- Welcome to Layman's Fitness
Personalized online fitness & nutrition coaching
Lose weight, get strong, and transform your health on your own schedule.
Your goals
Your schedule
Your results
Meet Don
I'm glad you're here. If you want to:
Lose weight and get lean on your own schedule
Avoid fads, empty promises, and results that don't last
Save hours of time each week while transforming your health
Then I think you might like it here at Layman's Fitness.
The 3-2-1 Nutrition Rule
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When Motivation for Exercise Tanksby Don // June 20, 2025 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
When Motivation for Exercise Tanks “This is the last thing I want to do right now” — Me That’s how I was feeling... -
A Father's Impact on the Fitness of His Kids
by Don // June 13, 2025 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
A Father's Impact on Fitness One of the gifts my dad gave me is his example when it comes to fitness.... -
3 Things Weight Maintainers Do
by Don // June 6, 2025 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
What Weight Maintainers Do In a meta-analysis of 29 weight loss studies, 80% of the weight was regained back in 5-years. This... -
What I Learned After 2+ Months Off Social Media
by Don // May 30, 2025 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
My 7pm Social Media Routine One night in January around 7pm, my kids were zooming around the kitchen. But I wasn’t zooming... -
7 Kettlebell Movements for Abs
by Don // May 23, 2025 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
While abs “pop” through diet, they need to be strengthened through exercise. Here are 7 of my favorite exercises I use... -
The Paradox of Weight Loss Medications
by Don // May 16, 2025 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
Weight Loss Medications Chances are, you’re probably familiar with weight loss medication brand names like Ozempic, Wegovy, or Zepbound. These are types... -
The ROI of Walking
by Don // May 9, 2025 // < 1 min read // Add a Comment
The ROI of a Walk The British Journal of Sports Medicine studied the impact of low physical activity on life expectancy. Here’s... -
The 3-2-1 Nutrition Rule
by Don // May 2, 2025 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Simplifying Nutrition Here’s a simple way to approach nutrition. I call this the 3-2-1 Rule. 3 parts of your plate 2 cups... -
The Belief Flywheel of a New Habit
by Don // April 25, 2025 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
50+ Years of Drinking Stopped Overnight I have a cool grandfather. We call him “Papa”. He turned 80 recently. You’ll find him watching... -
A 5-Week Murph Training Plan
by Don // April 18, 2025 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
It’s The Murph Wonderful Time of Year Every Memorial Day, crazy guys all over the country want to do the “Murph”... -
5+ Millions Steps In a Month
by Don // April 11, 2025 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
The Step Challenge In March of 2025 the guys in the LF Coaching program competed in a step challenge. In 4-weeks, over... -
Random Workouts = Random Results
by Don // April 4, 2025 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
Solving for Efficiency in the Wrong Way Time has always been one of my biggest challenges with exercise. I remember a particular... -
Weight Loss Is Always About One Thing
by Don // March 28, 2025 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
A Weight Loss Lesson From a Roundhouse Kick to the Face Back in high school, I trained in a branch of... -
10 Scriptures to Deal With Stress
by Don // March 21, 2025 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
Chronic Stress & Health In 2020 I remember having a panic attack in my backyard. Rapid heart rate… dizziness… shortness of breath…... -
13 Ways Get Steps in at Work
by Don // March 14, 2025 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
"An Hour In the Plant A Day..." Years ago at work I joked with the HR Vice President that all the... -
15 Workouts With One Kettlebell
by Don // March 7, 2025 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
Do Kettlebells Actually Work? I used to be a gym rat. And as I was doing my gym rat thing, I remember... -
Sugar Company to Online Fitness Business
by Don // February 27, 2025 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
I used to work for a sugar company... now I run an online fitness business How’d that happen? Well, it might be... -
Freedom from Gluttony
by Don // February 21, 2025 // 7 min read // Add a Comment
Shadowy Seasons In 2020, I was in perhaps one of the most stressful seasons of my life. We had just moved states... -
