About Chris.
When I was a kid, I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, which is an auto-immune condition (meaning that it's caused by a malfunctioning immune system), and has a pretty substantial impact on one's development, particularly when it comes to nutrition and exercise.
I was naturally strong, but not sports-focused. I didn't enjoy team sports, but in Primary School I discovered I could throw a discus pretty well. I was encouraged to run, but I found it unpleasant and tiresome. This has informed my development as a fitness professional, since I realised my strengths did not lie in training groups like boot camps or sporting teams, but in helping individuals to understand what might be holding them back and become more in-tune with their own body.
I trained in gymnastics for a year before my diagnosis, but I discontinued training because of headaches. Shortly thereafter I started practicing martial arts, and a passionate enthusiasm for that type of training rapidly developed. It felt like it took me years to convince my parents it was a good thing to try. I was never as thin as I wanted to be, but although I was a heavy kid, I don't think you'd ever have really called me fat. Certainly not if you were polite!
Having never been a huge meat-eater, sometime around the age of nineteen I became a vegetarian. I found that my Diabetes responded quite well to the change. I suspect it was because I basically wasn't eating enough, so my need for insulin was relatively reduced. Now I take a much more relaxed approach, and while my choices and beliefs may look inconsistent from the outside, on the inside they make sense to me.
Given these various circumstances and their subsequent and potentially obvious dietary consequences, I recently discovered - perhaps unsurprisingly - that I have a number of guilt complexes regarding food which run rather deep. This website has a lot to do with working through my particular issues relating to nutrition and body-image.
I don't believe in rules any more, and after working as a Personal Trainer for a number of years now, in some ways I actually have more questions than answers. Mostly the questions are about why we're told such crap in the industry, which basically comes down to the fact that people can make money by making you feel shamed and guilty about your body and so-called 'lifestyle choices'. Also, many trainers feel hopelessly lost and unsuccessful in their own body-shaping attempts, so there's a tendency to cling to the dogma like a man who's drowning clings to driftwood. But with so many people having such little success, shouldn't we be asking more questions? Why do what you're told in an industry where everybody seems to oversimplify everything and disagree all the time? Walk your own path, proudly. Never be ashamed of what you look like, and don't let anyone tell you what you can and can't put in your mouth. It's your decision, and yours alone.
It was a big realisation for me - you can't eat grains, meat, sugar or milk without someone saying it's going to be the death of you. The obvious result: you, and you alone, must decide. If you exclude all those products, good luck improving your health. There's no such thing as perfect nutrition, and no way to avoid all risk - so what works for you?
Having said all that, I'm now focusing most of my efforts on how to develop athletically in the context of trying not to care quite so much about the beauty standard and what we 'should' or 'should not' be doing. It's been an interesting path thus far.
I've noticed a number of websites out there that are making positive steps towards accepting your body and focusing on what's actually helpful - rather than pandering to exploitative propaganda. As someone who's always rebelled against our standardised images of beauty and popularity, I identify with these very strongly. But most of them don't seem to have much in the way of sophisticated training programs and athletic development.
Conversely, the sites that are do have good training advice also seem to be focused on aesthetic changes, rather than actual health and athleticism.
I'm hoping to bridge that gap a little, and provide people with helpful insights into how to actually become stronger, fitter and more healthy, irrespective of how they look.
People often get caught up in their own dogma, and I hope I don't do that too much. Question everything, ruthlessly if need be.
For me, good training is about progression, but primarily enjoyment. Progression doesn't necessarily mean it's goal-oriented, I think it means progressing from things you enjoy to other things you enjoy, and really, genuinely enjoying the process, rather than the perceived goal. What makes you healthy is not the fact that you're fit, but the fact that you exercise. It's the process you go through, not the result, and the fact that you might once have been fit might or might not have much bearing on your health now. But it can be overwhelming when we think about how we 'should' be training for the rest of our lives. So what? So spend less time worrying about what you should be doing, and more time thinking about what you would find rewarding, here and now. The future is unwritten.
If I had started training in martial arts just for a goal or an idea, I'd have had a miserable time training for the last twenty years. But I fell in love with the actual training. And in the last four or five years, I've mostly freed myself from the propaganda of martial arts, and learned to enjoy fitness in more general way, for all the benefits different types of training have to offer.
When I was younger, I despised gyms. I thought the only reason to go to one was to preen in front of a mirror. But I also had self-worth issues, and I would have been uncomfortable publicly appreciating my appearance in a mirror, or being seen to be vain. I know better now. I now regard strength training as a very rewarding pursuit, in and of itself. I think to train for the sake of training is great. It's pure and joyful. Sometimes joy is light, and sometimes it is more subtle and deep. Joy is a funny word.
I hope you enjoy your time here, and if you have any questions or if you find the posts helpful, please feel free to comment. I will not address too many questions about how to change the way you look, because that's really not what this site is about. I hope you leave feeling encouraged to develop your health and fitness (as opposed to your thinness), and remember that doing what's actually good for you means treating yourself with respect, being patient, honest and above all, kind.
And remember, without meaning to sound too cheesy (a little cheesy will do) as this site is developing so too are we all. I'm not one for pretending the opinion I have now is the one I've always had, nor is it the opinion I will have next year. But I will do my best to be genuine, and I hope my thoughts will be helpful.
One last thing: in 2013 I founded my own martial arts school: Song Mountain Wushu. If you're in Melbourne, please feel free to check it out, or take a look at the complete class schedule on this website.
