Paul's 52 day challenge

[Paul@Pittsburgh]

Feb 15, 2010 - Day 15 Update

Health and Fitness
So wasn't too bad a day yesterday. Made some good choices for breakfast (although maybe the portions were a bit on the larger than normal side). For lunch went with some people to a french bistro. Had some cold cuts of meat (not too much) with boiled potatoes, pickles and a little bit of cheese (melted on the side) - it was a dish called a Raclette something. And a glass of red wine.

For dinner I had a simple chopped salad, no cheese, but with ranch dressing, and some hummus with pita bread.

In all, it was maybe a bit on the high side cal wise compared to home, but not as wild as it could have been.

Today...

Got up at 6:00 and did a 45 walk on the treadmill at incline 5 all the way and built up a nice sweat. Heart rate was mostly around 126 bpm. May push it a bit higher tomorrow.

Had the same breakfast as yesterday.

I won't be going out for lunch today so I need to find something that I can have while I "man" our exhibit booth so will look for a sub or salad to tide me through the day.

At the restaurant this AM I was watching this group of guys next to me (and one woman)... all the guys had THICK, THICK steaks and eggs for breakfast and the woman had an egg white omlette. It just struck me that culturally men are more locked into having macho meals with peer pressure.

Work
Really had a bad day at my writing yesterday. Tried for about 2 hrs yesterday morning but was stuck on the same paragraph again and again. Then went for my meetings around 11:00am and did not get back until 10:00 last night. So net result was... zero progress, except for one thing, I know more what I don't want to say LOL!!

I think what I did "wrong" was put myself under too much pressure to finish it all yesterday that instead of actually helping me light a fire to get it done, it killed the creativity I needed. I looked at my schedule for the rest of this week and relaxed more by identifying several blocks of time over the next few days where I can work on this more and let the person who I need to send this to that this was the case.

So hopefully will be making some tangible progress on this tonight though.

[Batman]

Originally Posted by Paul@Pittsburgh

Feb 15, 2010 - Day 15 Update


Work
Really had a bad day at my writing yesterday. Tried for about 2 hrs yesterday morning but was stuck on the same paragraph again and again. Then went for my meetings around 11:00am and did not get back until 10:00 last night. So net result was... zero progress, except for one thing, I know more what I don't want to say LOL!!

I think what I did "wrong" was put myself under too much pressure to finish it all yesterday that instead of actually helping me light a fire to get it done, it killed the creativity I needed. I looked at my schedule for the rest of this week and relaxed more by identifying several blocks of time over the next few days where I can work on this more and let the person who I need to send this to that this was the case.

So hopefully will be making some tangible progress on this tonight though.

Dude.... 2 hrs? If you are just spinning your wheels like that than at the one hour mark go do something else. Stare out the window or exercise or call someone. and I mean completely step away from the keyboard.

Let your mind ruminate in the background a little, than when you sit back down start writing

[joanne1216]

Sounds as if you did good on the health and fitness. It's tough making good choices when you have no choice but to eat out often. In Mer's 15 week thread, she gave me some great ideas on what to order. Apple bees has WW choices as well as meals at 550 calories. I wish all restaurants did that. Tomorrow I'm meeting a friend at TGIF's, I'll let you know how I did

[Paul@Pittsburgh]

Feb 28, 2010 - Day 28 Update

Lest anyone should think I have given up on this challenge .... see below.

Health and Fitness
I am writing this at the airport heading out for my 3rd week of travel. I don't think it can get much harder than this in terms of travel this year. By this Thursday I will have been away from home for 16 out of 20 days and this coming weekend is a double birthday celebration.

I worked out in Seattle a few times as posted here early in my trip, but then a major deadline that I was getting late for needed more of my attention. Last week I was getting up at 4:30am while on the road to write more of this article so working out just wasn't practical.

Shoveling snow for about 2 hrs yesterday was my workout for this past week.

But... despite this, I weighed myself this morning before heading out again. I was 256.6 lbs (just .6 lbs up from my absolute low of this year) and even now some of that could be salt. Also, my body fat was much lower reading 36 (compared with 38% last time I weighed myself). Again, I am cautious with fluctuations etc, but so far no major damage has been done on my weight loss... I've just taken a sideways couple of weeks.

This week my schedule is such that I should be able to fit in 3 workouts so that's my goal for this week and to try and focus on eating a bit better than I have.

Work
As mentioned above I have been really focused on trying to meet a major task that has taken up a lot of my time. I've finished a rough draft now and I am in the process of getting comments back. I need to complete this totally by Mar 17 and to be honest I feel like once this is out of the way I can really focus much more on my other personal goals.

I am really backed up with work due to the travel, meetings taking up a lot of my time while I am away and this other activity so tomorrow, even though I am on the road, I have one day in the hotel alone and I plan on really looking to make a major hole in my backlog.

More tomorrow...

Paul

[mleighp1]

Good to see you back on here Paul.

Shoveling for two hours is quite a workout. Are you sore today?

[Paul@Pittsburgh]

I am very sore both yesterday and today in my lower back. In fact even yesterday I had to dig our recalled Toyota out a bit more before leaving for the airport because a taxi did not turn up and so I had to drive that one. We are a few inches shy of the most snow ever for a winter in Pittsburgh now and they are predicting maybe up to 5 more before this weekend.

