Im the CEO of my body

Hi Everyone,

How are your goals progressing?

The last 3 weeks have been manic for me, first the successes;

• my company landed a very prestigious contract, our best and biggest to date
• I have maintained my 99 kg, through a lot of healthy eating and portion control

And now my disappointments;

• Too much celebrating of the new contract, I still have not kicked the alcohol into touch!
• Very limited exercise

I guess with all successes you need some disappointments, they have to balance out.

Winning this contract has been huge for my little RFID company, it will change our business and marketing plans for 2010 & 2011, I have not done the 2012 plans yet. I will let you have more details next month when we start deployment. As soon as we found out we won the contract I had to change my plans for the next 3 months, I am back to working very long hours just to make sure we deliver beyond our customers’ expectations, this has stopped all my 3 day plans and I have had to live on “good health instinct”, the knowledge I have built up over the last 3 months on good food and portion control. I cannot stress enough it is not only important to lose weight but to learn how to maintain that weight lose. I am so glad I have not only lost weight but learnt the basics of maintaining weight lose and living healthily.

On the exercise front, due to unforeseen reasons I now have my kids 24/7, as a single, full time working parent, there is very little time to yourself and if there is any, personally I sleep. I thought I was fit, blow that, doing what I am now doing is far more exhausting than running 20 km every day. I have 2 more weeks of being both parents but I am enjoying spending the extra time with my kids. They have really kicked in with me on the healthy eating front and we are cooking a lot together, my 3 year old loves making salads with me.

With the start of a new month (it is already March in Australia) I am putting in more effort to get back into weight lose mode, back to my 3 day plans and regular exercise. Wish me luck.

Well, I have to go, I have a flight in a few hours, school lunches to make, bags to pack….

Keep well & I would love to hear how you are doing. Are 3 day Plans working for you?

Jon

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are all still on track for getting healthy. Who has slacked off on a New Year’s resolution?

I am loving the Mediterranean (Med) style food (diet), I am finding it so easy to keep too, the food is great. In Australia we have an abundance of seafood and fresh fruit and vegies (Australian slang for vegetables) , since I have lived or worked in 55 countries  so far, I am sure you can all find good quality food albeit at different prices. Fish is now my main meal of the day, most days and I am cooking a roast beef or lamb for the 1 meat day per week, it is nice to have  a big family meal altogether. For the vegies (there is that word again) I have turned off from the normal root vegetables that go with a roast and am concentrating on more Med style vegies; grilled peppers, mushroom in olive oil & garlic and my latest find, Grilled Cherry Tomatoes With Garlic.

Grilled Cherry Tomatoes With Garlic

Ingredients

• 24 cherry tomatoes  (3 to 4 cm diameter)
• 1 large garlic cloves , cut into slivers
• 1 tablespoon olive oil 
• 1 cup snipped fresh coriander (cilantro) chopped
• 4 fresh basil leaves , chopped
• 1 teaspoon sugar 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 

Directions

1. Remove stems from tomatoes. Cut top off each tomato, with the tip of a sharp knife, pierce tomatoes. Carefully insert a sliver of garlic into each tomato.
2. Place tomatoes in the centre of a sheet of foil. Drizzle tomatoes with the olive oil; sprinkle with coriander, basil, sugar and salt. Bring the two long sides of the foil together and seal with a double fold. Fold remaining edges together to completely enclose tomatoes.
3. Grill tomatoes on the rack of a grill directly over coals or gas burners for 4 to 5 minutes or until heated through. Or bake in a preheated 175 deg C. oven for 4 to 5 minute or until heated through.
4. To serve, carefully open foil packet(watch out for hot steam!). Move tomatoes to a serving platter. Sprinkle with salt and serve immediately.

All this is done on my trusty BBQ, I will get some pics next week of our Aussie BBQ Roast, my Aunty Margaret is coming over for a Birthday  roast.

Maik & Scott have killed me on alcohol (red wine) in their blog last week. I am not losing the KGs, so I am going to have to kick my red wine addiction into touch. There are studies that show that if you do something with a certain stimulant in your body, your body craves that stimulant when it requires you to do the same activity. This is true for alcohol, caffeine and other prescription & non-prescription drugs. I have hit 99 KG, let’s see if kicking out red wine in my next two 3 day plans works, I am planning on doing 20 mins of floor exercises if my body craves red wine. Wish me luck.

