I've been fortunate to have many mentors in my life. From my dad to my brother, my counselor to my pastor, I am blessed to have people that can speak into my life and tell me what I need to hear. Pictured is one of my professional mentors, Todd Durkin.

Years ago I used to avoid this type of relationship. I feared change and I didn't want to hear from anyone about how I could do things better. It's no wonder that I languished in a job I hated and tried to numb my feelings of anxiety and worry by any means necessary.

All it took was one person at the right time pushing me into a positive direction that got me to change my life for the better. 

I chose to jump in. I got to a point where I knew I had to go all in. The lifestyle I had was not taking me where I wanted to go. So I changed cities, moved in with my parents, and took a minimum wage job doing something that I loved. And then I spent time and money investing in myself to grow and change.

I now no longer make minimum wage...

So sugar is the ultimate health food?  Ok, this is definitely a case where punctuation matters.  It actually should say… 

Nothing, is better for you than sugar!

Here’s a true story for you.  A sugar-boat shipwrecked in 1793.  5 sailors survived and so did some of the sugar that they were carrying.  They were marooned on an island.  On the bright side it only took 9 days for them to be found! 

Here’s the shocker!  They looked like they had been marooned for weeks if not a whole month.  Their bodies were wasted away and they were in real bad shape.  They had been eating the sugar they were transporting (and drinking a little rum too).  This event surprised Francois Magendie the French Physiologist.  He decided to run an experiment where he fed animals sugar and only sugar but plenty of calories to live.  They wasted away and died quite rapidly. 

This lead to the realization that it...

Sometimes I screw up. Here's what happened:

I recently received a message from a client whom a consider to be a dear friend. She has made incredible progress in our program. She ran into some unique and challenging injuries that we (and some expert physical therapists!) had to work through. In the midst of that she was prohibited from doing cardio exercises, as they may have aggravated her injury. 

I told her our workout schedule for the month so that she could come to the strength focused days and keep making baby steps forward in her progress. Then we made a last minute change to the workout schedule and I forgot to tell her about it. She showed up to a cardio day and was crushed. We had a brief conversation and she left, head hung low.

I felt awful.

I wanted to make that up to her, and I did. But those moments after she left the studio were some of the most important that she experienced that year. Here's the message she just sent me regarding that situation:

 It’s really easy to find things to demonize.  Turn on the news, read a newspaper, or gossip about the neighbors.  It’s easy to find someone to criticize or blame for a problem.  If we can step outside of ourselves and see the other angles it can be very enlightening.  It doesn’t mean you change your beliefs.  It just means you understand the other point of view better. 

When we get into this black and white thinking it takes us down a bad mental, emotional, and spiritual path.  Now before I tell you about the good of GMO’s let me assure you that in our modern 1^st world country we have infinite choices and we should choose not to eat GMO crops for the most part. 

So why are they good?

Let me explain to you how I came to understand the gray area.  We have a book called “the kid who saved the world” by Andy Andrews.  It’s a kids book and it’s super cute. ...

I’m not a dietician or nutritionist but I do listen to what they say.  I decided to make a food pyramid that was a little more reality friendly and still helped people to understand what they should be eating. 

The least controversial of these is the top and bottom of the pyramid.  Most people, no matter what “diet” they promote, would agree that the fewer processed foods anyone eats, the better.  Also, most people would not argue with the fact that vegetables are good for you.  Shoot, parents have been trying to get their kids to eat veggies since the beginning of time!  Pretty much the more veggies, the merrier. 

The second bar from the bottom Meat and Fruit is a pretty controversial one currently. The big trends right now are “plant-based or veganism” and “keto” which is mostly a repackaged Atkins diet. Keto says no fruit basically and vegan’s say no meat.  I think both can be...

Have you ever had this happen? You're happily going about your workout and then you can see the trainer make a bee line for you. Your heart jumps. You must be doing something wrong. The trainer offers a few words of (hopefully) gentle correction and then the exercise becomes nearly impossible.

During your next set you try to abide by the advice given, but it makes the exercise 10x harder. 

Why is that?

Let's compare your muscle to a group working on a project. In any lift or exercise, there are multiple muscles being asked to perform different functions. When you give the signal to your muscles to "bring that barbell from my waist to my shoulders" you will perform a biceps curl. But not all biceps curls are created equal. 

Not all teams are created equally either. I can remember group projects in college. They usually went something like this: one group member is the bossy one and is bound and determined to get an A on the project. Two group members are neutral and...

About the Author:

Jeremy “the tall trainer” Biernat is a Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Strength Coach, has his Bachelors in Exercise Science, and enjoys writing, speaking, and inspiring people online and in person. See his new book!  More importantly he is a husband, father, and follower of God. His practice is in upstate NY (Canandaigua) where he works with people in one on one and group sessions to make awesome changes in their lives. He doesn’t do everything perfect, cries in movies, and would love to hear from you. You can contact Jeremy by commenting to this post, emailing [email protected], or calling 1(800)380-7047. 

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