The IDEA team has navigated through a period of exciting change over the past 18 months. Staying true to our professional values and our drive to Inspire the World to Fitness®, we have assessed each turn, innovated adroitly and charged forward. Big thinkers in all walks of life and business intuit that change equals opportunity. When we fail to welcome transition and, with it, some measured risk, we passively and perilously expose ourselves to becoming irrelevant.
IDEA, as a reflection of a dynamic industry that continues to reinvent itself, is a company of action and leadership. Our new corporate parent as of autumn 2016, Active Interest Media (publisher of Yoga Journal, Oxygen, Clean Eating, Vegetarian Times, and over 40 other magazine titles and events across five divisions) provides incredible resources to improve upon what we’ve always prioritized for fitness pros: delivering the industry’s most significant continuing education and providing tools to help you and your clients move toward success. We are working on many provocative initiatives that we can’t wait to unveil for you over the coming months.
Let’s start with the juggernaut that is the IDEA® World Convention! Unequivocally the greatest fitness and nutrition education experience on the planet, this extravaganza (June 27–July 1) is about to unfurl for an estimated 14,000 fitness professionals, expert educators and product vendors in our home city of San Diego. Describing this event, even after 16 consecutive years of attending it, would take more words than I can write. Simply put, it’s a game changer, no matter what you need in order to get your mind right and to push your fitness career to the next level.
If you’re attending, our team would love it if you stopped by the IDEA booth in the Fitness & Nutrition Expo to connect with us. While there, be sure to grab a fun selfie where you are the star of a giant Fitness Journal cover! Post your cover online with the #IDEAFITNESSJOURNAL hashtag. It will be entered into a drawing for the grand prize of a free 2019 IDEA World registration and other prizes!
Per tradition, this special convention issue celebrates the industry as well as some of the most important science evolving today. Our editors hope you will use the content to enrich your knowledge and to enlighten your staff and clients. Three of the articles tie directly to sessions at IDEA World, including the keynote address by Robert Holden, who will discuss the very topic I started with here: change. Read “Shift Happens!” to get the flavor of his talk. Better yet, we hope you’ll join us at the Opening Ceremonies on Thursday, June 28, at 10:30 a.m. Also check out “Understanding the Human Microbiome” by Joseph Weiss, MD, and Danielle Weiss, MD, and “Is It Time to Eat Yet?,” which explores body clock science, by Pamela M. Peeke, MD. Both are aligned with sessions at the event. This entire issue is a rich, informative read.
IDEA’s culture of dreaming big and delivering in an even bigger way continues. Stay tuned! You’re going to love the ride.
For all you do to Inspire the World to Fitness, IDEA salutes you!
Sandy Todd Webster
Editor in Chief
@sandytoddwebster
@fitnesseditor
@ideafit
Sandy Todd Webster
For 22 years, Sandy Todd Webster was the chief architect of IDEA's content program - including the award-winning IDEA FITNESS JOURNAL and IDEA FOOD & NUTRITION TIPS - the industry's leading resources for fitness, wellness and nutrition professionals worldwide. She created, launched and nurtured these brands and many others during her productive and purposeful IDEA tenure. Sandy is a Rouxbe-certified professional plant-based cook and a Precision Nutrition Level 1 Coach who is pursuing a Master's degree in Sustainable Food Systems through The Culinary Institute of America (expected August 2024). She plans to combine these passions with her content expertise to continue inspiring others to make the world a more just, healthy and regenerative place.
