Dear Friend, welcome to my wall of words.  

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Michael, but you can call me Mike. I want to share a little of my story, so you can understand precisely how I became the trainer I am today.

I did not come from a family of athletes or athletic-minded individuals. As a family, we did not come up watching sports and did not attend elementary, middle, or high school sporting events unless we kids happened to be participating, which was rare. We did not work out regularly in the formal sense; however, we kept active by playing outside. For example, occasionally, we would hike in the woods or ride our bikes around our neighborhood. Our favorite activity was to dance in our living room to the vinyl records my father would bring home every Friday night.  

Fridays were always the official start of the weekend for us, and we celebrated with good music, good jokes, and even better food. We celebrated together as a family, and we had extraordinary lives and times. My father worked, my mother cooked, and we kids were loved. It was almost like the legendary castle of Camelot, until the night that it wasn’t.

At the end of dinner one evening, my father cleared his throat and said he had something important to say as we finished. I knew this was serious because my mother was no longer smiling like she usually does after a good meal. He first apologized to us for the irritability and mood swings he had expressed the last few months and said he had been to the doctor to see why this was happening.  

This was when we discovered my father had Type 2 Diabetes. He assured us that everything would be OK and even showed us where he had to prick his finger to check his blood sugar and his injection site where he took his daily dose of insulin. We felt OK with this explanation, and as kids many times do, we went back to our lives, oblivious to the truths we were now facing.

You see, as kids, we did not know that we would be attending my father’s funeral a short twenty years later. He was only 67. However, we did not lose him at 67; it was many years earlier. 

We lost our father when his focus became consumed with the disease, and the fun-loving, jovial dad and lover of life we used to know ceased to exist and was replaced by someone obsessed with what he could no longer eat, do, or enjoy. We did not know back then, but we know now that the disease could have been slowed down.  The disease could have been reversed and, most importantly, prevented.  

Sadly, we slowly lost him over the years to his shifting focus toward the constant influx of new prescriptions he had to take due to his bodily functions that seemed to be failing more and more frequently.  

Most tragic, we lost our father to the lack of education about how a proper diet and exercise could have slowed down, reversed, and potentially eliminated his illness, and how he could have applied this knowledge practically from day one. 

It was at this point that I had to make an important decision. 

I had to think, was I going to buy into the idea that there was nothing I could do about my genetics and suffer the same fate? Or would I break the generational curse of preventable disease and learn everything I can about fitness and wellness so this does not happen again? I choose the latter.

For the record, to my mother, who may someday read this, I know you tried to move heaven and earth to do what you could to help Dad. 

But as we now know, when someone has this disease, it changes their whole way of thinking and personality. They become almost like strangers as the illness changes them hormonally, physically, and sometimes even spiritually. They lose control of their nature, their independence, their own body, and eventually, their own life.

Our father was our hero, who lived to provide and protect all of us. He was taken away from us way too soon and very unnecessarily. It didn’t have to happen this way, not for my family or anyone else’s.

This is why I decided to make fitness and health my mission, my business, and created this website.  Realistically, I cannot save everyone.  Only ONE can do that, and I am surely not HIM!  However, with the correct information and the proper reach, we can help many loved ones and their families in the same situation to help protect themselves from the undesirable outcomes we know exist.

What you can expect from me:

1. 100% commitment to empowering others through my knowledge of fitness, nutrition, and  lifestyle choices. 
2. Giving my 100% best when committing myself to others. 
3. Communicating transparent and easy-to-understand when giving instructions.
4. Engaging in truthful communications that create solid and encouraging relationships.
5. Showing how a healthy and fit lifestyle can be fun and sustainable by indulging in activities they enjoy.