cray17’s BodyBlog

Yeah…gonna have to do better on keeping up with my journal. LOL.

Whaaaaat?!? Did you think I was going to give up THAT easily?! FAT CHANCE, PAL! Wait…wrong choice of words. Yep, epic fail on me. HEHE…

Anyways, here’s a small update on how Mission Rebirth is going. I’ve so far have lost 5 pounds! WOOT!!! It ain’t much, but darn it, I’ll take it! Which means I’m down from 262 to 257 lbs. Not a bad start, not a bad start at all.

This Monday night, I’m planning on attending my first-ever Zumba class. I was told that if you work hard for an hour, you will burn 700-800 calories, and if you work at a decent rate, you’ll burn 400-500 calories. I’ll do an blog about that sometime Tuesday afternoon!

As Calvin from Tyler Perry’s House of Payne would say…BE BREEZY!!!

Well, what can you say. Things happen in life, and things can take a turn for the better or for the worse. For me, things took a turn for the better AND the worse. Good news is that after graduation from college, I was able to land a job right away and get started in the next chapter in my life. The bad news was that I didn’t realize how bad l left myself go. I did a weight-in for the first time in over a year, when I was 232 lbs after losing 15 lbs during the summer of 2008, and found out I was 262 lbs! Needless to say I was pretty upset with myself, as I had no one to blame BUT myself. But now, as the late Owen Hart said "Enough is enough, and it’s time for a change!"

With that being said, as of last week, I’m now on Mission Rebirth.  I’m calling it Mission Rebirth due to the fact that I’m attending and working for a Christain college and due to my faith in God.

I’m hoping to get down to a sensible weight by the end of the year, and this time STAY ON THE RIGHT TRACK! It wasn’t easy to lose the weight and inches in 2008, and it won’t be easy now. I’ll do my best to do at the very least a bi-weekly update on how things are going. I can say that I literally lost a couple of pounds since Mission Rebirth began, so I’m hoping things continue down that path.

If ANYONE has any suggestions as I go through this journey, I’m more than willing to listen to what you all at BodySpace have to say.

Mission Rebirth is officially underway!!!

I’m sorry about the delay on making the announcement on here. You voted, and out of the 11 that participated, Niki Delgrosso received the most votes and became the first FitGems FitMom winner!

For more, click here:
http://fitgems.blogspot.com/2009/05/congrats-to-1st-ever-miss-fitgems.html

She is using the prize money for her childern’s savings accounts. Congrats to Niki and everyone that participated!

Thank you to everyone that entered this very special contest. There are 11 great individuals who entered this year. Those women are:

Cathleen Kronemer
Kassandre Harper-Cotton
Jade Smart
Amanda Zawojsky
Liza Hughes
Lori A.T. Raper
Ginny Gardea
Niki DelGrosso
Theresa Winterhalter
Suzane Germano
Amber Lobao

View each of their stories and a pic of them as well. After you do that, vote for your favorite mother. You have until Mother’s Day to vote. GOOD LUCK LADIES!!!

The poll is at the front page of my site: http://www.fitgemsnation.net.

Are you a fit mother? Do you KNOW of a fit mother? Check out the FitGems Nation’s first cash contest! It’s not much, but hey…every little bit helps!

http://www.fitgemsnation.net/page/fitgems-fitmom-contest

You have until May 2nd at Midnight eastern time (11PM Central Time) to enter. Good luck to everyone!!!

As we all know, February is Black History Month, and with the beginning of the presidential reign of our first black president, Barack Obama, Black History Month will have more meaning to it than ever before.

In honor of this special month, I’ll be highlighting a black female physique competitor every day in February on my blog. They could be a pro or amateur, living or deceased, competing now or retired, among other things. If you have any suggestions to who you would like to see highlighted, leave a comment below or email me at admin@fitgemsnation.net.

http://fitgems.blogspot.com

The FitGems Nation will be honoring the female competitors in various ways on the website. We have FitGem of the Week and Photo of the Week.

FitGem of the Week is a page made for them, Photo of the Week, is just that, a photo submitted by competitors, fans, and photographers, that will be featured on the front page of the site.

Go to http://www.fitgemsnation.net/page/exclusives-1 for more info on these and other FitGems exclusives and how you can get involved.

Thanks!

I thought it over as well as talk with some friends, and , under careful consideration, I’d decided to unify the social network site and message board together into one site (http://www.fitgemsnation.net). I think this will be better than having five thousand sites, as quality is better than quantity. The official site was moved to Ning a while back for those that were part of the first site earlier this year. It’s not fair to all of you to go from one FitGems site to another when it can all be done in one take.

If you need any assistance on the unified site, please email me at admin@fitgemsnation.net.

Thanks!

Chris
FitGems Founder
http://www.fitgemsnation.net

It has been a long road creating something that competitors, fans, and everyone else involved in this industry can come together and help support the sport they love and live for. Here’s my story…

It started out by me making fan clubs on Yahoo for those I liked quite a bit. The first one I created was of IFBB Pro Christine Pomponio-Pate. From there I created others for people such as Julie Shipley-Childs, Jane Awad, Jennifer Gates, and Sherrie Carnicle, to name a few. The fan clubs were met with great response not only from fans but the competitors themselves. Then I got involved in participating in message boards. I’m in more message boards and sites than I dare to count at this point in time. There are some that I enjoy more than others, and the ones I enjoy the most are the ones that show respect to the women who push their bodies to the limit and beyond.

Long story short, I decided to post my thoughts and opinions about the industry though a blog this summer, thus bringing the FitGems Nation, my personal contribution to the sport, to life (http://fitgems.blogspot.com). I’ve had the honor so far of having a few interviews on the blog with some of the top names in the business, including the new Fitness and Figure Olympia champions, which is quite an accomplishment for someone’s who new to this kind of stuff. Then the thought of a cool social site ran through my head, so I created a social site on a social network place similar to Ning. However, the vision I wanted was limited on the site I used to hold the FitGems site on, so I moved it to Ning (http://fitgems.ning.com) and never looked back. Then I decided to take one more online step and created a little message board (http://fitgemsnation.proboards.com). Not bad for a 22 year old supporter, huh?

I’ve accomplished quite a bit with these sites, which all began in 2008. I’m hoping as time progresses that I can do more for the great ladies of this sport. I’m hoping to attend a show in the near future (which I’m saving up money now for), as well as create some kind of sponsorship (either from scratch or partner up with a site, company, or something of that nature), as well as a promotion tool for the athletes that will be explained on a later date.

I’m gonna make this very clear…I’M NOT A SAVIOR FOR THIS SPORT, AND I DON’T WANT TO BE LOOK AT AS SUCH! All I am is a fan and a supporter who wants to give back to something I’ve admire and respected for years. I do hope the fans out there do what they can to support these women, as they need all the support they can get. As long as there is female muscle, I’ll do what I can to support the sport. Ladies, you are all absoultely amazing. Keep following your dreams and keep pushing yourselves to bring out the very best in YOU, as a true winner is never satisfied.

I’m gonna leave you all with this: We are not promised a tomorrow, but let’s live like today will never end.

It’s was bound to come sooner than later, and I decided to make it sooner. As of now, I have a community board that goes along with this blog (which is my main numero uno) and social network site. It’s not as fancy as others out there, but I don’t care about that. As long as it serves its purpose (which is to be a positive place for competitors, fans, supporters, and everyone that is a part of the female muscle industry), and everyone’s happy, then I’m happy.

Here’s the link to the site:
http://fitgemsnation.proboards.com/

I hope you give this board a chance. Thanks!!!