Another day on the internet, another person with a megaphone telling you how poisonous sugar is…
And before I go too far with this, I’m not going to tell you that you should be finding ways to put more sugar into your diet.
I think two truths can exist:
That it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for many people to reduce sugar in their diets
AND ALSO, sugar isn’t the problem child many make it out to be.
The thing is, nutritional boogeymen make for good headlines and if “influencers” can’t find a way to scare you away from an ingredient, it’s harder to sell you a service or product.
Let’s also be clear about something: Most people concerned about sugar aren’t pouring spoonfuls of it in isolation down their throats.
Yes, some people really like their Coke/Pepsi products.
Yes, some people overdo it with cookies and ice cream.
No, it’s not common to find someone with a bag of sugar in the pantry downing crystals by themselves.
Sugar is normally paired with something else, making it easy to consume in large quantities: It’s part of a delicious drink or a fatty, sweet concoction that makes it hard to put down or step away from.
That doesn’t make it “addictive” per se but it does make it highly rewarding which can often feel like one and the same.
There appears to be some evidence to “sugar addiction” in rodent models but that doesn’t mean that human behavior works the same way (it usually doesn’t).
So, let me offer some cases for and against sugar in your diet:
Cases For:
A) A diabetic experiencing low blood sugar may need high sugar options to help bring blood sugar levels into a normal range.
B) An endurance athlete may need high sugar options to fuel a race/run
C) A person looking to purposefully put on weight may need high sugar options (candies, sweetened beverages) to add calories that don’t reduce hunger.
D) A person who can successfully manage high sugar treats in moderation for pleasure or better dietary adherence
Cases Against:
A) Someone with heart disease
B) Someone who is looking for places to reduce calories in their food plan
C) Someone who cannot successfully moderate high sugar foods
D) Someone who gets GI distress from high sugar foods
I’ll say it again, I’m not encouraging anyone to have a high sugar diet. What I am saying is that sugar can be used OR abused depending on the person and the circumstance.
I’ve been peppering some of this information into the blog over the last several months and now I finally have enough information to share some updates about my health.
Going back a bit, over the last few years, I’ve asked my doctor to do a comprehensive blood panel at each of my annual check-ups. My father passed away at the age of 59 from bone marrow cancer and my mother, who is still with us, has several health challenges that she’s working through. One of which, pertinent to the article today is a late-in-life diagnosis of Type I diabetes (an autoimmune condition.)
Taking those factors into consideration, I just wanted to be as proactive as possible about my own health and try to catch anything in early stages if I could help it.
Last year, during one of these check-ups, I had a liver enzyme that was elevated enough that it caught my attention. I ran through a mental list of things in my diet that might contribute to that and the one thing that kept sticking out was my alcohol intake.
Going back about 6 years or so, my wife and I have been big fans of bourbon so each night we would enjoy two measured pours (1.5 oz each) of a given bottle from our collection.
Historically (although this is no longer the case), it was common to hear that men can have two servings of alcohol a day and women can have one with no negative effects. Current data is now saying there is no healthy amount of alcohol.
I brought this point up to my G.P. and asked if it was worth considering that since I’m not an “average” size male that perhaps my body can’t metabolize two drinks a day. She said that it was possible that could be the reason for the elevated enzyme, so Marissa and I spent the better part of 2024 cutting our consumption in half and knocking it down to one drink a day.
Late last year, through November and December I was getting sick at a frequency I wasn’t used to. I believe I was sick on 7 or 8 different occasions, enough that I was frequently calling off work from the studio.
As I was coming out of the last illness of the year (COVID before Christmas), I started thinking about anything happening in my diet that I could change that might just help me feel better.
The alcohol came back up and I stopped drinking almost completely on December 27.
Throughout 2025 and up to the writing of this article, I’ve had four drinks this year.
In my mind, I figured at the very least I would have improved bloodwork without the alcohol in my system.
That assumption was wrong.
When my bloodwork got updated, the enzyme that was elevated last year was even higher this year and two enzymes which were normal last year were also now elevated (above the normal range).
This caught my G.P.’s attention and she suggested I get an abdominal ultrasound to see what else was going on.
That was March of this year.
Since then, I’ve had the ultrasound, a cat scan, an MRI, an ultrasound guided liver biopsy and more bloodwork all to come to the conclusion of an autoimmune disease called primary biliary cholangitis (PBC).
PBC is a liver disease where my immune system attacks the bile ducts in my liver. It’s a benign liver disease and is not likely to cause liver cancer but it could still lead at some point to cirrhosis and possibly a liver transplant.
