Conrad Hees’ Blog

For the first 19 years of my life, I never had to worry about my weight.  I was always athletic; I liked to swim, play basketball, and participate in other sports.  I always had a great physique.

Then, unexpectedly, when I was around 19 years old, everything changed for me.  I did not know why at the time ( I later found out that the cheap Chinese food lunches that I had been enjoying five days a week for the entire year had a whopping 1500 calories in them!), but I gradually started getting bigger and bigger, until one day I decided to look at the scale.

I realized that I had gained 45 lbs. in only one year!

In one short year, I had gone from a lean 170 lbs. (I am 6 ft. tall) to a lumpy 215 lbs.!

I have always prided myself on holding high standards, and I could not believe that I had let things get this far.  I decided to hit the gym hard.  I ended up getting back down to about 180 lbs., but then gained back another 20 lbs. 

For the next 3 years, I would go on a rollercoaster ride of weight loss and weight gain (typical for many people).  I would usually lose about 20 lbs. over six months, then gain it back over six months, and so on.  Finally, in early May of 2007, I decided that I had to get serious about my health and staying in shape. Read the rest of this entry »

Like it or not, your level of fitness is affecting your career.

Whether in a good way or a bad way, the people who are in charge of your future at your current place of employment are being influenced both subconsciously and consciously by your outward physical appearance.  Their opinions of you are being directly impacted by your number one self-marketing tool: your body.

Although I hate to write articles like this because I fear they may come off as being incredibly shallow, the fact remains that one of the main focuses of this blog is self-marketing.  I would not being doing my job of informing you how to better succeed in marketing yourself to the world if I didn’t tell you the hard facts about how your physical appearance is crucial to your success in our modern environment.

Trust me: your boss is taking the size of your gut into consideration when he decides whether to promote you or the guy in the next cubicle.  Read on to find out just how critical becoming fit is to your professional well-being.  Read the rest of this entry »