For the past week I’ve been thinking about how I got started being part of this group and what it has done to and for me. So here is what I’ve come up with.

For sometime now Pam has been saying I needed to get more activity going in my life, because she wanted me to be around “for awhile.” When Jim asked us to be part of this Beta test group I thought that part of the program would help me. Little did I know how much. Jim had given us a preview of the program, Community and Accountability, I thought it sounded like a good idea so I ordered the Nike link and got started. Just a little background, I work outside in the weather and I haven’t really walked/ran for exercise for about 20 years, so this was going to be a stretch.

The first month, Mar., the contest was to see who could walk/run with the most time, so I decided to walk at least once a day. Being out of shape I kind struggled at first but kept going. There were calls and some “trash talk,” but I got though with a little encouragement from others in the community, especially Jim, Mark and Cindy. At the end of the month I had only missed 3 days, but on the last day I fell from 3rd to 4th and received an email from Mark that told me I had dropped and should go walk if I wanted 3rd, so I did at 11pm(sorry Patty).

The second PARTI was to walk a minimum of 20 min/day, but this time you have a partner. I made a promise to Mark that I wouldn’t miss a day. It’s great to be accountable, that way you can keep each other focused and motivated, which we did daily. There are things that just happens that can get you off track, here are some that happened to me. I walked in the rain, I had the voice on the Ipod tell me my 20 mins were up as I finished my but the time show as 19:55 when downloaded, and the biggest one was my Ipod reset the date 01-01-2000 when it downloaded and couldn’t find the run on the Nike site, so to keep my word I re-walked so I could be accountable. By the way we tied for 1st.

We are now in our third PARTI and my partners are Jim and my son Will. Again I will be accountable to them, in doing so my son as learned it the hard way, he has had to walk latter in night a couple of times to get his run in. We’ll have to wait and see how this one ends latter.

Here are some of the benefits as they relate to me:
-I have lost over 20lbs, started at 296 down to 273.5
-Clothes that were tight are not anymore
-I have more energy during the day
-I enjoy going out for my walk

I really want to thank Jim for coming up with this program and everyone who is a part of this group. In our Team side I am accountable to my wife and our upline, but in this I have to be accountable to myself, my wife, my partner(s), and the group.