Time to hit the gym!

Well the time has finally come to share some of my thoughts on weight training…here we go…

First of all, it is important for everyone to know how important resistance or weight training is to a complete training program. There are many benefits to weight training that cannot be achieved by cardiovascular training alone. What are these benefits you say? Well, I’m glad you asked, below I’ve listed a few I thought might resonate with the majority of readers:

*These are in no particular order

• Improve core strength and posture
• Reduce the frequency of joint and muscle overuse injury
• Helps prevent osteoporosis (osteoporosis is common among women, so this is an important one)
• Improves strength for that beloved cardio exercise
• Improves performance in sport
• Reduces the loss of muscle mass due to inactivity and aging
• Makes your everyday activities easier
• Increases muscle mass which in turn aids in fat loss.

Ok, so now you’re convinced right? Of course you are Let’s get down to business, there are 3 areas I want to focus on: Frequency, Intensity, and Time.

Frequency

Most people wonder how often they should do strength training. The most common excuse I hear for not being able to work out is “I just don’t have time to go to the gym”. Well, that’s a load of crap, first of all, you don’t need to go to the gym to perform strength training and second of all, you can go to the gym as little as 2 times per week if that is all your “schedule” can allow for. The Physical Activity Guide to Healthy Active Living recommends 2 to 4 strength workouts per week, although no further information is provided with this recommendation. In my opinion, you’ll be doing well to work out each major muscle group (Chest, Back, Shoulders, Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Calves, Biceps, Triceps, and Abdominals) at least once per week. What muscles do you work out when? This is a common question and there is no quick answer. There are many different training splits you can follow below are a couple of my favourites and a link to an article that talks about many more.

2 Day Split: Split the body in half, work out the lower body on day 1 and the upper body on day 2. This is a great split for those who can’t get any more than 2 days a week in at the gym.

4 Day Split:

Day 1 – Legs
Day 2 – Chest & Triceps
Day 3 – Shoulders, Calves, Abs
Day 4 – Back & Biceps

You can find more training splits here

Intensity

In my opinion, intensity is key. Working out with a high level of focus and intensity along with proper technique and form will get you the results you’re looking for. Technically, intensity can be measured by taking a percentage of your one rep max (1RM) weight for a given exercise. Here is an article that will help you calculate your 1RM http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/1rm.htm. If you want to use this measure consider this:

• Beginner (Minimal experience) – Should lift less than 70% of 1RM, let’s say stick to 60%
• Intermediate (Regular Exerciser) – 70% to 80% of 1RM
• Advanced (Serious Lifter) – 80% to 100% of 1RM

Now, with all of that said, there is no need to make it so complicated. If you’ve decided to go to the gym then why not give it your all, right? No matter what rep range you choose to do (and I’ll talk a little about this later) go to muscle failure (cannot possibly lift one more rep unassisted) or near muscle failure every time. What I mean by this is let’s say you’re aiming to lift between 8 and 12 repetitions. You should be lifting a weight heavy enough that you fail somewhere within that rep range. If you reach 12 reps and you could do more, then you should increase your weight. For beginners, learning how far you can push yourself will take time. I’ve trained people who would tell me, X weight is the heaviest I can go, really! Then I watch them do their set and I think “Hey, they can totally push out more weight”…so with them looking at me like I’m crazy I’d increase the weight and sure enough I would be right…no surprise there If the muscle being worked is not burning a little (or a lot) by the end of the workout then in my opinion, you haven’t worked it hard enough. Also, if you get to the end of a workout and you’re not tired or haven’t been sweating at all…you haven’t worked hard enough. Simple right?

That’s all I’m going to say on training intensity for now, I’ll no doubt be talking about this more in posts to come. In the meantime if you want to know more or just have questions about this post please leave a comment or send me an email, I’d love to hear from you.

Time

There’s not much I have to say about time. It is important to know that the amount of time you spend in the gym doesn’t matter, it all comes down to the intensity I talked about above. You shouldn’t be spending more than an hour in the gym; rather, you don’t need to spend more than an hour. If you are, you could be doing too many exercises or resting too long in between sets. There’s a table at the end of this post that will give you some guidelines with respect to rest time.

A few training guidelines

Final note for the day

Now you’ve got the basics you need to get started! Be safe, have fun and WORK HARD! But before I go, I wanted to share something for my female readers…

This is an excerpt from an article on Bodybuilding.com regarding Women & Weight Training written by Matt Weik

It is very important for all you female readers to understand what is said above. You have nothing to fear! You only have things to gain from following a strength training program

And as always…these are just ideas and suggestions from my experience with diet and exercise, with maybe a little textbook knowledge thrown in. So please do whatever you feel will work best for you, everyone is different and no one knows your body like you do!

