Oooh it's getting close. Are you excited yet?

Both Christmas for those who celebrate it, and the New Year for most of the world, loom just around the corner.

Unlike most who will use this as an excuse to wait to start a program, I'm kicking mine off this week. I must admit, I am human ... I was planning to train the past few days and used the excuse of "being tired and having too much to do." Tomorrow, however, there is no excuse, and I'm writing this to thousands of readers in order to be accountable. I am going to get up early and train before work so it's done and there are no excuses. It will be a new schedule for me, but I'm doing it. I will get in a good workout tomorrow morning and Friday. Tomorrow is legs, Friday is upper body, then I will enjoy the weekend and kick back into gear the following week.

No excuses ... in fact, the studies are clear: you can't use the bad genetics excuse for not losing fat anymore.

I'll keep you posted!

We've grown with so many articles on the website that I decided to pull out my own material for those of you who write to ask which are my own. When you visit the page for the book Lose Fat, Not Faith, you can scroll to the bottom and find a list of all of the articles I've personally written. I hadn't really taken an inventory and am pleasantly surprised at how many there are! This doesn't include several that have been published abroad.

I've been working on a few projects lately. While the content is not too thorough, I will be adding to my network marketing website. I want to provide the same quality and for the industry what Natural Physiques™ is doing for health and wellness: to offer honest, to the point, easy-to-understand information. The existing articles are going to be reviewed again and anything that doesn't meet that standard removed as I add new content. You can see a little of what is there by browsing over.

I am also improving my wife's website for Florida Luxury Living. We are going to write articles and guides to the local area so it becomes more of a resoure for those who are living, visiting, or investing in Florida properties.

I have a fourth site I am building that mirrors another passion of mine: pool. I love to shoot pool, although I must admit I haven't had much time to do so lately. Fortunately, I've kept my priorities straight and put exercise before knocking balls around on the table. I will marry my passion for pool with my love of writing and launch a website that features the history, rules of the game, quality products, and more related to pool.

It seems like a lot of unrelated projects, but the way we've decided to live our life is to tap into our passion. Every one of these sites is about something my wife and I are passionate about.

Speaking of projects, I've been so involved that I've not kept up to date with some very important friends who took the time to share their passion with me.

First, a big thank you to Jimmy Moore, author of Livin' La Vida Low Carb. Jimmy, you can quote me on this one ...

Even if you are not a fan of low-carb diets, get this book! It will inspire and transform the way you think about fitness and living healthy. I must admit that I have a built-in bias to Jimmy's story because it is similar to my own. We both were overweight and spent a lot of time trying to discover the right connection to lose fat... and more importantly, to keep it off. Jimmy's book captures the essence of this journey and will connect with many of you who are looking for that powerful reason not to give up hope. While I have had success with many clients using a variety of approaches, some people seem to connect well with the low-carb method. Jimmy tackles the entire lifestyle — it's not just about your diet. He shares exercise, motivation, and more. While I don't agree that sugar is rat poison, as one of the chapters proclaims, I did connect with much of the how and why behind this amazing transformation. The change is more than checking the carb count on the nutrition facts, and you'll discover not only what Jimmy did to transform his life, but it was like witnessing it through his wife's own words. This book will be an asset to your weight loss success library.

You can purchase his book through the non-affiliate link above.

I'll be reviewing a set of DVDs here shortly... take a peek at Full Konact today and check back to hear my thoughts later.

This season, you can manage stress and burn fat while enjoying yourself... in the skating rink.

If you've got a bum knee, one possible cure may be to tango your way to healthier joints. If not the tango, then why not foxtrot to burn calories?

If you're dead-set on stuffing your face this holiday, you might as well read this to make an excuse for it. That way, you won't feel as guilty, which I believe causes more fat gain than the calories themselves. When you're done, you can swallow a balloon and eat only 1,000 calories per day to lose 6 pounds a week. Doesn't sound healthy to me. I used to swallow bubble gum as a kid, shouldn't that have helped in some way?

One day your employer may tell you to quit smoking or leave. It's taken 30 years for smoking to become serious enough that employers might just get away with it. They do assign a health coach, if that is any consolation. How much longer before they start asking you to lose weight or leave? Considering the majority of people are overweight, I doubt this will happen any time soon.

How valuable is nutrtion advice? One group of schools will receive 2.3 million to improve the nutrition, fitness, and health of children. Fortunately, my program isn't 2.3 million ... you can hire me for as little as $127.

The world is an unstable place ... so you should train for that!

My most important announcement for today ... it's time to Get America Fit (and break a world record in the process). I've written about my experience attending a charity event in 1999 several times. One of the coordinators of that event is a remarkable man named Bill Gobin. I was blessed to reconnect with Bill the other day. Bill has a strong passion for fitness and has built a foundation that connects families with fitness. This non-profit organization has some lofty goals and I hope you join me to support him 100%. He's done some amazing things with helping families connect with fitness. We are going to speak on our Weight Loss the Healthy Way podcast — that will be posted by the end of the week!

Blessed be,