I was reading a post on GarryConn.com yesterday about the new direction he was taking his blog. The post was titled Make Money Online by Shutting Your Mouth This really got me thinking about this site and my attempts to monetize and profit from it.

Affiliate Sales

Many bloggers are making money from affiliate sales. Basically they recommend a product or service and if someone makes a purchase using the bloggers affiliate link, that blogger gets paid a percentage of the sale.

I promote healthy weight loss without using expensive pills or programs as well as posting my own personal successes and failures. Almost every affiliate program related to weight loss or dieting etc.. promote the very things I speak out against. So trying and sell you a diet pill or a weight loss plan/program would completely contradict the purpose of this blog. The only exception I’ve found so far is P90X which I honestly believe lives up to the hype.

I’m sure there are products that I could find that would be useful in your weight loss efforts, Whey protein, scales, running shoes etc… but you’re not going to buy those products off the internet from non reputable sellers.

Adsense

I also use adsense on this blog as well as the main site Weightlossweapons.com. I’d say 95% of the money made comes from the main site. It gets quite a lot of search engine traffic especially the weight charts.

The money made is enough to earn a monthly paycheck but not nearly enough to allow me to make a full time income online, yet

Bloggers are also notorious for being ad blind so adsense isn’t really effective with them. (If your reading this that means you).

Money is not my main motivation

I have come to the conclusion that barring a major change in the way I blog, I am not going to make any substantial amount of money from this blog. I’m ok with that because making money blogging in not my sole intent.

I try to teach and share what I’ve learned about weight loss. I know what it’s like to be overweight as well as how it feels to reach my goals, so I think I can relate to a wide variety of people. Help them is my main purpose and goal of this blog and website. The money is just a bonus.

How I will profit from this site

I’ve heard of people clicking ads as a way to support the sites they like. J.D from getrichslowly.org had a great post that discourages this and really nailed how you can support the sites you like called Ads are not the new online tip jar definitely worth a read.

As mentioned most of the money made is from my main site, so that is where the majority of my efforts will be directed.

How you can help

There are a few ways that you can help. One is to have a look at weightlossweapons.com and read what I have written. If you like it or find anything useful I’d ask that you share it by linking to it or telling your friends.

The other is by letting me know what needs to be fixed, improved or if there is something I am missing. I did this with the blog a little while ago and I had a ton of really helpful and useful emails.

Finally, leave a comment here and let me know what you’re doing to make money from your site(s) and what kind of success or failures you’ve had so far.

For all of us trying to lose weight the battle is usually a very tough one. Sometimes weeks go by without dropping a single pound, and those can be discouraging.

Then you get a week like last week. I gained 6 pounds. Now, I know muscle weighs more then fat but I didn’t lift a single pound in the gym.

The only reason I can come up with is that I was on vacation last week. To me that apparently meant a vacation not only from my job but also from my healthier lifestyle that I had created as well.

My top 5 ways to gain 6 pounds in just 1 week:

1. Never eat a “meal” at home. (this includes breakfast)

2. Stop all forms of activities that get your heart rate up.

3. Do not weigh yourself every day.

4. Stop blogging, reading inspirational posts or giving praise and congratulations to others for their weight loss successes.

5. Repeat this phrase before making a decision that you know will not help your weight loss efforts. “Screw it, I’m on vacation”

There you have it, if you have been getting tired of losing weight and want to gain a large amount of unhealthy fat in just 1 week, follow the directions above.

Lessons Learned

Basically I have learned some very important lessons this week, those being that:

1. Your metabolism doesn’t take vacations.

2. In building a healthy lifestyle you will slip up, you will make horrible decisions from time to time.

3. Weight loss is a daily fight and making long lasting healthy habits is your best defense.

So I guess this is the “back on track” week. I am fortunate enough that last week was my recovery week in the P90X program. Which up until this latest slip was going incredibly well.

There you have it, if you have been getting tired of losing weight and want to gain a large amount of unhealthy weight in just 1 week, follow the directions above.