Good workout though!!!

[Awake at Last]

Hi Paul! I have just started catching up on this thread...cannot get all the way caught up, because I need to get ready for work. But I can see you have been under a lot of stress with all the snow, and work - traveling & stuff. My impression is that you KEEP GOING. You are sticking to it and keep plugging through the tough times, as usual!

[joanne1216]

Originally Posted by Paul@Pittsburgh

I am very sore both yesterday and today in my lower back. In fact even yesterday I had to dig our recalled Toyota out a bit more before leaving for the airport because a taxi did not turn up and so I had to drive that one. We are a few inches shy of the most snow ever for a winter in Pittsburgh now and they are predicting maybe up to 5 more before this weekend.

Good workout though!!!

Sorry to hear! Shoveling sucks!!!! How has the snow been the last few days there? You're not that far from me and we've gotten nothing (knock on wood)

[Paul@Pittsburgh]

No snow here either, and some sun today.. yay.

Also found a whole foods store in Pittsburgh today and went and checked it out. Had an organic salad and some organic chicken cooked at home tonight.

Back to the gym next week is the plan since I have a week at home.

[jethrah]

just sending you best wishes with your goals today.
Hope the snow clears for you soon.

[Paul@Pittsburgh]

Update for - what's the day? March 9 2010

Health and Fitness
Surprisingly, after about 3 weeks of travel, no formal exercise except for the first few days of my first trip, and a couple of sessions of snow shoveling, and eating moderately, but not the best... I lost weight!!!

Yesterday I weighed in at 253.6 lbs which is a new low for this year and a weight I have not seen since 2003. To say that I am pleased with this is an understatement, especially given the intensity of this travel block. That makes approx 14.5 lbs lost since Jan 4 or thereabouts.

So, it's my birthday today so I will be eating out tonight, but won't go too crazy and the rest of this week I am focusing on eating good. Not sure if I can get to the gym yet, but hope to get in a minimum of 1 and maybe 2 sessions at the gym.

Work Life
Crazy busy. So backed up it's unbelievable and this is the reason I have not been so active the past few weeks. Got a job spec out to hire an assistant on Friday and been looking over a few resumes today. That should help the situation I think. But it's positive too equates to good things this year.



More later!

Paul

[mleighp1]

Happy Birthday, Paul!!

[jethrah]

happy birthday from me too

[Awake at Last]

Originally Posted by Paul@Pittsburgh

Yesterday I weighed in at 253.6 lbs which is a new low for this year and a weight I have not seen since 2003. To say that I am pleased with this is an understatement, especially given the intensity of this travel block. That makes approx 14.5 lbs lost since Jan 4 or thereabouts.

THAT IS SO FREAKIN' AWESOME, PAUL!!! Seven years. What a birthday present you've given yourself - great job! I hope you are still smiling about it, and are smiling when you fall asleep tonight

[Paul@Pittsburgh]

Quick update.

Not so much on my challenge as I have just been doing the best that I can do (for the most part) over the past couple of weeks. But I am seeing a clearing on the horizon. This has been my past few weeks (not to make an excuse but actually to tell myself I have not done too bad).

1. Traveled 4x 4-day or more trips in the past 5 weeks and 4 time zones (23 days out of the last 35 have been away from home).

2. Prepared a presenation/webinar which will be given to around 140 people or more next week

3. Completed (more or less) a draft of a chapter for a professional handbook

4. Manage to keep sales and customer support ticking along (bit behind on quite a few things but catching up now)

5. Prepared a job spec for hiring a part time assistant and will be holding 3 interviews for the position early next week.

6. Cleared out the deluge of snow

7. Purchased two cars (one was to repalce an 11 year old car that was dying, the other to replace our one year old Toyota which my wife refused to get into any more).

8. Finished a proposal for a possible project that could generate $400k if the bid is successful.

9. Set up a remote hosted MS Exchange account and evaluated 2 CRM solutions for our business as well as starting to set up some things for my assistant to start.


Phew.

I am doing a few hours in the office this AM to catch up a bit as after my webinar next Tues I have to go to the airport and will be traveling until getting home around midnight next Sat. But April for the most part looks a bit quieter.

I need to run some numbers to check this this morning, but we may have actually met our sales target for this year 6.5 months into the year. I feel really blessed this year since this has come at a time when we needed to replace both cars (the one unexpected). God has really looked out for me when I needed some help in that regard.

[mleighp1]

Hi Paul,

It sure looks as though you have been busy this past month!

Have you been able to eat well while out on the road so much? I would imagine that it is difficult to stay on top of working out and eating healthy being gone 23 out of 35 days.

Hope to see you around more when things slow down for you!

[Paul@Pittsburgh]

I hope to be back on a bit more sometime next week or the week after. I hired an executive admin on a part time basis who has started with me this week and she is already proving to be a big asset, but I do need to spend time with her for training etc too. Once I get a bit more caught up, I will start posting again. I have been lurking here (on my phone) but this is the only site/forum that I have even done that in the past two weeks. I am waaayyyy behind in other places.