Here's the story of how Laugh Your Fat Off was created in the mind of Larry Lewis the founder/owner of Muscle Meditation Fitness. If you meet Larry you will more than likely remember Larry, not because he's loud, though he can be. You will remember Larry because there is a good chance he will shake your hand, smile at you or have a random conversation with you. Larry makes friends wherever he goes. As well as making friends, Larry also does his best to stay in contact his friends. Larry is always finding a way of connecting one of his friends who may be able to be of service to another. In other words, Larry always "knows a guy" and if he
doesn't, he "knows a guy who may know a guy". Three years ago he reconnected with an old friend who had become a comedian and the wheels started turning about how they could do an event together. Skip forward another year to the first Laugh Your Fat Off event at Jacked Up Brewery in Escondido with Pman, Nick Flair, KUSI's Mr. Bicep (Bruce Pechman), and Kekoa the artist as a musical guest. It was a small event, with friends and clients. The format was we did a fun one hour workout in a room next to the brewery and then we walked a few feet to enjoy great beer, food, comedy and music afterwards. The venue accidentally double booked and there was a band rehearsing at the same time as our event. But true to form, Larry did not get upset, he just rolled with it! The band became part of the show and ironically long time friends of mine just happened to be watching their grandson rehearse in the band (small world). We knew we wanted to do another! The next time I was able to promote it better and we added a longer cast of comedians, with our new friend and client Mark Christopher Lawrence headlining! We picked our favorite local comedians to perform and the place was packed! The workout was standing room only! And, the comedy was hilarious! We learned so much about running events and we planned our 3rd event! Our 3rd event, however, had competition with some other local events and truth be told was not well attended and it was a difficult pill for Larry and I to swallow! We felt bad for our comedy friends not having the big audience we had last time and we paid everyone despite low ticket sales. And then we put Laugh Your Fat Off on the shelf for awhile. But, failure is something you have to learn and grow from! We loved working with our comedy friends. We knew that laughter and exercising had a place together. We researched and discovered that they are both big ENDORPHIN producers! We also read about the analgesic properties of laughter and thought that HAS to be good for working out! Then, I read "The Laughing Cure" by Dr. Brian King a Psychologist, specializing in behavioral neuroscience AND a COMEDIAN! I recommend you read it! It really let us know we were onto something special! Lastly and unscientifically we just had such a great time when we were able to laugh and have a bit of fun when we worked out! We decided we wanted to create a YouTube show with our comedy friends! We would interview them, workout with them and share clips of their comedy. It would be NORMAL people, not fitness junkies, working out! We filmed a couple of our comedy friends using tripods, my android phone camera and Capcut editing software (pretty cool software btw) We LOVED what we had, but yes the imposter syndrome of what we were doing - trying to film and edit a show - was strong and we hesitated putting them up for everyone to see. But, Larry and I feel strongly about being open to where things take us, trusting the process and moving forward each day with a positive attitude.
Jump ahead to today! We have been working with a producer, David Kamatoy of Spark Productions, and professional film editors to bring our Laugh Your Fat Off concept to more people, with the generous help and talent of our friend and client, Emmy nominated actor/comedian, Mark Christopher Lawrence! And, then Jacked Up Brewery contacted us wanting to have a class again! The class is at 11 am - we are NOT morning people! PERFECT! And now we have a class to test out our idea - that laughter and exercise DO go together! That laughter actually makes working out easier, more fun AND possibly less painful...waiting for the scientist to become interested (if you "know a guy" or a "guy who knows a guy" let us know!)
Stay tuned! Larry and I are excited about where Laugh Your Fat Off is going! And, if it doesn't do anything - it's all good, we will have a great time no matter!!
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