I was recently invited to participate in what I think is a rather exceptional program sponsored by the American Heart Association, Alegent Health, and WOWT.  BetterU is a program designed to help women achieve their goals of healthier hearts through medical screening, better fitness, tighter diets, education, and positive feedback.  The ultimate goal is to cut the risk of heart disease and stroke in women and to highlight these diseases in a population where heart problems are often neglected.

The Better U program has selected 6 young ladies ("challengers" as they call them) who will participate in the 12-week program and blog on their personal efforts.  The profiles of each of these individuals are posted on the site.  Last weekend they met with a panel of diet and fitness experts to evaluate their baseline health and help them design their best fitness strategy.

Each of our subjects has a unique set of health and lifestyle challenges but they all seem to share the common trait of eager motivation and I look forward to tracking their progress.  For those women out their who'd like to follow our participants' inspiration and launch your own health challenge feel free to enroll yourself into the same 12-week program at http://www.goredforwomen.org/BetterU/program_overview.aspx.

Good luck to Pat, Laurie, Lynette, Paige, Jennie, and Colleen. We'll be following you closely.