Thirteen months ago I left a good job at Case, giving up my free tuition and allowing myself to live on almost nothing for 3-6 months. Today Shaffer Consulting has six figure annual revenues and four employees. Things are going very well. I can now pay my tuition out of pocket and still have more left over than what I was getting paid at Case. There is no shortage of demand for good computer techs.

With this I've decided to invest significantly in a program that will help make a difference. Preventative health care!

It sickens me to hear information like this (only 3 minutes):

The 66% obese population he talks about is most of my family and many of my friends. These diseases are preventable. Not only preventable, but reversible!

Why are so many people willing to let themself fail at fitness? I know good people who work hard and are committed to their job, or who work hard and are committed to school, or who work hard and are committed to their relationships - but so few people seem to be willing to work hard and commit to their health. Why is this? What value is a job, education, and our relationships without health?

We can all guess, but my personal opinion is that millions of Americans become members of gyms and see little or no results from their fitness programs. If they did they would be back next week for more - but they don't and they aren't!

People end up spending 90 demotivating minutes on a treadmill not knowing there are better, time efficient ways of getting fit. People see no reason to go to the gym because little or nothing happens. This has been going on long enough that children grew up seeing parents go to the gym, nothing happens, and so children see no reason to care either.

We have a large population that just isn't convinced of the value of a gym membership. Honestly, I'm not either. The typical gym business model is not based on health results. Isn't that sickening? Profitability is based on selling hundreds of memberships and hoping that only 15% of the people show up. Somebody needs to change the incentives in this model!

Cleveland is one of the most unhealthy cities in the country. I live here. I'm tired of complaining on blogs - I want to change it. I found a highly effective, time efficient training method. Something that isn't fancy marketing - it is legit - it is used by Navy SEALs, firefighters, law enforcement, etc all over the country and is one the fastest growing fitness communities around. It is designed to scale to different age/sex/fitness levels. No special equipment and no special powders. No bullshit, just results. If you're interested check out the main CrossFit site for workouts you can do at home.

If you'd like a gym specific to this program, you are welcome at my training facility where I help everyone from Cleveland firemen, financial analyst in his 50's, college students, moms, previous professional wrestler, recent grads from Case and Yale working in IT and business, people with no degree, and people with no fitness background at all. These diverse clients may otherwise not share any interests, but we all have one thing in common: we all have a body that responds to highly effective, time efficient training and we share a commitment to improve. This shared goal has allowed us to see noticeable, measurable improvements across the board for all trainees in cardiovascular endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, accuracy and an overall "feeling fit".

Most of us spent too much time at regular gyms seeing little or no progress - two of us even work at other gyms - but we all train at Cleveland CrossFit.