Few fitness experts inspire readers with the humor, wit, and bluntness of James Fell. As a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, fitness buff at AskMen.com, and motivational speaker, he’s accomplished a lot.

He motivates thousands of people to empower their lives through fitness and continues to share great and hilarious content on his sites: Body For Wife and Six Pick Abs. He’s also criticized Jillian Michaels for her pathetic fitness knowledge (which makes James a hero in my book).

But it wasn’t all perfect: for part of his life, he was out-of-shape and — at one point — damn-near obese. How did everything change? How did he transform his body? How did he build an entertaining brand and differentiate himself from others?

More importantly, how can YOU do the same?

ConFITdent chatted with James Fell to learn and share his journey. In Part I of this 3-part series, we discuss his life before fitness, how everything changed, and his beginnings as a writer.

Enjoy.

Talk about your life before fitness.

I really was — and I am not being hyperbolic when I say this — the guy that always got picked last because I was not naturally athletic. I was uncoordinated. I was slow. I was weak. I did terrible in gym class. In high school, during the basketball segment, I don’t think I sank a single basket.

I wasn’t even one of those kids that liked to run around the neighborhood or anything like that. I was a bit of a loner that just like to sit around and watch TV. I actually wasn’t overweight, but if it had been modern times, I definitely would have been.

As soon as high school was done, the weight started to pack on because the drinking age in Alberta is 18. Nothing wrong with that, but I was buying junk food too. By the age of 25, I was borderline obese.

I had a girlfriend that I was living with and she was way out of my league. She would have said yes when I proposed anyway — she wasn’t shallow — but I decided, “You know what, before I propose, I’m going to get in shape.” That’s where the whole Body for Wife thing came from.

What would you say was the real turning point?

We just got back from our summer vacation, and I saw a photo of me:

“Wow, I’m actually quite overweight,” I thought. If I had stayed on that path 20 years later, I could probably be pushing 270, 280 now.

I just decided to jump on it early after seeing that photo and the whole “wanting to propose.” I’ve been saving up for an engagement ring and I thought, “You know what? This is a good turning point. This is a good experience.” I would say it was a mini-epiphany, but it was definitely not an easy path and during the first six months, I really struggled.

Actually, I started off with freaking stair climbers. Like how dumb was that. But I went hard on these things. I got to the point where I would be on the hardest stair climber for an hour and covered in sweat.

Then there was one guy, he asked me, “So how was the workout?” I said it sucked. I hate that thing. Then he said, “Why do it? Why don’t you like lift weights or something?” And weightlifting really was something that I was able to get into quite quickly. It’s like “Hey, I actually like this. This is kind of fun.”

It was very much a learning process. When I approached getting in shape, it just seemed logical that there really aren’t any kind of miracle cures. There’s only one way to do it and that is cut back on the beer, cut back on the fast food and the junk food and just eat healthier, eat better and work your ass off with exercise.

It took about 10 months until I really decided that I will never stop being a fit guy because it has changed my life for the better so much. Since then, another 19 years have passed and I’ve stuck with it.

How long was it before you turned fitness into your career?

Oh, it was a long time. I had only been at this for five years. I got an MBA and that’s where my love of writing came from: I was able to do well with less work because I could research, write, and communicate effectively. I think my teachers, when they got my reports and assignments, were just pleased to see something that was clear and coherent, that they automatically gave me better grades.

I came up with a backup plan: I could actually make a living as a fitness writer because there are many extremes of income that you can create. If you’re good, you can build a personality, build a brand, and actually make a decent living. I thought about this for years and strategized it while I was still working full-time, being a husband, being a father, bringing in money… all that kind of stuff.

Finally, an opportunity came where one job was ending and another job came up that was well-paid, but only 20 hours a week. I just turned 40 and it had reached a point in my life where I absolutely couldn’t put off any longer.

That first year as a writer, I made $1100. I was having a bit of a crisis: I would think, “I don’t know if this is going to work.” It was really hard to get published, and I was learning that you could write the greatest fitness book ever, but if people don’t know who you are, you will never sell it.

You could find and convince an editor of a publishing house to read it and, at most, half of what they care about is the actual book. It could be amazing and it’s still like – so what? Who are you? Who’s seeing your stuff?

You had to build a reputation.

From the first year I got paid to write, a year later, I had a column in the LA Times. But that first year, I had made 1100 bucks. The second year, I think I made 20 grand. It was a big jump, but what had happened was I sold a cutesy running story to the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” guys.

The other thing was AOL: the editor from AOL got in touch with me and said, “We really like your stuff. We want you to write a column, two articles a week for 100 bucks a pop.” It wasn’t much money, but hey, it was 10 grand automatically a year. It also gave me a lot of practice by forcing me to write two articles every week.

I kept that column for a year but after six months, I built up enough of a reputation that I was able to get in the LA Times and I’m still very good friends with my first editor there. She was telling me, “We get pitches all the time and we get dozens of people that want to write for us everyday. The reason why we published you was because we liked your delivery. We thought that you were funny and sarcastic and entertaining and that’s why we were publishing your stuff instead of other people’s stuff.”

“Good. That’s what I was going for,” I said. But once I got published in the LA Times, I knew it was going to work. That was the final tipping point of saying, “There’s no looking back. I’m never going to work for anybody else ever again and I’m going to pour all of my energy into my writing career. It’s taken off from there.”