Anyway, this is what's brought me to this place. Thank you for reading!
Chris Serong
Opinionated Fitness Guy
I was naturally strong, but not sports-focused. I didn't enjoy team sports, but in Primary School I discovered I could throw a discus pretty well. I was encouraged to run, but I found it unpleasant and tiresome. This has informed my development as a fitness professional, since I realised my strengths did not lie in training groups like boot camps or sporting teams, but in helping individuals to understand what might be holding them back and become more in-tune with their own body.
I trained in gymnastics for a year before my diagnosis, but I discontinued training because of headaches. Shortly thereafter I started practicing martial arts, and a passionate enthusiasm for that type of training rapidly developed. It felt like it took me years to convince my parents it was a good thing to try. I was never as thin as I wanted to be, but although I was a heavy kid, I don't think you'd ever have really called me fat. Certainly not if you were polite!
Having never been a huge meat-eater, sometime around the age of nineteen I became a vegetarian. I found that my Diabetes responded quite well to the change. I suspect it was because I basically wasn't eating enough, so my need for insulin was relatively reduced. Now I take a much more relaxed approach, and while my choices and beliefs may look inconsistent from the outside, on the inside they make sense to me.
Given these various circumstances and their subsequent and potentially obvious dietary consequences, I recently discovered - perhaps unsurprisingly - that I have a number of guilt complexes regarding food which run rather deep. This website has a lot to do with working through my particular issues relating to nutrition and body-image.
I don't believe in rules any more, and after working as a Personal Trainer for a number of years now, in some ways I actually have more questions than answers. Mostly the questions are about why we're told such crap in the industry, which basically comes down to the fact that people can make money by making you feel shamed and guilty about your body and so-called 'lifestyle choices'. Also, many trainers feel hopelessly lost and unsuccessful in their own body-shaping attempts, so there's a tendency to cling to the dogma like a man who's drowning clings to driftwood. But with so many people having such little success, shouldn't we be asking more questions? Why do what you're told in an industry where everybody seems to oversimplify everything and disagree all the time? Walk your own path, proudly. Never be ashamed of what you look like, and don't let anyone tell you what you can and can't put in your mouth. It's your decision, and yours alone.
It was a big realisation for me - you can't eat grains, meat, sugar or milk without someone saying it's going to be the death of you. The obvious result: you, and you alone, must decide. If you exclude all those products, good luck improving your health. There's no such thing as perfect nutrition, and no way to avoid all risk - so what works for you?
Having said all that, I'm now focusing most of my efforts on how to develop athletically in the context of trying not to care quite so much about the beauty standard and what we 'should' or 'should not' be doing. It's been an interesting path thus far.
I've noticed a number of websites out there that are making positive steps towards accepting your body and focusing on what's actually helpful - rather than pandering to exploitative propaganda. As someone who's always rebelled against our standardised images of beauty and popularity, I identify with these very strongly. But most of them don't seem to have much in the way of sophisticated training programs and athletic development.
Conversely, the sites that are do have good training advice also seem to be focused on aesthetic changes, rather than actual health and athleticism.
I'm hoping to bridge that gap a little, and provide people with helpful insights into how to actually become stronger, fitter and more healthy, irrespective of how they look.
People often get caught up in their own dogma, and I hope I don't do that too much. Question everything, ruthlessly if need be.
For me, good training is about progression, but primarily enjoyment. Progression doesn't necessarily mean it's goal-oriented, I think it means progressing from things you enjoy to other things you enjoy, and really, genuinely enjoying the process, rather than the perceived goal. What makes you healthy is not the fact that you're fit, but the fact that you exercise. It's the process you go through, not the result, and the fact that you might once have been fit might or might not have much bearing on your health now. But it can be overwhelming when we think about how we 'should' be training for the rest of our lives. So what? So spend less time worrying about what you should be doing, and more time thinking about what you would find rewarding, here and now. The future is unwritten.
If I had started training in martial arts just for a goal or an idea, I'd have had a miserable time training for the last twenty years. But I fell in love with the actual training. And in the last four or five years, I've mostly freed myself from the propaganda of martial arts, and learned to enjoy fitness in more general way, for all the benefits different types of training have to offer.
When I was younger, I despised gyms. I thought the only reason to go to one was to preen in front of a mirror. But I also had self-worth issues, and I would have been uncomfortable publicly appreciating my appearance in a mirror, or being seen to be vain. I know better now. I now regard strength training as a very rewarding pursuit, in and of itself. I think to train for the sake of training is great. It's pure and joyful. Sometimes joy is light, and sometimes it is more subtle and deep. Joy is a funny word.
I hope you enjoy your time here, and if you have any questions or if you find the posts helpful, please feel free to comment. I will not address too many questions about how to change the way you look, because that's really not what this site is about. I hope you leave feeling encouraged to develop your health and fitness (as opposed to your thinness), and remember that doing what's actually good for you means treating yourself with respect, being patient, honest and above all, kind.
And remember, without meaning to sound too cheesy (a little cheesy will do) as this site is developing so too are we all. I'm not one for pretending the opinion I have now is the one I've always had, nor is it the opinion I will have next year. But I will do my best to be genuine, and I hope my thoughts will be helpful.
One last thing: in 2013 I founded my own martial arts school: Song Mountain Wushu. If you're in Melbourne, please feel free to check it out, or take a look at the complete class schedule on this website.
Anyway, this is what's brought me to this place. Thank you for reading!
Chris Serong
Opinionated Fitness Guy
