GFE Book #2 Coming At You January 2012!!! [SQUEEEE! Giveaway!!]

I may never be as awesome as Chuck Norris but that doesn’t stop me from trying to push the earth away when I push-up.

I have great news! I just signed the contract for the second Great Fitness Experiment book! It’s scheduled to be released January 2012!! So more public humiliation, overshares and of course crazy exercise stories coming at you! To say I’m super excited doesn’t begin to describe the size of the pee puddle around my feet.

This time around it’ll be a little different though – I didn’t want to just do “Year 2” because frankly year 2 was a little boring. So instead I’ve picked my 12 favorite Experiments from the last 3.5 years to write about! And while I love my first book, when I read it I see a lot of things that could have been improved so I’m planning for book 2 to be bigger and better with all new material for you guys:)

I need your help though – I don’t have a title for it yet! My current working title is “Lift, Laugh, Love: [Subtitle something unrelated to Elizabeth Gilbert]” but I thought it would be awesome that since you guys are such a HUGE part of what I do, it would be really fun to get your input on it.

To start you off Gym Hubby has come up with some ideas for you, riffing off of popular classics:

War and Yoga

The Great Fitness Experiment – Judgement Day of the BMI

The Great Fitness Experiment – Meet the Weights

The Great Fitness Experiment – The Last Rep

The Great Fitness Experiment – Athletes of the Caribbean: A Dead but really buff chest

The Great Fitness Experiment – The Two Towering Calisthenics

Sense and Cardiovascular Fitness

The Great Fitness Experiment Saga Two – Exercise Harder!

The Exercise Strikes Back!

Charlotte’s Adventures at the YMCA

Last of the Great Gym Buddies

A Tale of Two Gyms

The Call of the Elliptical

All’s Well That Ends With losing those last ten pounds

Love’s Labours Lost between Hip Hop and TurboKick

Much Ado About Lunges

20,000 Reps Under the weight bar.

You can see why I married him, right?? So here’s the deal: The 5 suggestions from today that Gym Hubby and I like the most each get a free (signed, if you like) copy of The Great Fitness Experiment: One Year of Trying Everything. If your idea gets picked for the actual title (as selected by my publisher – they have the final say) then I’ll send you a $25 gift card to Amazon! Thanks for your help!!! I’m doing kegels right now to prepare for surprise laughter…

In the meantime, if you are looking for a real post today:

My latest post for SHAPE.com Do Skinny Women Make More Money? (Why and what you can do about it short of knocking your boss unconscious and giving him a bias lobotomy)

My post Raised by Oprah: 25 Things I Learned Over the Last 25 Years for Redbook magazine (it made the #1 spot on all of Shine!Yahoo yesterday!!!! Yeah, I’m on a little excited.)

I’m guest posting on Tip Junkie this month and this week’s post is Workouts for People With No Equipment (Body weight exercises + dorky pics of me as photographed by my 8-year-old.)

Want to hear how my kids and I fared during the Minneapolis tornadoes this past weekend? (Suddenly the Wizard of Oz is documentary and not just a children’s story….)

Last, if you haven’t checked it out yet, my post on the 10 Most Humiliating Things my Kids Have Said in Public is hilarious but the comments are so funny I was crying.

62 Comments

  1. So awesome! Congrats!!!!

  2. Congrats on signing for a book two!! My favorite is The Great Fitness Experiment – Judgement Day of the BMI. The only one I really dislike is The Great Fitness Experiment – The Last Rep. The title wouldn’t make any since if you were to write a book three. Here are two other options:

    The Great Fitness Experiment – Public humiliation for the greater good
    The Great Fitness Experiment – Conquering the world, one workout at a time

    • Great ideas – thank you! I especially like “public humiliation for the greater good” – pretty much my life’s work!

  3. My fave so far is Much Ado about Lunges! I LOVE it!

    Okay, had to toss out one of my own, too, though. 😉
    The Great Fitness Experiment Continues – Insightful Outtakes from Gym Buddy Favorites

  4. Congratulations, Charlotte!

    When I think of you and the gym buddies, I always want to say “Fun, Friends and Fitness – Oh, my!”

    Have a happy and safe Memorial weekend, everyone!