The first line of treatment for it is a medication called Ursodiol which helps remove toxic bile from my system. While it can help me manage the condition and lower my liver enzymes, it will likely have no effect on my symptoms.
Currently, the symptoms associated with PBC that I identify with are fatigue, insomnia and restless legs.
It is a fairly rare autoimmune disease affecting roughly 35 out of every 100,000 people. Of that 35, it affects 90% women and 10% men (although the percentage of men is climbing.)
People have asked me how I feel and the best answer is: tired. I’m tired pretty much all the time and it affects every aspect of my daily routines.
Lately, I can count on a solid four hours of sleep after I close my eyes but after those four hours, it’s a crapshoot how much more restful sleep I’ll get after that.
I only consume one serving of coffee first thing in the morning so I’m not continuing to dose caffeine further into the day.
There really aren’t any major dietary interventions beyond what might normally be considered “healthy”: a diet of mostly whole, minimally processed foods, reducing saturated fat, reducing/eliminating alcohol, staying hydrated and exercising.
Over the next several months, I’ll continue to get bloodwork to see if the enzymes are coming down, and to check on fat-soluble vitamin absorption (Vitamins A,D,E and K can be inefficiently absorbed).
PBC can put me at a higher risk for osteoporosis so I’ll start getting routine DEXA scans to stay on top of those numbers.
There is a chance that my thyroid is also negatively affected so bloodwork will be done in about a month to see if that’s the case. That could be another contributor to my fatigue and energy levels.
If you made it this far, my suggestion again is that you start getting current with your routine bloodwork. There is a chance that if I hadn’t been keeping up with those annual checkups and comprehensive panels that my body wouldn’t have necessarily been giving me indicators that something was wrong until much later.
I remain a firm believer that you don’t know what’s going on under the hood until you get it tested. The sooner you do that, the sooner you can get an action plan together.
I want to extend my gratitude to my staff, my clients, family and friends for being so supportive and understanding during these last several months.
It’s been a frustrating ride but at least now I’ve got some answers.
The average cupcake with frosting has somewhere between 300 and 400 calories.
Depending on how many calories your body requires to be successful at fat loss, you may or may not have room for that cupcake.
But the problem I find with many people’s diets isn’t about the cupcake.
It’s the mental gymnastics that come just before, during and afterwards.
It’s the feeling that if you eat the cupcake, the cupcake is “bad” because the cupcake may have more carbs, sugar and fat than what you planned for.
That if you eat the “bad” cupcake, it makes you a “bad” person, someone without discipline or willpower, someone who is not deserving or worthy of reaching their goals.
And if you eat the bad cupcake because you’re an undisciplined person, then you let the rest of the day, and maybe the next day and the day after go to pot because that little cupcake shat all over your perfectly planned diet.
The thing is, maybe that cupcake set you over your calories for the day. It has basically no effect on your calories for the week. You can still be in a weekly deficit and be one step closer to your goals.
The problem isn’t the cupcake, the chips, the crackers, the dip, the cookies or the pie.
It’s that case of the “fuck-its” you fell into because the cupcake led to more emotional damage than physical.
If your diet has flexibility, you have room for a cupcake.
Food has many attributes: it is love, it is fuel, it is therapeutic, it is comforting, it is delicious, it is energizing.
Demonizing food is where you start fighting a losing battle.
Depending on your goals, your relationship with food, how your body reacts to the food you eat, etc., maybe you have room for the cupcake (or any other dietary indulgence) or maybe you don’t.
But if you want to be more successful in efforts towards your goals, don’t let something as insignificant as a cupcake turn into a snowball of decisions fueled by guilt and shame.
Find the places in your diet where pleasure and joy can exist…cupcakes and all.
Last week, I saw a woman on social media saying that she would never take fat loss advice from a coach who’s never needed to lose weight.
Her rationale being that if someone has never lived in a large(r) body, they aren’t qualified to give expert advice on how to lose it or keep it off. They simply don’t know what it’s like to be in those shoes.
And I started to think about a variety of coaches I know who actively coach fat loss for their clients:
-There are coaches who used to weigh much more than they currently do, found a way to lose that weight and maintain that loss, and want to inspire others to do the same.
-There are coaches whose only experience being in a large(r) body comes from the weight they gained when they were pregnant and they use their experience of post-partum fat loss to help inspire others to get the body they want.
-There are others who grew up as athletes and maybe went through bulking and cutting protocols to make weight for certain events. They also try to use that experience to help them coach fat loss clients.
