What happened next was a relatively small event but with life altering consequences. I guess it’s funny how when we look back when can often trace back our current path to a single choice. I finally decided—after slight persuasion—to make the trip from North Vancouver to Burnaby to go to the Revamped Fitness Solutions gym with Daniel.

Daniel was my friend and a team mate from Calgary who was also a trainer at Revamped Fitness. When I first walked into the Revamped Fitness gym, I said to Daniel, “Really, this is it?? How can we work out here if there’s not even a bench!?” He said to me something that I’ll never forget: “Don’t worry about it. We don’t do anything off our backs here.” Still skeptical but open-minded I followed along as we started our workout called The Turbo 150(!!).

The workout was a real eye opener for me. The healthy competition of training with a friend and team mate lit a fire under me and I pushed myself harder than I had since training for water polo. I must have nearly killed myself that day because I was sore for a week. And, I haven’t been to another gym since. This one choice set into motion for me a big lifestyle change.

Check out my before pictures and stay tuned for Part Three from Johnny’s Chronicles: In the Beginning!

After coming home from a solid performance at the World Student Games for Team Canada in the summer of 2009, I made the difficult decision to leave water polo and move back home to Vancouver. It quickly became evident that even as I left my life in Calgary and the rigorous training behind, those nasty eating habits and lifestyle choices had followed me home.

As you can imagine, I “may” have gained a bit of weight…a whopping 55 lbs in 6 months to be exact. One might think this couldn’t be possible for someone with such a high level of athleticism and drive, but I simply said to myself “I can eat anything. I’ll just work it off.” In those six months I had a gym pass and started to go pretty regularly, but something wasn't working. Sure my training in Calgary had been repetitive and sometimes I may have even questioned its effectiveness at times, but there were always my team mates around to make things fun and a coach to push me.

In Vancouver things went downhill fast. I was bored of my workouts within a month and I saw no real results. The frustration only got worse from there when I started to really realize that the mirrors weren’t lying and in all respects I was overweight.

Stay tuned for more from The Chronicles of Johnny!

One very important aspect to look at when improving eating habits is the bioavailability of food. To better understand bioavailability, let's first define some terms:

So as an example, wild salmon sashimi is an excellent choice of food as it has very high bioavailability. This means that once the sashimi is eaten, the enzymatic requirement for digestion is minimal and it doesn't take a large amount of hydrochloric acid (stomach acid) to digest it. This makes it very easy for the digestive tract to break down the salmon and deliver the micro- and macronutrients to the body's cells. And, even better, the percentage of the nutrients delivered to the cells is very high unlike lower bioavailable foods such a very well-grilled chicken breast or canned foods like canned beans or canned tuna.

Okay, let's look at another example: canned tuna. 146g of solid chunks of tuna after being drained has 46g protein, 12g fat (of which 3g are saturated), 517mg of sodium and a little iron. But because the canned tuna has low bioavailability, your body is going to have to work overtime to absorb a very small portion of those micro- and macronutrients and in the end, it will have minimal uptake and delivery. So you may be eating high protein but your body will only absorb a portion of it due to its low bioavailability.

This is one of the reasons I personally like whey protein and I advise clients to use it. Whey protein has extremely high bioavailability.

The closer the food remains to the way nature intended it to be, the higher the bioavailability and it will cause less strain on the digestive enzymes and organs. So keep this in mind next time the grill comes on and the steak and hotdogs start sizzling. If you eat that stuff, your liver, pancreas, and digestive tract (just to name a few) will also start sizzling!

Go as bioavailable as possible for optimum health, longetivity and to optimize your fitness gains.

Most of us were raised on milk. It tastes good and it's full of nutrients like calcium, vitamin D and protein, so what's wrong with that?

The problem is milk has a huge financial backing and is cleverly advertised to create misdirection regarding its flaws. When milk is advertised as containing calcium, it's true. It does contain calcium. However, your body will never see any of it.

Instead the body will be forced to draw on calcium reserves already in the body to compensate for the acidity that milk causes. That's right. Dairy products will rob you of calcium by increasing the net acid load in the body which then has to be neutralized by calcium reserves from your bones. And what does that lead to in the long run? If you guessed osteoporosis, then you are correct.

Just take a look at the countries that have high quantities of dairy consumption correlated with osteoporosis and hip fracture. The United States is the highest consumer of dairy-sourced calcium followed by New Zealand and Sweden. And it's these same countries that have the highest incidence of osteoporosis and hip fracture.

The bottom line is this. It comes down to freedom of choice, just like with cigarettes. So if you are reading this post, do your own research from independent studies. Try it. Google words like "milk, acid, consume, high correlation, osteoporosis and hip fracture" and see for yourself.

This post is just a small insight regarding dairy. Stay tuned as more will be covered in upcoming posts regarding nutrition, training and overall mental and physical longevity.