Now, just so you know up front, it's not anything crazy dramatic - I didn't have a heart attack or anything like that.

But this is important stuff... I'm 51 now and while I still train crazy, I'm really looking to also emphasize health just as much as fitness performance.

The reason I wanted to talk about heart stuff today is two fold...

1. Exercise and fitness, while VERY important and helpful, don't fully protect you from heart issues.

2. I have an educational recommendation for you for your own heart health (it's called the Cardiovascular DocuClass and its a free 8-part program featuring 22 experts in the CV field).

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So back in early January, I had a test done called a Coronary Artery Calcification scan.

What they do is take an X-ray of your coronary arteries and see how much calcium has accumulated in them (shows up as bright white dots on an X-Ray).

I was expecting to have either a zero or something pretty low... after all, I train hard and try to eat fairly well.

That wasn't the result.

I ended up with a score of 135, which means that there is definitely calcium accumulation in the coronary arteries.

That was concerning, of course, and I took it very seriously... but then...

Literally DAYS later, Steve Cotter (a well-known, high-level kettlebell instructor and athlete) passed away suddenly from a heart attack just before his 55th birthday.

THAT made me realize that I needed to really take a hard look at my heart health and my risk factors (the ones I could and couldn't control).

I didn't know Steve personally but I knew of him and how healthy and strong he appeared to be. Nobody would have expected him to have a heart attack.

Me, I have a family history of heart risk factors... that's why I got the scan done.

And the more I researched calcium accumulation in the arteries, the more I discovered that the injuries that happen in the arteries can happen literally DECADES prior and it just takes time for those blood vessel injuries to calcify.

Also, beyond the family history, there have been times where I've been pretty free with my eating and gained a fair bit of weight...

1. When I first starting training, I went from 145 lbs and single digit bodyfat, up to 217 lbs (and definitely not single digit bodyfat) in about 8 months.

2. About 7 years after that, I bulked up to the biggest I ever got... 230 lbs.

3. And recently, just before my 50th birthday, I had dropped a lot of fat and leaned out to around 10% bodyfat, down into the low 170's... 6 months later, I had rebounded to 220 lbs, definitely not all muscle. I didn't try to but I also didn't try NOT to.

After seeing this calcium score, I realized that I needed to get my act together in a much more focused way.

I've cleaned up my diet quite a lot. I still treat myself on occasion to foods that I love to eat (like pizza and burgers... just not nearly as often and not to the point of stuffing myself).

I even started doing regular cardio.

Right now, I'm actually testing out a new fat loss program I've designed to not just burn fat but to literally KILL the dysfunctional fat cells that sit in the body and leak hormones and lipids into your system, leading to high cholesterol and other health issues.

I'm determined to fix myself from the inside out as best I can and mimimize my risk factors.

The information I've found when researching this program is eye-opening. I'm 3 weeks in and I've dropped about 12 lbs and feel much better already.

Normal fat loss training just empties out the fat cells, which is great... but they don't die (especially the dysfunctional, stubborn ones) and they just sit there waiting to fill back up.

This makes rebound weight gain almost a certainty...and I'm sure that's what happened to me last year when I gained almost 50 lbs in 6 months.

I've got a few more weeks of testing before I'm ready to release this into the wild, but right now, I can already see how effective it is.

It's basically strategically combining my Starting Monday Diet with my Metabolic Surge fat loss program with my Metabolic Monsters workouts with my Mad Scientist Muscle mass-building training.

Just like my Return to Prime program is for muscle, this program will be my masterpiece for fat loss :).

Bottom line, I knew I needed to get control of my health.

That brings me to the Cardiovascular DocuClass...

This event is a masterclass in heart health... 22 world-renowned experts in the field, covering topics ranging from

If you're over 40, it's time to start thinking about this stuff...

If you're over 50, it's definitely time and you need to really get on it (that's where I'm at).

If you're in your 60's, 70's or 80's, you can absolutely turn things around quite a bit, even if you're starting to feel the effects.

The key is having the KNOWLEDGE on how to accomplish it.

That's where this Cardio DocuClass comes in.