Week 6 was my relax on the exercise week, my first 3 day plan was no exercise and the second 3 day plan was only 50% of my previous weeks massive amount. I think it was a good stage for me to take a week off the exercise and just concentrate on my food and allow my body to settle. This week (7) I am back into full exercise, I have found that no matter how much exercise I do, approx 2 hour per day, I need to consume at least 1600 Kcal of good food to maintain my mental stamina to keep on going on my weight lose journey, Biggest Looser talk there. Biggest Loser Australia has started again and I love the show, especially Master Class on Friday nights, www.thebiggestloser.com.au/home.htm , check it out, Dr Norman Swan is a great health advocate.

Well that is it for this week. I wish you all a good week, until next week,

Jon

Hi Everybody,

How was your week? Did you all manage to attain some of your goals.

My 3 day plans are still working out well, I have now moved them into my business life, I used to work on Annual, Quarterly Weekly goals, I have now added a 3 day plan for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then another for Thursday and Friday, believe it or not I am getting more work done. By stacking the majority of my weekly work load into the 1st 3 days, it allows me Thursday and Friday for the ”heavier” tasks.

Weight, well I did not achieve my 98 kg goal, I did hit 99 kg a few times in the week but it was not enough, I am still 100 kg. I kept to my Mediteranian diet / ISO Diet which from Maria’s Blog sounds the best one. I have to say I feel a lot better having cut down on red meat to once a week, I have more energy and I think I am sleeping better. The next thing I really have to do something about is alcohol, I tried to cut it out in January but I couldn’t no matter how hard I tried, I think alcohol or more specifically wine is my emotional food for when things do not go the way I want them too, emotional eating.

http://stress.about.com/od/unhealthybehaviors/a/eating.htm is a very good article on Emotional Eating

This week I am going to cut out wine on my 1st 3 day plan, so far on day 2 I have not had a drop in 2 days, and see if I can cut it out also in my next 3 day plan.

My Fabulous January of Exercise, take a look at these numbers in comparison to my previous months!! I challenge you all (except Maik) to put in a better month.

January was my Skyscaper month, February I hope to do more of the same, I am taking a few days off to rest my body but I am back into it tomorrow.

My new hobby of Stand Up Paddling, SUP is going well, I went for 2 paddles over the weekend, both at 6am. On the first one I was joined by some other SUPers and I made everyone breaky aftyerwards, instead of doing the normal bacon & egg rolls I did a fresh fruit breaky, everybody loved it. Why don’t you try something new this week in your exercise regime? Let me know what you get up to, it does not have to be a new activity it could be just doing a regular one differently, variety is the spice of Life.

Well I had better go, I still have a mountain for work to do and put the kids to bed. 98 kg is still my goal for the week!

Jon

Hi,

So who tied a 3 day plan? Did it work. I tried two 3 day plans this week, the first for my trip to Melbourne. My goal was to maintain my new found 100 kg status, I knew I would not have any time for exercise so instead of getting a hotel room I booked a self service apartment, to prepare and make make my own meals. I felt I did most things right over the 3 days but alas I mustn’t of, as I was back to 103 kg when I arrived back home. I have to say I was disappointed, I felt trim and I also thought I had done most things right, next time I will need to add some exercise to my regime.

Thursday was going to be a big work day for me, I had a normal day plus I had to prepare for very important meeting on Friday with one of my major clients, so Thursday was all about work and eating right. I eventually wrapped up my Thursday workday at 2:30 am on Friday, a few hours sleep then I headed off to my meeting. Friday afternoon I kicked off my second 3 day plan with 3 hours of paddling and fun down the river with my kids and some friends. Saturday I did a full day of hiking and being down the local pool with my kids followed by a planned 2 hour session of stretching, walking 6 km and running 8 km. An electrical storm hit just after I finished the 6 km walk, so I bolted for home, 2.7 km away, the one thing I did take from my run was I had an improved style, I think I was running in a better style, Saturday night I was back to my 100 kg. Sunday I planned a mega day 2 lots of 2 hour session of stretching, walking 6 km and running 8 km & I achieved them.