Next Time

What’s next? Honestly, I’m not sure lol…there is so much I can talk about. It would be great if I heard from you on what you’d like to read more about. For now I’ll leave it as a surprise, check back in a week or so for my latest post.

Chao!

After the mental diarrhea from last week I thought this time I’ll “deliver” something concise and solid  : )

One of the reasons I like flying, and skydiving by extension, is that it makes things very visible. Even time gets compressed so much that you can actually see it.

So one such time-compressing moment I came across is when you sit in the airplane with your parachute on and it is time to jump. There is a short moment when you are just about to start moving toward the door. The decision of course is whether you jump or you don’t jump. Both choices are neither wrong or right at that very moment in time. So it occurred to me the other day that it is a very nice split… separation of responsibilities of some sort : )  – there is something in us that must be able to take decisions, and a separate thing that looks after what is correct and what is not. Both “skills” can be developed separately – we can train our ability to make decisions and our ability to think separately.

Why is this important? Because many times people want to think too much before they make a decision. Somehow they put the thinking before the deciding, when in fact they are independent. This leads to a very nice model on decision making which I am  not going to describe here so as to not fall in the same trap I already fell into last week. But just in short… not making a decision is already a decision in itself… it is the always available and implicit choice of doing nothing. Deciding to do nothing has it’s own assigned values for probability to succeed or fail… which practically makes it the same as deciding to do something. However it is very often that this implicit decision to not decide is taken as a preparation for a decision and as being “safe”.

It is very often that seemingly valid things trigger questions in my head. I want to know why. Not unlike the root cause analysis technique of asking “why” five times in a row… only I don’t really count them… just keep asking why on every opportunity.

This particular post is a result from two such things:

1. me being in a stand up meeting (one in which most people are sitting though) where the comment was made from someone that he is very busy today. The acting project manager made a follow up comment that everyone on the project is busy. And this sounded not only as if it is supposed to be ok to be busy but it was actually a little more… almost as if in the case you are not busy you are not a worthy member of the team. I didn’t want to go all ballistic on them and overly philosophical, but promised myself to give it some thought – why do I need to be busy. I really don’t feel all that busy most of the time.
2. Thinking about the “Less is more” phrase. What?!#@? does it mean? Is it that I am saying that I will try to do less while I am still maintaining my belief that more is somehow better and preferred?!? … And I’ve heard this being used almost to justify things like simple design, agile and what not. So if the justification for these things is flawed, are the things themselves valid… and if yes, then to what extent.

A few years ago I was looking for a subject to present for a 15 min presentation in front of my team. The session was supposed to be on technical things around our work, but since I am strong believer that “thinking” is what our work is about, I thought that the technicalities around thinking itself are no less important than say a framework for logging or something similar. I decided to present to them a theory I have about how addictions become into existence and about applying this theory to software development, which led me to the conclusion that the desire for safety is the root of all evil. I later expanded it to be that the same desire is the root of all evil in general… not only software.

So here is how the first piece works. You need to have these “ingredients”, which have the potential to work in a cycle:

• Uneasy situation (usually the uneasiness is from a tight time frame, or previous actions that are causing guilt… or both)
• Need for change (so as to move towards a more desirable situation)
• Fear (of what the change may bring about)
• Decision (to “resolve” the situation mismatch by not directly dealing with the fear. Desire for “safety” is the source of such a decision.) – an example of a wrong decision may be to increase the volume of documentation and planning in an attempt to predict the next release deliverables with higher accuracy, instead of taking the more difficult but correct action to talk to whoever is insisting for this accuracy and explain to them how things work… and also ask them to really think why do they need any of the things being done in the first place.
• (The wrong decision creates an ever more uneasy situation and you start over…)

How we develop the desire for safety and the belief that “more” is better in the first place is another thing, but similarly simple… and similarly wrong. Here is the sequence describing how the belief that “more” is better is developed. The desire for safety is really just a private case where the thing we are evaluating for more or less is “safety” itself:

• Something happens in small quantity and makes us feel good.
• We perform some action that has an effect to increase the quantity of the first thing a little.
• We perceive the increase as valuable… makes us feel better.
• We perform the same action a little bit more, which has an effect of increasing the quantity of the thing yet a little more.
• We perceive that increase to also be valuable.
• We make the conclusion that more of the thing is better (and it’s always a wrong conclusion… I’ll explain later.)

How we end up in an addictive state of mind where we can’t get enough of something:

• We hook the wrong decision of dealing with un uneasy situation with the wrong conclusion that more is better. And then we try to satisfy our need for safety (or something else) with actions based on our understanding that the “more” will eventually get us to that state of being safe (or having enough of something else) while in the same time these actions are making us have less of what we need.

