In the beginning....

Today marks the first day of my new blog.  I've started this blog to track my progress through my variation of a program called "Kettlebell Burn".  I plan to officially start the program in about a week, after my trip to India.  I can't take a kettlebell with me to India so I will use this next week as a bit of a warm-up on both the blogging and the eating habits. 

A bit about me first (it is my blog after all):

I am a 49 year old female software executive who recently earned her RKC kettlebell certification.  I spent the 6 months leading up to that certification focused on passing it.  Prior to taking up kettlebells I was focused on running and swimming (competing in both).  Since passing the certification, my workouts have drifted and I've gained weight.  It has become clear to me now that I need goals and to keep my attention, those goals have to be bigger than "do 5 pull-ups".  They need to take time and have a path to completion.   Most importantly, they need to be a challenge.

So the goal I've chosen is my variation of "Kettlebell Burn" by Geoff Neupert.  Why that one?  It is the one I was looking at on-line (with my credit card out) when the mood struck.  Why a "variation"?  Well, because Geoff explicitly says to that no extra workouts should be added to his program but I know that I will be adding extra workouts.  I'm acknowledging straight up that I might be messing with his program and any lack of results that I have is my fault and my fault only.  BUT, I don't have many of the stressors in my life that he warns of (2.3 kids, alimony, mortgage payments) and I do have a social life built around physical activity, a dog that needs to go running to stay sane, a personal trainer that I simply will not give up and a whole bunch of time to fill so that I don't fill it with work.  I've trained long/hard at many times in my life and I know that I have a very high tolerance for training before I suffer any symptoms of over-training.  So I'm going to keep doing the things I love to do but take responsibility if it negatively impacts my progress. 

Other than the extra workouts, however, I plan to follow the program as written - for both exercise and eating.

As far as the blogging goes, I've started up this new blog because I just didn't feel like I was going to do it justice if I tried to log progress in my other blog (Sliding Toward 50).  First, I'm going to let this be a public blog which is a bit scary to me.  Second, I sort of try to keep the other blog from becoming a workout log, which means I often have little to say.  This blog will be a workout log - that is its purpose.  Don't look for anything profound to be said here.  I reserve that for the other blog although it rarely happens.  Finally, I'm not sure what will happen with this blog after the 16 week program is over.  The other blog has a beginning unassociated to this program and will stay around after the 16 weeks (well, 17 weeks if you count the warm-up) is over. 

So for my own purposes, here's the summary of what I'm planning (am I equivocating with the repeated use of the word "plan"?) to do:

• Kettlebell Burn workouts - 3 times per week starting the week of April 26
• Kettlebell Burn (PN actually) nutrition, with (paper) food log, starting today
• Blogging of progress at least once per workout (every day/every other day or so)
• Publicly (yikes!) posting weight and measurements bi-weekly starting April 25

Finally, my theme for this experiment is a phrase that Josue sent me before the RKC.  Quite simply it is that "kicking ass matters" and that is what I intend to do.