Here’s what’s going on: I was listening to Richard Simmons on Sirius and he pointed out a fact that we are already 3 months into the new year, and very shortly we’ll be halfway through 2008.

This made me think of the post I wrote a few months back, Who Will You Be 6 Months From Now? That was on January 22, and I was thinking of the changes I could make by June (read my post to get the gist of my message on that topic )

Well, even though I feel I’ve been making progress with healing my emotional eating, I also feel like I could be doing more. What’s motivating this feeling is what I posted about yesterday - that I got out of my routine by taking a vacation. I’ve seen over the past week that I haven’t been fully back on track with my healthy eating and exercise routine, and I cannot let this slide any further. If I do, I’ll find myself in June and still needing to lose 30 pounds - not good for me!

Twittering My Way Down The Scale

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself since I first started the 6-Week Body Makeover plan back in 2004 and successfully lost 43.5 pounds (kept it off for over a year!), is that I need to be accountable. The wonderful folks on the 6WBMO forums help me tremendously with that, however if you’re not following the 6WBMO, then you’re not tuned into the goings on there. So here’s what I’m going to do - I realize that I’m really putting myself out there, but I’ve decided that I’m going to use Twitter to keep me accountable - to all of you!

What this will do is open up my world of accountability. Yes, I’m really turning up the volume on my actions, but you know that I like to experiment on myself. I also feel that if I can help another person out there lose weight, then it’s worth it. You know that I’ve had my ups and downs, and while I’ve lost 13 pounds since January 1 (yep, this morning I weighed in at 152), I haven’t gotten back to my goal weight of 125 yet. So, if someone else can watch me lose weight over the next 6 weeks then they just might say, “hey, if she can do it, so can I!”

Over the next 6 weeks I’ll be twittering my updates throughout the day to keep myself accountable. What does this mean for you? It means a couple of things:

• You can see how I really eat and exercise on a daily basis.
• You can hear about the times that I’m tempted to stray and the actions I take instead of giving in to emotional eating.
• You can gain motivation from me for your own weight loss goals by seeing me take action, even when it’s tough.
• You can communicate with me and offer support or tweet about what you’re doing to get healthy and fit in your own life!
• By following me on Twitter, you can help me stay accountable (thank you!)
• You can get your own accountability rolling and start tweeting your weight loss and fitness accomplishments right along with me!
• We can really turn this into a positive support system - it all depends on what you want to put into it with me.
  

While I won’t be able to give you the specifics on what I eat (that’s copyrighted info of the 6WBMO program), you can still see what my life is like overall while I eat and exercise my way down the scale.

Basically I’ll be twittering the daily, consistent action steps that when added up over weeks and months, gives you the weight loss results - exercise, eating on time, eating only the whole, healthy foods per the 6WBMO, drinking all of my water, and the nitty gritty - those times when I really don’t want to stay the course, but I do anyway. Those times are the ones I was thinking of when I decided to go the route of Twitter accountability. In fact, you might actually hear more from me at night, because that’s the time that those nighttime emotional eating urges crop up.

One note: I’m committing to doing this for 6 weeks instead of a lifetime, so you can see what can be accomplished in 6 weeks time with the 6WBMO plan. I’m not saying I won’t continue my Twittering Accountability after 6 weeks, but I like to look at things in smaller chunks of time, and besides, it is the 6-Week Body Makeover plan.

So What’s Twitter??

Never heard of Twitter? That’s OK, I just heard about it a few months back myself, and it’s really easy to use.

Twitter is a free service that let’s you stay in touch with other people by posting “tweets” - short little bursts that will be shared with the people who are “following” you on Twitter. To follow someone else just means that you’ll get their updates, just like they will get your’s if they follow you.

You can take a look at my Twitter feed in my right hand sidebar to see what tweets look like.

Just click here to sign up for a free Twitter account, and then click on the green Get Started - Join! button. I gave you the first link in case you’d like to watch their video, which explains the service some more.

You can then add a photo of yourself (I love to put a face to a name, don’t you? ), a bio, and if you’re a blogger, but sure to add your url in your profile.

Once you’ve created your account, go to my Twitter profile (TheFitShack) and click on the gray “Follow” button underneath my picture. Leave me a message too (enter an update that begins with the text @TheFitShack), to let me know that you’re following my 6-Week Body Makeover updates so that I can follow you - then we can all join in on the conversation.

Twitter FAQ

You can twitter from your phone or online, and there are even different open source (free) applications that you can use. I’m trying out twhirl but you can just as easily go to your twitter profile online and use that to post tweets and catch up on recent updates.

One thing I do like about twhirl though, is that you can leave it running in your system tray (down by your clock) and when someone you’re following posts a tweet, a little pop up message shows up. I like that instead of going to my profile page to catch up on what everyone else is saying.

You can also check out the Twitter FAQ for a good rundown on the ins and outs of using Twitter, especially if you would like to access it from your phone.

What Else Do I Tweet?

For the most part, I’ll be focusing on staying accountable with my health and fitness routine over the next 6 weeks. Don’t be surprised though if you see other tweets from me - I do spend a lot of time online, and I like to tweet other things of interest that may or may not have to do with weight loss. For example, topics related to blogging, self-improvement, the law of attraction, motivation, anything that I come across that strikes my fancy, which is always in a positive vein. Again though, the main focus will be on my health and fitness over the next 6 weeks.

See You There!

I hope that a good number of you sign up and follow my updates because the more of you there are, the more I have to remain accountable! I feel like I’ve been coasting for about the past month or so, and while I know that I’ve been focusing on the deeper issues that motivate my emotional eating, and that that work is now motivating me to step up my action plan, I also feel ready to get some serious results - Shrink Yourself must be working for me!

Let me know if you have any questions about Twitter. I look forward to seeing you over there!

My stats as of today:

• weight - 152
• measurements - 285.875

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