Today officially marks the first day of the rest of my life.

Gulp.

After getting home from the wedding/birthday celebration/vacation last night, I went to bed and told myself I was going to wake up without an alarm for the first time in a long time.  Of course, I woke up an hour earlier than I used to wake up when I had a job, COMPLETELY WIRED.  I guess my body was just ready to get started down this new path.

Today also marks the first day of the 4th NF 28-Day Challenge.

I’m in. Are you?

28-Day Challenge #4

If you’re new-ish to Nerd Fitness, every month we have a new challenge on the Nerd Fitness message boards, where you make a pledge to do three things to the best of your ability that will level up your life.  Whether it’s lose 5 pounds, give up soda, stop smoking, bench press 150 pounds 6 times, and/or run in a 5k race, pick three challenging quests that you think you can accomplish in four weeks if you push yourself outside of your comfort zone.

I’ve found that once you put something in writing, and send it out to the world (or the NF Community in this case), you’re going to be far more likely to push yourself to actually succeed on your goals. At the end of each month, we’ll nominate a a guy and a girl who leveled up his/her life the most.  Once I actually get around to making NF t-shirts, I’ll be sending them out to previous winners and future winners.

Join the Nerd Fitness Message Boards and post your 28-Day Challenge Goals here.

Accountability for the win!

Although I completely tanked the 3rd challenge due to everything that had been going on in my life at the time, I’m looking forward to rededicating myself to getting in the best possible shape for this 4th  challenge. Here are my 3 goals for this upcoming challenge, beginning today and ending on July 19th:

• Gain at least 5 pounds, hopefully mostly muscle. Ultimately, I’m at a weight that I’m really happy with, but I’d like to get stronger and a little bit bigger.  If I’m going to get in the best shape of my life, I’m going to need to pack on some more muscle.  This will be done with a heavily-focused strength and mass-building routine – three days a week in the gym, doing super-intense workouts that only last for about an hour.
• Eat enough calories every day – In order to build some muscle over these next 28 days, I’m going to need to eat more calories than I burn daily.  This is going to require 4 or 5 healthy meals to get enough protein, good carbs, and good fats in my system.  Luckily, now that I’m at home I”ll have the opportunity to save some money by cooking all of my own healthy meals right here in my kitchen.  I have a feeling I’ll be eating a lot of my Go-To Meal.
• Sleep – Sleep is one of the most important things when it comes to staying healthy.  I’m going to do what I can to make sure I get at least eight hours of sleep a night, because my average over the past six months has been FAR less than that and it really affected my training.  No more getting sick, no more wasted days in the gyms from being too tired, I’m actually going to take care of myself.

My Business 28-Day Challenge

Now, outside of my goals for my personal health, I also have 3 big goals for the next 28 days for Nerd Fitness:

• Finish writing and launch the Nerd Fitness Rebel Fitness Guide: This will be my first paid product available for purchase on the site, and the first step I’m taking to make NF into a business.  If I get my act together I should have it done and launched by the end of this challenge.
• Launch the Nerd Fitness Rebellion Newsletter: After seeing the great success that Baker and Chris (my heroes) have had with their free “newsletters,” where along with their bi-weekly articles they give away cool stuff and announce special early offers to their insiders, I feel it’s finally time to launch my own service.
• Write At Least Two Guest Posts: I had a lot of fun writing guest posts for World’s Strongest Librarian and Art of Manliness, and those articles allowed me to connect with a whole new audience.  I’m looking to write a few more posts for other sites to further grow the NF Rebel Army.  Now that I have time to actually write more often, I’m excited to get in front of some new readers!

It’s going to be an action-packed 28 days over here at Nerd Fitness HQ, and I can’t wait to get started.  Make sure to sign up for the 28-day challenge over on the NF Boards!

Day 1, you’re mine.

-Steve

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photo: cmiked

Dear Nerd Fitness reader,

Today is certainly one of the most important, exciting, terrifying, and bittersweet moments of my life.  A few weeks back, I informed my company Sixthman that I would be leaving the company to work on this website full time.

That’s right, I’m devoting all of my time and energy to Nerd Fitness and the Rebellion.

