​One way I ensure my day is the best it can be is stating my daily affirmations. Affirmations are statements to yourself to reaffirm confidence, build resilience and reduce stress. I started doing affirmations when I started going to therapy in 2017. My therapist set up some affirmations for me to get me started as there was just so much, I needed to work on. Nowadays, I have a set of affirmations that I have made for myself. These are based on things I found in my life that I need help with on a daily basis. I will share some of mine with yall along with the reasoning behind them.

1. You can handle everything that comes your way today- too often growing up something would happen and derail my day. Yet when I state this, it’s a reminder that I have indeed survived and figured out every situation that has come up in my life. If I did not, I would not still be here. Its worth noting, Im not telling my self to have a good day or anything like that because life is full of ups and downs and to place an standard on the day sets me up for failure. This was the 1st one that was ever made.
2. You can be a rabbit- I have a hard time with initiating tasks and with understanding how much time something may take and thus paralyzing action. When I state this, it serves as a reminder that I am capable of doing things when they need to be done and react when its necessary. This was the 3rd ever made. I came up with a rabbit because of their quick movement.
3. It is okay to want attention- Growing up, I felt that most of the attention I ever received was when I did something wrong. Thus I created this connection with attention being negative and went as far as just wanting to fly under the radar for most my life. This created some weird feelings when the studio got all the publicity it got and I turned down and sabotaged numerous opportunities because it felt icky due to this connection I created to survive as a kid. I say this knowing that I am not going to get the attention I want from everyone and that’s okay. This just allows me to acknowledge that its okay and natural to want the attention. Especially when its deserved, like a birthday, graduation or some other big time things.

I currently keep these on my phone, however I started with them on my bathroom mirror. This ensured I saw them daily and said them daily. I currently have them memorized and state them through out the day to help in the different situations.

If you need help figuring out and setting some for you, hit me up. I can help you discover some specific to you.

Sustaining proper nutrition as an autistic individual with food sensitivities is hard. Fruits and veggies tend to taste different with every little piece which can mean only certain ones get picked. This can result in not obtaining proper micronutrients throughout the day. This can cause numerous amounts of issues if not resolved.


Before I get to talking about my own diet through this blog, it is important to note that I am not a registered dietician or a medical doctor. So, it is very important that if you are looking to start anything new, consult with your primary care physician and do not take my diet as something that is meant explicitly for you. I will put this disclaimer for anything regarding my diet or supplements. However, I may have a link towards the bottom of each blog that takes you to the product (possibly discounted) to try after consulting with your physician.

For years and years, I had numerous gut health issues. I will not lie to you or sugarcoat this. I swung from diarrhea to constipation weekly. I had horrible stomach aches at times. This was due to a really poor choice of diet. By the way, when I mention diet, it means the totality of what I am ingesting food-wise. I had up to 48 ounces of Mountain Dew a day. I had pizza at least 2-3 times a week. I would also drink beer most of the week. This not only affected my gut, but I had really bad insomnia that I needed up to 10 mg of melatonin to get me to sleep (enough to down a much bigger person).

Fast forward to shortly after I started my business. I stopped drinking soda regularly, took a multivitamin, and gave up drinking. However, I still had sleeping and gut issues. I saw a product that looked appealing to me to try to bridge this nutritional gap I knew I had but was not able to try it out due to a very tight budget. I was finally able to try this product in late 2020, thanks to an uptick in my business towards the end of that year. This product is called Huel.

Huel is a shake-based meal that is vegan-free. It comes in a bag and is in powder form. I now use the black edition, which has a higher protein content than the original. One meal is two scoops and is 400 calories, no matter which type of Huel you choose. A nutritional label is posted below:

