”. Chances are you may have forgotten about this fad during your routine weekly gym visits; the holidays made you cheery (and forgetful) and the warning signs (Jennifer Hudson ads) were not showing up on your television station of choice. Regardless of your expectations however the crowd is here and now your typical 45 minutes of chest on Mondays has been shifted to 1.5 hours due to having to wait on the new members cramming in badly executed exercises on every machine. January through March is the peak time for gyms to pull in new memberships; it’s a personal trainer’s dream and a gym rat’s nightmare. Nothing can fix this problem unless you can make Christmas, Thanksgiving and sugary, fatty foods… [Read more]

For as long as I can remember I’d spend no less than $10 a day for lunch. I justified the expense as a break from the office and would eat out daily without fail. I absolutely never took my lunch from home. This was my practice for more than a decade of my working life. Those days are gone. At $50 a week that quickly adds up: $50 week x 4 weeks = $200 month x12 months – give or take a two-week vacay, a few PTOs here and there, the occasional non-Dutch outing, office lunch and forgot your money fasts—and that’s $2,400 a year. Did I really eat $24,000 worth of lunches over 10 years? You better believe I did! Earlier this year I lost 50 pounds of the evidence. Let’s just say I gave new meaning to “penny wise pound foolish”. Okay, so who isn’t more money conscious these days? If so,  a… [Read more]

I’m wondering if the recent Reebok Easytone settlement will open the floodgates for suits of other products whose advertising claims promise the moon. After all, what product really delivers on its promises anyway? My lashes are still not great or stiletto. Eating a NutriGrain has yet to  cause me to eat better all day. Yoplait light yogurt could never be confused with a piece of cheesecake. And while Nike’s ads are truly inspirational, generally speaking, I “just” put Nike on. Doing “it” seldom gets done. Add to that the thing with using celebrities to serve as ad men and women is the implicit promise that you’ll look like them, smell like them, and have some modicum of  success like them in life, love or happiness if you would only use the stuff they’re using. So Kim Kardashian is one of Easytone’s henchwomen. Surely by anyone’s standards, she’s an attractive woman who just happens to have pretty good looking parents. Quiet as it’s kept, that’s the way it… [Read more]

There is absolutely nothing more sexy than a grown woman with a figure that’s solid. Think Serena Williams, Melyssa Ford, Vida Guerra, and Jessica Biel. Do you know what these women have in common besides celebrity? They work out. They aren’t disillusioned 30-somethings sloppily wearing the clothes they wore back in their early twenties. Many women who were once “built” are now heavy and still dress like the days when they were perfect. It’s sad to see women who dress as if they still got it and I blame us men for allowing them to continue the facade. The reason this happens is because women neglect their maintenance, all the women I mentioned earlier have a workout regimen. The only people that can get away with eating and living without workout maintenance are ex-athletes with godly metabolism, genetic freaks of nature or full time dancers. This isn’t a rallying cry to make thick women skinny… [Read more]

Hey, I am a pole baby and well on my way to being bi-polar! Let me explain. I just bought into the fitness craze of pole dancing and I am hooked! After each weeks hour and a half class, I am sore in places I forgot existed!! I happily drive 28 miles 2 to 3 times per week to get my sweat on, and believe me when I say, doing the fireman spin or the merry-go-round on the pole is a lot more fun than running 30 miles per week like I used to, or even trying to mount my boring Stairmaster these days. For every routine learned on the right-side, I have to also perfect it on the left side – hence moving me to the perfectly balanced state of being “Bi-polar”. Get it?? I have supplemented these pole classes with the jam-packed “Jiggle-it” sessions that make Zumba seem like Company G’s trek through… [Read more]

As a writer, one of the most annoying things to deal with is when a favorite topic gets abused by everyone (other writers) to the point where it is no longer worth writing about anymore. This is because readers get really sick and tired of hearing it. One of these topics which I love to write and talk about is obesity, being that I am big into fitness and living a fitness lifestyle. A topic that really gets my blood flowing is a good success story of weight loss or of someone who has overcome the odds to save their life. Hell, who can’t appreciate a story like that? But what I find is that there are a lot of people like myself who are in good standing with their health, that write articles telling those that are overweight what to do in order to get to where we are at. I’m sorry but I… [Read more]

At times when I am in really good shape throughout the year, I get cornered by guys asking me what they can do to get where I am. This question is one that is very familiar to people of the fitness lifestyle, especially the beginning of Summer or after New Year’s Eve. To get to a level of loving fitness one has to undergo a proving, it is a path that I call The Road of Kings. The reason I call it The Road of Kings, is because it’s a path that few travel, fewer stay on it and the ones who make it are rewarded with a physique that others will envy. Just like a fighter who has won many battles and utilized his victories to woo the people into making him king. Everyone can envy a story like that, just like everyone can envy that mother of 4 who found the gym to… [Read more]

Listen if you’re working out and missing sleep, you are performing like a race car that’s stuck on a road laced with oil – You are on a disastrous path, going nowhere and very unlikely to reach your perceived goal!  Let’s pretend that our bodies are machines fueled by rechargeable batteries that deplete every 16 hrs or so, your reserves are deep but when the battery uses the reserves the machine is unable to improve and instead uses sacrifice to keep it functioning. This sacrifice comes in the way of exhaustion, mood swings, complexion and of course strength. With diet and supplements we try to replace the items sacrificed and it works but the body will still refuse to improve based on the status of that battery life. As a workaholic, grinder and bodybuilder, I know all the excuses for missing sleep. Hell give me 48 hr days and I’d probably be the happiest man… [Read more]