This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Well, here goes nothing!  It's a big day, and an even bigger month in my neck of the woods...first and foremost, here I am writing my very first blog.  Certainly something I haven't really envisioned doing at any point in the past, but going to give it a whirl!  Secondly, and even more exciting, I will be embarking on a 12 week fitness challenge starting Monday.  Also a first for me!

I would consider myself a pretty active person, and one that eats well for the most part.  That said, I've never worked towards any specific end point in the past, rather working out to sort of maintain my general health.  Well that all changed as I watched Rocky IV a couple weeks ago!  I began to wonder what I could accomplish if I set out with clear fitness goals and worked towards them over a period of time.

You can imagine my disappointment upon realizing that moving to a cabin in Russia to cut down trees, climb mountains, and lift rocks for the next 3 months was not overly viable.  I wept, re-grouped, and wept some more but ultimately gathered my thoughts and started to put together a plan of attack. The first step was to con my girlfriend, Lin, into joining me...luckily she didn't put up much of a fight when I threatened a Rocky marathon to spark her interest as well.

Part of the plan for this challenge is to tackle it from the ground up, starting from scratch with a cleanse, revamped workouts, and all new meal plans.  To meet the generic disclaimer, we are consulting with trainers to ensure our workouts are appropriate and to get some dietary suggestions/direction.  We will have our goals, workouts, meal plans, measurements, and before pictures all wrapped up this weekend and then...we're off!

Motivation comes from the strangest places I guess.  Regardless, I couldn't be more excited about the challenge.  Hopefully my enthusiasm will last throughout the infancy stage of the process and carry me to the end.  My plan is to update the blog once a week at least to share my thoughts, frustrations, and accomplishments (fingers crossed on that last one!).  

Hopefully I can be somewhat entertaining, if not let me know and I'll revert to old fashioned bribery as a means to gain viewership!  :)

Cheers!
Phil