wait for it

I sent this letter to my personal training clients yesterday. This is my first holiday season as a trainer, and I suppose I’m expected to hold forth on such topics as what to eat, what to avoid, and how, in general, to manage the temptations that come this time of year. But if you’ve worked with me for any length of time, you know that my take on personal training is just that—training the person—and that I believe in education and not the quick fix. Anybody can get you to sweat or dictate your diet; my job, as I see it, is to help you understand why we do what we do, so that you can go off and do it without me, and sustain these habits for a lifetime. Work myself out of the job, as it were. Same goes for my advice on food this time of year, and also the busyness of the holidays that may cut into your best intentions to exercise. You can find top ten lists anywhere (everywhere!) on portion control, healthy recipes, and better food choices (if you can't, let me know and

that you'll make fun of the big guys.  When a guy told me that lifting weights, to him, was like "...mmmmmm. Y'know? Like MMMMMMMMM. It just feels MMMMmmmmmm," two thoughts crossed my mind. The first was what you're thinking right now; the second, that I understand him completely. I'm not yet to the point of explaining this phenomenon at any level of convincing argument, but I will put out there the idea that some of us need to explore our world by moving our bodies. While lifting weights in a gym may at first appear limited in scope, we must start here. We must exert our strength, feel it, then process the rest of life. Some of us spend too much time doing the former and don't get to the latter. But don't make fun. You spend time on other stuff, don't you, whereas our hobby is, at base, healthy. that Jesus took Manny out of the game. Manny Pacquiao defeated Brandon Rios Saturday night with a sound beating, thank you Jesus, his first win since re

You will note that I refrained from posting my buck teeth story this Halloween. This took tremendous restraint, as it is one of my best stories, told each year to my kids as they gather at my feet near the fireplace. Something like that. The love of Halloween and its scares is rooted, I think, in a desire to touch the void, the precipice of high emotion. A safe freefall. Halloween is safe, whereas other means to this end can be otherwise. At Slugtoberfest last weekend, I found myself missing this via the route of boxing; my God, there's nothing like having someone swing at your head. I'd put boxing on the scale just between Halloween and drugs as it's unsafe, yet happening with a timed end. The holiday, then, gives me an opportunity to think through the Halloween moments of my life thus far. Times at the brink. I did this before, I believe, but I am unable to find anything on my own blog, and my memory is bad, so this will seem fresh and new to all of us. I will avoid