Here is how it works:

• (we continue from above… we have already made the conclusion from above that more is better)
• We start getting more of the stuff we value and we are getting it faster
• Because of physical and other laws things behave differently in dynamic situations than they do in static set-ups. There are things like mass and speed, and when you combine them things get very potent very fast with the increase of speed… For example hitting a 1000 pound stone with 5 mph is not nearly as bad as hitting a 1 pound stone with only 50 mph… or 100 mph. Also encountering a one pound “thing” with 1 mph is not only quantitatively different than encountering the same thing with 50 mph. (speed in mph is not all that different than the story points per iteration you may be familiar with)
  
• Because usually we can not increase the speed fast enough to get real damage from a collision, we only start getting partial damage from meeting things in our life with greater speed. For example imagine there is a large piece of cheese flying through space and there is a small piece of stone flying in the opposite direction and hitting the cheese. When they meet the cheese does not disintegrate right away but instead only a small piece gets chipped away.
  
• We do not abandon our belief that more is better. The partial damage is not big enough to make us re-evaluate our conclusions.
• We want to compensate for the chipped away stuff from our selves by increasing the intensity of the actions that produce the “more”. (because it is our belief that by getting more we will feel better and closer to where we want to be… this belief was established before and is now something we are not questioning any more.)
• This increase in intensity and the related increase in quantity of the thing we want has the effect of chipping away even more of what we already have manged to aquire… and faster. Meanwhile nothing of the newly encountered stuff  sticks.
• Since time is usually limited (either by death or by a deadline) we go for the bank and put all the knobs to the max… increasing the intensity of our actions as much as our resources allow. This we do in the hopes to compensate for the lost time when we didn’t move as fast as we could.
• We can go through the cycles for a while… how many times we can increase the speed depends on the accelerations we can produce, what we can sustain and mostly on luck.
• … and BAM… at some moment you hit the limits of a (physical, mathematical, psychological, etc.) law… which usually ends up with the death of a project, or in some lucky cases it may end up with us changing our conclusion about the essence of “more”. Or it may end up with our physical death.

Here are examples:

• More love is better – to feel safe in a relationship
• More airport security is better - to feel safe in the air
• More software testing is better – to feel safe in production
• More documentation and planning is better – to feel safe in project management
• More information is better (this one came up on the last Open Space) – to feel safe in doing the right things

And the two things that started this thread:

• The one about everyone being busy – I understand that one easy… It comes from the fear of people to admit that almost the same amount of work will get done regardless of whether they are busy or not busy. Especially on a project with more than 5 people. So I don’t really care about that one much but it is definitely a nuisance when everyone on a team except you engages in this type of behavior.
• The other thing though is very interesting for me. It does question some of the Agile concepts… like fast iterations, fast releases with potentially shippable stuff, fast just-in-time software design (and I’m not talking about UI). Have you had the experience where on an agile project you see things moving along but somehow you have that feeling that everything is hollow?… that it doesn’t have the “density” of something you can connect with the notion of high quality? I think this is a direct result of the essence of one thing being sucked out by the speed of something else. It is the essence of “Thinking” being sucked out by the speed of “Delivery of results”. The source is of course the belief that “more results”… and “sooner” (in the case of agile) is better. How naïve.

Let’s go through asking why a few times: Less is more. Why? Because it allows me to do more. (I can stop right here but let’s continue.) Why? Because each thing becomes “smaller” and I can do more of them. Why do you need more of them? Because it will allow me to make better decisions. Why do you need to make better decisions? … Here is where my “why” can’t produce any more answers that are interesting. Better decisions by itself is a worthy goal. Let’s trace it back now: Do more thing and sooner help me make better decisions? Yes, provided I can process the information faster than it becomes available. Is getting things faster the only thing that helps me make better decisions? No, learning how to think helps, learning how to decide helps, and practicing decision making helps. Back to the getting more things… so getting more things does help if they don’t come faster than I can process the information. Let’s say 10 things is what I can handle. Is having each one of those things smaller beneficial?… Sometimes. Is having less of these things beneficial? Again… sometimes.

Well you can come up with your own branching in the answers and questions above, but regardless of how you go about it, less is not the goal… more is not the goal either. The goal is either to make better choices or to make people happy, or something similar.

So, to wrap it up: “more is better” and  “less is more” (which are almost the same) are only valid within the usually very narrow context of what we can handle. Thinking is at the core of software development. It is not delivery and it is not coding, and it is not communication, collaboration, documentation or anything else… it is not even working software (I’m sorry… I couldn’t resist). Trying to do more of any of these things in hopes to compensate for lapses in our thinking will inevitably lead to even wider gaps between where we are and were we want to be.

Time to Clean Up That Diet!