  5. The Great Fitness Experiment – When a Hot Mess Isn’t a Bad Thing

    The Good, the Bad, the Best (And sometimes ugly) –3.5 years of Fitness Experimenting

    GFE 2 – In Your Face

    The Truth About Gym and Friends

    GFE 2 – Back and Sweatier than Ever!

    OOooo fun game. This will keep me occupied at work today. Just a heads up that I might be posting more ideas later.

    Congrats on the book contract!

  6. Congratulations Charlotte! You did the hard work, wrote very well, and manage to be interesting, heart felt, and extremely amusing at the same time. You deserve it. I cannot imagine the amount of time and thought put into certain extremely detailed posts you make. I personally like–The Exercise Strikes Back! That is so funny and seems to suit your personality too.

    🙂 Marion

  7. OMG CONGRATS!!!!!!!!

  8. We gave to wait until January?? It’ll be hard to stay breathless with anticipation for that long. 🙂 The only title that comes to me immediately is
    The Great Fitness Experiment: Revenge of the Gym Buddies

  9. Squeeee I am so happy for you!

    I’d vote against choosing a title involving the word “last” and “end” and such… who knows, there might just be a third installment!

  10. The Greatest Fitness Experiments: my all-time favorites
    The Great Fitness Experiment: my all-time favorites
    Stop trying everything: my favorite Great Fitness Experiments
    The Best Great Fitness Experiments: 12 favorites
    12 Great Fitness Experiments that made the cut: my all-time favorites

  11. repeating GFE imo is important ’cause if I search for your book, that’s proly the key words I would use. it’s kind of like your brand. not sure if your favs are also the ones that worked but maybe that could be worked into the title as well to sell the idea that these are the winning experiments.

    The best of the best: Great Fitness Experiments gone right
    The Winners of the Great Fitness Experiment
    Experiment Success: the Best GFEs
    Stop trying everything: 12 GFE that work
    The Best GFEs: favorites and ones that worked
    The Ones that Won: the Best GFEs

    • Oooh good point about the title! And the way I define favorite is a) had the most fun and b) learned something important. So they may not be the most effective workouts in terms of building muscle but they were great!

  12. Awesome, I’ll be keeping an eye out to put in a pre-order!

  13. Congrats! I haven’t read the first one, but I need to! I need to loose my baby weight, pumpkin is 4 months now….time to get serious!
    Here’s my cast: The Great Fitness Experiment: 12 Workouts that Work! OR
    Great Fitness Experiment: Guaranteed to find ONE the Works for you! OR
    GFE: A Scramble of a Dozen Egg-cellent Workouts! (I know I’m a dork) 🙂

    • Ok, this one: Guaranteed to find ONE the Works for you!” is awesome. Eventually everyone will find something, right?

  14. Congrats, I love the Exercise Strikes back. GFE-The exercise strikes back is genius.

  15. CONGRATULATIONS! That is fantastic! I lovedloved your first book 🙂 I can’t wait for the second to come out. I’ll have to brainstorm some clever ideas while I’m at work today… though I love all of “Gym Hubby’s” suggestions 🙂

  16. Congrats on the second book!!!

  17. That’s so awesome! You totally deserve this. I can’t wait to read it!

  18. Congrats! So exciting! Oh how I long for the day when someone asks me to write a book!

    as far as book titles go:

    How Charlotte got her Groove back – one exercise at a time.
    Fitter by the Dozen

    again, congrats!

  19. Faster, Stronger, Sweatier, Spazzier: The Great Fitness Experiment Continues
    (And I vote for using that photo of you in your tutu with your leg up in the air.)

  20. The Great Fitness Experiment 2: Electric Boogaloo

    The Great Fitness Experiment 2: Fitness Never Sleeps

    The Great Fitness Experiment 2: The Quickening and the Strengthening

    The Return Of The Great Fitness Experiment

    The Great Fitness Experiment 2: Charlotte Rides (And Lifts And Hoops) Again

  21. Just Bring It – GFE Classics

    When Normal Fitness Just Isn’t Enough: Try, try Something Different (A compilation of the greatest GFE’s)

    Tangled Up in Sweat and Glory

    Sweat and the Charlotte

    Charlotte’s Sweat.

  22. Congratulations!!! Can’t wait!

    Oh and I vote for Naomi/Dragonmamma’s: Faster, Stronger, Sweatier, Spazzier: The Great Fitness Experiment Continues

  23. charlotte, what’s going on with your blog? it’s not coming up properly for me (or maybe it’s just me?)

