About Michael
Scribe, wordsmith, photographer, half marathoner, rediscovered gym junkie and most importantly husband and father. #JustSouthofSvelte #Fathlete #GonnaFly
This blog is my own personal therapy.
My hope is my therapy can become your inspiration. I am the author and creator behind Just South of Svelte. It was important for me to capture some of the things I've done - the good and the not so good - on this health, wellness and lifestyle change I have taken spanning the past two years of my life. The every-man approach I will take is consistently lost in the Instragram model world of 100 pushup challenges (which I did for 30 days and it sucked!), spandex HIIT workouts and "do this, don't do that' memes. So who am I? Born and raised in north central Montana, I have been a writer and photographer for the past 20 years, beginning my career as the last great newspaper man in Grand Forks, with stops in Valley City, and then here in Minot. For the past 10 years I've worked for a public, regional university in both athletic and university communications, serving as the director for three years. I am the managing editor for the university's alumni magazine and freelance for a local magazine, Minot Magazine. I have pounded the keys of many worn out keyboards and have a serious issue with keeping my posts within the limits of social media. I love to take photos, mostly landscape, and am infatuated with taking photos of the moon. There are a couple thousand of my son as well! I like to write and take photos; I love to tell stories. For the past two years, I have also decided to love who I am, even as I'm trying to change that person, both physically and mentally, on a daily basis. Wellness is so much more than losing weight, it's about discovering who you truly are, deep down at your core, and finding ways of molding the current you into the ideal you. One piece of clay at a time. The work is probably never done. There have been so many light-bulb flashing, wow moments during this journey. This website and blog posts will explore all of those and hopefully shed some light on what it takes to make a lifestyle change in your 40s. So who am I? Keep reading and we will find out together. |