It All Adds Up

We just published the 190th edition of Experience Life. While that’s not a number you might traditionally celebrate (why not just wait until 200?), it actually marks an important milestone: two decades of publishing! When this magazine first came out in August 2001, I don’t know that anyone would have predicted it would still be going strong 20 years later.

The print magazine is freshly redesigned with a beautiful look and feel and contain some 25,000 words spread across 25-plus articles. Since the magazine’s inception, that’s more than 4.75 million words that have been written, reviewed, fact-checked, copyedited, and proofread — not to mention enjoyed­ by millions of readers. And that doesn’t include all the additional digital content on our website and social-media channels.

In the thousands of stories that have filled the pages over the years, there have also been thousands of expert interviews and quotes, statistics, photos, and illustrations. Each issue comes together thanks to countless hours of research, creativity, and dedication from a team that believes wholeheartedly in the mission of empowering people to become their healthiest, happiest, most authentic selves — minus the gimmicks and the hype.

I’m tooting Experience Life’s horn here because I’m so proud of what this magazine is and what it stands for, and that I get to be a part of it. I’m grateful for the team, some of whom have been here since the very beginning, and for the many contributors and partners from all over the world without whose amazing talents none of this would be possible.

And I’m indebted to Life Time, our parent organization, for the confidence and trust its leadership has placed in our nontraditional approach. Founder and CEO Bahram Akradi, whom you can learn more about here, has been an essential champion of Experience Life since day one, believing in the power of education to create lasting change. He set the vision with our founding editor, Pilar Gerasimo, who instilled the values that still guide our work today.

From the very first issue I got my hands on in the summer of 2005, it was clear this wasn’t an ordinary health-and-fitness magazine. I was in awe of the variety of articles on topics I’d never seen covered elsewhere — things like mindful exercise, anaerobic threshold, and how to care for my mitochondria.

With each subsequent issue, my mind was opened up to new ways of thinking, and many of the things I’d thought I knew about health, fitness, and nutrition were challenged. Over the years, all this information has added up to an approach to wellness that looks nothing like my pre–Experience Life efforts.

And this is in line with what we hear from our readers all the time: that so much of the information we share has influenced their health — and changed their lives — for the better.

So, as we celebrate 20 years and the cumulative effort of so many, we reaffirm our commitment to our mission (featured in full atop our masthead at left) and to sharing forward-thinking, in-depth information that supports you wherever you are on your personal wellness journey. Everything we do is done with you, our readers, in mind. Thank you for reading, whether you’ve been with us for years or this is just the start. Cheers!