Vitamin D: The Vitamin Most U.S. Adults are Low in
by Don // February 14, 2025 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
My Introduction to Vitamin D In December of 2015 my wife and I moved across the country from a college town... -
Forget Muscle Confusion, Do This Instead
by Don // February 7, 2025 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
Muscle Confusion I did P90x in high school. This was a popular home fitness program released in 2004, known for its intensity,... -
7 Ways to Protect the Lower Back
by Don // January 31, 2025 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
During my sophomore year in high school, I suffered a lower back injury that took me out during a football... -
The Home Gym Equipment List
by Don // January 17, 2025 // < 1 min read // Add a Comment
This article gives you all of my main home gym equipment recommendations, based on 10+ years of use, trial, error,... -
11 Foods to Graze On
by Don // January 17, 2025 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
It’s 3:31pm. Lunch was at least 3 hours ago… and you find yourself meandering into the kitchen or through your shared... -
Kettlebell Swings - One Exercise to Rule Them All
by Don // January 10, 2025 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
At first, I thought the kettlebell swing was a combination of both strange and useless. But 3+ years and who-knows-how-many-swings later... -
3 Roadblocks to Consistency
by Don // January 8, 2025 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Fitness is one of those things that we all know we should be doing. We know that we are stewards of... -
The Worshipful Sound of Walking
by Don // January 3, 2025 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Is walking boring? Or are we just totally ignorant of the many wonders happening within our bodies each time we walk? Hopefully... -
3 Fitness Lessons from 2024
by Don // December 27, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
With the sun setting on 2024, I’ve been reflecting a lot on this past year. I thought I’d share 3 of... -
How I Quit My 9-5 and Started a Business
by Don // December 20, 2024 // 7 min read // Add a Comment
For the Christian Guy Who Feels Stuck This blog post is a little different than other ones I've written. If you're a... -
The 10:1 Ratio With Foods
by Don // December 20, 2024 // < 1 min read // Add a Comment
The 10:1 Ratio With Foods If you are trying to eat healthy to lose weight, there are three things you’ll want... -
The Busy Guy's 2-Tool Home Gym
by Don // December 13, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
The Busy Guy's 2-Tool Home Gym I started my own home gym 10+ years ago, and tried all kinds of things:... -
The 3 Bite Rule: Enjoy While Not Overdoing it
by Don // December 6, 2024 // < 1 min read // Add a Comment
The 3 Bite Rule This is a simple eating strategy that is really helpful around the Christmas season. What do you do... -
3 Must-Have Fitness Systems
by Don // November 29, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
3 Must-Have Fitness Systems Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress - James Clear As Atomic... -
A Little Theology of Feasting
by Don // November 26, 2024 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
Our modern day feasts (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, etc…) are a staple of American culture. While it really is the most... -
A Thanksgiving Week Eating Strategy
by Don // November 22, 2024 // < 1 min read // Add a Comment
If you’ve ever heard fitness influencers claim that their programs “help you lose weight while eating burgers and pizza”, I’m... -
The Get-Up: The Ultimate Home Gym Movement
by Don // November 8, 2024 // < 1 min read // Add a Comment
In the last 10 years of training at home, I've tried a lot of different exercises, modalities, and equipment. But... -
The Weight Loss Triangle
by Don // November 1, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
To be clear, there are more elements that do factor into weight loss… like where you’re starting from, current metabolic... -
3 Chicken Thigh Meal Prep Ideas
by Don // October 25, 2024 // < 1 min read // Add a Comment
Eating healthy doesn’t mean dry and tasteless chicken for every meal. Chicken thighs are a relatively inexpensive and delicious high-protein option.... -
Fear: Why the Sluggard Says What He Says
by Don // October 22, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
There are about 14 different passages on the sluggard/slothful man in Proverbs. Most of these descriptions reveal what the sluggard does... -
As a Christian, is Investing in Yourself Wrong?