This week I will also blog about the type of food I eat and cook.

Breakfast or Breaky as we call it in our house. I generally have the same breaky 3 to 4 days per week, about 250 gram of frozen blueberries & raspberries and 150 gram of greek yoghurt. To this mixture I add any of the following; honey, sesame seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds, wheat germ, apple, banana, strawberries…pretty much anything you think you need or want.

Now for lunch and dinner I have been trying a lot of different options around;

BBQ & Salad is a regular meal in summer in Oz and we BBQ just about anything from kangaroo to fish. We always make salads simple and fresh, I will write up a few recipes over the next couple of weeks and post them.

Sushi is also becoming a regular for lunches , it seems to work for me.

This week I am at home all week I am trying out a Mediterranean type diet of vegetables and seafood, I will let you know how it goes.

I wish you all a good week and thank you for your comments on my blog, you can also follow me on twitter @jelcombe, the iPhone App Runkeeper adds my activities directly to my twitter account, which I think is cool.

My goal for this week is 98 kg by next Sunday night. What is yours?

Jon

Hi,

How was your week? Did you manage to achieve any of your goals?

This week was my best individual week so far, the best in over 3 years in trying to loose weight, I am now down to 100Kg, all the festive flab is gone. What a week, well let’s be honest, not all of it was good, I actually put on 1 kg on my 2 day business trip to Brisbane, so on Thursday when I cam home, I knew I had to put in a killer weekend. I am still working on how to “handle” business trips, this weeks trip to Melbourne I will try to maintain my 100 kg.

My Killer Weekend – I knew I had to make a plan, a 3 day plan, 3 days I thought was doable as I would be home all 3 days, the weather was going to be good (it is summer here in Australia) and I had no social functions. On the planning front, if I planned for 4 or 5 days I am sure I would of failed, 3 day plans for me are the new Black. For my 3 day plan I knew I needed to include lots of exercise, not all running and walking but some variance, also I knew I had to only eat my 1600 calories of good food. So this was my plan:

Day 1 – Hiking with my son (6 years old), 4 hours of casual walking & a 12 km power walk

Day 2 – Stand Up Paddle, 2 & 1/2 hours and 2 hours of wood chopping (my version of a gym session)

Day 3 (the big day) – 2 hour Stand Up Paddle, 21 km mountain bike ride & a 12 km run, also on this day I spent 4 hours down the river with my family swimming and paddling.

By working my way up to a big Day 3 (Sunday) I knew I could fit it all in, I maximized my time with my family over the weekend, made all our time together a fun activity, 3 playground sessions and I made sure I took control of what we ate and how it was served. On the food side, my 6 year son actually did most of the cooking (BBQ) and my 3 year old daughter helped make the salads, so also more quality family time doing things together.

After day 2, I realized that day 3 was going to be a tough day but I was extremely confident as I had kept to my plan so far and my family was having a lot of fun being active.

Day 3 came and went without a hitch and I dropped to 101 kg my goal, then the next morning I woke up to find I was only 100 kg.

So why don’t you try a 3 day plan, I am going to as well and keep me updated on your plan.

Till next week

Jon

Hi,

How was your week? Did you manage to loose weight?

My week started off great, I was able to keep my ShapeUp diary up to date and managed some good exercise sessions, then Wednesday night it all started to go astray. I was on my first business trip for 2010, to Melbourne, Australia for User Acceptance Testing (UAT) of release 2 of our Asset Management system, Astute, it is the final testing before being released next week. We were all a bit nervous as we have invested a lot of time and money, the UAT besides a few bugs went well, so after about 12 hours of testing we decided to go for dinner and have a few beers, I did well by limiting myself to 2 beers & 2 glasses of wine and eating a modest dinner, albeit risotto, I still need to work on a new plan for handling business trips. Thursday morning I was back into exercise and managed to finish off the week well. As of today I am 102kg, 2kg less than last week. So a good week.

One of my goals for this week was to do a 12 km (about 8 Miles) run again, the last time I did one of these was back in October before I went off the rails. Today I am proud to say I made a 13 km run!

