...retirement is a lost cause, and saving money is a sham...unless you are healthy enough to enjoy it. Did you know that according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 61% of All adults are obese or overweight? I am going to try to avoid machine gunning out too many statistics here, but do you know how long the list is of diseases that increase in likelihood by living a sedentary lifestyle? And do you know how much quality time you can add to your life by being highly active for less than an hour a day? Let's just say that it is measured in decades and not years. We have all seen the NBC News specials or read the health snippits, so why might it be so hard to make fitness a very regular occurrence.


Much like managing our finances, unless we are regularly reminded or motivated by witnessing our progress, our interest and involvement may dwindle. Les and I have found a couple terrific tools that help us to stay focused, motivated, and tracking towards betterment. These sites could be our most valuable tools in the Spilling Bucket's Toolbox.


Gyminee combines the elements of a workout and fitness progress tracking system with a social networking environment. You are able to join fitness groups, create and track workouts, log progress towards goals, and much more.

What I like most is the exercise library and the fact that many of the exercises are reviewed by members and are demonstrated with short video clips.

It's very simple to create a workout and log your completion. Here is the initial cardio and strength training workout I created.

We found another great site reading The Happy Rock, it's called the 100 Push Up Challenge and is going to be a lot of fun. I just did the initial test ( 47 push ups ) and found out that I should start at a Rank of 4. Les has been chugging along for a few days now having started at Rank 2 ( 14 push ups).



Another tool to make this stuff fun has always been podcasts and music. Most days I really look forward to exercise time because I get to catch up on some of the news that I missed throughout the day.


By far my favorites are:

1. Marketplace from American Public Media
2. Mad Money Machine by Paul Douglas Boyer

As a matter of fact Paul's latest podcast is a "couch to 5k" workout combining music, a cardio workout progression, and excerpts from the 12 steps for active investors. Unique and a lot of fun.

Just like tracking our net worth and goals, tracking our fitness progress keeps us motivated and engaged. I am curious what tools and ideas you may have on the subject.