James Fell | |
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| Occupation | Author |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Alma mater | University of Calgary |
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| jamesfell | |
James Fell (born 1968) is a Canadian writer. He initially wrote about health and fitness in an effort to debunk fitness myths. Since 2020, his books have focused on historical events.
James Fell resided in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and then Burns Lake, British Columbia, until he was seven years old. His parents then divorced, and Fell and his mother moved to Prince George, then subsequently to Calgary, Alberta. [1] [2]
Fell disliked school; enrolled at the University of Calgary where he struggled academically. [3] [4] Things improved after he encountered a quote by Joan Baez, "Action is the antidote to despair," [3] and after he met his future wife, Heidi, a medical school student. He focused on his education to impress her, and he discovered a love of history from an inspiring professor. He received a master's degree in history, then an MBA. [4]
Fell became a certified strength and conditioning specialist [5] and wrote a column called "In-Your-Face Fitness" for the Chicago Tribune ; he also wrote about fitness for the Los Angeles Times , AskMen , Men's Health , Time, The Guardian , NPR , and Chatelaine magazine. [6] [4] [3]
Fell has written several books, including his first book, Lose It Right: A Brutally Honest 3-Stage Program to Help You Get Fit and Lose Weight Without Losing Your Mind, [3] for which he received a rejection letter from a publisher because it was too "sensible", [5] advocating for a slow approach that includes a practical diet and exercise. [5] He had a website called Body for Wife, a play on the best-selling book Body for Life, which some of his friends followed diligently without the same results that Fell was getting. When asked about his secret, he said he was on the "Body for Wife program". [3]
In his writing, Fell sought to debunk fitness myths, warned against fad diets, advised not comparing your body to others, recommended participating in both aerobic and weightlifting activities, and suggested finding a physical activity that a person will not hate, eventually becoming proficient at it. Fell declared that if a diet book is a best seller it probably is not a good idea to follow its guidelines. [3] He also wrote about how marijuana has been shown to interfere with attempts to lose weight because it stimulates appetite. [7]
In 2019, Fell's book The Holy Sh!t Moment was published by St. Martin's Press, which discussed the psychology and steps needed for long term transformations. [8]
In one of Fell's first articles for the Los Angeles Times , he wrote about Jillian Michaels, the fitness trainer from the television series The Biggest Loser . He referred to Michaels as "an actress playing the role of fitness trainer". [9] [7] He declared that her workout routines and technique were not safe, quoting others who agreed with this assessment. [10] [7] [11] He also criticized her Kettlebell DVDs which promised losing five pounds a week, calling this unrealistic. [9] Michaels was unhappy with his criticism and threatened to sue Fell for defamation. [7] [11] [10] The prospect of legal action prompted the Los Angeles Times to modify certain details within the article. [11] [9]
Fell wrote two stories for the book series called Chicken Soup for the Soul . One was about running, and the other was about the Cheslatta River Race in British Columbia, where Fell and his father competed when Fell was fifteen years old. The river race story was included in a Father's Day publication in 2010. [1]
Fell decided to change occupations and become a public speaker, but the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted this idea. In 2020, he began writing about history, posting daily on his social media. [4] [12] [13] The daily posts explained unusual and often unknown events that occurred on that calendar date in history. [12] [13]
In 2021, Fell independently published a collection of his daily posts called On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down. By 2022, he had sold 30,000 copies, and his social media following had grown from 80,000 to 250,000 people. He then published a second edition. The books included revisions based on feedback from readers. [12] [13] [4] Fell added to his web page a "Historyscope", inspired by daily horoscopes, so readers could find out what happened in history on their birthday. [14]
In 2023, Bantam Books released On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down, [15] and it was ranked fourth on the Canadian non-Fiction Best sellers list for the week of October 9 to 15, 2023. [16] It also appeared first in Alberta for non-fiction sales. [17]
Fell, talking about a range of topics including fitness, motivation, and history, has appeared on podcasts, Canadian television, and radio shows. These include The Social, [18] Citytv, [19] Shaw TV Calgary, [20] CBC Radio One [21] , CKUA Radio Network, [22] and The Thinking Atheist Podcast with Seth Andrews. [23] He spoke about fitness and weight loss on JohnLivesay.com [24] , about running on RunningforReal.com [25] , and about brave women standing up for their rights on WhatsSheSaidTalk.com [26]
On November 26, 2022, Fell spoke at a TEDxTirguMures event in Romania. [27] He spoke at the Western Canadian Reason Conference in Calgary, Alberta on May 4, 2024. [28]
As a result of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing, Fell set a goal to run in the 2014 Boston Marathon. Fell qualified for the race at the 2013 Victoria Marathon, despite collapsing and crawling to the finish line. [29] [30] [31] The Boston Marathon was his third marathon. [29] [30]
