JB- Looking through your profile and your bio, you've got this love of fitness, I mean you've been doing it for so long, when did that start and how did you get into it?

Hal Johnson-  Well it isn't really a love of fitness.  It's a love of sports and I've been playing sports since I was about five and you have to be fit to do all those activities.  And as I started getting older I realized that you have to stay in shape in order to run and play and have fun.  I'm just a kid at heart and I just like to play.  I'll be turning 50 in June of this year and I can do pretty much the same things I could do when I was 20.  So that fitness stuff really pays off.

JB-  And I guess it is true, that you're only as old as you feel.

HJ-  That's right.  I feel great.  I get up today, have a two-hour workout this morning before 9 o'clock and ready for the day.

HJ-  I feel bad for people who've never exercised, who never get out and have fun.  They sit around, sit behind a desk and the hardest thing they might do is pick up a pen all day.  They really are not demanding on their bodies.  And unfortunately what happens is when you start reaching a certain age, when heart disease and cancer and those types of things start to afflict many people who get to be over 50 and they find, "Gee, why has it happened to me?  Gee, I've only smoked for 20 years, I haven't eaten any good food and I've never exercised… but why me?"  And often times what we get a little upset about sometimes is all the governmental things that happen and they say, "Well you know, we've got to pour more money into healthcare."  But if you pour more money into something that is broken, it's got a hole in it, it's just going down the drain.  Why not do preventative medicine?  Because if you don't get sick, you never need the healthcare system.  And that's really something that we try to focus and emphasize on.  If you're healthy and you don't have a heart attack, you don't need to worry about cardiologists.  A lot of that is because of diet and exercise and smoking - it's kind of the three keys to living longer.

JB-  You just answered a whole bunch of the questions that I had for you.

HJ-  OK.  Just pull the string and let me go!

JB-  You mentioned that you had done a two-hour workout.  One of the things is that we all have those days where we don't feel like doing anything; we wake up, we're sluggish.  What motivates you?  What gets you going in the morning?

HJ-  I think what has to happen is you constantly have to have new goals.  That's the key.  You've got to have a goal all the time.  And you've got to find new goals.  My goal is, as I've said I'll be 50 in six months, so I want to have the same body fat I did as when I played on Team Canada and I was 9 per cent body fat.  So I get up, I work out.  Right now I'm at about 13 per cent body fat.  Now, it may not be achievable, just because 9 per cent is pretty low, but at least I have that goal.  You have to constantly have those goals.  It may be a wedding you're going to or a class reunion or just keeping up with your kids.  I think that's one of the biggest things today, is kids are more obese and less active than every before.  What you really want to do is be an example for your children.  I have a six-year-old, in fact it's funny, because this morning I was down lifting weights and she came down and she's watching me lift weights and she's starting to do sit-ups and she does her little routine as I'm exercising at the same time.  And she's, "Dad, look at my muscles!"  It's funny and it was cute, but the main thing was is that she understands is this is a part of our lifestyle and it's a part of her lifestyle.  She started doing push-ups because she does them at taekwondo.  And you are the best example for your children.  So if you want kids that are fit and healthy, look in the mirror and get yourself fit and healthy.

JB-  What do you think of the reduction in phys ed programs in schools?  What do you think should be done and what's your recommendation?

HJ- Obviously I think phys ed is an important part.  You can be more productive at school and work if you go out for a break and have some type of physical movement in your body.  The big thing I look at, is parents should look at the schools as supplementing their kids' activities.  They should be out being active with them.  So don't rely on the government, schools, anybody else.  They're your kids, you get out and be active with them.  And they have the excuse, "No, I don't have time… I'm too busy," don't lay it off on somebody else.  It's really beneficial if the schools, in turn, have daily physical activity programs.  It's a great supplement to what you're doing at home with your kids.  There are days when my daughter will say, "Hey, let's go for a walk" and she had been in all day or something and "Uh, no, I don't wanna…" and "Nope, we gotta go for a walk today and take the dog out.  Those are just little things that you do to get the body moving.  If you rest, you rust.

JB-  We see in a lot of the diets that you count things --  you count your points, your carbs, your calories.  Is that something you do?

HJ-  I don't count anything.  If I'm hungry, I eat.  If I want to have a piece of pumpkin pie, I have a piece of pumpkin pie.  But there's a little clock in my head saying, "I had some peanuts today, so I'm not going to have that cookie tonight."  We all have this regulator.  I remember when I was a kid and we didn't have very much money growing up, I remember thinking, "Oh boy, if we could have all kinds of money all I'd do is buy all kinds of chocolate."  Well now I have the money, and I can buy anything I want to eat but you just don't.  You just say, "I don't have cookies in the house because if I did, I'd eat them."  It's that simple.  I love sweets, you just don't have them in the house.  That's one of the things, if you can curb your eating out, when you go to the grocery store you make healthy choices and buy healthy foods, you're going to eat healthy things at home.