-Some coaches have never lived in large(r) bodies but have spent years taking on fat loss clients, learning what methods and tips help their clients to succeed and try to spread that word out to others.
-And then you might have coaches like me, who’ve never lived in large(r) bodies but have struggled with maladaptive behaviors like drug/alcohol abuse or addictions and found a way to see common ground between people who abused substances and people who abuse/misuse food intake.
If you’re someone who has struggled with fat loss for most of your life, it may be difficult to find people who understand your own personal struggle.
Many of these struggles are multi-factorial: they come from emotional dysregulation, perhaps unsupportive family members/loved ones, a lack of coping mechanisms when times are difficult, poverty or certain medical challenges.
I can remember during the ten years that I struggled with addiction, that drugs were there for every reason I needed them: happiness, sadness, boredom, frustration, feelings of celebration and feelings of despair.
For every emotion (or lack thereof), drugs were there to get me through.
Until they weren’t…until I made the decision to find other ways to work through my emotions and drugs were no longer the option.
However, at no point during those ten years did I seek out or find my best inspiration to quit from people who were former addicts and got clean.
I’m not saying their stories weren’t inspirational (they were) but it wasn’t former addicts who gave me the best advice.
It was people who had never been addicts to begin with.
My best inspiration came from the people who found healthier ways to cope with life, who saw life from a lens that an addict like me hadn’t considered.
However, asking other people to think like me or be motivated by the same types of inspiration is a recipe for disaster.
In the comment section of that woman’s original post, many coaches responded by listing how long they had been coaching fat loss clients, how many pounds they had helped people shed, what certifications they had, etc.
It didn’t make the woman change her mind, rather she stood her ground, dug her heels in and stayed true to her original sentiment.
I will credit her in this way: She absolutely has a right to be comfortable with whomever she chooses to help her reach her goals. If the person who lights that path is also a coach who has “been there, done that”, I think it’s awesome.
It can be easy to forget or overlook that hiring a coach is very much relationship-driven: If you believe this person respects you, hears you, meets you where you’re at and can pivot with advice in real time, then you’re already several steps closer to your goal.
Truth is, any of those coach examples I provided above can be a great resource for fat loss information or a terrible one. It depends on the coach and it depends on the coaching relationship.
And while the original post might have been a bit inflammatory, there’s also the chance that the woman who wrote it had been burned by people who had not lived an experience closer to hers. In my mind, it might feel like taking parenting advice from someone who’s never been a parent before.
But on that note, sometimes the best inspiration to succeed, to do better and be better, can come from the most unlikely of places…
I first started writing about the increasingly popular GLP-1 receptor agonist medications (GLP-1s for short) about two years ago.
Much of what I wrote back then was informed by my time working alongside Dr. Spencer Nadolsky and a team of nutrition coaches when we were part of his online nutrition coaching program, Big Rocks.
I remain grateful for that time and those experiences to help shape the way I viewed the medications and how I view them now.
Much like I would embrace and support a client who elected to have bariatric surgery, the same applies to those who choose to take a GLP-1 to assist with fat loss.
Normally, someone must have a BMI higher than 35 to qualify for weight loss surgery if another condition is present such as diabetes or high blood pressure. If BMI is over 40, the associated condition does not need to be present.
By comparison, you can have a BMI lower than 35 to qualify for a GLP-1 but you may be limited in how you receive the medication: 27 BMI or higher with an associated condition and 30 or higher without.
This also opens up the conversation into the source of the medication.
Currently, if you wanted access to a GLP-1, you could talk to your doctor and get a prescription for the pharmaceutical grade options or there are a host of avenues if you want a compounded version of the same medication. The latter appears to be a way to receive a GLP-1 regardless of your current BMI.
As is the case for nutritional supplements, if there is no third party to verify what’s in the medication, you have no guarantee that what you’re taking actually has the appropriate ingredients (or hasn’t been spiked with something else altogether).
Historically, the compounded options have been more cost-effective for those looking to use them and the FDA’s actions may present issues for those who need the medications but can no longer afford them.
Arguably, the most popular form of GLP-1 on the market is semaglutide (also known as Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus), however, tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) appear to have better results with fewer negative side effects.
It’s important to note that there are more GLP-1s coming down the pipeline too. Cagrisema and retatrutide are two medications that are going to be hitting the market over the next year or two and it stands to reason that as new medications hit the market, they will likely be more powerful/effective with fewer side effects and it will bring the cost of older medications down.