It’s time to talk a little about diet and nutrition.  This is a scary topic for most people who are looking to start living a healthier lifestyle.  I definitely understand this but it doesn’t have to be scary, hopefully I can help you overcome the fear you may have

I’m about to get into some facts about nutrition, I think it is important to read this but if you want to skip the technical stuff and go directly to my thoughts on what changes you can make to your diet today and see some recipes that I’ve found useful then follow this link  –> Go to Colin’s Thoughts & Opinions

First things first, before I give you my thoughts and opinions on how you can change your diet to help achieve the physique or overall healthy life that you want there are some facts I think are important to understand.  So…what is nutrition?  The simple answer, nutrition is the study of food and how the body uses it.  From food, the body uses nutrients, these are chemical components of food that are essential for energy, growth, cellular repair and regulation of metabolic functions….blah blah blah lol that was some of the text book stuff I mentioned I’d throw in back in my first post…there will be more to come

A little more on nutrients…the body needs six essential nutrients which can be broken down into two categories, Macro and Micro nutrients.  In this post I’ll be going into a little detail on the macro nutrients, we’ll worry about the micros another day.

Macro nutrients provide energy to the body, there are three types of macro nutrients that I’ll be touching on: Carbohydrates, Fats, and Protein.

Carbohydrates are the energy sources for muscles, your brain and nervous tissue.  They provide body with its most efficient and accessible source of energy.

There are two primary categories of carbs for you to worry about, they are:

• Simple – Sugars found in things like candy, honey, jam, fruit, syrup…etc.
• Complex – examples are such food as bread, pasta, potatoes, and vegetables.

The best source of carbs come from natural sugars found in vegetables, fruit and dairy, as well as whole grains (i.e. Quick Oats & Brown Rice) because they also contain other essential vitamins, minerals and fiber.

So how many carbs should we consume? Well that is the million dollar question and there are many different opinions out there.  I’ll give you my opinions later but for now here are some facts to consider.

The AMDR (Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range) is 45-65% of a person’s total caloric intake, with no more than 25% coming from simple carbohydrates.  Also, keep in mind that the carbohydrate need is different for active people.  They should consume mostly complex carbs and only consume simple carbs during or immediately following exercise.

**Note: 1g of carbs = 4 calories

Fat is one form of a larger group of substances known as lipids.  The term fat applies to lipids that are solid at room temperature, oil is the term used for lipids that are liquid at room temperature.

As an active person who is concerned with your appearance, you are probably a bit concerned or maybe just confused about the role fats play in your diet.  To eat fats or not eat fats, that is the question The latest word out there is that fat is good for you and can even be good for weight control.  Of course this all hinges on you eating the right kind of fats

There are 3 types of fats: Saturated, Unsaturated, and Polyunsaturated.

• Saturated Fats are solid at room temperature and sources are: butter, cream, lard & beef
• Monounsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature and sources are: olive oil, canola oil, Cashew nuts
• Polyunsaturated fats are also liquid at room temperature and sources are: canola oil, corn oil, safflower oil

I won’t get into details about the different kinds of fats in this blog as it’s rather boring and there is a lot of information out there.  Check out this article for some more information Fat Facts: The Real Story On Cholesterol & Fats! Some fats are more important than others, some really important fats that the body needs but does not produce are Essential Fatty Acids (Omega-6 and Omega-3).  Since your body can’t make these fats, you need to get them from food or supplementation.  They are key for normal growth, maintenance of cell membranes, healthy arteries and healthy nerves.  As well, essential fats help keep your skin smooth and lubricated and they help protect your joints.

Good sources of Omega-6 fats are: Safflower Oil, Peanut Oil, Vegetable Oil, Corn Oil
Good sources of Omega-3 fats are: Cold Water Fish, Leafy green vegetables, Flaxseed and Flaxseed Oil, Fish Oil, Canola Oil

How much fat should you eat? Well, like carbs, opinions on this vary.  Some facts to consider are…

You should keep you fat intake at 25 to 30% of our daily caloric intake.  Your diet should contain much more unsaturated than saturated fat: 5 % saturated, 10-15% monosaturated and 7-10% polyunsaturated.

**Note: 1g of fat = 9 calories

Protein molecules are large and complex and can be found in the cells of all living things.

The main role protein plays in our diet is to build and repair body tissues, such as muscles, tendons and ligaments.  Protein can also be used for energy though it is not a primary source.  In fact, if protein is being used as fuel during exercise, then not enough carbohydrates have been consumed in preparation for that exercise.

A couple other important facts are…

Protein is made up of amino acids.  Protein from animals (meat, eggs, fish or dairy) contains all nine essential amino acids and therefore is considered complete.  Protein from other sources like nuts, seeds, beans, and whole grains are considered incomplete because they do not contain all of the essential amino acids.

