Recently I was in a car accident. A hit from behind that had left me with pain, stiffness and very restricted range of motion. Needless to say this has knocked me off weight loss and exercise plan.

I am now just at the point of getting back on track and being able to start a regular workout routine again. Over the passed 2 months I’ve gained 12 pounds. Not a huge deal but definitely a set back to my plan.

It’s not all bad though, it could have been worse. I could have been more seriously injured or gained 20 plus pounds. I did manage to get some exercise in, walking mostly.

This whole experience has really drilled home 2 important points.

1. Poor diet mixed with little or no exercise is a recipe for disaster. It’s not just the weight gain, but also the feelings of laziness and the negative thoughts that come with it.

2. Don’t plan too far ahead. Life has a way of changing those plans weather you like it or not. I had planned to run my first half marathon this spring and be at my goal weight by mid summer. So I’ve had to adjust my goals according to my current physical condition.

My posting frequency has dropped off during this time mainly because I really didn’t have anything interesting or motivational to say. That will change as I become more active and resume my weight loss plan. My next post will be on something that I’ve found to be very important that too many people don’t take advantage of when it’s offered.

Thank you for continuing to post your comments on my previous articles. They have been very encouraging.

Just a quick update on this site and my blogging status.

I’m sure you have noticed that over the past few weeks the quantity and quality of my posts have been dropping. This is due to many factors. I have been working on a book with some trainers as well as many other new projects.

I am changing the frequency of posts and purpose of this blog. I will be posting 1 high quality post per week. These posts will be focusing on really helping you to lose weight as well as hopefully start some meaningful discussions (via comments).

Remember that this blog uses the top commentator’s plugin as well as the dofollow plugin. So comments are encouraged (and moderated)

If you would like to contact me about anything weight loss related you can also email me here.

Finally, don’t forget to signup for my RSS subscription. You can do that at the top of this page or here.

*note - weightlossweapons.com will be updated frequently with fresh new content *

I’m looking forward to helping,
Steve

Just a quick post to let you know that I received my first site review from Technicallyeasy.net earlier this week.

I think it was a fair assessment and there were some very helpful suggestions to improve this site. You can read the whole review here.

Overall I was pretty pleased with my rating of 4 ½ stars out of 5.

Technicallyeasy.net is a great website that provides information on a variety of topics including networking and computer issues, digital cameras, digital photography as well as computer security and web design. All written so that it’s easy to understand and apply.

Click here to get your own free review.

Well it has officially been 1 month since I started this blog and I have to say that I am very pleased with the results so far. I thought I would take a moment to share with you what I have achieved and also what I have learned.

First a few stats that I am pretty proud of:

I have managed to reach at least 1 person in all 50 states.

As well as at least 1 person in over 50 different counties.

Below are my page views and the number of visits I have received in the last 30 days.



Not bad for a newbie

The only disappointing thing has been the RSS subscriber count. 22 as I write this and I am grateful for every one of them. I think I really need to improve on promoting my feed. Not to mention that I just figured out how to set it up properly 2 weeks ago.

Last word on the stats, since the Google page rank update I went from an N/A to a PR2. This was a nice surprise.

What have I learned?

Promoting a blog is actually quite different from promoting a static site (yes I just learned that phrase). I think for a blog it’s more who you know or are associated with, rather than where you are listed.

Less is more, when it comes to post length anyway. I’ve found that readers lose interest quite easily and if your post is more than 500 words chances are they won’t finish it. Keeping your paragraphs short is also a good way to hold a readers attention.

Finally, Getting traffic is not an easy thing to achieve. You need to put in effort, time and have a lot of patience. I’ve also learned that I really enjoy checking my stats and comments, almost obsessively (everyone is addicted to something right?)

Thanks to everyone that has helped me along the way so far. The members at Websitebabble.com have been great. I would also like to thank Adtracker for her “stumble love” over the past few days.

I am always open to suggestions for improving my sites and writing in general. If you have any suggestions for topics, site improvements or advertising maybe??? Send me an email or leave me a comment.

Here are just a couple of quick updates as to what I have been adding and trying out at my main site www.weightlossweapons.com as well as here on the blog.

I have added a new page called Strength Training. It basically outlines the best exercises to build strength using just your bodyweight. I am a big fan of bodyweight exercises mainly because anyone can do them, you don’t need to go to a gym and they get results. So check it out and let me know what you think. 

Increased Traffic

The Traffic on the blog has picked up quite a bit since I added the FREE Blogrush link widget.

The idea behind this is that you show blog posts from other sites on your related subject (here would be health, weight loss and fitness related posts). You earn credits based on the amount of traffic you have.  Every credit you earn means that one of your posts will show up in the widget on someone else’s blog. This can really increase your sites exposure.

The best part is the referral program. If another blogger adds the widget to their site using your referral code, you will earn more credits based on how much traffic they receive as well. It goes 10 levels deep.

I’ve had a couple of people sign up under me already which is great, but I can always use more. If you want to add Blogrush to your site you can sign-up here.

New Advertising

Now I’ll admit that I didn’t start this site/blog to make money. My financial goal has always been to make enough just to cover the hosting and domain costs. Allowing me to write about what I love for free. That being said, the Google ads just aren’t doing it for me. My click through rate (CTR) is decent but as Google looks to make more money for them and payout less to the publishers I need to experiment with other forms of advertising.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be testing some new CPC providers. The first will be WidgetBucks which should appear at the end of this post. They have a huge advertising network and will hopefully bring some products and services that will prove useful to my readers.

Bonus, it’s free to sign-up and they will actually give you $25 just for using them. Can’t beat that.

The other ad system is FAN (Fair Ad Network) that will show later this month. Another CPC ad network. They also offer targeted ads relating to health and fitness.

Affiliate Programs

None yet. I haven’t found anything good enough that I would recommend to anyone yet. I won’t post any links unless I’ve tried it and it actually does what it claims to do.

Remember if you have any questions about weight loss, or anything health/fitness related either leave me a comment or send me an email. I’ve received a dozen or so in the past couple of weeks and I’ll be posting some of the better ones later on.  (I will never give out your email or other personal info)