As with any medication, it’s hard to know how an individual will react until they start taking it. Some people are hyper-responders and start seeing positive results at low dosages and others are slow responders and may not start seeing results until dosages are much higher.
While some degree of gastrointestinal discomfort is most commonly associated with the GLP-1s, some tips to reduce those symptoms are to eat smaller, more frequent meals, drinking enough water, and having some protein with each meal.
Headlines might scare you into thinking you might get “Ozempic face” or “Ozempic butt” but what people tend to miss is that the same aesthetic changes might also take place if someone were simply dieting aggressively and losing the same amount of weight without regard for maintenance and preservation of lean muscle mass.
On that note, it’s my strong suggestion that ANYONE who is taking a GLP-1 should also be strength training to preserve their lean muscle mass and getting in enough protein to support that goal. Unfortunately, too many people are taking the medications just to get the scale to move and they aren’t prioritizing building a stronger body and nourishing themselves with the right amounts and types of food.
While I’ve mentioned this in previous writings, I’ll mention it again here for convenience’s sake. The basic mechanism behind the GLP-1 making them so effective is that they delay gastric emptying. Phrased differently, you register fullness sooner. This sends a signal to the brain that you can stop eating when you might have normally finished the plate. As long as this process equates to an energy deficit for the day/week, the scale will respond in kind.
Some other interesting things can happen on the medications as well. I’ve worked with individuals who’ve lost or reduced many of their food/alcohol cravings. One client of mine noted that once they started the medications they no longer wanted to drink. And for those who struggle with constant “food noise”, they also report a reduction in those pervasive feelings.
All of which can help an individual adhere to a food plan allowing an energy deficit to be achieved with less effort.
So, what happens when you get off of the medications?
Well, MOST people will regain MOST of the weight they lost.
Why?
Because once the medication is out of your system, your rate of digestion goes back to normal and if there’s no “governor” to tell you when to stop eating, your hunger will then go right back to where it was prior to starting the meds.
The reality is, some people will remain sensitive to and aware of the portions and sizes they were successful with and manage their diets without the GLP-1s, but most will not.
Which is why, many responsible practitioners will tell their patients that there is a great likelihood they will remain on some dosage/type of the medication indefinitely.
I heard a coach recently make the comment that the people who are usually most critical of the usage of GLP-1s are the people who will probably never need them. While I’m sure there are exceptions to that statement, it’s also hard to argue with.
I’ve maintained a fairly simple view of this: If you knew someone had struggled with moderate to severe depression for most of their lives and the best way to give them quality of life was to find the right type and dosage of a antidepressant, you’d support that choice. I find GLP-1s to be much the same. If you knew someone had struggled with not just fat loss, but maintenance of weight lost, relentless food noise, and perhaps other conditions which could be reversed like Type II diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. and this medication allows them to live a life of higher quality, support that decision.
We all (myself included) have a very different relationship with food, with our bodies, with the gym, with what we believe our bodies “should” look and perform like and I think each person should be supported in mostly equal measure as long as it appears what they’re doing is safe.
GLP-1s aren’t going anywhere and I would imagine the next 5-10 years will be very eye-opening in terms of what’s available and what’s possible to help someone succeed with fat loss.
At the end of the day, I’ll encourage again that whether you take a GLP-1 or not, make sure you’re lifting weights, make sure you’re getting stronger, make sure you’re consuming enough protein, and make sure that somewhere in the process that you love yourself enough and respect yourself enough to make the best decisions you can.
For anyone trying to succeed with fat loss, beyond the calories you’re taking in or expending, at some point you have to sort out your food cravings.
Each person on that journey is motivated in different ways and, as with any fat loss tools, what works for one won’t work for another and no tool works universally well for all.
The first thing I want to mention is that cravings aren’t emergencies. You’re not going to suffer any adverse health effects if you skip the cookie, the chip or the alcohol (barring any medical issues that contradict that statement).
There’s a tool called “urge surfing” which is credited to G. Alan Marlatt as part of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention and was utilized to help in recovery with addictions.
Simply put, “urges”, or in the context of this article, “cravings” will come and go. The premise is just like a surfer will ride a wave into the shore, you’ll also ride out a craving until it subsides.
This may require you being more present in mind when the craving comes, finding things that occupy yourself so that you’re less likely to ruminate over the craving and then letting it pass.
Cravings likely will not be eliminated completely even if you fancy yourself as a “professional urge surfer.”
So, for the rest of us mere mortals who do have cravings (some significantly more than others), there are other tools which can help.