In 2019 Fell opposed a planned a "Straight Pride Parade". [32] He and actor Chris Evans shared a post written by Fell, seeking to explain why a "straight pride" parade made no sense. The posts were covered by media outlets including Elle , People , India Today , and E! News . [33] [32] [34] [35] [36] [37]
Fell was diagnosed with ADHD when he was 53 years old, during the COVID-19 pandemic, [4] and now takes medication which he says was life-changing. He credits his ADHD with creativity and his ability to write in an uninhibited style. [38] He writes in the morning, taking Ritalin in the afternoon when he needs to complete household chores, marketing and administrative work. [4]
Fell is an atheist, receiving no religious education from his parents. [28]
The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of 42 km 195 m, usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There are also wheelchair divisions. More than 800 marathons are held worldwide each year, with the vast majority of competitors being recreational athletes, as larger marathons can have tens of thousands of participants.
The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon race hosted by several cities and towns in greater Boston in eastern Massachusetts, United States. It is traditionally held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897, the event was inspired by the success of the first marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics. The Boston Marathon is the world's oldest annual marathon and ranks as one of the world's best-known road racing events. It is one of seven World Marathon Majors. Its course runs from Hopkinton in southern Middlesex County to Copley Square in Boston.
A gay–straight alliance, gender–sexuality alliance (GSA) or queer–straight alliance (QSA) is a student-led or community-based organization, found in middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities. These are primarily in the United States and Canada. Gay–straight alliance is intended to provide a safe and supportive environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and all LGBTQ+ individuals, children, teenagers, and youth as well as their cisgender heterosexual allies. The first GSAs were established in the 1980s. Scientific studies show that GSAs have positive academic, health, and social impacts on schoolchildren of a minority sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Numerous judicial decisions in United States federal and state court jurisdictions have upheld the establishment of GSAs in schools, and the right to use that name for them.
Jillian Michaels is an American fitness expert, nutritionist, businesswoman, media personality, and author. She is best known for her appearances on NBC series such as The Biggest Loser. She has also made an appearance on the talk show The Doctors. In 2015, she hosted and co-judged a series on Spike titled Sweat, INC. In 2016, her reality television series Just Jillian premiered on E!.
Ottawa Capital Pride is an annual LGBTQ pride event, festival, and parade held in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and Gatineau, Quebec, from mid to late August. Established in 1986, it has evolved into a 7 to 9-day celebration of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, advocating for equality, diversity, and inclusion in the National Capital Region. The festival offers bilingual events in English and French, known as 'Capital Pride / Fierté dans la capitale', seamlessly blending local pride with national importance.
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Jillian Harris is a Canadian television personality. She is best known for appearing on the television series The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and Love It or List It Vancouver. She has also appeared on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Canada's Handyman Challenge, and The Bachelorette Canada.
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Homophobia has been widespread in men's association football, also known as soccer, throughout the world.
Brendan Gilmore Burke was an athlete and student manager at Miami University for the RedHawks men's ice hockey team. The youngest son of Brian Burke, former general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, longtime executive of various other NHL teams and of the US Olympic hockey team, in November 2009, he made international headlines for coming out, advocating for tolerance and speaking out against homophobia in professional sports. Burke's coming out was widely praised and supported by sports news outlets and fans, generating multiple discussions about homophobia in sports, and in hockey in particular. He was viewed as a pioneer in advocacy against homophobia in hockey, described as "the closest person to the NHL ever to come out publicly and say that he is gay."
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Ali on the Run is a fitness podcast hosted by race announcer, blogger and former journalist Ali Feller. Over the podcast's more than five hundred episodes, Feller's subjects have ranged from everyday runners to Olympic marathoners, and she talks about issues that face the entire running community. The podcast is amongst the top running podcasts and is ranked as the #1 running podcast by Chartable. Feller lives in New Hampshire, but began her podcast in 2017 while living in New Jersey, following a career writing for a number of fitness and dance publications.
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