Chris is not my first. By Chris, of course, I am referring to our fitness lord and savior, Christopher M. Collins. The MSc, CSCS, strength coach, gym founder and all-around guru-dude cracking the whip here at Okanagan Peak Performance Inc. Now you have to know that I’m not bragging about this. To have gone through seven or perhaps even eight different trainers in the last twenty years or so is not exactly a badge of honour. I want nothing more than for Chris to finally be my last. It’s been a solid two decades since I first went to war with my body. And throughout that time I have enjoyed my share of victories and defeats, along with more general frustration and base-line annoyance than I could ever shake a foam roller at. (and if you don’t know what that analogy means then I guess you gotta join OPP…) Sure I can get motivated but I can also give up. I can get happy and excited but slip just as fast to angry and frustrated. The battle is never-ending, for me at least. Now I recognize tagging this intensely personal struggle as a “war” may not be a particularly healthy way to view such things, but in all honesty that is exactly how it’s progressed. I fight my way down the weight ladder (or up the fitness one) only to lose focus or somehow self-sabotage and muck things up anew. I’m petulant, impatient and easily distracted. I’m also slow-moving and easy, until I get annoyed and flip out in an instant. I am as active and as diligent as I can be lazy like a sloth. Add in decades of marinating my over-stimulated consciousness within a brew of media-perfected imagery crossed with Hollywood outcomes and you’re left with a forty-two year...