User:Sgerbic/sandbox/James Fell

James Fell (born June 17, 1968) is known for his writings on fitness. He has written for Time Magazine, Mens Health, Ask Men, Chatelaine, NPR, The Guardian and blogs on his website, BodyForWife. He is the author of Lose it Right: A Brutally Honest 3-Stage Program to Help You Get Fit and Lose Weight Without Losing Your Mind, published in 2014 by Random House Canada. Fell is a certified strength and conditioning specialist, and a fitness columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.

Fell is also a skeptic known for challenging pseudoscience in the fields of health and fitness.

Early Life and education
Fell was born in Victoria, British Columbia. During his years at the University of Calgary, after looking through recent vacation photos, he discovered that he had gained a great deal of weight, and felt unhealthy. He made the decision that, before he proposed to his girlfriend, he would try to improve his health and lose weight. He discovered he enjoyed exercising, and he "hit the gym with enthusiasm, cleaned up his diet and lost 50 pounds of fat and gained 20 pounds of muscle."

Fell also realized that he loved writing. Speaking about his thesis advisor Chris Archer, Fell said "'His red ink was vicious and it made me grow as a writer, made me want to be better.'” After graduation from university with a Master of Business Administration Fell worked as a director of marketing for kinesiology, and also wrote science fiction. Eventually Fell decided that he would combine two of his passions, writing and fitness, and began a career as a columnist.

Fitness Career
Fell takes a no-nonsense approach to weight-loss, and his often blunt and humorous style have brought readers to his blogs and columns. He says "The brutal honesty is more palatable if you make people laugh while delivering it." Fell calls the get-fit-fast diet plans "Weight loss Incorporated," and told Breakfast Television that if a diet uses the words "quick, easy, or Dr. Oz" more people will be drawn to it as people have a short memory for failure, and we will keep looking for a miracle and purchasing these products even though they do not work.

Some fitness suggestions he gave to The Morning Show crew are to work out in the morning before you can find excuses not to, treat yourself to favorite foods from time to time, eat out rarely, and cook at home using fresh ingredients. Your goal, he said, is to become the kind of person that enjoys exercise; it should not be a chore. Fell says that he ignores the scale and he thinks people focus too much on the numbers, and he suggests that people learn to "transcend the scale."

The Washington Post consulted Fell about Body mass index (BMI) as an indicator of health. Fell believes that many factors determine health, and visual appearance is no longer a good guide. People should not try to hit a number on a chart, sacrificing healthy habits that increases muscle mass (thus weight) with unhealthy habits like smoking in order to lose weight. Also according to Fell "The BMI doesn’t take into account that a person can be lean due to unhealthy behaviors, including extreme dieting or drug addiction."

In a LA Times article Fell wrote about the Manhattan indoor cycling company, SoulCycle. He approved of the company's approach to entertain and motivate its customers, saying he encourages "the importance of finding an exercise you love and embracing it with fervor." Fell feels their focus of upper body exercises while spinning on the bikes is useless and unsafe, in his op-ed article he quotes other experts who agree with his position. Fell is also concerned that the co-founders do not have certifications in any type of exercise. Business Insider calls Fell an expert and quotes his Times article saying, he gives SoulCycle a "failing grade for exercise physiology and biomechanics."

Paste Magazine in 2014 listed Fell's Twitter feed as one of the top ten fitness accounts to follow, for its skepticism of fad diets and trends. In 2015, Men's Health listed Fell's Twitter account, @BodyForWife, as one of the top three best fitness feeds to follow. The Personal Trainer Development Center (PTDC) asked independent coaches for their favorite fitness article published in 2016, and Fell's "'Eat Less Move More' Is Bullshit" article from December 2016 was selected as the top fat-loss articles.

Fell has been sited as a fitness expert and quoted by Men's Journal, The Globe and Mail, DailyBurn, Bustle Magazine,

SciBabe Yvette d'Entremont asks Fell's his opinion of fitness/wellness entrepreneur Tracy Anderson. His reply was "There are a pile of pseudoscience spewing shit nuggets who bear the dubious dishonor of being ‘Made Famous By Oprah.’ In the case of Tracy Anderson, replace ‘Oprah’ with ‘Gwyneth Paltrow.’ Any science-minded person who reads Gwyneth’s blog will quickly realize she can’t be trusted with anything sharper than the kindergarten scissors."

