Archive for category Year End Resolution

Health Update – Some Good News and Advice

Posted by cheuer in Personal, Year End Resolution on April 28th, 2008

While I was overly transparent in dealing with my health crisis and fears of impending doom, I have not been talking about it as much lately. I did not intend it to become the primary conversation I was having with everyone, but it did. I just really wanted to express myself and get it off my chest so to speak, but I found a wealth of support, new knowledge and great advice in doing so – all unintended but very welcome consequences.

While I didn’t want to write about it or Utter about it at any length, I realized I should put out a post to share what we found out and what is going on now. Overall, my health is greatly improved since facing up to the fact that I am not invincible earlier this year. Specifically:

  • Blood Pressure down to 128/76 from 149/90
  • I lost 48 pounds since Jan 1, 2008
  • Blood tests are all vastly improved, though I still need to watch my blood sugar

The tough news is that the years of bad diet and sometimes excessive drinking took its toll on my body, though some of it could be chalked up to the Giardiasis parasitic infection that I got in Mexico during my wedding. Regardless, I am now needing to be more careful with my diet to manage lactose intolerance, Diverticulosis and what the doctor still thinks is Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I drink a lot more water than I used to drink (some with Benefiber + Calcium) and I am working out several days a week.  I also see an acupuncturist regularly and try to get outside every day.

All in all, the biggest lesson that came from this is that no one is invincible and we truly do need to take good care of our bodies first and foremost. I wish I had truly understood this better when I was younger, particularly the part about the need for a high fiber diet and drinking lots of water. Then again, had I really understood the risks of getting diabetes from being overweight, I think that might have been enough motivation to get healthy earlier.

If you are overweight and not eating a healthy diet, please, I implore you, look into the consequences more closely and start to take better care of yourself. The pain and stress that my wife and I have had to endure over the past 4 months was just incredible. I am so very lucky to have such a strong and loving wife in my Kristie Wells. I don’t know that any other relationship could have survived this trauma (and the drama I created as a result).

While I have a lot of issues we have to manage for the rest of my life, thankfully it looks like we caught the major health issues just in time and everything should be just fine.

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My Year End Resolution

Posted by cheuer in Personal, Year End Resolution on November 5th, 2006

OK, so we have been running around like crazy lately trying to keep about 20 balls in the air at the same time. Going back and forth from client work (if you did not know, I do social media consulting, startup strategy and communications/branding work), traveling, hosting conversations, organizing events, trying to write, recording a couple of podcasts, trying to get new clients, volunteering time for friend’s community projects, spending quality time with Kristie, attending other conferences, hanging out with friends, trying to catch up on my Tivo, reading and just generally trying to relax. On top of that, for the first time in a couple of years, the number of real emails I get each day exceeds the number of spam that make it through my filters.

So when it comes to the Party Circuit 2.0 (or 2.2 if you prefer :), I am finding it really prevents me from being my best some mornings which then drags on the whole day. After the Office 2.0 party, I was a real mess the entire day (don’t mix wine and martinis, especially in those quantities). Last night at the Vloggies was a bit better – at least I stayed with beer and did not add a Jamesons rocks or switch to Jack and Coke. The thing is, we have a lot to do now, and partying like I did in college partying at about 60% of what I did in college is still too much.

So today, it’s time to get real and time to get really healthy.

Here is my official public swearing off of booze until New Year’s Eve. Call it my Year End Resolution. I am not going to go 100% dry as I will allow myself some good wine with Thanksgiving and Christmas parties, but not to the point of getting drunk. On other occasions however, its goodbye beer, hello water…

There are a number of other reasons driving this including really needing to get in shape for snowboard season and quite honestly, wanting to look better than I do now in all the photos and video that is being shot at all the different events such as this one Kristie took at the Social Media Club Boston Event. I was also inspired by how great our friend Jackie Danicki looks now since starting The Health Kick.  In a really short period of time, she has come a really long way towards getting really healthy.
The thing is, my belly is beginning to look more Buddha like than my beliefs do! So time to really do something about it and make the public commitment to it that should help keep me on track. I have been hanging right around 250 pounds for the past year or so, with a brief dip down to 237 when we had a personal trainer 1 day per week. The lowest I have weighed in the past 3 years is after Montezuma’s Revenge hit me down in Costa Rica, essentailly preventing me from eating for 2 weeks, where I got down to 224 for about a month.  I want to get to 210-215 as my goal – hopefully by end of Febuary so I can really enjoy being healthy on the slopes and trying to get some serious air this year rather than just some basic 2 foot hops.
So today, even though we are swamped with hundreds of tasks, Kristie and I are going for a bike ride in Golden Gate Park to kick off ‘our health kick’ on our new, uber cheap Schwin bikes we picked up from Target about 2 months ago (I say uber cheap because we got them for $79 each instead of the $250 list price). Then we will come back here and do our planning for improving our eating habits with the South Beach Diet – the recipes are so great, but it is a real bear to prepare it all and keep the veggies fresh. This is made more difficult by being so busy and on the run (I ate out every meal over the last week while traveling so it should help the wallet as well). And then we can jump back into the rest of the work we MUST finish today, including working out the Web 2point2 agenda for Thursday and Friday.

I guess it is time to put Chris Pirillo’s 50 Weight Loss Tips to the test – will keep reporting in over the next few weeks.

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