It's official, we have fifteen people participating in The Fitness Race.

Just for background, I made an offer to mentor between 10 - 20 people to "take charge" of their health & fitness so long as they agreed to make transformational changes in their life.

My deal to the group:
I'll inspire, create accountability & mentor the group until the end of September to help each person acheive their stated transformational health & fitness goals.

Their deal to the group:
Each member agrees to...
- Set a transformational health & fitness goal
- Do what I say I'm going to do
- Show up on time
- Not give up (under any circumstances) before the end of September
- four hours of physical training per week
- one hour of accountability per week

Here's a progress report I just got from one of our actual participants:

Dear ZC,

Congratulations on setting your key event goals and your commitment to complete your strategies to meet your agreements to yourself this coming week.

Attached are the Excel File / methods I have used to track my progress which we went through this morning. You are welcome to use it or any piece which fits what you want to track. Please let me know if you have any questions. I would also be happy to go through this again with you and help in any way you would like.

I think the keys for you as we talked about this morning are:

Set you exercise goals
Get moving physically on a regular bases
4 to 5 times a week
It should not leave you drained
Get to the point of being winded and back off a bit
Start counting the calories you are eating on a daily basis
Start adjusting the foods you eat to support your goals

I am slowly learning that the basics of fitness are pretty simple. It is all a function of getting our heart rates up on a regular basis and burning more calories that we eat. If we start to do this we will become more healthy. If we can achieve 1000 calorie deficit daily through a combination of exercise and nutrition, we will start to lose 2 lbs per week (3500 calories = 1 lbs). Everything that I read indicates that 1 to 2 lbs a week is a healthy goal because it requires that we change our habits over an extended period of time. In my case, I want to lose 50Lbs and I am targeting 2 lbs per week which means it will take me about 26 weeks to get their.

Take care my friend,

QQ

Very inspiring stuff.

I'll include many of these interactions between the fifteen participants.