Once again, how much protein one should consume is a highly debated topic.  There are many, many varying opinions on this.  However, for now I’ll stick to the facts…we’ll get into my opinions later.  The AMDR percentage of daily protein intake is between 10-35% of your total caloric intake.  Another way to look at how much protein you eat is to refer to the established recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight.  With that said, athletes or frequent exercisers (which we all should be…right?) should increase protein intake to 1.2 to 1.7 grams per kilogram.

**Note: 1g of protein = 4 calories

Thoughts & Opinions

Quick Links: Recipes, Typical Diet

First let me apologize…that was not the most exciting reading, I know, but I felt that some facts were necessary before going on a rant about my personal nutrition opinions.

In my opinion, the No. 1 problem people have with their diets today is portion sizes and meal frequency.  Most people do not eat often enough during the day and they eat way too much when they actually do eat.  You should try to eat every 3 hours or so, these are not huge 1000 calorie meals or anything, you’ll want to keep to your meals small and balanced.  There are two main reasons for eating so often, one is to keep your metabolism firing, therefore burning more calories during the day and the second is simply to prevent you from getting that ravenous hunger feeling that causes you to binge!

How much you should eat during your meal differs for everyone.  Personally I’ve never had much success with counting calories (too much effort for me) but it works for many people.  In order to get started you need to figure out how many calories you should be eating to maintain current body weight.  Here are two calculators I’ve found that will be helpful.

1. Nutrient Ratios and Caloric Needs – This one is quite detailed in its explanation and I find it calculates the #’s on the low end

2. Recommended Calorie Intake Calculator - This is much simpler and the numbers are more what I would personally expect.

You can find many other fitness related calculators here

This is another useful macronutrient calculator: Calorie Calculator – Macro nutrients

**Note: if you want to gain weight (i.e. build muscle) increase your maintenance calorie intake by 200-500 cal.  If you want to lose weight, decrease your maintenance calorie intake by 200 cal and adjust based on results.

Now I mentioned earlier that I don’t count calories, this is true.  Instead, what I do is eyeball my food.  I eat about a fist size of protein (approx. 150-200g), a fist size of complex carbohydrates (1/2 cup) and at least 1/2 cup of green vegetables (though I could have more).  This may or may not work for you.  Take a look at the calculators above, maybe you won’t mind counting the calories, however if you are like me and you find doing that terribly daunting, then give my method a try and see what happens…based on your results you can decrease or increase the portion sizes.

Personally, I don’t pay much attention to the # of grams of carbohydrates I’m consuming.  I keep my carb portions to the sizes I mention above and that seems to work well for me.  Similarly with fats, I don’t count the # of grams I consume, all I do is keep my protein and carb portions as mentioned above and take an Omega supplement and my needs are met.  I do treat protein a little differently though.  I try to make sure I get at least 1 g of protein per pound of body weight.  This differs slightly from what the recommended amount is but it seems to work well for me…what works well for you?

Ok, so aside from the No.1 problem people have with diets, there is also the issue around the types of food people are eating.  Again, in my opinion, if you want to change your diet for the better and either lose weight or gain lean mass you should make the following simple changes:

• No more white rice, replace with brown rice
• No more white potato, replace this with sweet potatoes
• No more regular white pasta, replace this with whole wheat no-yolk pasta or a brown rice pasta
• Stop eating the sugary pre-packaged flavoured instant oatmeal and start eating Quick Oats (add a little stevia and/or cinnamon for flavour)
• Try high protein 0% fat Greek yogurt instead of the regular 2% yogurt.

Avoid the following foods…

• Trans Fats…at all costs
• McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King…etc. these foods are very high in fat and let’s be honest; a homemade bbq hamburger tastes much much better
• Candy and other high sugar foods/drinks (i.e. Kool-Aid, Fruitopia…etc.)

Now, some of you are probably freaking out a little bit after reading the above.  Well, most diets recommend a “cheat” meal where you indulge a little in the foods that you would normally avoid.  I personally am not a proponent of this but I do believe it is safe to do so…I’m talking 1 meal a week not a whole day binge! Let’s keep it healthy!

An example of a typical day of eating for me:

Meal #1 (7:00am)

• Egg White Oatmeal Pancake
• Coffee or Green Tea

Meal #2 (10:00am)

• Chicken or Steak or White Fish
• Brown Rice or No-Yolk Pasta
• Broccoli

Meal #3 (1:00 pm)

• Chicken or Steak or White Fish
• Brown Rice or No-Yolk Pasta or Sweet Potato
• Broccoli

Meal #4 (4:00pm)

• Chicken or Steak or White Fish
• Brown Rice or No-Yolk Pasta
• Broccoli

Meal #5 (post-workout approx 7:00pm)

• Protein Shake (2 scoops whey protein isolate)

Meal #6 (9:00pm)

• Chicken or Steak or White Fish
• Broccoli

Recipes:

• Egg White Oatmeal Pancakes (I use Stevia instead of Splenda)
• Sweet Potato Recipes
• Low-fat Bran Muffins
• Cinnamon Swirl Protein Bread
• Pumpkin Protein Bars
• Carrot Cake Protein Bars
• Turkey Meatloaf Muffins

Final Note for the Day: Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this post.  I know it was a lot of information but with my calorie calculator links, example diet and example recipes I think you’ve got some easy to read/digest information to help you get started.  If you have any questions or just want more information on a specific topic please don’t hesitate to leave a reply to this post.