by Don // October 18, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
I wish someone talked to me about this 3 years ago... and honestly, chances are someone did. I just wasn't... -
5 Kettlebell Movements for an Iron Core
by Don // October 18, 2024 // < 1 min read // Add a Comment
Here are 5 of my favorite kettlebell movements that develop a core as iron clad as the kettlebell: The Turkish... -
3 Mistakes With Stress Eating
by Don // October 15, 2024 // < 1 min read // Add a Comment
Personally, making the distinction between me feeling stressed and me feeling hungry has been one of the best mindset shifts... -
5 Ways to Workout in 30-40 Minutes
by Don // October 11, 2024 // < 1 min read // Add a Comment
Workouts don’t have to be 60+ minutes. Here are 5 of my favorite strategies my clients and I use in the... -
12 Practical Ways To Get Steps In Each Day
by Don // October 8, 2024 // < 1 min read // Add a Comment
In September of 2024 a few of the guys (14 to be exact) in the Kettlebell Strength System competed in... -
Puddleglum: The Smell of Burnt Marsh-wiggle
by Don // August 30, 2024 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
Stories of heroes, battles, and risk-takers inspire us. This is one of the reasons in my weekly newsletter I share... -
For the Joy That Was Set Before Him
by Don // August 23, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Stories of heroes, battles, and risk-takers inspire us. This is one of the reasons in my weekly newsletter I share... -
3 Lessons from Pittencream, the Flaky Narnian Sailor
by Don // August 16, 2024 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
Stories of heroes, battles, and risk-takers inspire us. This is one of the reasons in my weekly newsletter I share... -
Ferdinand Magellan: The Circumnavigator
by Don // August 9, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Stories of heroes, battles, and risk-takers inspire us. This is one of the reasons in my weekly newsletter I share... -
The First Feet To Summit Mount Everest
by Don // August 2, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Stories of heroes, battles, and risk-takers inspire us. This is one of the reasons in my weekly newsletter I share... -
The Heroic and Unnamed Father from the Swiss Family Robinson
by Don // July 26, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Stories of heroes, battles, and risk-takers inspire us. This is one of the reasons in my weekly newsletter I share... -
Robert Maynard: Blackbeard's Bounty Hunter
by Don // July 19, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Stories of heroes, battles, and risk-takers inspire us. This is one of the reasons in my weekly newsletter I share... -
Reepicheep: Bravery at the Dark Island
by Don // July 12, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Stories of heroes, battles, and risk-takers inspire us. This is one of the reasons in my weekly newsletter I share... -
John Wesley Powell: The One-Armed Explorer
by Don // July 5, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Stories of heroes, battles, and risk-takers inspire us. This is one of the reasons in my weekly newsletter I share... -
We Choose Fire: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
by Don // June 28, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Stories of heroes, battles, and risk-takers inspire us. This is one of the reasons in my weekly newsletter I share... -
Ehud the Assassin
by Don // June 7, 2024 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Stories of heroes, battles, and risk-takers inspire us. This is one of the reasons in my weekly newsletter I share... -
5 Simple Apartment Workouts and Routines
by Don // April 24, 2024 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
Figuring Out Apartment Workouts Years ago, my wife and I lived in a tiny apartment just north of New York City.... -
DIY Fitness: Your Renovation Project
by Don // June 29, 2023 // 5 min read // Add a Comment
What is "DIY Fitness"? With the popularity of home improvement shows in the last few years, DIY projects are a familiar... -
A Simple Kettlebell Training Guide
by Don // June 22, 2023 // 5 min read // Add a Comment
What is Kettlebell Training? Kettlebell training is a mode of exercise that uses the ultra-versatile, extra-portable, and compound-movement friendly kettlebell for... -
The One Missing Ingredient from Your Fitness Goals
by Don // June 2, 2023 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