Today will be my last day of work here in the office, and then tomorrow I depart for the Bahamas along with a dozen of my college friends for a wedding on Harbour Island.  That day of the wedding also happens to be my 26th birthday; I’ve enjoyed the first twenty-five years on this planet; I’m eager to see what’s I’m capable of in the next twenty five and beyond.

Why I Made This Decision.

Nerd Fitness has become something bigger than just a guy and a blog; it is now a full-blown community of people turning their lives around and helping others do the same. After many sleepless nights, I came to the realization that the longer I waited on putting my full effort behind this site, the tougher it would be for me to eventually take that leap.  I told myself, “if you’ve found what you’re meant to do, why wait any longer?”

Since starting Nerd Fitness sixteen months ago, my excitement for this site and its future has grown with each passing day.  Every new email, every new member to the NF message boards, and every new comment on the site makes me smile just a little bit bigger.  I know I’m doing something right.

There were a few other reasons that I really wanted to free up my time:

• I want to see my family more. My brother lives out in California, and my parents and sister live up in Massachusetts.  With me being down in Atlanta I only get to see them a few times a year, and often only for a day or two.  I want to have the freedom to go spend an expended period of time in both locations because I really do miss them.
• I want to travel more. Ever since discovering Chris Guillebeau’s Art of Nonconformity blog two years ago, I’ve become addicted to the concept of travel hacking.  There’s a whole world of travel hackers out there that I didn’t even know existed!  I now have 120,000 American Airline miles and 110,000 British Airways miles, enough for a few round trip flights to some pretty exotic locations.  I’ve already begun planning trips to Australia/New Zealand and Europe.  Why those locations? Why not!
• I want to acquire more skills. Yeah, I realize I sounded like Napoelon Dynamite there.  My hobbies are incredibly varied and mostly ridiculous; I want to learn more stuff and get better at the stuff I already know.  I want to get better at the piano, better at the guitar, start taking Capoeria classes (yup, breakdance fighting), become a better break dancer, go rock climbing and hiking, try out hashing, learn how to cook, take a kettlebell class, acquire more personal trainer certifications, read a lot more, etc.
• I want to volunteer more. I’ve been volunteering at the Children’s Hospital here in Atlanta for the past year and a half and it’s usually the most fulfilling part of my week.  I plan on identifying some other great organizations here in Atlanta that could use some help and go spend time with them.  If you live in Atlanta and are associated with any volunteer programs, let me know!
• I want to sleep. The past six months have been incredibly challenging for me as I’ve been truly burning the candle at both ends for my day job and Nerd Fitness.  Sleep and my own personal well-being have taken a backseat to everything else in my life and it’s really caught up to me recently.  I’m looking forward to actually taking care of my body, eating well, and getting more than a few hours of sleep a night.

What’s the Plan?

You’re probably wondering, “um, Steve…how is this a company if you’re not making any money yet?”

Great question.  Ultimately, I have big plans for this site and I can’t wait to get started on them (beginning with the Nerd Fitness rebel guide) – the only thing I’ve been running terribly short on lately is time.  I believe so strongly in this site and this community that I’m willing to “risk” my future for it.  I put risk in quotations because I believe strongly enough in myself to do whatever it takes to make this plan work.

When failure is the only other option, I will do whatever necessary to succeed.

In the meantime, I’ve got quite a few things in the works to cut my expenses way down until I’m turning a profit.  I plan on channeling my inner Baker by selling all of my crap that I no longer use – my digital piano, electric guitar and amp, old video games, dvds, and books.  I plan on channeling my inner Everett and Leo by living far more minimally than I’m used to.  I have some great contacts here in the Atlanta area and a few backup plans to help pay the bills until I’ve established a positive cash flow.

I am incredibly sad to be leaving Sixthman; coming to work for this company has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me. If you EVER get a chance to go on a Sixthman cruise, I guarantee you’ll have the time of your life.  I told myself the only way I’d ever leave this company would be to go work for myself – that day has finally come.

Hope is a Good Thing.

I’m headed to the Bahamas tomorrow, where I’ll be completely unplugged from the world for a few days.  I’ll celebrate my 26th birthday with my friends on Saturday, return to Atlanta on Sunday completely recharged and refreshed, and then Monday morning I’ll be putting on my “hard hat” and going to work for Nerd Fitness.

