I started this blog as a personal workout log. When I started P90X
, I took to heart the advice in the P90X Fitness Guide to share my experiences with others, and to hold myself accountable to working out every day. So that’s what I did -- in blog form. That’s how Fitbomb was born -- way back in the fall of 2009, when I thought no one would visit the site except a few friends and family members. Happily, I was wrong.But in the past eighteen months, a lot has changed. And now, I'm reevaluating what I want to do with this site and with my blogging.
Continue reading after the jump...
Come to think of it, I can articulate three reasons why I think some changes are in order:
1. My P90X days are behind me.
The original slogan of this site was “Another Stupid P90X Blog” -- and for a long time, that’s what this little corner of the Internet was: A focused, near-obsessive dissection of a 90-day workout program hawked on late-night infomercials.
But it’s been a long, long time now since I’ve popped a P90X DVD into my player, and in that time, my interests have shifted and expanded to include different approaches to nutrition and fitness. For starters, last year, I became a CrossFit junkie and transitioned to a caveman diet.
The blog has changed, too. You’ve probably noticed that the current iteration of Fitbomb doesn’t much resemble the 2009 version. The topics are different. And despite the fact that a significant chunk of my readership still comes here to dig through the archive for my old P90X posts, I now rarely mention any Beachbody programs at all.
2. Not everyone here wants to read about what I’m doing now.
My site statistics suggest that there are two core audiences that visit Fitbomb.
One group consists of readers who stumble onto this site after doing a Google search for “P90X blog” or “Who is Pam the Blam” or “Is Tony Horton married to Dreya.” These readers devour the P90X-related posts, and follow along with my old daily workout log. Once they’re done with their own 90 days of P90X, they either stick around (see below) or they take off.
The other group of readers (including P90X grads) have hung around for the other stuff: health-related news and analyses, recipes, information about Paleo eating and skipping breakfast, descriptions of CrossFit WODs, pop cultural detritus, weird fitness videos, and other odds and ends. They don't seem to mind reading about my current passion for CrossFit and Paleo nutrition.
I'm thankful for both groups of readers -- I love seeing that people are enjoying this site. But does Group A give a crap about what Group B wants to read? I can’t help but wonder whether it makes sense to use this “P90X blog” to dive deeper into a totally different fitness approach or a diet that many of you think is a worthless fad. Half of you are bound to be bored.
3. I’m feeling an urge to write longer pieces about CrossFit and Paleo nutrition.
I enjoy using this blog to quickly share fitness-related stuff I come across online, but lately, I’ve developed a greater interest in writing longer, more substantive posts about what M and I are doing to improve our health and longevity.
A few months ago, my wife launched a blog about Paleo cooking and dining, offering daily recipes and food porn galore. One of the great things about M’s blog is her commitment to writing detailed descriptions of her meals -- even if it means working on a lengthy post late into the night. And although she writes exclusively about food, M also manages to capture bits and pieces about our family life. M’s more open about us and our kids than I've been. She can exhibit some snark in her writing, but her blog is sincere and less arch than mine. Her blogging style has started rubbing off on me. I want to devote more time to writing with more substance.
But I’m not sure it makes sense to shoehorn longer features into this blog. My gut tells me that many of you prefer the short-and-sweet posts -- the ones that tell you where you can buy vodka-spiked chocolate milk and which P90X personality also does hardcore porn. Those quick hits are fun and don’t take much time to read. But longer posts about CrossFit and Paleo eating? Well, who’s willing to take the time to read about those subjects, anyway?
Well, I’m hoping that at least some of you might be interested enough to indulge me.
With some inspiration and encouragement from Tim, my CrossFit coach, M and I have decided to kick off a new blog together: The Five Tribe.
The idea is to use The Five Tribe to get a little bit more into the weeds about lifting heavy, eating like a cave-couple, and trying to fit in some shut-eye while juggling work and parenthood. Both of us will contribute posts -- a few of which will be cross-posted from Fitbomb or Nom Nom Paleo, but many of which will be new. The focus of the new blog will be to thoughtfully wallow in the area of overlap between our family life and our pursuit of better health.
Click here to read a little bit more about what we intend to do with the site, but please note that we’re still flying by the seat of our pants. As you probably know by now, the two of us are just stumbling around in the darkness here, folks.
Anyway, please check out The Five Tribe and post some feedback over there. If you like it, bookmark it, add it to your blogroll, share it with your friends and/or enemies, subscribe to its RSS feed, follow us on Twitter, and share your thoughts with us. We'd love to hear from you in the comments. Really.
And if you hate it, don’t worry. Fitbomb (the blog) will still be here, with an archive chock-full of P90X and Insanity workouts, and new (but likely shorter) posts about the same old stuff you’ve come to expect over the past year and a half. Namely: Videos of farting yoga instructors.