Once again guys, these are just ideas and suggestions from my experience with diet and exercise, with maybe a little textbook knowledge thrown in.  So please do whatever you feel will work best for you, everyone is different and no one knows your body like you do!

What’s Next: For my next post I think I might dive into some of the basics in training…but you’ll just have to check back to find out

Chao!

The challenge in delivering data projects has always be wrought with dangers. Data projects tend to be large and encompass many aspects of the organization. As a result the time to build a complete data solution can take months and years. So often these projects found that at the end of a long waterfall-style project that the results were less than expected. The system may have hit many of the business requirements, but it missed on others, while new requirements have not even entered into delivery process. It is said that 50% of data warehouse fail, while other studies have shown this to be even higher. In my travels, I would say that we hit the target most of the time, but usually it takes longer to achieve then expected. So why should we then consider Agile?

Agile is the approach which is based on four basic values which were defined in the Agile Manifesto. These are:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

You should note that we value both sides of the equation, but that we value the ones to the right more. These basic values provide us with basis for working in a collaborative environment which can focus on incremental working software.

How does Agile this help us to be more successful in data projects? The project approach for data which we follow at Thoughtcorp focuses on using Agile. This results in an approach which delivers the solution incrementally. By understanding the big picture of data the need of an organization we can divide a project into iterations which build upon each other while delivering working software. This is done via a prioritization process. In the Agile world this is known as Kanban Development. In this approach we continually review our priorities and check to see if the business now has new requirements. This allows the project to alter its trajectory based on real needs which are now better understood. This does result in improved project performance and a better solution for everyone.

The basic answer is that it does help. It has shown that data projects can be delivered faster and more effectively. We have seen that our productivity is increased by 27% and that defects are reduced by 35% versus typical data projects. In addition the number of features delivered was higher than anticipated. All of this resulted in a project which included over 300 data objects and 150 reports and was delivered successfully in 8 iterations. Below is our project wall looked like as we were working on things, as we had a lot of collaboration take place:

This project was one example of how Agile made data work. We learned along the way and perfected our approach. The great thing about Agile is that you make it work for your team and your projects, but you have to invest the time and effort to make it work.

And don’t forget COLLABORATE 12 is coming up in Las Vegas is just a couple of weeks. I hope to see everyone there. I will be speaking all about Big Data and how it fits into today’s data ecosystem.

I’m waking up after the Open Space day on April 3rd and there is this memory from when I was very little kid bouncing around in my head. I must have been four or five years old. I was wandering around the neighborhood (it used to be ok for a four year old to walk around by themselves where I’m from) and I found these 4 kittens. They were very skinny and scared. I found a box and put them all in it, and took them home. There was a big shed in our backyard with lots of tools and wooden pieces of all sorts. I found four wooden blocks and build a little house for my kittens where they would be safe. I put some warm milk in a bowl and took it to the kittens.

They were not interested in the milk at all. They were all trying to get out of the beautiful house I made for them. I took them one by one and tried to dip their mouths in the milk, but the result was the same. A little time passed by and I saw my dad. I told him of the problem I was having and he came to see. He kicked two of the wooden blocks aside and told me that the kittens didn’t want to eat because they were not free. With the walls gone the kittens went straight for the milk… they were absolutely not interested in anything else (at least for a while until their stomachs got full).

I couldn’t help but make a parallel with the “Open Space” concept. You put some people together, kick two or more of the stereotypical walls aside and they swarm over some ideas and genuinely have fun.

I also thought that someone must have brought that milk from somewhere, someone else must have made it warm. Usually it’s someone that cares and sometimes it’s just by luck that you happen to be where the milk is.

Freedom is good, having someone that cares is good, and having kittens with full stomachs is good.

“Where Do I Begin?!?” You say…

So, you’ve decided that it’s time to get healthier, now what?  Where do you begin?  Like everything else in the fitness world these days, you can talk to 20 different people, or read 20 different articles and you would most likely get 20 different opinions…in a way, it’s great to have so much information but on the other hand it can make it very difficult for someone starting out to pick a place to start.

I’m going to try to keep this simple and will build on today’s information in future blog entries.