I leave you today with a slightly modified quote from my favorite movie, The Shawshank Redemption:

“I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope Nerd Fitness will be successful. I hope to see my friends and shake their hands. I hope the Caribbean is as blue as it has been in my dreams.  I hope.”

Get ready.

-Steve

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If you want to stay up to date on all rebellion news, please sign up for the RSS Feed of Nerd Fitness, get NF posts via email, or join the kick-ass conversation over on the Nerd Fitness Message Boards!

photo: flynutAA

How the hell is it already June 7th?

May ended up being really freaking crazy: I spent ten days at sea on two different cruises for work, while also managing to raise over $3,300 with my friends for Camp Sunshine by running in the Warrior Dash dressed up like cavemen.  I didn’t sleep much, I didn’t get to update Nerd Fitness nearly as much as I would have liked, I missed a bunch of workouts, and I often forgot to eat (oops).

Still, I survived, and I’m ready to get back on the horse. Or wagon. Or whatever.

A few big updates today, so let’s get to it.

End of 28-Day Challenge #3

Yesterday marked the end of the third Nerd Fitness 28-Day Challenge. How did you do?  Last month was a complete wash for me, and I didn’t even get a chance to compete in my own challenge (insert sad face here).  In fact, I’m so far behind that I still haven’t picked our winners from LAST month’s challenge.

I’m getting there, I swear.

If you participated in the challenge and made it all the way through the 28 days, go ahead and post on the NF Message Boards how you did and give yourself an honest grade. Later on this week I’ll take a look through the grades and pick two winners to get NF t-shirts (which are ALSO coming soon, I swear).

The next 28-day challenge will begin on Monday, June 21st. Why two weeks away?  Because I actually want to participate in this one alongside you!  I’ll be out of the country on vacation for almost all of next week, so June 21st will be a good starting point for me to get things going again.

Oh, and speaking of message boards, have you been over there yet? There are 249 people helping each other kick ass and level up their lives.  It’s pretty freaking awesome.

Nerd Fitness Rebel Fitness Guide

I spent a good portion of my weekend working on my first paid product, the Rebel Fitness Guide!  It’s really starting to come together, and I get more excited with each passing day.  I also made a big decision over the weekend – instead of finding a way to password protect the individual videos of me doing all of the exercises used in the guide, I’m going to give those away for free.

Starting tonight and continuing throughout the week, I’ll be uploading to the Nerd Fitness YouTube Channel over one hundred different videos of me doing all the exercises that will be used in the Rebel Fitness Guide.

Yeah, I said “hundred.”

I’ll also be adding a new page to the blog for these videos, with it broken down into different exercise sections like “chest, shoulders, legs, biceps, etc.”

Now, the 4 months of daily exercise routines USING these exercises will only be available in the guide which I will be selling for a still undetermined price (but I have a pretty good idea of what I’ll charge). This is a project that I’ve been working on for months, a project that I’m extremely proud of, and one that will hopefully really help a lot of people turn their lives around.

Thanks for your support, hopefully these videos and this guide can make a difference.

Big announcement coming next Monday

The rest of my week will be consumed with editing, posting, and hosting exercise videos, but you’ll still get a new article here on Thursday.  Next week is huge for me in so many ways, and I can’t wait to tell you ALLLLLLLLLLLL about it…but I can’t tell you til then.

Keep kicking ass, keep leveling up, and get ready.

The Rebellion grows stronger…

-Steve

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If you want to stay up to date on all rebellion news, please sign up for the RSS Feed of Nerd Fitness, get NF posts via email, or join the kick-ass conversation over on the Nerd Fitness Message Boards!

To say Nerd Dash 2010 was a success is an understatement.

We had a freaking BLAST running in the Warrior Dash dressed up like cavemen.  Even better, we managed to raise $3,395 for Camp Sunshine, enough money to send half a dozen kids with cancer to summer camp.   If you want to see the rest of the pictures, head over to NerdDash.com. 