Many people crave sweets, specifically sweet, fatty foods: cookies, cakes, muffins, etc. The reality is that some people don’t crave sweets at all and prefer something salty like chips, crackers or pretzels. Some crave alcohol. For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to assume that everyone who craves a food is craving something sweet like a cookie.
One tool is to have a small cookie you can look forward to almost daily. This might be a smaller cookie like an Oreo. Whether you have one or two Oreos is up to the individual. What’s more important is that you know you’re not depriving yourself of it. Some people may find this is an easier tool to stick with when the cookies have been portioned out rather than digging into an entire package of Oreos.
Another tool is to save the daily luxury for something larger and perhaps more decadent. This might be something like a Crumbl cookie once a week. To compare, one Oreo has about 70 calories. One Crumbl cookie has about 700 calories. If you know that you have that larger treat to look forward to each week, you may be able to manage not having sweets every single day.
A slightly different tactic, which shifts the reward from a weekly one to something tied to a goal. For instance, you may elect to discontinue sweets until you reach a certain milestone. That milestone might be the first 5 or 10 pounds down. Or maybe it’s when you drop a pant size. Then, when you reach that milestone, you treat yourself to that special treat and then reset the process again. When the next milestone is set, sweets are temporarily put on the backburner and you towards your goal for the next round.
Some all-or-nothing individuals will thrive when they completely remove all temptation. No sweets until they hit their goal. I’m not saying this is the “right” approach or even the “best” approach. I am saying, it works really well for certain people.
At the heart of this, it helps to establish that the cookie is inherently neither good nor bad. It just “is”. It’s a type of food that one person can moderate successfully and another person cannot. That doesn’t make one person better than the other. If cookies are not your vulnerability, you can swap out that food option for something else, like “wine” or “beer” or “french fries”.
Taking a different perspective, for many, defaulting to food when life gets boring, uncomfortable, messy (or all of the above) is where people tend to lose ground. It’s not that food can’t ever be a soothing comfort.
It can.
But you will likely find better results in the long run when you have other avenues to travel to help self soothe. That might mean lifting weights, taking the dog for a walk, calling a friend, taking a bath/shower, reading a book, watching a movie, cleaning a room, doing laundry, playing an instrument, having some downtime with your kids/pets, journaling, etc.
Several months ago, the building where I first opened the doors to RevFit was torn down.
With that, goes the physical landmark of where our story began.
As many know, when I started the business in May of 2009, I didn’t know anyone and I was starting from the ground up.
The woman who would become my first client, in a fascinating turn of events, is now my mother-in-law.
It’s funny how those things work out.
We left that building in efforts to expand in 2012 and moved from the city of Hudson just over the border into the city of Stow (a little over a half mile from our original location.)
The plaza we moved into, The Shoppes of Stow, became our next home as we nestled into a not-so-visible corner of the plaza.
That space allowed us to grow and by 2017, we needed a new playground.
In November of that year, we expanded into the far left corner of our plaza where we took over 3000+ sq ft of space, a unit that was 3 times what I had when I first opened up.
It’s been our home ever since.
As much as I would love to tell you, that each year when our anniversary comes up, it gets easier to talk about it, that’s not entirely true.
In fact, the longer we’ve been in business the more I find myself dumbstruck and at a loss for words for where we are now. Most of that is just out of sheer gratitude.
What many don’t know is that the average personal trainer leaves the industry within the first year to year and a half. There isn’t enough credit given to how difficult building your initial client base takes.
As I’ve watched and will likely continue to watch “competitors” come and go, it’s hard to gauge who will stand the test of time and who won’t.
Historically, I’ve found that the more fitness facilities we have in the area, the better business is for RevFit.
But to be honest, the business landscape in a “post-COVID” world is anything but predictable.
As I try to look back objectively on the last 16 years, it’s with an immense amount of pride, satisfaction, happiness and with no small amount of appreciation for the “luck” we’ve had, I’ve probably forgotten more memories than I’ve retained.
But a few key principles remain:
-We have an absolutely amazing community. I am 1000% biased, of course, but never in my working career have I been able to walk through the doors of a business I’m involved in and look forward to the day as much as I do here. When you have a clientele that embraces you and encourages you to keep improving like ours do here, it’s a reminder we ALL are here to get a little bit better every day; from the coaches to the clients.
-I have a staff that I continue to admire and be proud of. Words can’t express what working alongside Coaches Mike Roder, David Cameron, Nick Morton and Marcus Masters has been like. I might be old enough to be their father (and I am) but these fellas teach me as much as I could ever hope to teach them. In a paternal sense, I hope I’ve given them goals worth shooting for and the path to achieve them.
