About Doug Champigny…
Doug Champigny is the publisher of Flirting With Fitness, both the website and the online magazine, and a certified personal trainer. For both Doug & his wife Teri, their main goal is to help people get back in shape, stay in shape, and live a fit and healthy lifestyle – at any age. As such, their work here and on their other fitness and health-related blogs and sites aims to provide solid information and tips on workouts, exercise, bodybuilding & weightlifting, nutrition, weight loss and even relationships…
Far from being a huge bodybuilder or 6-pack-totin’ fitness model, Doug Champigny is in many ways a fairly typical entrepreneurial businessman in his 50’s who has seen the light and reversed his slipping fitness levels and now wants to help you do the same, whether you’re in your teens and twenties, 30’s and 40’s, 50’s & 60’s or more mature and looking to be a fit and healthy senior. Fitness enhances your life at any age and lets you continue to lead your dream lifestyle long after others have slowed down into a painful and hobbled old age.
Doug grew up swimming and water-skiing at the family cottage in Wasaga Beach, Ontario, inheriting his mother’s love for watersports after she taught him to swim at 6 months old (common these days, but very avant-garde in the 1950’s!). In high school he was on the school basketball & football teams and played volleyball in college.
Once out in the working world, Doug’s career was mostly in the media and advertising agencies, and he stayed active with squash, inline skating and on-and-off bouts of working out for 6 months or a year at a time.
Compared to today’s athletes, Doug came to working out rather late after a fitfull start. At 19 he bought his first weights & bench and, with no one to instruct him, rather quickly ended up in hospital after improper lifting form pulled most of the muscles across his lower back. It was 5 or 6 years before Doug went back to lifting weights, this time after a LOT of research and at a hard core gym under the tutelage and watchfull eyes of true fitness professionals.
At 40 years old Doug Champigny was working at one of the Toronto ad agencies he co-founded and training a few people at the gym before and/or after work – just because it was enjoyable and he loves to help others who deserve it. As evidence of the latter, Champigny is quick to point out “I was only training women in the early to mid-twenties – they needed to avoid being victims and wanted the strength & beauty fitness brings, but couldn’t afford to pay for a personal trainer so it was all informal & volunteer on my part.”
At 50, Doug & Teri were running their own online companies but still staying in great shape – Doug was still deadlifting 375 pounds for reps and blading 50 miles or more along Toronto’s waterfront most summer weekends. Around that time, however, their online marketing efforts took off and for the next 5 or 6 years the couple were either at their computers or criss-crossing North America as Doug spoke at conventions and seminars from Philadelphia to Las Vegas and from Ohio to Florida…
“We thought we were living our dream lifestyle – plenty of cashflow, exciting social activities and travelling to places like Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Route 66 through New Mexico & Texas, taking airboat tours through the everglades, soaking up the sun and eye candy in South Beach, visiting every major beach along the east coast” says Doug. “But in reality, we were slowly, if pleasurably, killing ourselves.”
With no workouts and very little really strenuous physical activity for a number of years, by his 56th birthday Doug was diabetic, had high blood pressure and cholesterol levels that were through the roof – just like so many of today’s 50-something business people. It was almost as if all of the activity in his first half-century meant nothing, though that was probably the only reason he hadn’t had a heart attack or stroke by then.
Realizing that his health had declined rapidly (before being diagnosed, his diabetes had stripped Doug of 37 lean pounds in just 3 months – all without changing his waistline at all) and that his current path would mean that many fewer healthy years with Teri, Doug immediately embarked on his current journey to reclaim his health, learn everything he could about fitness, nutrition, weight loss and exercise, and to then help others in their getting back in shape, eating healthy and enjoying a fitter and hopefully longer healthy & active life.
Later that year(2011) Doug founded and launched FirtingWithFitness.com as part of his commitment to help others get in shape and to help Teri & himself stay motivated along their way to a healthy lifestyle. Already back to deadlifting over 300 pounds as this blog launches, Doug, Teri & their son Devon are all working out regularly, evaluating the various workout programs, equipment and procedures, and logging their results along the way to publish in the Flirting With Fitness online magazine.
Now, far from slowing down and simply letting his body age, Doug Champigny is working toward being in the best shape of his life, reaching out both online and offline to help and inspire others, and looking forward to a great many future years with his friends and family – years filled with fun and excitement instead of aches & pains!
“Come along on this marvellous journey into your own healthy lifestyle, and let us help you enjoy your life to the fullest!”
