How Come......?

I am frustrated, I don't know why and I am about ready to quit!!!!





Has anything clicked yet!?

Happy Birthday To The Love of My Life

It's not very often in a person's life do they get the opportunity to meet someone who has such a big impact on just about every aspect of their lives.

Each and every day is filled with a new challenge. Some good and some not so good. But deep down it is a great feeling in knowing that no matter how good or bad things can be, there is a smiling face always looking back at you.

This is where I can say that I am the luckiest guy in the world! No matter how I feel or what obstacle I stand against, there is ALWAYS a gentle touch, a soft smile and a soothing voice ready to let me know everything will be okay.

To Carole Ann,

Today I celebrate the wonderful women who understands me better than anyone else,accepts me just the way I am, encourages me when I need it and forgives when I fall short.

Today I celebrate the woman who has made my life warmer, brighter, richer, sweeter, better in a thousand different ways.

With this special day I would like you to know that I promise to give you all my love each and every day. It has always been said that you get what you give. And it is obvious the amount of love in your heart overflows to everyone who comes close to you. You truly get back what you offer to those around you. It is apparent in every aspect of your life.

To you and your gift of nurturing motherly love, I stand in awe as I watch you with the kids. Even with the kidz program you have a commanding presence where they are hanging on your every word.

Most will never really know how much you care for everyone you meet. How you have developed into the person you are and the love you have for helping people change their lives. These days are only the beginning. And with every passing moment I can rest with a big smile on my face knowing I will have you by my side for eternity.


To My Friend.....My Lover....My Partner.....I Love You.

Happy Birthday!

Opportunity Of a Lifetime

These last couple of weeks have really caused me to think about a lot of things going on in my life. Both Carole and I were a part of Grace Community Church's High 5 Sports Camps where we both acted as coaches for basketball and cheer leading. During those 5 days I had the chance to teach 9-11 year old girls and boys a little about basketball; more importantly about their faith.

In reflecting over those 5 days, both Carole and I agreed we may have gotten more out of those days at camp than the kids did....at least from a inner growth standpoint.

For a very long time I've had a desire to tie fitness and exercise in to a fitness mission. Now I am not saying I wanted to be or plan on being one of those off the deep end religious types - turning people off with my "Believe me or burn in hell!" theories - but always believed our bodies are "temples". Temples where we are responsible for being good stewards by taking care of them. It only makes sense to take care of what we have been given, not because we have only one body, but if we do not then we cannot use the gifts God has given us.

When you think of your health and well being as a gift instead of something to abuse, (and there are many forms of abuse) then protecting your "temple" to utilize your God given gifts only makes sense. If your own gifts can not be used to their fullest potential, think about all the people who will suffer because you can not do what you were set out to do.

That is a very powerful thought when you stop to think about it!

What happens when you, or I, take the focus off of ourselves and place it on someone in need of our gift(s)?

It's simple.....you can change their lives in a way nothing else can.

WOW!!!!

The reason for this post actually came to me this last Sunday after church. It just so happened that the kids had ole dad running late for church, again, so this day I had to change my routine. In doing so it turned out to be one of the best things to happen to me that day.

In the changing of my routine, I had to sit in a different area than normal. Just after the service started a friend walked over to me and had a seat next to where I was sitting. After the service he asked if I would be willing to speak to a group of fellow Christian business owners in August about how our bodies tie into being Christ's temple. To give biblical and real life examples of how and why we should take care of what we have been given. As soon as he asked me a thousand ideas ran through me head.

And this takes me back to the headline of this post. I am in no way looking at this as a business opportunity, though Scott said to market myself during the presentation. This is an opportunity to take what I do and have always wanted to do to the next level. To be able to use my God given gifts in a way to glorify Him and everything he has blessed me with. And the two pictures above are two of the best blessings a father could ever ask for.

Pictured above is what an AVERAGE American consumes in sugar per year. If you were to count the number of 5 lb. bags visible you would count 32. According to recent research, the average American consumes 160 lbs. of sugar a year. Now let's put this into perspective.

One 8 oz. can of Pepsi has 28 grams of carbs and 28 grams of those carbs are sugar. So in order to find out how many teaspoons of anything is in a food, or in this case a beverage, then know 1 teaspoon of the same sugar found in those bags above has 4 grams of carbs. The simple math in this exercise would look like this: 28 grams of carbs (sugar) divided by 4 grams of carbs (1 teaspoon of sugar) equals 7 teaspoons of sugar in one 8 ounce can.

Now, who do you see drinking 8 ounce cans!? It's always 16 - 20 ounce bottles. In the "typical" American's case - 52 to 66 grams of sugar carbs are in one drink (13 - 16.5 teaspoons of sugar). To break this down even further, and keep in mind this is only from 1 pop, there are 11 1/4 cups in a 5 pound bag of sugar.

To find out the REAL ugliness of this - there are 16 tablespoons in one cup and 3 teaspoons in 1 tablespoon. Drum roll please....................there are 48 teaspoons in 1 cup.

The math looks like the following:
11.25 cups per 5 lb bag of sugar
48 teaspoons in 1 cup
(48 X 11.25) = 540 teaspoons in one 5 pound bag of sugar

So if you had 1 pop a day then my annual numbers would look like this:
16 ounce bottles - 13 teaspoons of sugar times 365 days equals 4645 teaspoons of sugar
20 ounce bottles - 16.5 teaspoons of sugar times 365 days equals 6022.5 teaspoons of sugar

Hold on because the beating has only begun........