-The “journey” of self improvement never ends. When I first walked into a gym of my own accord in my early-20s, I felt like I didn’t fit in. When I opened this business, I wanted to build a fitness space where the people who always wanted to fit into a gym could finally find their home. That doesn’t mean everyone will fit in here, I know that RevFit is an acquired taste. We’re loud, we’re ornery but if you give us a try, we’re likely the most devoted “family” you’ll find outside of the one you go home to. As I’ve been known to say more often lately, build a body as strong as you can for as long as you can. We strive to be the place where you can do so indefinitely.
Methods and perspectives for how we approach fitness may have shifted and evolved over time. We’re not the place to punish you into submission, we’re not seeking to burn as many calories as humanly possible, we’re the place the misbehaving adults (and some kiddos, too) come to get stronger, feel better and look better when they’re in their birthday suit.
I’ve heard the term “holistic” used when people describe our approach. While I think the term has been misused over time, we do take into consideration the “whole person” at RevFit. It’s not just how strong you are or how strong you want to be, it’s not just what the scale says you weigh or what you want it to say, it’s about how we try and take every variable that makes you, uniquely you, and say: How do we make this whole person better?
And admittedly, I’ve had to do just as much work on myself, as anything I’d ask a client to do for themselves. That means: get stronger, nourish your body, rest and recover appropriately, have good self care routines, take care of your mental health, read good books, listen to great music, love others but most importantly, respect yourself.
RevFit is now “old enough to drive”, raging hormones and all.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you to every single person: past and present who has brought us here.
I remain in your debt.
Humbly, Jason Leenaarts, owner and head coach.
(Pictured behind me is what’s left of where RevFit began)
Many of my readers know that my oldest son, Jackson (17), has autism.
He is my son from my first marriage and he was diagnosed around the age of 3.
At roughly the same time, my father was dying from cancer.
It was a lot to take in at one time.
Jackson’s mom and I split when he was still an infant and she had the foresight back then, when things were still very rocky between us to remind me: No matter what’s going on between the two of us, we have to do all we can to make sure Jackson has all that he needs.
She was right. And that was well before he would get his diagnosis.
Which meant that her sentiments would carry even more weight and meaning moving forward.
Unlike a lot of people, I didn’t drown myself in information about autism. I didn’t want to read a lot. I wanted to read what would help me directly with my son. I asked for guidance from people who knew more than I did and our respective families, mine and his mother’s, banded together to make sure that Jackson wanted for nothing: he would be loved, he would be supported, he would be cared for and he would be respected.
Throughout Jackson’s life, but certainly when he was much younger, I think I heard every possible “cause” of autism:
-Vaccines (or a component of vaccines)
-Prenatal vitamins
-Environmental toxins
-The mother’s diet during pregnancy
-Exposure to microwave radiation
-Too many ultrasounds during pregnancy, etc.
And while any of those seem “plausible”, nothing has come up as proof.
Jackson is considered high functioning. If you didn’t know much about him and he wasn’t speaking or engaging directly with you, he looks like any other teenage boy.
His biggest challenges relate to having low verbal skills and comprehension.
He will likely never be able to hold a lengthy conversation with open-ended questions.
He will likely never drive a car.
And yet, he is happy, he is healthy, and by many accounts he is thriving.
There are individuals on the autism spectrum who function much higher than Jackson does. Some celebrities and famous individuals we know of who would qualify as being on the higher end of that spectrum include: Anthony Hopkins, Jerry Seinfeld, Albert Einstein, Daryl Hannah, and yes, even an individual who’s been in the public eye a lot lately, Elon Musk.
On the flipside, there are individuals who are considered low functioning or as having severe autism. They might be prone to violent outbursts, they might harm others or themselves, and they may be unable to perform activities of daily living without assistance.
As Jackson’s parents, it’s a thought that hangs in the background of: What will happen to him when we are no longer in this world?
From what’s visible now, it would appear that he could do well in some type of independent living scenario. While Jackson can be resistant to change and sometimes gets upset when schedules or situations don’t go as according to plan, he does show the ability to be flexible if someone is there to help explain what’s happening or changing.
I don’t know a great deal about what other autism parents experience.
Throughout the time I’ve had RevFit, I’ve had the privilege of working with several people who are on the spectrum to varying degrees. Some can hold conversations and follow exercise instructions with relative ease, some cannot.
Most always, I get the chance to talk with the parents to get at least a decent understanding of what living with their neurodivergent child looks like.