  24. Oh, I am so wishing I was clever enough to come up with a title! I really like “The exercise strikes back.” Kudos to gym hubby!

  25. How exciting Charlotte! I don’t have any titles in mind yet, but I’ll keep thinking. I’m sure Nate will come up with some.

  26. Squeeeeeeeee indeed! When I read #1 I was just like, ok, ready for the next!

    I have not an ounce of creativity left in my body after this week, so I’ll leave the titles to someone else – I see you’ve got a heaping helping already!!!

  27. The Great Fitness Experiment – Taking One (or twelve) For the Team
    The GFE – I work hard, so you don’t have to (do as much).

    i already have the first book… but not signed (wahhh!) jk. and i LOVE it. looking forward to #2 and i’ll be writing my review of #1 soon!!

  28. Here’s my suggestion…. THE GREAT FITNESS EXPERIMENT II: Toilet-Sore and Back for More 😉

  29. The Great Fitness Experiment 2- Now with even more sweat!

    Charlotte, The Gym and Insanity- (It has that women, food and god sound)

    12 Excuses to wear a Tutu to the Gym

    TuTu much! The Great Fitness Experiments Greatest Hits

    Ok, now its late and my bed time.

  30. Gym Buddy Krista

    Great Fitness Experiment 2 – Taking “another” one for the team!

  31. Gym Buddy Krista

    GFE #2 – from hooping to pooping! (I know how you LOVE body fluid stories)! 🙂

  32. CONGRATS!!!! Super excited for you!!

    The Great Fitness Experiment Part II: The good, the bad, and the buddies.
    The Great Fitness Experiment Part II: Ups, downs and in-betweens.

  33. So many great suggestions! All I can think of at the moment is : GFE: Greatest Hits (And Misses!)

    BTW, funny you mention Kegels (again!). I just blogged about them and honestly thought of you and your frequent admissions to unintentional urination when I posted it! It happens to the best of us. Sigh!

  34. Gym Buddy Allison

    I GOT IT!!!!
    The Great Fitness Experiment
    What do you get when a Mormon, Muslim, Catholic & Lutheran walk into a gym?

    I finally found a spot to use it 🙂

  35. you know, out of all of gym hubbies title ideas, some of them might not be perfect book titles, but they could be awesome chapter titles!

  36. SOOO exciting!! Congratulations!

    My creative juices aren’t really flowing, but what about something along the lines of “Getting fit and laughing at yourself”, or “Friendship and Fitness for Optimal Health!”

  37. Wow! Lots of good news coming your way. so exciting!

    Hmm…I like hubby’s “Exercise Strikes Back” idea, but let me see what I can come up with…

    Charlotte’s W.E.B. (Ways to Exercise your Body)

    The Great Fitness Experiment 2: This Time It’s For Real

    From Self-Stuffed Sandbags to Homemade Hula Hoops: Build Your Bod on A Budget

  38. Alyssa (azusmom)

    Yeah, book two!!!!!
    When should I start camping out at Barnes & Noble?

  39. From Playground to Beat Box Sounds – exercise made fun again

    That’s all I can think of… sorry 🙁

  40. The Dynamite Dozen – 12 Fitness Experiments Gone Completely Right
    Shakeweight to Strength Training – Separarating Fitness Fads from Power Programs
    Find Your Fitness Chemistry – 12 Exercise Experiments with Spectacular Reactions
    Tracking Exercise Odors – 365 Days of Pure Gym Funk

  41. Congrats! I look forward to reading your blog every day! So I can’t wait for the new book.
    You could always combine the two…..
    The Great Fitness Experiment II: Lift, Laugh, Love

    It captures everything you do ; exercise, fun and friendships.

  42. Overjoyed to hear your coming out with book #2! Can’t wait to read it 🙂 I shall brainstorm book titles for you… Also, great articles. Thoroughly enjoyed reading each.

  43. TGFE 2 – Harder faster better stronger.

    Daft punk references ftw!

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  46. I want number 2! Number 1 sits by the bed – I love it! I’m a reader and now a gym rat. The first day I had both kids in school, did I go home and take a bubble bath? NO! I went to the gym!

  47. Pingback:Gym Staple: LBP (little black pants) [Plus winners of the GFE Book 2 title contest! And a GIVEAWAY!]] | Instant Health Fitness