Not Finishing our Fitness Goals It's a shared human experience to find ourselves in the middle of the year without remembering... -
The Last Kettlebell Buying Guide You May Ever Need
by Don // May 16, 2023 // 13 min read // Add a Comment
A Kettlebell Buying Guide: An Overview While they may seem like a fringe exercise modality, kettlebells have increased in popularity over... -
My Year of Walking Barefoot
by Don // April 20, 2023 // 6 min read // Add a Comment
How I Started Walking Barefoot Walking barefoot was not a habit I intended to start, but once it was in motion,... -
A Minimalist Exercise Routine That Works
by Don // April 11, 2023 // 6 min read // 3 Comments
On the Hunt for a Minimalist Exercise Routine Maybe you're like me. Maybe not. Maybe you have young kids, a marriage,... -
10 Minimalist Workouts You Can Do at Home
by Don // April 5, 2023 // 6 min read // Add a Comment
What are Minimalist Workouts? Minimalism is a word on the move. Like a fresh fad, it's being sprinkled on top of... -
Threats to the Glory of Young Men
by Don // March 22, 2023 // 6 min read // Add a Comment
"The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair" - Proverbs... -
3 Nutrition Choices to Win in the Margins
by Don // March 10, 2023 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
Nutrition in the Margins My wife and I generally hawk our meal choices for ourselves and our children. Especially this year,... -
3 Problems With Counting Calories
by Don // March 2, 2023 // 5 min read // Add a Comment
The Convoluted Maze of Nutrition To me, nutrition is extraordinarily convoluted. Cited studies contradict each other, trends and fads regularly enter and... -
When You Have 10 Minutes to Exercise
by Don // January 27, 2023 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
When You Have 10 Minutes to Exercise Sometimes, all I have is a few minutes to devote to exercise and movement. If... -
How to Create Your Own 20 Minute Full Body Workouts, with 3 Examples
by Don // December 1, 2022 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
You Can Learn this Skill Creating your own workouts is a skill that you can learn. It's like the skill of... -
The Home Gym Under Your Bed: 7 Benefits of Kettlebells
by Don // November 18, 2022 // 5 min read // Add a Comment
The Ultimate Home Gym Tool Kettlebells were always an odd exercise instrument to me. They were always stashed in the corner... -
20 Ways to Steward Your Strength in Your 20s
by Don // November 4, 2022 // 9 min read // Add a Comment
Habits Are Like Trees Your 20s are a pivotal decade for habit formation. It is a decade of beginnings. As you... -
Latimer and Ridley: The Strength of Conviction
by Don // October 21, 2022 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
The following account is an inspirational story of strength. This is not a weight loss tale or a bulk-up success... -
When You Lack Motivation to Exercise
by Don // October 7, 2022 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
The Mist of Motivation We all know that familiar slothful feeling that creeps into our minds and chills our zeal. In... -
Avoiding Crooked Fitness Paths: Stewardship, Skills, and Strength
by Don // August 22, 2022 // 5 min read // Add a Comment
"Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then... -
The Farmer's Walk Hack to Forge an Iron Grip
by Don // August 10, 2022 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
Stronger Steps With a Farmer's Walk The farmer's walk, also called a farmer's carry, is as simple as it is effective. Pick... -
Swole with Conceit
by Don // July 27, 2022 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
"But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of... -
Protein, Muscle Growth, and The Gospel
by Don // July 15, 2022 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
"And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." - Colossians 1:17 For body-stewardship, it's important to... -
Diligence, Hastiness, and the Yo-Yo Diet
by Don // June 30, 2022 // 5 min read // Add a Comment
The Yo-Yo Diet There's a phantom phenomenon that lurks in the corners of fad diets and weight-loss programs. Its clinical term is weight... -
Gnosticism and Exercise
by Don // June 14, 2022 // 5 min read // Add a Comment
"For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for... -
How to "Make Time" to Exercise
by Don // June 3, 2022 // 5 min read // Add a Comment
When do you make time to workout? This is by far the number one question, challenge, and concern I've heard from other... -
"Samson Strength": Where Did it Come From?