It reminds me that, just like being the parent of a child who is neurotypical (I have a 7-year old with my wife Marissa, named Sebastian, who fits this description) everyone has a different parenting experience.
So, while some commonalities exist: a preference for routine, a limited array of food choices, sensory challenges, etc. the adage in the autism community is: If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism. That’s where it ends.
Which leads me to the inspiration for my post today.
Recently, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made some troubling remarks about individuals with autism.
He is apparently concerned about the rate at which autism diagnoses are increasing.
He calls it an “epidemic.”
He states that autism is completely preventable and that we “know it is environmental exposure.”
In his recent press conference he stated: “Autism destroys families…These are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date…and we have to recognize we are doing this to our children.”
My initial response was an emotional one.
No doubt, the “easy” thing for me to do is to attack the person.
But easy doesn’t make it right.
He stated elsewhere in the conference (I’m paraphrasing) that individuals with autism start off normal until about 2 years of age and then something changes.
There is the part of me that has a genuine curiosity: What if we ever found the “cure/cause” of autism?
And let’s assume for a moment that RFK Jr. is right when he says the blame is on environmental toxins.
An example of an environmental toxin might be something like heavy metals. Heavy metals can be found in trace amounts in soil, which can affect the plants we eat, they can be found in animals who live in the sea, they can also be found during the processing of our food.
So, yes, it’s “possible” that these heavy metals enter the bodies of our two year old children and something changes.
Of note, autism is far more prevalent in boys than it is in girls, and while the distribution is close between races, Blacks, Hispanics, Asian American/Pacific Islander boys appear to have higher rates of autism than White boys. I wonder why that is…
RFK Jr. claims he will have these answers for a cause of autism by September of this year. Of course, if (big IF, in my opinion), he is right, I can’t begin to imagine what will have to change in American soil, how we utilize pesticides, how we process foods and what type of waste doesn’t affect the fish in the sea.
I should also mention that it’s not just a problem in America. The increased rate of diagnoses appears to be relatively close in Japan, South Korea, Canada and Australia (not an exhaustive list).
Which makes me wonder as well…since each of those countries have different vaccine protocols, different soil, different food manufacturing practices, etc. are we still focused on environmental toxins or is it something else?
I am not an expert in autism. I don’t see myself as an expert in much of anything. I am someone who aligns with evidence-based scientific reason. Some parts of science I understand, some I don’t. I don’t mind being challenged if evidence leads in a place that doesn’t fit my current bias.
But long-term controlled studies of humans is expensive and difficult to implement which is why we can’t just corral a bunch of two year olds into a room, expose them to all sorts of “boogeymen” and see what sticks.
What I do find immensely upsetting is how RFK Jr made several blanket statements, many of which are grossly untrue (and potentially harmful) about a community of people who need support. My son being just one of them.
If you love someone with autism, what RFK Jr said “should” probably elicit an emotional response from you. If he’s right and he presents a clear cut cause of autism to America, I’ll give credit where it’s due.
I’m also not going to hold my breath.
I have a genuine curiosity about a lot of things and finding a “cause” of autism is something I’m truly curious about, just like I’m curious about finding a cure for cancer.
If RFK Jr. and staff come through, it may not change Jackson’s life, but it might change someone else’s.
Just like a cure for cancer may have come too late to save my father but it might save someone else.
It might be a tough pill to swallow, though, when as any responsible, caring, loving parent is just trying to do the very best to protect and improve the life of their child, if the evidence we’re presented with says: We know you tried your best, but you’re the reason your child has autism and you can’t blame genetics.
If you love someone with autism, love them fully. Love them completely. Even if it’s imperfect.
I can’t, in good conscience, say much of anything about Jackson without giving credit to the person who has arguably sacrificed more than anyone to give him what he has in life, his mother. She, along with her family and loved ones have provided a support system that my family is there to complement. He is who he is, primarily for the time, attention and care she’s given him and for that, I have been and will remain, grateful and thankful for.
On average, I make the 600 mile drive from where we live in Ohio down to my hometown in Tennessee once a year.
On a good day, where you hit no traffic on the way down, it might take 9-9.5 hrs. On a bad day, you can add another 1-2 hours depending on stops and traffic jams.
It’s never an “easy” drive but it’s always worth it to be with family.
My grandmother (and my uncle) on my mom’s side of the family both still live there and my father is buried about 45 minutes outside of the area.
My grandmother recently turned 92 and I wasn’t able to make it down to see her for her special day but I was able to get down there this past weekend.
