Several months ago, I attended the American College of Sports Medicine Health and Fitness conference and was treated to many outstanding presentations by some of our country's best "high-level wellness" gurus. I even had the opportunity to meet and chat with U.S. Surgeon General, David Satcher, at our media briefing. (Very impressive guy, by the way…) The conference topics ran the gamut from personal trainers training trainers to multidegreed professors sharing their clinical findings. The standard dress code for the hundreds of attendees was fitness-related T-shirts, Spandex bike shorts and sneaks…hard bodies with water bottles everywhere.

One of the more notable talks was from scientist and humorist Martin Collis, Ph.D., who reminded us of our current national dichotomy. We live in such a topsy-turvy, flip-flop world of fitness, health and wellness. He quoted Charles Dickens' lead in A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times and the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness." And he lambasted us with the fact that it is unfortunately, exactly that way today. We live in the age of the jogger and the age of the couch potato. Health club memberships have steadily increased over the past several years, but we have a multibillion-dollar weight-loss industry, and Americans have never been fatter. We are surrounded by laborsaving and timesaving devices, but we are always busy and time-bankrupt. Collis challenged us (especially me) to find and preserve the simplicity in well being - live healthy by eating healthy and participating in regular, meaningful physical exercise. Not only does it sound simple…it sounds familiar to us at Physical.

Those who live The Physical Lifestyle are taking responsibility for their own wellness. Keep up the good work and keep it simple…pass it on!

Get Physical!