Did you know that Yahoo! has a new network called Shine? It’s geared towards the 40 million women between the ages of 25 and 54 who already frequent Yahoo! each month and is expected to become their regular entry point to the Yahoo! network (full press release here).

I’ve been a Yahoo! user for years ever since I set up my first email account, so I was excited to learn about their new site after reading Karly’s post (she was featured there, too, go Karly! ).

A Great Opportunity for Bloggers

If you’re a blogger you can publish posts to Yahoo! Shine and be a part of the fun. They also have their own dedicated staff of writers who write on such topics as healthy living, fashion, entertainment, parenting, and many others. What is even better is that when you post on Yahoo! Shine and submit it to the relevant category, you can include a link back to your own blog post.

This is what I did with my post Watch Me Lose Weight with Twitter & the 6WBMO! I wrote a new post about using Twitter to lose weight on Yahoo! Shine and then included a link to my original in case a reader were interested in learning more. This is a great oppotunity for bloggers to bring some more traffic to their site and at the same time Shine gets some quality content for their site. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

I’m on the Healthy Living Home Page!

After I posted my article one of their editors wrote a really great note in my post about how I’m using Twitter to lose weight. I was so excited by this because you know what she’s done? She’s helped me say, “hey, no turning back now, if you thought you were accountable before, now you’re accountable to all of the Yahoo! Shine readers who read your post!” Additionally, they currently have my post listed on the home page of their healthy living channel so someone out there will be reading it.

I don’t know how long they keep posts in their feature section so head on over there now and you can check it out - Healthy Living on Yahoo! Shine

Yep, there it is right in the middle with the Twitter bird! Update 4/15/08: looks like they rotate their editor’s picks each day so my post isn’t on the home page now, but you can still find it here.

Update on My Progress

I started Twittering for accountability to help me lose weight last Tuesday, however I did weigh and measure myself last Monday, and I’ve made some progress:

• Weight: 149 (- 4 lbs)
• Inches: 274.375 (- 1.5 inches)

I’ve already lost 4lbs and 1.5 inches with the help of Twitter. Sure, I’m eating clean and exercising (and I’m also working on my emotional eating), but it’s by twittering about my progress that is helping me stay on track. There’ve been a couple times that I wanted to stray but instead I twittered about it and took the power out of it. It’s also helping me remember to drink my clean water and exercise because I tweet about it.

I also think about the other people who are following me on Twitter, those who are possibly looking for some motivation to lose weight and get fit. If there’s even one person out there who is following along with me, someone who can gain some motivation from what I’m doing, then I say it’s worth it that I’ve put myself out there.

I’ve already had one Twitterer, Wise Diva tweet me that she found me through Yahoo! Shine, and I’ve had other Twitterers say that they were working on getting ramped up in their motivation to get healthy. So if you’re also interested in getting and giving some support and staying accountable to your weight loss and fitness goals, come on over to my Twitter profile and click on the follow button to receive my updates.

By the way, I also twitter about other positive and motivational topics, things like the law of attraction, positive thinking, blogging, technology, as long as it’s positive, I’m there - even though my main focus is on weight loss and fitness.

If you aren’t on Twitter yet and want to learn more about getting a free account, just check out my accountability post.

What about you? Have you used Twitter for a positive life-changing goal in your life? Please share in a comment!

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