Faith and Fitness

By Jimmy Peña, Woodland Hills, California

As appeared in

For some of you, the idea of sandwiching fitness into an already busy lifestyle might feel like running a marathon up Mount Everest.

Well, I’m an exercise physiologist and a longtime fitness writer, and I’ve even had the privilege of working with celebrities such as LL Cool J, movie director Tyler Perry and TV star Mario Lopez. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that being healthy and fit is a daily decision. All my life I wanted to help people make good decisions about their health and their bodies. For years, though, I had no idea how to go about it. And then, one day, it came to me. I haven’t looked back since.

I played baseball in high school and college until one summer day when I tore up my ankle playing in a church softball league. I returned to school in a cast and in doubt about my future. But while I rehabbed my ankle, something happened. I fell in love with how the body worked and responded to training. The recuperation process was exhilarating. So much so that I never saw another pitch. I hung up my cleats and picked up weights.

I majored in business and after graduation landed a job selling insurance. I use the term “selling” loosely. One evening my fiancée, Loretta, and I were out to dinner with some friends when I looked out the window and saw a physical therapy clinic across the street. “You know what I’d do if I could pick any job?” I said out of the blue, pointing toward the clinic.

“That’s what I’d do, something that involves helping people and their bodies. I wouldn’t be selling insurance.” My friends laughed. “You’re not selling much insurance as it is.” They were right about that! Later, Loretta and I talked it over and I decided to go back to school for a graduate degree in clinical exercise physiology.

I wrote my master’s thesis on how endurance training and diet affect muscle and performance. I presented my research at the annual American College of Sports Medicine Conference. The moment I finished my presentation a small team approached me. “We’re from Muscle & Fitness magazine,” they said. I just about fell over. Muscle & Fitness is one of the world’s premiere bodybuilding magazines, founded by bodybuilding legend Joe Weider. “Your thesis is fascinating,” the guys said. “How would you like to do some freelance writing for us?” Of course I said yes!

Month after month my articles appeared on newsstands. Six years after I wrote my first freelance piece, I became fitness director for Muscle & Fitness at the magazine’s Los Angeles offices. Soon I was doing more than writing and editing articles and overseeing photo shoots. I was blessed to be asked first by LL Cool J and later by Mario Lopez to help write their fitness and diet books. Tyler Perry hired me as a consultant. My prayer had been to work in the fitness world and here I was sitting at the very top of it.

At least it should have felt that way. But I found myself increasingly restless at work. Although everyone in the office around me was working to promote health and wellness, I felt a strange hollowness. I would sit in my office and wonder, Am I helping people achieve abundant health or am I just helping guys get bigger biceps? I knew I could do more. But what?