I just realized today I run a fitness brand and have not really posted a blog about it. Silly me. Since I am operating this differently than just a personal training company, I have so much information that I want to share and get lost a lot of times in when to share it with you all. 
When it comes to exercise there are three different groups of reps that are recommended depending on your goals for working out. These are categorized as strength, hypertrophy (growth), or endurance. Strength sets focus on building how much you can lift and are typically under 4 reps per set. Hypertrophy focuses on growing the size of a particular muscle and is recommended for reps of 8-12 per set. Endurance focuses on how many times you can move a given weight and is recommended for reps of 16-24 per set. This does not mean you can grow your muscles with strength training, or you cannot get stronger with endurance sets. These are just the recommendations. 
We got how many reps we need depending on the goal but how many sets are needed for each exercise. So, for strength-based programming, the rule of thumb is at least 4 sets. This gets the total rep count up to 16. For growth-based programming, the rule of thumb is 3-4 sets. This gets the total rep count to 24-32. Then for endurance-based programming, the rule of thumb is 2 sets. This gets the total rep count to 32-48. However, depending on if you are really focusing on one area or not, these may be adjusted to fit.
Reps. Done. Sets. Done. How long do I need to rest for between sets? And no its not when you feel like it. For strength-based exercises, its recommended to wait around 3 minutes between sets. This is due to the energy system being used. For growth-based exercises, its recommended around 90 seconds. Then endurance-based, its recommended to 30 seconds. 
Now you know how many reps, sets and rests you should have depending on your goal, but when do you increase weight? Very good question. This is progression and the recommended rule of thumb for moving up with when it comes to lifting goes by the 2x2 rule. This rule states that if you can manage 2 more reps on your final set for 2 consecutive workouts then you can move up in weight. An example of this would be if you're lifting on a machine chest press for 3 sets of 8. If you can lift the current weight 10 times on the last of the 3 sets for 2 consecutive workouts, then you can move up. I have different methods of progression that I acquired working with my clientele, but I've been told that's a company secret. lol 
Till next time,
Dr. Mark

You may be looking at the title and telling yourself, "I thought you're a fitness expert, why talk about mental health?" Because physical health and mental health are connected. I have seen numerous individuals improve one and it helps with the other, throughout my career. While I always want to get someone to exercise first, it may be a better option for them to work on decreasing stress through other means first. I say this because I've dealt with individuals that typically have lower tolerances for stress. This means even light exercise could be overwhelming. So, what are some ways to reduce stress outside of exercise? I'm going to talk about a few techniques that I use to help increase my tolerance for stress during my day, thus improving my mental health. I'll go into more detail in different blogs for each.

1. Meditate- Taking time out of your day just to be present with your body allows you to understand how you feel any certain day. 
2. Journaling- Writing down what occurred during a day is a great way to visualize it and then release it so it no longer weighs you down thinking about it.
3. Limit caffeine- Caffeine reduces the brains ability to feel sleepy and can put the body in fight or flight which can make it harder to be present in your day.
4. Drink water- Our bodies are made of water. Does it always taste as good as soda? No. But it helps keep the body doing all the things it needs to do to keep us alive and healthy.
5. Personal Boundaries- Creating personal boundaries between yourself and everything else in your world. If you're off work, then you're off work. 

Do not implement all 5 at once as that can overwhelm the brain that craves consistency and changing that can make the brain upset. 

​It feels like forever ago that I have written specifically about Autism. I stepped into advocacy for Autistic people way back in 2016/17 when I not only worked for an ABA company but started my blog that held the same title. I have learned so much in that time frame of all the intricacies of this subculture. I learned that I do have sensory sensitivities, and they can lead me to be quite overstimulated and overwhelmed. Something that was not even mentioned when I was diagnosed at age 11. I have learned how supportive some people are in the community, but like a lot of subcultures, there are people who will try to take advantage of you for their own means. I hope to write on so many more of these things in the coming months and years. For today, just now, there are those out there who see you and the battles you fight every day and are doing their best to fight alongside you. Enjoy your Journey today! - Dr. Mark    

