I know you have all heard me talk about different things involving fitness and what not but that’s only one facet of my personality. Another big thing to me is music, particularly classic heavy metal from the 70’s and 80’s both as a listener and as a participant. One of the biggest influences to me as a singer was a man that went by the name Ronnie James Dio.

Dio had a very distinctive roar and control in his voice. His was a voice that was inspirational. Fronting some of the top bands known as Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell and a band named after him; Dio. I had seen him singing for Dio as well as opening for Judas Priest under with the band Heaven and Hell (Dio era Black Sabbath).

May 16th this year he lost his battle with cancer. I knew he had had it for some time but I honestly believed in my heart he was going to win. What a shock it was to go home and log onto facebook and see the get well soon Ronnie James Dio page turned into a remembrance. His music was unforgettable, his charity for band aid (the heavy metal version of live aid) couldn’t have been done without him. I will miss his contributions to music but I do know he will live forever in the music that has influenced several of us metal heads so.

In the meantime I want to point out that you can help fight the fight. You might know one of my influences as a fitness coach is a man by the name of Alwyn Cosgrove. Alwyn is a multiple time cancer survivor and had put together a compilation of several different articles created by many coaches who had also influenced me and put it on a CD. it contains over 800 pages of info from the likes of Pavel, Mike Mahler, Zach Evan Esh, Smitty and more. All proceeds go to the lymphoma society

Long live Rock n Roll and RJD will live long within his music. The ending is just a beginner. God bless you Ronnie. \m/

fired up again
ok so if you have read my last blog post you might know that what happened in Nashville was devastating. The city had crushing floods that were sweeping away many homes, taking families with it and if it weren’t for the strength and support of the people in that city it would have been like New Orleans all over again.

Now as I am doing a bit of snooping around on the internet, (I wanted to see how the town was doing) I came up on a blog run by Punch Gym in Nashville. You might remember a while back they had posted the grad workout vid on youtube from the Aos cert which I viewed and found no less then 8 serious errors with their form. I’m not talking semantics like my getup is better then your getup or what not but things that would compromise the safety of their clients. Well before I go on another tangent let me explain the reason behind this post. I see that they have a blog post dated May 6th entitled “what kind of music do you like to listen too?”

Really? Is that what is important? Your city was practically destroyed and that’s what you care about? Who really cares what kind of music anyone listens to when people’s lives are still in danger…not a hundred miles away or on the other side of the world but right in your home town. How is it possible that I all the way up here in the dirty Jersey has stuff trying to drum up support on my blog and you don’t? You are caring about that which does not matter.

Nobody gets into the fitness industry for the money alone. Trust me there are a lot easier ways of becoming rich. Ya normally get into fitness training because you care and want to make a difference in people’s lives. I was recently invited to attend the wedding of a bride I trained which to me is a high honor. Why? because I care.

do you care or are you faking it? If you care, show it or more importantly do something because of it.

Eric Moss out

alright
I don’t know if you have been keeping up with the news lately but if you have you may have seen what’s going on in Nashville. I’ll admit I am not normally up on current events but had followed a link from my friend Dave “the Iron Tamer” Whitley’s facebook page going to his blog and saw that his home town is basically under water.

Nashville

Now I just got off the phone with big Dave and he told me that the pictures don’t even do it justice and most people have no idea just how bad it really is. One of the rivers rose up 60ft. Think about that a second…60ft. A lot of people have basically lost everything. I want you to picture everything in your life that you hold dear, your family, your house, your possessions…now imagine it all gone… just washed away in the blink of an eye.

Terrible right?

Now hopefully that didn’t happen to you, I just wanted to illustrate just how hard its going for the people down there. One of the things I have noticed is that it takes a disaster like this to show what people are really made of. The folks of Nashville have pulled together as a team just like New York did during 9/11 but they need our help. The death toll is rising, temporary shelters are at capacity, missing people are unaccounted for, many homes are under water, there is a water conservation emergency, much of Nashville’s economic base is threatened by flood damage. You can text ‘REDCROSS’ to 90999 to donate $10 to disaster relief. I don’t ask you for much and I know that if you have been listening to anything I preach I have saved you at least $10 by preventing you from buying bullshit like the shake weight. Take that $10 and give it to someone that really needs it in Nashville. You can text ‘REDCROSS’ to 90999 to donate $10 to disaster relief and you’ll know what you are made of.

Alright
first a big congrats to comrade Doug D. for becoming a new father. Now I haven’t met personally but I have conversed with him through email and he’s a physical culturist like me that understands proper eating and exercise habits. I have no doubt that the daughter that he just welcomed to the world will grow up happy and healthy with his guidance.

but that’s more then I can say about most parents

I was watching the Jamie Olliver show over the weekend (an excellent show) and just had to rant about it. You see Jamie heard about the unhealthiest county in the US (I don’t remember which one it is off the top of my head) and was faced with just a ton of crap. Rules set in place that made it practically impossible to eat a healthy food (pizza doesn’t violate the nutrition standards but 7 vegetable lo mein does? wtf?). Much to his credit he did get the schools to change to healthy lunches…at least in the cafeteria

but that didn’t stop the kids from bringing in crap from home…and almost quite literally crap

you see most of the crap that they are bringing in are horrible for you. If you feel like you have to take a chemistry class just to read the fu_king ingredients then chances are you shouldn’t be giving it to your kids to eat. Now you might be thinking “well that’s the unhealthiest county in the nation…of course they aren’t eating correctly”

well maybe they are the unhealthiest county in the nation but it’s practically everywhere

in the schools here kids are bringing in lunchables, chicken nuggets and junk food and all sorts of crap that’s bad for you. If its happening here…its probably happening everywhere. And you know you hear the parents always making up excuses. “but this is what the kid likes”, “he screams and carrys on until i give in”. which one of you @$$holes is in charge anyways?

i think its maybe time for a bit of tough love

you can’t expect kids to make good decisions for themselves. they’re kids. they’re id controlled. it is up to you the parent (chances are if you are reading my blog you aren’t guilty of this so im not singling you out, unless you are in fact guilty which then yes i am singling you out) anyways…its up to you the parent to make the proper decisions FOR the kids. Would you let your kids play with guns? How about fire? If your kids wanted to drink the stuff you keep under the sink would you let them? Like it or not you are responsible for your children. If you let them make their own decisions all the time you are dodging your responsibilities. Hell if you want to be unhealthy thats your problem…but if you decide to let your kids eat a bunch of $hit then it isn’t your problem, its your kids but its your fault.

This is the first generation that is expected to have a shorter life span then it’s parents. That is a shame and its the parents fault, not the kids. The other thing is everything that a kid does in life programs the way they think in the future. When the kids are old enough to make decisions for themselves it will be too late because they have already been programmed to eat like a porker…and once again…its your fault.

If you want to be part of the solution not the problem then get your ass over to JamieOliver.com and sign his petition.

Eric Moss out