by Don // May 7, 2022 // 6 min read // Add a Comment
"...See where his great strength lies..." Samson is the iconic figure of strength in the Old Testament. In fact, the phrase "Samson... -
5 Tactics for Exercise While on Vacation
by Don // April 26, 2022 // 5 min read // Add a Comment
Summer months are nearly upon us, and with these months come travel and scheduled vacations. And vacations are gifts from... -
A Minimalist Home Gym: 6 Exercise Equipment and 10 Workouts
by Don // April 8, 2022 // 7 min read // Add a Comment
The Home Gym Home gyms vary in size, equipment, toys, and costs. But they do not need to be elaborate to... -
5 Tips for Sticking to an Exercise Routine All Year
by Don // January 14, 2022 // 6 min read // 3 Comments
"The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty" - Proverbs... -
4 Biblical Reasons for Exercise
by Don // December 24, 2021 // 6 min read // Add a Comment
Murky Motivations "Be the very best you". "Get that beach body ready". "Boost your self-esteem". "Impress others with your gains". "You deserve to look good". If... -
"Thoughts for Young Men": Dangerous Procrastination
by Don // December 10, 2021 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
" 'Serious things tomorrow', said a heathen, to one who warned him of coming danger; but his tomorrow never came.... -
The Long Road of Body-Stewardship
by Don // December 3, 2021 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
"What gain has the worker from his toil?" At the end of each year, we start observing a fitness frenzy. During the... -
The Snoozy Sluggard in Proverbs
by Don // October 28, 2021 // 5 min read // Add a Comment
"I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold, it was... -
Warm Up Routine
by Don // October 8, 2021 // 2 min read // Add a Comment
Don't Skip the Warm Up Warm up routines are skipped more than breakfasts on busy mornings, advertisements before YouTube videos, and... -
Get up and Run the Race
by Don // September 24, 2021 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
"Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what... -
The Kinetic Chain: One Body, Many Members
by Don // September 10, 2021 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
The basic principle of bodily movement is that your body moves as one system. The human body relies on several... -
10 Minute Ab Workout With Your Kids
by Don // August 27, 2021 // 3 min read // 4 Comments
In a previous post, I share 6 reasons why you should master bodyweight movements. One of these reasons is Teachability.... -
The "Non-Fluffy" Christian Workout Playlist
by Don // August 13, 2021 // 2 min read // 3 Comments
Sifting through the myriad of Christian music out there is getting more difficult, especially if you are on the hunt... -
Nutrition Basics: Calories, Macros and Good Food
by Don // August 6, 2021 // 3 min read // Add a Comment
Fit Tip Friday - Nutrition Basics Nutrition and fitness are inseparable. Food is the fuel for your movement, and the man... -
What is an Exercise Regression?
by Don // July 30, 2021 // 4 min read // Add a Comment
The Movement Pyramid Think of each exercise movement as the top of a pyramid. There are several fundamental skills and strength,... -
Sober-Mindedness: The Remedy for Laziness and Gluttony
by Don // July 22, 2021 // 6 min read // Add a Comment
Always liars. Evil beasts. Lazy gluttons. Sounds like the kind of people you want to be your neighbors, right? Well, for Titus, these types... -
Bodyweight Training: 6 Reasons Why You Should Master It
by Don // July 12, 2021 // 6 min read // Add a Comment
Four months into my marriage, my wife and I moved from a college town in Texas to a Hudson River... -
Hold the Line, Timothy: Training in Godliness & Bodily-ness
by Don // June 29, 2021 // 6 min read // Add a Comment
1 Timothy 4:7-8 "Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is... -
Why Layman's Fitness Exists
by Don // June 28, 2021 // 3 min read // 6 Comments
I have always wanted muscles. When in grade school, my brother and I would stuff dirty socks and underwear in...
Testimonials
"Layman's Fitness has helped me reestablish a good workout habit. It's short, not overwhelming, and actually fun! I'd recommend the bodyweight program for any man who wants to get back into a good routine"
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