First things first…

• Get your mind right!

1/2 the battle when it comes to making changes to your lifestyle for the better is mental.  It can be a little scary to think about changing your diet or all of a sudden beginning an exercise program.  A lot of people give thought to a change and when the time comes to pull the trigger they give up before they even start.  My advice is to, as obvious as this sounds, keep a positive outlook.  Think about why you are making a lifestyle change like this.  Maybe you’re doing it because you are feeling tired all the time with no energy to keep up with your kids or grandkids, maybe you have a destination wedding to go to in some tropical country and are worried you’re not going to look good enough in your bathing suit (this was my motivation lol).  Or, maybe you want run a marathon or attempt some other sporting activity.  These are all great reasons to get healthy and if you “keep your eye on the prize” as they say, you’ll make it happen and it’ll be easier than you think  Remember, the mind is a powerful thing, I truly believe we can accomplish anything we want as long as we’re willing to put in the work necessary.

**Important note: I feel it is important for me to say that even with the most intense transformation programs, visual changes to your appearance can take up to 6 weeks to be seen.  So don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results immediately, listen to your body, chances are you’re feeling a lot healthier!!

• Get Active!

Ok, so now you’ve got your head in the game it’s time to get down to business.  Let’s face it, if we want to be healthy and lose weight and/or build muscle we’re going to have to get active. For the time being let’s not worry about a specific exercise program or anything like that, for now I want to get you thinking about 3 things you can do to get started.

1. Make sure you’re getting at least a total of 30 mins of activity each and every day.
I’m not talking about hard physical activity here, just get moving.  Add up 3 different 10 minute intervals to get you started (or do 30 minutes all at once if you like).  These can be things like..

• • Walking to and from the subway/bus when commuting to work , or if you drive, park at a garage that is a few minutes away.
  • Go for a walk at lunchtime and/or on your coffee break
  • Do a stretching session in the morning or at home after a long, hard day at work
  • Play with your kids…or grandkids

10 minutes is not very much time, it’ll fly by and you’ll hardly notice it.  Trust me, this alone will make you feel better.

2. Get in 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise at least 3 times a week

By cardiovascular exercise, I’m talking about something that gets your heart rate up and gets you sweating.  There are a lot of different activities you can do in and outside of the gym to accomplish this.  I encourage you to use Google (or whatever) as a resource and do you own research however here are a couple ideas

• • Jog on the treadmill or even better, go for a jog outside
  • Bike riding (again, you can jump on a stationary bike in the gym but this is rather boring lol)
  • Join a group exercise class like Zumba, Body Jam, Body Combat, Body Step…etc (All of the classes I mentioned are offered at Goodlife gyms)
  • Play Sports!  No golf fellas, this could be thought of as an “activity” but let’s face it…the old heart rate doesn’t jump too much on the golf course.  I’m thinking sports like, basketball, tennis, hockey, soccer…etc

3. Strength Training

Another must, strength training.  Strength training is so important to overall health, it can’t be stressed enough.  And before I go further, to you ladies…NO, lifting weights will not make you build bulky manly muscles.  Please do some research, but trust me, you’ll be fine  Now, I want to mention some of the key benefits of strength training, some you will know already but I’m sure some will be new to you.

• • Strength: Increased muscle strength, power, endurance and size. Enhanced performance of everyday tasks. You will be able to do everyday tasks like lifting, carrying and walking up stairs with greater ease.
  • Flexibility: By working the muscles through a full range of motion, weight training can improve your overall body flexibility. Increased flexibility reduces the risk of muscle pulls and back pain.
  • Boosted metabolism (which means burning more calories when at rest). Reduced body fat. Your overall weight may not change, but you will gain muscle and lose fat. Over time you should notice decreases in waist measurements and body fat measurement. (as stated before, don’t expect this to happen overnight)
  • Muscle Tone – strength training will result in firmer and better-defined muscles
  • Increases HDL – High Density Lipoprotein (good cholesterol) and decrease LDL – Low Density Lipoprotein (bad cholesterol).
  • Reduces risk of diabetes and insulin needs.
  • Lowers risk of cardiovascular disease.
  • Lower high blood pressure.
  • Lowers risk of breast cancer – reduces high estrogen levels linked to the disease.
  • Decreases or minimizes risk of osteoporosis by building bone mass.
  • Reduces symptoms of PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome)
  • Reduces stress and anxiety.
  • Decreases colds and illness.

These are certainly not all of the benefits of strength training but it’s a good representation and I’m sure it gives you something to think about  Now, what kind of things can you do to incorporate this into your routine?  Here are some points to get you started, I’ll be writing future blog entries that go into strength training in more detail at a later date.

