First Founders Blog and Introduction
When I was a kid, I always dreamed of playing football. The day finally came when I started high school and after doing some drills with the team, Coach Moss couldn’t wait to talk to my dad to find out if he’d let me play. At the time, I ran a 10.3 second 100m and ran the mile in 4 min 32 seconds so, I was fast. Turns out that I had trained my fast-twitch muscle fibers very well without knowing it by running bare footed and chasing wild pigs through the blackberry briar patches on the reservation. However, playing football was not to be because my dad thought that I could get hurt so, instead of playing football he assigned me to breaking horses that stepped on me, bit me, threw me into fences, rolled over on top of me and other fun things, as well as bailing hay, laying riprap, and pitching melons. I also was thrown into the alligator pit to wrestle alligators for tourists. It was not until years later that I learned why he wouldn’t let me play football. But, this was my introduction to fitness and since I couldn’t use the football weight room at school, I would perform standing presses with a 6-foot piece of railroad track at home – we were too poor to buy equipment so, we did everything naturally.
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I cannot remember when I haven’t been involved in fitness and it’s been a lot of fun. Despite pain, injuries, trying all kinds of diets and eating habits, all kinds of workouts, training, and activities, working with pro athletes, and everything else I wouldn’t trade the experiences for anything. After high school I ended up in the military and it was there that I could become more involved, being able to work out for the first time in a real gym. Learning it all was fun. After the military I went on to college, got my B.S. degree and then, enrolled in an M.S. program; it was this program that really opened my eyes to fitness and nutrition as a potent combination.
I developed a small-scale agriculture project designed to feed a family of 7 in a temperate climate and a family of 21 in a tropical climate on one hectare (2.5 acres) of land for an entire year of balanced nutrition from minimal resources. To do this I worked with my mentors Drs Laren Robison and Lamont Smith and was required by them to learn all there was to learn about both human and animal nutrition. The project is currently operating successfully in 10 Latin-American countries. The importance of nutrition should not be understated since over 90% of the diseases and health issues we have relate directly to nutrition and generally, poor nutrition that has been practiced for a long time.
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My work with nutrition and continued fitness and training opened many avenues of exploration and assisting others. I have maintained a burning passion for fitness since the military, through college and in training a great many others. As medical and health professionals and pro bodybuilders and athletes expounded on the benefits of eating and training well, it was surprising how many people wanted to learn the path as it were, and to be fit and healthy. I’d be in the gym every morning at 5:00 a.m. and without fail multiple people would ask, hey Jim, how do you do this or what do you think about all protein diets, or can you help me lose weight or gain muscle. The constant bombardment of questions led to the development of this web site. It was the first ‘my’ URL on the Internet, predating ‘MySpace’ by about 7 years. This site has been put up, taken down, and redesigned about 7 or 8 times after having been tested by thousands of people. It is only now that the technology is available to make it work as originally intended for you, the reader, in terms of knowledge sharing and empowering you to be your own health, fitness, training, and nutrition expert. Almost 20 years ago, I had the idea of putting exercises on TV and serving them up on the Internet when it was developed. I had the first martial arts instructional videos on the Internet, but gradually took them down due to bandwidth overuse and cost. The ‘Cloud’ has made such issues irrelevant today.
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Could you search the Internet and find the information we offer on other websites? Yes, without doubt, but you’ll be spending a lot of time – precious time that cannot be gotten back. Thus, MyHealthandFitness is designed as a one-stop shop. And, if you cannot find the information you want or would like to see something specific in one of these or related areas, please drop us a note through the contact us link and tell us what it is. We will be happy to address your question either with a direct response or an article as soon as we can.
I have done a lot, seen a lot, and helped a lot of people; from the average beginner to fitness buff to pro athlete. I served on the Advisory Board for Muscle & Fitness Hers Magazine four years; developed the first exercise protocol for NASA and collaborating international astronauts for long-term space travel to maintain muscle mass and increased bone density in micro-gravity, written hundreds of strength training programs, trained a variety of pro athletes and bodybuilders, and much more. All along the path I have gained a wealth of knowledge to help others.
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What is MyHealthandFitness going to do for you?
We are going to empower you to live a healthy lifestyle and to be prepared for life’s misadventures; below is just a sampling because there really is just so much.
We’re going to help you with:
• Nutrition and how to choose good foods and eat healthy;
• Teach you about diets;
• Physical activity and fitness of all kinds – whether it’s for your young child, you, your friends, or your grandparent;
• Overweight issues and obesity and how to solve the problem;
• Healthy weight and how to maintain it;
• Micro-nutrient nutrition and why it’s so hard to get today;
• Fitness and all its components and role in staying healthy;
• Building that beach body – no pun intended – but face it, we all want to look good when we go to the beach or pool. It doesn’t mean that we will look like a bodybuilder or fitness pro, but we can look good to ourselves and that is what is most important;
• Training – of all types, whether you want to be in just good shape or are striving to achieve an Olympic gold medal, all types of training from well-known bodybuilding to speed-strength for athletes;
• Health in its entirety and why it is so important to your overall well-being. Are you stressed? Knowing and practicing principles from our health, fitness, training, and nutrition articles can help you to reduce that stress; and
• So much more.
Have you ever watched older people walking with canes or sitting in wheel chairs because their muscles and body do not function the way they should? Well, we’re going to teach you concepts that likely will help you from being in such a predicament. As an example, as you age, your lumbar, back, and knee extensor muscles naturally become weaker; this makes it difficult to get around, the constant recurrence of knee pain and other problems. Staying fit and healthy is the best way to combat ageing problems and will significantly reduce other problems in this area and we would like to help you learn how.
Additionally, we have entered an era of nutritiously weak foods, even vegetables, which we’ll explore in a later blog, as well as an era of potentially disruptive societal issues that could weaken our ability to have a guaranteed food supply, especially if societal unrest on a large scale occurs. I’m not talking about a prepper mentality, but from simply being pragmatic about things that we have no control of that could disrupt our lives, whether it be loss of work, worsening health, or societal trends. Thus, we’re going to help you learn how to grow your own herbs, gardens, and other food that are free of insecticides and other harmful chemicals and that will help boost your immune system and overall health.
You will discover that taking your time to grow potted foods such as tomatoes, herbs, or an entire garden in your back yard provides significant stress relief and quiet time that you can really think about your personal and or family goals and priorities – just leave the cell phone inside.
There’s so much to discover and the journey will always be fascinating so, come along with us, and explore it!
Have a happy and healthy day.
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