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Welcome to the liveblog of the BlogHer '10 panel: Passions: Fitness Blogging - Motivate Yourself and Your Readers Click here for more info.
We’ve explored body image at many past BlogHer conferences, but we’ve never focused the spotlight on bloggers who are specifically and unapologetically getting in shape. How do you motivate, engage, get people excited, stay positive, and walk that line between loving the body you have now for what it can accomplish and seeking to help it do even more? Join the discussion with moderator Roni Noone, who blogs at Roni's Weigh about losing weight and keeping it off; Debra Roby, who blogs at Weight for Deb about healthy living post-menopause; and Sahar Aker, a veteran news health reporter who vlogs and blogs on FatFighterTV.com.
Roni: We thought since we are the fitness blogging panel, we would start with a fabulous fitness activity, just to get you going after lunch.
Deb: Because of working on the computer all the time, we tend to have our shoulders rounds forward. This is an exercise you can do anytime. Put your arms up to make a "Y," out to your sides to make a "T," and down to make and "A."
Now repeat after me: YOU'RE TOTALLY AWESOME.
My blog started to keep myself accountable on Weight Watchers 5 years ago. Now I try to document the trials and tribulations of maintaining a 70-pound weight loss. The approach that I take is a modeling approach on my everyday life is to motivate and inspire others.
Sahar: I'm a journalist, and I do a lot of success stories on how people have lost weight. It's one of the most popular sections on my Web site and it's very motivating. Because I come from a news background, I try to keep a lot of information on there about what's new in fitness and nutrition. It's totally different than what Roni is doing, but it is there to motivate people, too.
Deb: Similar to Roni, I started blogging about fitness when I wanted to lose 50 pounds. She did it with Weight Watchers, I joined a gym and did it on my own. I was so motivated about it that last year I became a certified fitness instructor, and I try to share that lifestyle.
Roni: So now we're going to talk about how much of our lives we share online. I am one extreme of that. I talk about binging on cookies and celebrating when I did a pull-up. How do you two share your personal life?
Sahar: I prefer to interview people. I recently interviewed Daphne Oz about her book, The Dorm Room Diet. If I feel like I have something related to that, I would say, "I can relate to this because...," but I don't go much deeper than that. I write about how I relate to what I'm talking about, but I don't go much deeper.
Deb: I am about 70 percent transparent. If you go into my archives, you will see that I posted my weigh-ins and all those specifics. But now I don't talk every day about what I eat and what I do.
Roni: The three of us have a nice variety of different styles. I'm curious about what you out there do and how you're trying to turn your blog to be more focused on fitness.
Question from the audience: I talk about my health and weight loss. I try to balance everything and keep it all -- it all kind of ties together to weight loss. But how do you keep a balance with transparency? I have a habit of not being focused. How do you keep a focus?
Roni: I have multiple blogs, and I tend to have a lot of crossover. I think, where should I blog about this? I try to keep the focus on Ronnie's weigh on weight loss specifically. I try to always think about it from the perspective of, "How can this help someone else?"
Same audience member: I blog about my mental health, too, but I think ultimately it all ties together.
Roni: I think sometimes going off-topic shows that I am living life. These are things that before, when I was struggling with my weight, I didn't really live. It could be that some things that seem off-topic are really related. Especially with weight loss.
Deb: I am working on a post right now, and it's hard because I have made some choices that aren't