Here’s a recap video of the day’s events:

Nerd Dash 2010 Recap Video

Honestly, it was already a day I’ll never forget, and then it got even better. Zack (Zac? Zach?), a Nerd Fitness reader, tapped me on the shoulder after the race was done and told me that he was a fan of the site!   This was my first ever encounter in real life with somebody who knows about me just through Nerd Fitness.  It’s maybe the coolest thing ever.

So Zack, thanks for making my day man, and thanks for reading!

The End

This weekend marked the end of a few pretty important things. I’m a big Lost fan (hopefully not a surprise), and I have to say that I was actually really pleased with how it all ended.  I won’t spoil anything in here, but given the scope and often convoluted story lines involved with the show, I think the creators did a fantastic job tying up the series and doing the show justice with its finale.  If you want to talk Lost, we can hop onto the NF Message Boards and debate there (spoiler warning).

This weekend also marked the end of my crazy Spring: we’re done with the Spring season of cruises (I went on five of our six events), and the next one isn’t until early September.  I sure do love the cruises, but they’re quite exhausting and certainly throw off my sleep/eat/exercise schedule, so I’m looking forward to getting back into my routine, putting some muscle back on, and maybe sleeping every once and a while!

Now that I’m done with Nerd Dash, I’m already starting to think about how to make Nerd Dash 2011 even bigger and better. Cooler/funnier costumes, more sponsors, more runners, more support…it will be epic.  Details to come in early 2011.

And now it’s time to put on that hard hat and get to work on finishing the NF Rebel Fitness Guide.

Once again, thank you all for your support for Nerd Dash, and thanks for reading Nerd Fitness.  I’m grinning from ear to ear this morning.

The Rebellion grows stronger…

-Steve

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Yup.

This Saturday, me and a dozen of my friends are going to dress up like Cavemen and run in the southeastern Warrior Dash.  Why Cavemen?  Because we managed to raise over 3,000 dollars for Camp Sunshine, enough money to send half a dozen kids with cancer to Summer Camp!

Win.

This has been an incredible learning experience for me (and hopefully will be a great experience for these kids), as I’ve never done anything like this before in my life.  Here are a few things I’ve learned:

• Picking a great cause is key. Camp Sunshine has been an absolute delight to work with, and they’re a such a great cause that I don’t think I could have picked a better partner.  Thank you Camp Sunshine!
• Helping people is fun! I had an absolute blast making the Nerd Dash announcement video, and I had a lot of fun learning how to build the site for Nerd Dash.  That’s right, I built that damn thing all by myself.  +1 Nerd Cred.  Hopefully I have some fun running the race too…even though I hate running, and the last time I ran one of these I lost to a 10 year old girl.
• Make sure you have time to train. So I’ll be running this 5k on Saturday, and the last time I ran 3.2 miles was….November?  Hell the last time I ran at all was probably November.  I’ve been sick for the past three weeks since Kid Rock, but who cares, it’s for a good cause and I’m not trying to win this thing…I’m trying to have fun and look ridiculous in the process.
• Make sure you have time to dedicate to the cause at hand. Aiming high was a good plan, but launching a fundraiser while spending half of the fund-raising time out of the country wasn’t smart.  I didn’t have time to promote the event or dedicate more time to making more videos to stir up excitement.  Oh well, now I know better.

I’m already thinking of plans on how to improve this whole system for next year, but I’m ready to make an ass of myself and have a good time on Saturday. I have tomorrow off, so I’ll be running around Atlanta trying to track down leopard print and brown fabric so we all have costumes to wear.  Sounds like a nice little Friday.

After that, we’re headed up to camp out and make our costumes (while enjoying the occasional adult beverage) Friday night and then racing on Saturday morning at 11AM. If you’re going to be at the race on Saturday, make sure you swing by and say hello.  I’ll be the kid in the middle of the pack, dressed up like a caveman and covered in mud, smiling from ear to ear.

Expect lots of pictures and videos.  And stories.  And hopefully no broken bones.

Let’s do this.

-Steve

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photo: Imamon

See if this sounds familiar: By the time you read this, I’ll be out at sea on a cruise for work.

This week I’m sailing on the Malt Shop Memories Cruise, which caters to a slightly different demographic compared to last week’s Kid Rock Cruise.  This cruise is going to be awesome for a few reasons; the biggest one being that my entire family is going!  We haven’t had a family vacation in years where we’re all together, and although I’ll be working most of the time I’m looking forward to hanging out with them here and there when I can.