I am not sure about the rest of you but I am a stats (statistics) man, in business I generally track anything that moves. I work out trends and put KPI (Key Performance Indicators) in place. I have set a few for me. At least 5 hours of exercise a week and burn 3,500 cal in exercise per week, avg 500 per day. To track these I use Trailguru and of course the Charts in the ShapeUp Club, both are good. What do you think?

What do you think? Worth sharing again?

This week I am going to try and plan more exercise and better meals, I will let you all know next week how I went.

Keep well

Jon

Happy New Year, well the Festive season is now well and truly over, I myself put on 5kg over the December break. I like to call it a lite weight gain as I still have my fitness and good eating habits. In the 4 days since New Years, I have dropped 2 of those 5 kg. It has been daily double shots of exercise; 24 km of walks, 18km of runs and a 12 km mountain bike ride plus going back to eating only good food and small quantities.

My Goals for 2010

• 90 kg by my 45th Birthday, 2nd September, I weighed 90 kg on my 35th.
• Play in the World Rugby Golden Oldies Tournament in October, more on that later
• In 1 day, Run 21 km, swim 2 km and mountain bike 80km, not sure when in 2010 but that is my goal.
• Plus a few more I will reveal later in the year

My January Goals

• 98 kg (Loss Festive flab and 2 kg more)
• 200 sit ups, doing it on an iPhone app 200 Sit Ups, great training plan
• Cut out daily Latte(s), one 1 per week as a reward
• Cut Alcohol intake to minimum, so far Zero

I am still to work out my January rewards, but they will involve a new fitness toy and a bottle of nice red wine.

I am having great fun tracking my outside exercise regime on iPhone apps, Run Keeper and Trail guru. I will write up an evaluation of these in a future blog. It would be great to have an integration tool into ShapeUp. I have placed the ShapeUp App on page 1 of my iPhone to remind me to update my diary, so far so good.

I am only go to do short blogs for the next while, long ones just never get written.

That’s me for today, you can follow my runs and 200 sit ups on Twitter, jelcombe.

Jon

Day 1, I am not sure which day it was exactly, nothing special had made it any different from any other day, it was also not a day I had planned on being day 1 but I just knew it was day 1. There were so many things going on in my life and I was trying desperately to get control of them or fix them, high flying on some aspects of my life and low flying on others. I wanted the low aspects of my life to be better, I had tried a thousand different ways to fix them but nothing had worked, little improvements here and there but not a single one had a long term effect.

Why not! Did I need to accept that my life has great aspects and bad aspects to it.

Editors Note: No Jon and nor do any of you.

What  do you think makes up a successful business person? Is it just good business acumen and being professional or do you also think they also need to be fit & healthy, have a good marriage, good relationship with their children, good friends & social life, well off, charitable, morale,  etc etc etc. In 2007 I had some of them but not enough of them to make me happy or even feel successful. It then hit me, I needed to stop trying to improve on the bad aspects I had to radically change each one of them, I needed understand it, the effect it had on other aspects of my life and then I had to put the time and effort into that change.

But where to start, I was already so busy and I had no free time. Okay I need to start by making more hours in the day! Not possible, no super powers!!! What next, I need to drop something in my life, great idea but what. “Work”, No, I need to work to pay the bills and keep a roof over my head. “Family”, No can do, I love my kids too much. “Wife”, Yes great idea she can go, most of the fun has gone anyway. After an hour I began to think that might not possible, it will cost me a lot of $$$ and who else would love a chubby middle age businessman. Okay I can’t drop anything!!!

New brainwave, I don’t need to improve on the bad aspects of my life, I need to find out what causes me to make those aspects bad. What are my poisons?

Editors Note – Good boy Jon, take responsibility for your life.

Poisons, what are my poisons? Well I eat and drink too much, I procrastinate, I always try to help everybody else, I trust that people will be do as they say, I’m not completing tasks properly, I worry so much…Oh my god there are so many!!! Okay now pick 1 and start. So I went for a walk, I needed to stop worrying about so many things, I had to stop and focus. That was it, my eureka moment, focus on the poisons. It was at this point that I knew day 1 had started.

More next week

Jon