​Guess what? The business has been approved to conduct business in the state of Arkansas as a foreign business. However, I still have to wait till early to middle of next week to conduct consulting sessions online. Why? I have to create a DBA, aka Doing Business As for the business. Why do you ask? Part of this new journey is being completely open with some things I had to navigate early in my life or career that ultimately helped shape me. I mainly learned by a sink or swim principle, and this story almost sank the business just as it was getting its foot in the door. Let me take you back to very late 2019 when the business was called Puzzle Piece Fitness LLC, which was created in June 2018 in preparation for the studio after being a DBA for me as Puzzle Piece Fitness. If you don't remember the business got a whole lot of buzz in the media that even went internationally that year. This was beyond amazing for the business in terms of brand awareness. However, due to being a small company just starting off, I dismissed creating a trademark for the business. Thinking my business was unique enough and was created early enough that I would be fine without one for the time being. Boy, was I wrong. One random day, I got a random Instagram message asking me if I knew of this trainer across the country. I'm leaving their name and business out to leave it to speculation. I knew of them and their business. Even though their business name sparked a similarity close to mine, I believed their purpose, along with my earlier usage, would ensure my safety. Nope. I received a cease-and-desist letter shortly after this message stating to change the name of my business. This put me in a tailspin. I was furious beyond reason. I spent a lot of money on this brand that just got international attention, just for someone to undercut a person apart of a population that they were supposedly helping. I got my lawyer involved and was then referred to a trademark specialist lawyer. When I discussed the situation with that lawyer, I was told that battling this in court, even with previous usage on my side, could cost over 100k dollars. I was just breaking even with the business and could not afford that kind of payment just to keep a brand. I was also told that I could just create a DBA and not create an entirely new business as the IRS did not care; the trademark is just for public use. Thankfully, around this time, the autism community was going away from Puzzle Piece, so I decided that it was time to evolve the brand entirely and focus on helping more than the autism community. Thankfully if I try hard enough, I can be creative at times. Numerous searches, both at the state level and the trademark office, to come up with a new brand name that fit the direction of the business. Then I had to create the logo. Again, I am not artistically gifted, but I could not afford to hire anyone for a second time to create one for me. So, I sketched one out, and my artistic sister (who is an amazing architect) put it together to get the logo that Equally Fit has today. I made sure I got it trademarked this time, and my lawyer had it framed for me. That brand, I think, helped me survive the pandemic and ultimately get more recognition down the line as I was able to pull in clients with other disabilities into the gym to work with.
This is one of the situations I endured that led me to want to start business consulting. If you have a business and want to become better than ever, I can help you with that as someone who has endured all the lessons the hard way and succeeded, so you do not have to. Email me to schedule a free 15-minute talk to discuss your needs and find out how I may be able to help you.

​Well, sort of, still working to move the business, but the excitement overcame me, and I could not hold it in anymore. It is not that we left; I just took a little time off to discover the new direction.
You- “What does that mean, Dr. Mark?”
It means there are some changes around here. First off, to help more people, I am going mainly virtual for now. Obviously, I do not have the studio, and I am now in Arkansas, so the commute would be brutal to see previous/returning clients. I have accepted a contract to work in a gym here and will use it as a home base gym. That will be disclosed a little bit later though. So, after you read this, go look at all that I have to offer. A brief outline is below.

• Fitness and Health Consulting
• Business Consulting
• Fitness Coaching and sessions
• Autism Lifestyle and Fitness Influencer (Through These Autistic Eyes is back!)
• Public Speaking

You may be asking yourself why all the sudden change, don't autistic people love consistency? First off, we all crave consistency as it's hardwired into our brains to stay at homeostasis. Secondly, I was in a bad car accident in June of 2023 that left me with chronic neck pain that eventually required surgery. During this time, when I could not do much physically, I was really able to contemplate where things were headed and where I was in this grand scheme of life. I determined that I was extremely burnt out from trying to catch up to keep a business afloat after opening it up the year before the world stopped, and I felt like something drastic needed to change as I was close to becoming a doctor (Ph.D.). Thankfully the wreck was not my fault and provided me with the opportunity to leave everything behind for a little while to discover parts of me that needed healing while I finished my dissertation. This time away from everything I loved led to me discovering my passion again for who I was helping and figuring out how to make it work with the style that worked best for me, as the last few years were me just guessing what I should do instead of what worked best for me. I hope you enjoy the changes I am making to this company and will continue following this crazy journey that I am on. The first change you will notice is that after all my failed attempts to make Equally Fit its own brand, it is now My Brand. No more separating us because people saw me as Equally Fit and I as Equally Fit. While in business, it's proper to have the business be separate, and for all accounts it is, but juggling the different social media accounts and everything was too much, so I will be switching everything over to my personal accounts. You can click the links below to follow my personal accounts.

https://www.facebook.com/dr.markf31
https://www.instagram.com/official_drmark/
https://www.threads.net/@official_drmark
https://www.tiktok.com/@official_drmark

Catch y’all later!
-Dr. Mark