My Other Yoda

You’ve all been introduced to my fitness Yoda, Mike Rickett.

I now have a blogging Yoda too, and his name is Baker.

I had a chance to talk to Baker from ManVsDebt.com the other night about blogging and Nerd Fitness.  In only fifteen minutes he managed to absolutely blow my mind by providing some much needed clarity for my future plans of a worldwide Nerd Fitness Rebellion.

Baker is the man, and if you aren’t reading his blog already, you’re missing something special.

Putting On My Hard Hat

When I get back from this cruise, I’m going to spend a few weeks really focusing on finishing the Rebel Fitness guide.  I realized I’m pretty much addicted to answering emails, twitter, and the NF message boards, so I’m putting myself on a self-imposed restrictive access until I get this damn guide done!

I ask that for the time being, instead of emailing me directly with any questions, post it on the Nerd Fitness Rebel Army message boards.  There’s 230+ members on there who are more than willing and able to help out.

Speaking of the message boards, are you signed up for the NF May 28-Day Challenge?  It started on Monday, but you can still jump in there.  We’d be glad to have you.

Warrior Dash

The Warrior Dash is coming up at the end of next week.  So far I’ve raised 3,000 bucks with NerdDash (waiting on a BIG $1000 check to post), enough to send six kids with cancer to Camp Sunshine for a week.  I’m realizing that launching a ridiculous fundraiser during a month in which I’m out of the country without internet access for half of it.  That being said, I’d still like to get to at least $5,000 so we can dress as Ninjas.

5,000 is also enough money to send a cabin full of kids to camp!

1 week. 2 grand.

Can we do it?

I sure as hell hope so.

If you have already made a donation, thanks so much for your generosity.  If you haven’t, consider tossing in 10 bucks today.

Visit NerdDash.com to make your donation today.

Let’s Do This

Off on a cruise, running the Warrior Dash, and writing a book.  As the great Mario once said as he jumped into a painting, “here we gooooooooooooooo!”

-Steve

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If you want to stay up to date on all rebellion news, please sign up for the RSS Feed of Nerd Fitness, get NF posts via email, or join the kick-ass conversation over on the Nerd Fitness Message Boards!

photo: MDanys

I’m alive!

Barely.

Honestly, I haven’t been this wiped out after a cruise in quite a while, so this week has really been a blur for me.  Sleep has been in short supply and high demand, my sentences don’t form properly when talking on the phone, and I’ve had a headache that’s been fairly constant since Monday.  My room’s a mess, I haven’t shaved in a week, I’ve run out of clean clothes, and I managed to fall asleep sitting up in a chair the other day while my roommates were playing Halo while screaming at the top of their lungs.

Despite all of that, life is pretty damn good.  I’m not gonna lie though; I can’t WAIT for this weekend to recharge and recover.

So what else is new?  Quite a bit.

May 28-Day Challenge

I haven’t been on the NF message boards since last week, so I haven’t got a chance to go over how everybody did in the last challenge.  Tonight I’ll get around to it.  In the meantime, I set up the new part of the boards for the NEXT challenge, which kicks off Monday, May 10th.

Join the 28-day challenge for May here.

Jillian Michaels

Part of the reason I’ve been so exhausted this week is because the day we got back from the cruise, we launched a new cruise here at my job – the Jillian Michaels Ultimate Wellness Cruise, sailing October 21st to 25th, 2010.

A few months back, my boss approached me and said that we had partnered with Jillian to produce a fitness and wellness themed cruise, the first cruise we’ve ever done that isn’t centered around music.  When he told me that I was going to be the lead ‘warrior’ for the event, I put down my box of donuts and tub of lard and said “HELL YEAH!”

So, I’ve been working on launching the cruise website for the past few months, and this week it finally went on sale to Jillian’s premium members.  It’s in the pre-sale phase for another few weeks and then it goes on sale to the public on May 25th.  Pretty damn cool stuff, so you can expect some fun updates from me about how this is going from now until the cruise.

