About Us

I have had a passion for fitness and health most of my adult life. I was raised in a home where tobacco was not present and alcohol was hardly seen, and I took it for granted that this was the way it should be. I was a high school football player in a part of the country where football was serious business. I learned there about rigorous physical training and liked it, because it made me proud of being in shape and of being in control of my body.

I then went through college, a tour as an Air Force officer and an MBA course without any defined fitness program. About a year after finishing graduate school I took stock and was startled to face reality. I was soft and unconditioned. I did not like it and resolved to change it. I decided to try running, and challenged myself to a mile on the first outing. I thought my lungs were going to burst, I ached, I grew weak, but I made it.

This led to other self-challenges, each designed to better the previous one. After several years I was running 30 miles per week, including three seven-mile, 56-minute runs. I was now seen by family and friends as a model of fitness and health (and perhaps as somewhat obsessive).

It was during this time that I was drawn to fitness and health as a field of study. My special interest was the fact that some people seem to make the most of their chronological age. I wondered why some people live so much longer than others, why these people look so much younger than others their age and why they seem to stay so healthy and free from illness and disease. These people have a physical age less than their chronological age, and in many cases the difference is striking.

I began to read and to search for new ideas and to think about how the knowledge I was gaining might help my family and friends. Through several phases of thought this lead to a decision to create FitnessPayoff and this website. My basic idea was that improving fitness and health needs to start with the formation of good habits. The good habits will lead inevitably to rewards of longer life and better quality of life.

My goal is to make this information available to every person who is interested in improving his or her fitness and health, without regard to age, level of fitness or present condition. We all have to start somewhere. It is not too important where we start. But it is very important that we start, to improve and achieve the rewards that are there for us to claim.

James Arthur