Now, 20 some-odd years later, he’s still continuing to impress but instead of resisting becoming a werewolf, he’s resisting giving in to the horribly debilitating disease known as Parkinson’s. Ever the optimist, Michael is holding out hope that they will find a cure for his illness in time to help him as well as the many thousands who are also affected.

In doing his part to help find a cure, he started The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research in 2000. His foundation takes a very aggressive approach to raising money for research and has already funded more than 142 million dollars.

The foundation website – www.michaeljfox.org – has an extensive amount of information including facts about Parkinson’s Disease, what living with the disease is like, and how you can help find a cure.

In case you missed it, there’s also a link to the very inspiring story ABC did on Michael, “Michael J. Fox: Adventures of an Incurable Optimist”. I watched it when it aired a couple weeks ago and found it to be very inspiring.

When so many celebrities are using their public appeal to spew venom and promote themselves shamelessly for a few extra bucks, it’s nice to see someone like Michael J. Fox putting himself out there. He’s on a mission to find a cure for the disease and he’s willing to do whatever he can to help – even if that means letting all of America see him candidly living with Parkinson’s.

If you’re interested in finding out what you can do to help, visit www.MichaelJFox.org.

Tim Ferriss’s book, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, has been around for just a short while but has already turned the business world upside down. The book has been a #1 bestseller on the lists of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. It’s you-can-do-it approach has motivated thousands to take a closer look at their lives and change for the better.

I’m reading Tim’s book now, and he was some interesting thoughts on life and how he has built systems to give himself extreme personal freedom. Tim’s is an exceptional case, but while telling his story he does a great job of getting the reader to think about their own life and find ways to be more efficient.

This isn’t a book review, though. Instead I’d like to talk about Tim’s blog. It’s called The Blog of Tim Ferriss – Experiments in Lifestyle Design. On the site he talks about all different topics, most revolving around ways you can improve your life and live efficiently. In many aspects, the blog is an ongoing continuation of the book.

The best part of the blog is the ability it gives Tim to stray from the strict topic he stuck with in his book. With all the time and writing space he needs he’s able to dive into a number of different areas, and he does. Writing about how he gained 34 lbs. of muscle in 4 weeks or how to tie the perfect tie every time and everything in between Tim brings his personality out through his blog posts.

As an added perk, Tim has a special “reader only” section on is blog where you can access additional chapters, tools, tricks and other helpful articles. By buying The Four Hour Workweek, you get a password to the extra features, which I found to be very useful. For all the free content that Tim provides, this section is the diamond. It alone is worth the price of the book, and we’ve already talked about how dense the book is with great content. If this sounds good to you, you may buy the book here.

What I like most about the blog is reading the thoughts of someone who doesn’t take life too seriously and manages to completely enjoy it at the same time. He’s created systems to beat the system, which allows him the freedom to do anything he wants. This isn’t something everyone can do, but for those who want to try Tim Ferriss is someone to keep an eye on.

SITE DESCRIPTION

Gyminee.com is a web based health and fitness tracking tool. Users create a profile in which they list their personal goals in a variety of health-related areas. These goals, in categories such as weight, waist size, and body fat, are then reviewable within their profile alongside charts and graphs of their progress.

Daily workout and nutrition logs are provide as well, allowing users to keep detailed records of what they’ve eaten and what they’ve done to burn it off. Workout logs can be as specific as you’d like, right down to the number of reps per set. Each workout can be saved and used again as required by your workout plan.

For those that are serious about staying fit and healthy, the nutrition logs are extremely helpful. For those that aren’t, they can be depressing. Calories, fat grams, carbohydrates and more are tracked based on what you submit in your nutrition logs. They are detailed so users can see where they stand in regard to their daily allowances. If you go over, you’re greeted with a bright yellow exclamation point, and you’re shamed for eternity.

ABOUT GYMINEE.COM

Founded in 2007, Gyminee is a newer site aiming to help change peoples lives by filling a need in the health and fitness market. Gyminee is based out of Huntsville, Alabama but their impact stretches much, much further as the total calories burned collectively by all Gyminee users is over 19 million at the time of this writing.

WHAT WE LIKED

The first site of its kind that we’ve come across, Gyminee is a wonderful concept combined with an extremely user-friendly interface that gives its members the organization and motivation necessary to stay (or get) fit.

Combining physical exercise and workout plans with nutritional logs all in the same place is a feature that may seem like not such a big deal, but it makes reaching your physical fitness goals so much easier. With Gyminee you can bounce the calories you’ve consumed off the estimated calories you’ve burned to see how well you’re sticking with your plan.

One of our favorite features was the exercise library, which lists and describes common movements. Once you’ve signed up, you can create customized workouts and see video examples of how to perform each lift. The demonstrators have perfect form and the videos are of good quality.

Even if you don’t exercise regularly, or don’t want to keep such detailed records of your workouts, Gyminee provides another awesome tool. By registering you are able to create a personalized food journal that tracks all that you eat for a period of time. The site’s food database contains over 30,000 items so there’s a pretty good chance you’ll find the exact product you ate, right down to the brand name.

Perhaps the part we like best is that users are able to do everything that we’ve talked about above absolutely free. Of course there is an upgraded version that you can pay for, which enhances the available features and offers a few new ones. The total cost for Gyminee Pro is $15 for a three month membership. Actually a very reasonable price.

WHAT WE DIDN’T LIKE

The thought of entering all this information on a daily basis is a little bit overwhelming. Consider the irony. Gyminee is a website designed at motivating and monitoring you on your fitness goals. Essentially we are admitting that we are in need of guidance and a little push when taking care of our bodies. This is because we as humans are inherently (gasp)…lazy. That’s fine. We’re OK with that.

With that being said, Gyminee comes out and offers a service (a free one, mind you) that asks you to actually do MORE work. Granted for those that are looking to log all their nutritional and exercise information, or who do so already, Gyminee is a great, wonderful, helpful application. But for someone just starting out on the healthy path, Gyminee could be so tedious and so time consuming that the newbies quit exercising all together, just so they don’t have to enter that bag of Cheetos they scarfed down at 10pm the night before.

THE FINAL WORD

Despite our skepticism, we do find value in Gyminee and think that for the more disciplined and dedicated people this site can provide a useful service. Don’t go PRO, but do give the free version a shot for a month or two. You may find it helpful.

www.Gyminee.com