Congrats to Tyler

Tyler over at 344pounds.com weighed in the other day at 199.8 pounds. Tyler has been dealing with quite a bit lately and managed to still continue his inspirational journey into the 100′s.  Tyler, congrats man.  You’re a hero to everybody and you’re changing lives.

Keep kicking ass dude!

Guest Posts and Emails

I probably received a dozen emails from NF readers who are interested in writing guest posts for the site.  If you’ve emailed me in the past week and a half, tonight and tomorrow I’ll finally get a chance to reply.  Thanks for your patience guys…didn’t expect to be still destroyed at this point in the week.

Oh, and I go back out to sea on another cruise next Thursday…won’t nearly be as crazy as the Kid Rock Cruise though, which is nice.

So, how YOU doin?

-Steve

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If you want to stay up to date on all rebellion news, please sign up for the RSS Feed of Nerd Fitness, get NF posts via email, or join the kick-ass conversation over on the Nerd Fitness Message Boards!

photo: lrargerich

And I’m back!

Right now it’s early Sunday evening, but when you read this I’ll be departing from Kid Rock’s Chillin’ the Most Cruise down in Tampa, FL.  This was easily the craziest cruise we’ve ever done as a company, and words cannot truly describe what happened.

Didn’t stop me from trying though!

Here’s a recap of the second day of the cruise: The Most Memorable Night in Sixthman History?

If you don’t feel like reading and you’d rather watch a video, check out this quick video I put together from the first day of the cruise:

Kid Rock Cruise Day 1 Video

End of the 2nd 28-Day Challenge

The 2nd 28-day challenge has ended!

I don’t have time while sailing to do my complete report, but I’ll get to it as quickly as possible once I’m back in Atlanta.  After slipping two weeks ago, I got back on track this week and got in all of my workouts, including one in the Tampa hotel and one at the gym on board the cruise ship.

If you participated in this 28-day challenge, please go ahead and post how things went for you on the Nerd Fitness message boards.  Instead of me picking the winners this time, I’d like the community to decide by nominating a few candidates and then voting on the winners.

This is something new, and I’m coordinating it while floating at sea, so bear with me!

As for the next challenge, we’ll take a week to recover, reevaluate, and readjust, and then we’ll start the next challenge on MAY 10th! Stay tuned for more details.

Back to Work

Updates will be back to normal on Thursday, and I’ll be sending emails to all the people who inquired about guest posting.  There are some awesome ideas in there and I can’t wait to see what comes out of it.

I can’t tell you how excited I am to sleep in my own bed tonight…and then it’s back to work at the office tomorrow morning.

-Steve

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By the time you read this, I’ll be out to sea on Kid Rock’s Chillin’ the Most Cruise for my job with Sixthman.

Hell yes, I’m serious.

Honestly, although this cruise will be 5 long days of hard work, I’m really looking forward to it.  Despite my article on Monday asking everybody to make Optimus Prime proud by taking things one step at a time, I managed to do the exact opposite of that Tuesday morning and stress myself out about Nerd Fitness.  This is what happened, and how it’s hopefully going to help both of us.

Here’s what I came up with!

I Need to Relax

I’m sure this won’t surprise you, but I am one ambitious s.o.b.

I’m also quite impatient, which means that I expect things to be awesome, and I expect them to be awesome immediately.  I started Nerd Fitness fifteen months ago with a goal to help a lot of people and eventually turn it into a business.

Recently, trying to balance work, my health, Nerd Fitness the blog, and Nerd Fitness the business has been pretty damn stressful.

Burning the candles at both ends for weeks on end finally caught up to me Tuesday afternoon, when I came home from work with such a raging headache that I skipped my workout to lie down…which turned into a three hour nap.  I can’t tell you the last time a took a nap (probably years ago), so I’m fairly confident that this was my body telling me that I need to slow down and freaking relax!

What you can learn from my chaos

Do you weigh yourself daily?  Do you compare yourself to everybody around you and how they look?  Do you agonize over every meal, every skipped workout, every piece of office birthday cake you eat?  Do you stress yourself out when your weight doesn’t drop quickly enough?

I know exactly how you feel, maybe we can help each other chill the eff out.

