KEEP DRIVING. YOUR PRESCRIPTION IS PROBABLY READY.

We have the best visibility HartFit has ever had.

Our course sits directly off Elbert Road, fully exposed to traffic. Even during an unremarkable weekday, roughly 20 vehicles pass us every hour. They can see the obstacles. They can see the banners. They can see people carrying buckets, climbing ropes, swinging through rigs, and voluntarily doing things that appear completely unreasonable to anyone headed toward Dutch Bros. 

Visibility is not our problem.

The other day, Rory and I decided to do what normal people apparently do and went out for a beer at one of the local establishments here in Falcon.

We lasted approximately three minutes and 20 seconds before I wanted to get the hell out of there.

It was that same feeling you used to get walking into Walmart at 11:00 at night, except Walmart was never pretending to be a social experience. Walmart understood the arrangement. You came in for batteries and laundry detergent, witnessed several scenes that raised questions about the future of the species, and quietly went home justifying your decision because you saved a few bucks. 

Sitting there, however, something finally occurred to me.

These are the people driving past HartFit every day.

Not some mysterious demographic we have failed to reach. Not a hidden population waiting for the right Facebook ad. Not athletes who simply haven’t discovered us yet.

The people passing our property are the same people sitting in those establishments drinking away another afternoon, staring blankly into their phones and looking as if waking up that morning had already exceeded their recommended daily allowance of adversity.

I don’t mean everyone was medically overweight, clinically depressed or spiritually dead. I didn’t bring a scale, obtain bloodwork or conduct a formal psychological assessment between ordering and abandoning my beer and my hope for society. 

But let’s also stop pretending America’s condition is some cruel optical illusion.

According to the CDC, roughly two out of every five American adults have obesity. The OECD reports a self-reported obesity rate of 35% in the United States compared with a 19% average among OECD countries. It also found that 36% of American adults do not get sufficient physical activity, compared with an OECD average of 30%. That isn’t my judgmental imagination. That is an entire country slowly becoming less capable while developing increasingly sophisticated language to avoid acknowledging it.

We are not merely falling behind the rest of the developed world. We are paying substantially more for the privilege.

The United States spends approximately $14,885 per person on healthcare, compared with an OECD average of $5,967. We spend two and a half times as much, yet American life expectancy remains below 80 while the OECD average is 81.1 years. We have somehow created the most expensive healthcare system in the developed world while producing a population that increasingly cannot climb stairs without negotiating terms. 

That is almost impressive.

America has transformed physical deterioration into a recurring-revenue model.

Nearly half of Americans used at least one prescription drug within the previous 30 days in the CDC’s latest published national figures. Almost one-quarter used three or more. More than one in eight used at least five. In 2024 alone, retail prescription-drug spending reached $467 billion, an increase of 7.9% in a single year. 

To be clear, medication saves lives. Some people need it, and no responsible fitness professional should ever tell someone to ignore legitimate medical treatment.

But there is an enormous difference between treating unavoidable illness and building an entire culture around chemically managing the predictable consequences of how we have chosen to live.

The pharmaceutical industry does not need you strong, capable and difficult to kill. It needs you functional enough to keep going but unhealthy enough to remain a customer. There is considerably more money in managing the same preventable condition for 30 years than there is in helping someone change the behaviors contributing to it.

Fortunately for them, America has become extremely cooperative.

We will pay for the beer. We will pay for the drive-thru coffee containing enough sugar to qualify as cake. We will pay for the streaming subscriptions, delivery fees, tattoos, manicured nails and monthly medications needed to keep the machinery operational.

Then we will drive past a $20 workout and announce that getting healthy is too expensive or that broccoli will break the bank but Carl Jr’s is a deal because they give you something slightly resembling food for $10.

That was the part I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Some of the people in that room undoubtedly believe they cannot afford to exercise. They will say they don’t have the money, don’t have the time or need to “get in shape first.” Then they will spend more than the cost of one of our classes before noon the following day without even recognizing that they made a choice.

Because it is a choice.

Not always an easy choice. Not an equal choice. Not a choice unaffected by genetics, injury, mental health, work schedules or financial circumstances.

But still a choice.

And that is the message our culture is now terrified to deliver.

We have become so committed to protecting people from feeling ashamed that we have begun protecting them from feeling responsible. Every limitation requires validation. Every bad habit comes with a diagnosis. Every uncomfortable truth must be softened until it becomes so emotionally safe that it is no longer useful.

Meanwhile, more than 194 million American adults reported at least one chronic condition in 2023. Among middle-aged adults, nearly eight out of 10 reported at least one, and more than half reported multiple chronic conditions.

We aren’t winning the battle against chronic disease.

We have simply become better at making surrender feel like self-care.

That is why most of the people driving past HartFit will never turn in.

It isn’t because they cannot see us. It is because what we represent asks a question they would rather not answer.

What are you still capable of?

Not what medication are you taking. Not what diagnosis have you collected. Not what happened to you 15 years ago. Not what motivational phrase you posted beneath a filtered picture.

What can your body actually do?

Can you carry something heavy when nobody is helping you? Can you pull yourself over a wall? Can you get up from the ground without using the furniture? Can you remain calm when your heart rate rises and the task in front of you becomes uncomfortable? Can you keep moving when your body begins searching for an excuse?

These are not athletic questions.

They are life questions.

HartFit was never built exclusively for people who already look like athletes. Honestly, those people usually need us less. It was built for the person who has slowly surrendered pieces of their capability without realizing how much has disappeared.

The person who gets winded carrying groceries.

The parent who cannot keep up with their child.

The adult who takes medication for one condition, another medication to manage the effects of the first, and has accepted exhaustion as an unavoidable feature of getting older.

The person who keeps driving past because turning in would require admitting that something needs to change.

Controlled adversity is not punishment. It is preparation.

We carry buckets, climb obstacles, run hills and practice moving beneath fatigue because life will eventually place weight in your hands without asking whether it is convenient. It will put walls in front of you without providing a bypass. It will demand strength, balance, coordination, resilience and composure regardless of whether you ever made time to develop them.

You do not have to become an elite athlete.

You do not need expensive shoes, coordinated workout clothes or a social-media announcement declaring the beginning of your “fitness journey.”

You simply need to stop surrendering.

Turn off Elbert Road. Walk onto the property. Be uncomfortable for an hour. Discover what has been neglected, and begin rebuilding it.

Or keep driving.

There will always be another beer, another prescription and another perfectly reasonable explanation waiting for you.

What there will not always be is more time.