As I was heading out of town on Sunday to make the trek back up north, “Gram” and I were having some breakfast and coffee and chatting a bit.
She said something that has stuck with me since then, with the inspiration behind the sentiment coming on the heels of her acknowledgement of her age:
Life isn’t easy but it’s not supposed to be…you just find a way through.
I’ve mentioned this before on this site but her words of wisdom reminded me of it again.
Most of the things we value in life are the things it takes the most effort to acquire or achieve.
Parenting isn’t easy but you find value in the things you get right and wrong while raising your children.
Marriage isn’t easy but you make mistakes, you overcome challenges, and you look back with respect for what you’ve built (or rebuilt) with each other.
Taking care of your health isn’t easy but you’ve only got one body to get it right with. Some people start taking care of their body early on, some start later in life. Rarely ever will you hear someone say that it wasn’t worth it.
When Gram said life isn’t easy, she was talking about her own health, how things have changed as she’s aged and what she’s experienced in over nine decades in this world.
I heard a sentiment sometime back and I have to paraphrase it now but it was a list of things that are considered “hard”.
Getting healthy is hard, being sick is harder. Choose your hard. Etc. Etc.
And that seems overly simplistic to me.
I think that what is difficult for one, might be easy (or easier) for another.
I think some people tolerate and manage stress very well, some not so much.
I think some people are very good at time management and some people let their schedules run all over them.
And it still doesn’t change the fact that we’re all going to be faced with obstacles repeatedly which will make our lives more difficult, harder to manage, and more emotionally draining than we anticipated.
At best, we find the people and the tools to help us navigate those times.
If we’re lucky, we have enough self-awareness to be able to look in the mirror and ask: How am I contributing to this mess I’m currently in?
So, this week, it’s a little love note from my Gram to me to you, especially those of you currently struggling through hardships of any magnitude:
Life isn’t easy but it’s not supposed to be…you just find a way through.
And that path normally leads somewhere closer to where you want to be.
When I started RevFit, back in 2009, I needed to do a photo shoot for some marketing materials.
I didn’t know anywhere near as much about nutrition and fat loss as I do now but, like a lot of coaches, I felt like I needed to show off more of my body than I normally do, so the goal was the drop some body fat so I could show off more definition for those pictures.
Around that time, there was an actor on a popular television show, who had to do something similar for a series of episodes: diet down to a certain level of leanness so that his midsection would be more visible on camera.
He was interviewed in a magazine and spoke briefly about the diet he needed to follow for those results.
I looked at him, saw that we had a similarly lean physique, and figured since it wouldn’t have been comparable to me eating a diet like Chris Hemsworth or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, that perhaps I’d get similar results on the same diet.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
No doubt, I did get leaner for the very short amount of time I tried that awful diet, but I felt like absolute garbage and I never felt great about the outcome of those pictures.
And it reminded me of conversations I’ve had throughout the years about comparisons with other people’s bodies.
I’ve been coaching long enough at this point that I remember women asking for Michelle Obama’s arms and Carrie Underwood’s legs.
And of course, men asking for Chris Evans’ chest or Hugh Jackman’s arms.
And the most painful question to ask when it comes to all of this is the one we have the least amount of control over.
Do you have the same parents as the person you’re comparing yourself to?
If the answer is no, then everything that comes after is a roll of the dice.
(To be fair, even if the answer was yes, it would only matter so much).
But there are other questions to ask as well:
What drugs/supplements does that person take that I don’t?
How many hours a day must that person train to be able to have that body (or body part) or how much of their current physique simply comes from genetics?
Can that person afford a nanny for childcare, a personal trainer, a chef, a dietitian, etc. to be able to eat, train, and focus on their body in a way that I cannot?
Does that person have an eating disorder? Or, more importantly, do I?
Is the information I’ve read or heard about how that person eats and trains valid, accurate and comprehensive?
Fact is, you could know every detail down to the last rep and morsel of food as that person you’re comparing against, follow it all to the “t” and your outcomes will be different.
And once I realized that bitter truth for myself, I knew that the only thing I could do, was focus on building the best body I could for me.
Which means, it wouldn’t have mattered if there wasn’t enough context or detail for that TV celebrity I was taking inspiration from. What worked for him likely would never have worked for me because: we don’t share the same DNA and we’re just different people.
Not all comparisons are bad, of course.
If you were a physique competitor or bodybuilder, I can imagine making a vision board of admirable bodies or body parts could be inspirational.
But like a lot of things in life, competition aside, it’s mostly a game of you vs. you.
Jason Leenaarts 