'You work out hard. You stop drinking so much beer and stop eating so much junk food. And you will get into shape. ... I believe in pursuing ambitious goals but also finding your own level of good enough ... if you get halfway to your goals and stay there, is this not still awesome?'

Lose it Right
In April 2014, Random House Canada published Fell's book, Lose it Right: A Brutally Honest 3-Stage Program to Help You Get Fit and Lose Weight Without Losing Your Mind. Fell explains his difficulty finding a publisher at first: they wanted "sexy" and "miracle" diets which sell books. Lose it Right is a thoughtful way to slowly lose weight; taking it off in stages and changing your life to include exercise and good eating habits. Fell takes a "tortoise approach," slow and steady. "The gim-mick of my book is that there is no gim-mick." Fell suggests that you start with exercise, then incorporate diet changes. People who exercise feel better and then eat better. This book, according to Fell, is not intended for people who need to lose more than 70 pounds. Those people should consult a physician. Fell tells Global Calgary that the book is for people who have a "sedentary life and aren't the best eaters.".He sees this a starting book for people about to make life changing fitness decisions.

Author of Unmasking Superfoods, Jennifer Sygo writing for the National Post, answers the question that she is often asked: "are there any good weight loss books out there?" with the answer that there now are two good ones: The Diet Fix by Yoni Freedhoff and Lose it Right by James Fell. She says, "Both authors have worked in the trenches of weight control for years, and both follow the rarest of rare paths in their writing on weight loss — or more aptly, weight management: They use real research, not pseudoscience, along with a healthy dose of common sense gleaned from practical experience." Sygo states that both teach to lose weight slowly, be organized, plan and "set small goals" as strategies that will last in the long run. Don't deprive yourself of any food, and learn that there is no "quick-fix." She writes that Fell's style is a "joker" stating that she finds his critique of diet books are "male bovine droppings" and his Twitter account is quite humorous.

The book is broken down into three stages, Learn, Prepare and Do. He explained to The Morning Show team that it is important to understand that there is a lot of misinformation out there. "Burning calories is one the the least important things exercise does," exercise transforms you into becoming a better eater. Next Prepare, set goals, plan ahead and use time management. Look at things in a big-picture way and adapt basic rules to your lifestyle. Fell says that "Nike has it wrong, you don't just Do It." You need to plan and then do it. The Do step is also broken down into smaller steps. On your first day you can't expect to have "purged all the garbage food out of your diet" and be a "workout warrior." Exercise first, diet later. Fell states that we need to get past a reward mentality of thinking you deserve to eat unhealthy food after exercising. When you exercise you will find that you make "wiser food choices."

When your last name is “Fell,” you try hard not to fall. Because, elementary school. Nevertheless, James Fell… across the finish line.

Jillian Michaels controversy
In 2010, Fell writing an op-ed article for The Los Angeles Times criticised one of the trainers for the TV program The Biggest Loser, Jillian Michaels. Fell challenged her qualifications to be a fitness trainer, stating that she was making weight-loss claims that were unrealistic. He also was concerned that she was advocating unsafe training using kettlebell exercises on her, Shred-It With Weights DVD. Michaels responded to Fell's statement that "she's an actress playing the role of fitness trainer." She told US Weekly that she was going to sue for libel.

On Fell's blog he writes about this story, claiming that he "detests many of the things she does," and stands by his op-ed column. He quoted several kettlebell experts in his article and states that she does not hold a certificate in kettlebell training. He reports that no lawsuit was ever filed and the statute of limitations has expired.

Alicia Machado
Miss Universe 1995, Alicia Machado, spoke to Fell about her interactions with Donald Trump in a 2016 article for Women's Health.

Personal life
In an April 2014 interview, Fell stated that he has been married for many years. "Mostly I run, lift weights and cycle. I qualified for the Boston Marathon in 2013 and it managed to be awesome while also being the worst pain ever. In the winter I like skiing and in summer I’ll do some sea kayaking and swimming."