There are 15 calories in a teaspoon of sugar. Typically, 3800 calories will make up 1 pound of fat. I'll continue with the 16 and 20 ounce scenarios.

16 ounces - 4645 teaspoons x 15 calories per teaspoon = 69,675 calories for the year (18.34 lbs of fat added to your frame)
20 ounces - 6022.5 teaspoons x 15 calories per teaspoon = 90,337.5 calories for the year (23.77 lbs. of fat added to your frame)

The final number:
16 ounces of pop = 8.6 bags of sugar a year
20 ounces of pop = 11.15 bags of sugar a year

I would like to personally thank all the soda manufacturers out there for helping us with our blood sugar problems. Because of you the 54 or so million pre-diabetics in this country will help guarantee the drug companies stay in business down the road. And just like the idiots on the streets insure there will always be a need for Law Enforcement, scenarios like this will ensure fit-pros like myself will always have people to help. And I didn't say that with a smile on my face!

Stay tuned for the next post when I dive into the heart and what all this is doing to us as a human race.

How Come You Are Not Where You Want To Be?

I spend a lot of my time reading books on making me better at what I do. To say my library has become extensive over the last year would be a vast understatement. Of all the books I've read and in the process of reading, "The Slight Edge" makes more sense than most of the others. And the more I get into this book the more I realize it's the way I've lived and approached life - more so during my entrepreneurship, but the "way" nonetheless.

What really hit the nail on the head was the following:

"The Power of Compounding Effort"

Picture a huge, heavy flywheel- a massive metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle, about thirty feet in diameter, two feet thick, and weighing about 5,000 pounds. Now imagine that your task is to get the flywheel rotating on the axle as fast and for as long as possible.

Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward, moving almost imperceptibly at first. You keep pushing and, after two or three hours of persistent effort, you get the flywheel to complete on entire turn.

You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move it round a second rotation. You keep pushing in a consistent direction. Three turns...four...five...six...the flywheel builds up speed...seven...eight...you keep pushing...nine...ten...it builds momentum...eleven...twelve...moving faster with each turn...twenty...thirty...fifty...a hundred.

Then at some point--breakthrough! The momentum of the thing kicks in your favor, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn...whoosh! ... its own heavy weight working for you. You're pushing no harder than the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster. Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort. A thousand times faster, ten thousand, then a hundred thousand. The huge heavy disk flies forward with almost unstoppable momentum.

Now suppose someone came along and asked, What was the one big push that caused this thing to go so fast?"

You wouldn't be able to answer; it's a nonsensical question. Was it the first push? The second? The fifth? The hundredth? No! It was ALL of them added together in an overall accumulation of effort applied in a consistent direction. Some pushes may have been bigger than others, but any single heave---no matter how large----reflects a small fraction of the entire cumulative effect upon the flywheel."

That analogy actually came from Jim Collins, "Good To Great" book, and was used in this book.

As I sit here and look over how my life has played out, I'm amazed at how this is the way I've always done things. Never intentionally until now, but there was always that trait in my DNA that would not allow me to fall for the "Magic Bullet".

For this, I have a smile on my face knowing I am on the right path and have been blessed with the opportunity to teach others as well.

Day 1

Here it is 11:34 p.m. Sunday night December 20, 2009. After returning from Austin a few weeks ago for a business training event, I realized it would be a good idea to help get all the coaches speaking through their own personal blogs. A means to let people see what makes them tick instead of always hearing my 2 cents on the CrossFit Michiana site.

Well in doing so I've finally decided to keep a "journal" if you will of things that come to mind. I've had a hidden desire for some time now to write a book and this could very well prove to be a way to keep notes. That and along with a little venting here and there about things that get me riled up, but won't go on the main site.

As the title of my blog states, "Maximum Effort Equals Maximum Results", let me come out of the gate balls to the wall!!

This first post is called "Day 1" for a simple reason. Because it may prove to be a public record of me losing my sanity. And this is in regards to everything I've come to know and love about what I am blessed to do.

I am what you can call a life long student. I love to study everything about exercise and the science of what makes us tick. From biochemistry and human physiology to the psychological reasons why we act the way we do - I want to learn as much as I can.

The biggest downfall to this type of life.......Frustration!

I am in complete amazement at how, who I would at one time deem trusted sources, would turn into the typical "expert". Without dropping names and getting caught up in the politics going on right now, I will say this frustration on my part has forced me to become more driven in my research.

In future posts I will cover several topics in regards to the science of nutrition. And I'm doing this for no reason other than to get my thoughts and my research collected together in a place where I can access it anywhere. As far as I know, at the time of this writing there are maybe 2-3 people who know I have this blog. So if you stumble across it then you may or may not find some relevant info here.

In closing, the last thing I will attempt to wrap my head around before going to bed is how 2 of the most potent, success driven eating lifestyles -The Zone and The Paleo Diet - use the same ingredients in what they call food supplements to their diets that are used in every other processed food out on the market.

With that, it's off to bed to fall asleep as I read "The Slight Edge". Good night all.