I do the same thing to myself when it comes to this site, and it’s draining me.  I compare my site’s web traffic and subscribers to my own impatient vision of where things should be.  I have 10 projects I’m trying to all do simultaneously and getting very overwhelmed.  I stay up until all hours of the night trying to get everything done, putting my own personal health at the bottom of the list.  I spend too much time stressing about the future, instead of just enjoying the moment.

We need to be having fun with this!

I’m not making Optimus Prime proud, so I’m going to make a few small changes to try and keep my sanity.

Moving Forward

For starters, I’m going to take this cruise to disconnect for a few days from Nerd Fitness.

Luckily, I’ll be on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean with limited access to the Internet, so that shouldn’t be too difficult.  Next week, I’ll come back fully recharged and ready to start kicking some ass again.  Here are the steps I’m taking to make life less hectic:

• Concentrate on finishing the Nerd Fitness Rebel Fitness Guide. Due to the dozen projects I’m trying to juggle simultaneously, the fitness e-book/workout plan has been pushed to the back burner.  This is absolutely the most important project on the list, so this will be pushed to the front of the queue.  Which means…
• Other projects will be set aside until that book is done. I’ve made the decision to put Nerd Fitness t-shirts on hold for the time being.  I’ve found a local printer here in ATL who can make the shirts for very reasonable prices, and they will start handling fulfillment as well within a few months.  I know I owe some of you shirts, but don’t worry.  When they’re available you’ll get them!

Your Help

I’m putting out a request to the Nerd Fitness Community for some guest posts! I’ll still publish original articles weekly, but I want to keep this community engaged while also working on the book, so a guest post here and there will certainly help.

If you have your own blog, or if you just love writing, and you’re interested in writing a guest post for Nerd Fitness, please shoot me an email with your idea.  If it’s an idea I think worth writing about, I’ll give you the green light and you can start putting it together.

Email me at Steve@NerdFitness.com if you have any interest, and I’ll get back to you when I’m back on dry land.  I can’t promise that I’ll approve every article or idea, but if I don’t use yours I’ll let you know ASAP so you can post it on your site or elsewhere.

Nerd Dash 2010 Update

The Warrior Dash is in 24 days, and it’s time to bring out the heavy artillery.  If we manage to raise $20,000 for Camp Sunshine, my friends will dress up in Braveheart costumes…except for me.

I will run the entire race in a pink tutu and tiara.

Humiliating? Yup. Worth it?  Absolutely. Honestly, I can’t think of a better reason to dress in a tutu than sending a bunch of kids with cancer to camp.

If you’ve already made a donation to NerdDash 2010, thank you so much. If you haven’t yet, maybe this will put you over the edge.  Every little bit counts, so even if you only donate 5 bucks, it puts us one step closer to sending another kid to camp.

Please consider making a donation today.

This might be a long shot, but might as well ask: If you work for a company that you think would be interested in becoming a corporate sponsor of Nerd Dash (with logo placement on the tutu or something, ha!) email me at steve@nerdfitness.com and we’ll chat.

So that’s my life.  To see how things are going on the cruise, you can follow our adventures at sixthman.net/blog.

Catch you all back on shore on Monday…if I survive.

How are YOU doing?

-Steve

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So I had plans to do a much bigger post over here about this, but I really just ran out of time!

Please visit NerdDash.com for ALL of the details about our fundraiser for the Warrior Dash.  I haven’t asked for much (well, anything) while running this site for the past 15 months, so if you get a second…check out NerdDash.com and consider making a donation.  Here’s the ridiculous video I made to announce the site.  This might be career suicide on my part, and now I’ll never be able to run for president (not that I wanted to anyways), but it’s for a really good cause so I’m okay with it.

Here it is:

Nerd Dash Announcement Video

I’m really excited about this project, and I really hope I can raise the $20,000 to send 40 kids with cancer to summer camp at Camp Sunshine.

Thanks for your support guys! If you have your own blogs and websites, I’d be eternally in your debt if you gave a shout out to the NerdDash on your site.  Anything and everything is appreciated.

Oh, and a BIG THANKS to my buddy Joe for doing all the design work for the site. He’s in the process of setting up his own business, so if you need any design work done, shoot me an email and I’ll put you in touch with him.  Joe is the man!

Thank you,

Steve

Now let’s take care of these kids!