• • Exercise each muscle group once per week.  You can go to youtube, google or a number of other internet resources to learn about different exercises for each muscle group.  Personally I like to use the exercise database on Bodybuilding.com
  • At home or at the gym, use dumbbells, barbells, and other gym equipment (see the exercise database link above for an extensive list of exercises)
  • Try plyometrics, take a look at this website or google “plyometrics workouts” for more, http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/plyometric.html .
  • Try using resistance bands if you don’t like weights or if plyometrics scare you a little bit like they do me Some examples of resistance band exercises can be found here
  • Try a Body Pump class at GoodLife

Ok, wow…this has turned out to be a much longer blog entry than I had planned.  I’m going to leave it there for the strength training portion, again, there will be more in a later blog entry.  Before I leave you for today though, I want to touch on one last, but very important point…

• Clean up that Diet!

Ok, so you’ve got your mind right, you’re ready to get active, now it’s time for the dreaded diet :S lol, it’s really not that bad.  With a few simple things in mind you can easily improve you diet and be on your way to a healthier you  Now given how long this post has turned out I’m not going to go into very much detail here.  I’ll mention some, what I believe are, key points when changing your diet.  ***I’m not talking about a short term “Diet” to lose a specified amount of weight, what I’m talking about is a diet change for life***

1. Meal Frequency - Most people eat only 3 times a day and generally, by the time they have dinner, they’re starving and stuff their faces…this is not good.  To keep the body’s metabolism working at its best and burning those calories, you want to be eating smaller more frequent meals.  Try having your 3 main meals throughout the day but include a couple healthy snacks in between.  For example, have Breakfast, a mid-morning snack, Lunch, a mid-afternoon snack, Dinner, a nighttime snack.
2. Meal Portion Control - I touched on this above, most people eat too much food in one sitting, especially for dinner after a long day at work/school.  It’s really best to keep your meals smaller and eat more frequently.  I’ll get into some specific portion sizes in my next post, but for now maybe use the size of your fist or palm as a measuring tool for your meals…meaning you’d have a fist size portion each of meat (protein), carbohydrate (rice, pasta, potato…etc), and veggies.
3. Meal components - Each meal, whether this is breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack, should include each of the following macros: Protein, Carbohydrate, and Fat.  I’ll talk more about these in a later post, for now feel free to do a quick google search for more information.  I do want to say though, that when I say fat, I’m talking good fats, like what you find in meats (chicken, salmon, beef…etc), nuts, avocados…etc
4. Water - Drink lots of water…I’m not going to say 8 glasses, or a gallon or whatever just keep a bottle of water close by all day  When we talk body transformation type programs I might bet a bit more specific
5. Foods to avoid- In my opinion there are many foods that you should stay away from as much as you can, they are:
   1. Sugary foods like Fruit Juices, fruit snacks, jell-o, candy…etc
   2. Fried foods – Fried Chicken, french fries…etc
   3. High sodium foods like Kraft Dinner
   4. Fast Food / Junk Food – McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Chips, Pop, Candy, Chocolate…etc.

Though I feel you should stay away from these foods, I am inclined to say, the occasional cheat is not going to kill you but please keep it to a minimum…no more than 1 day a week…however when it comes to the fast food, personally, I’d never touch the stuff

Final note for the day: Well, now you’ve got your mind right, you’re ready to get active, and you’re getting ready to clean up your diet.  I know I’ve said a lot in this post, hopefully it was in a way that you learned some things and have a better idea of how to get started on beginning a healthier lifestyle. In future posts I’ll be getting into more detail but in smaller chunks.  As always if you have any questions or comments please post them I look forward to hearing from you!  Oh! I almost forgot…one last point when it comes to your diet.  Try to avoid eating your meals in front of the tv…it tends to lead to over eating…this is something I’ve read and experienced first hand

Once again guys, these are just ideas and suggestions from my experience with diet and exercise, with maybe a little textbook knowledge thrown in.  So please do whatever you feel will work best for you, everyone is different and no one knows your body like you do!

What’s Next: For my next post I’ll be getting into more detail around cleaning up that diet.  It is one topic where people have many, many, many different opinions on what is good and what is bad…so I’ll just give you my opinion and we’ll see what happens

Chao!

Colin Moore, PTS

Managing my energy for optimum performance, at work, is not a skill I envisioned myself learning about.
After all, corporate peak performance is an enigma wrapped up in a conundrum. Being a ‘corporate’ athlete is not a term I’d apply to myself.

But others have asked – How do some thrive under pressure, sustain high demands physical and emotional strength and maintain sharp intellect? What makes them buckle or under perform.

As corporations are finding out (GSK in this case), you don’t have to be a high-powered executive to benefit in maintaining peak performance in your current role. The added value of bringing energy to the work environment is beneficial to all you work with.

Take a look at the statements below and answer ‘True’ or ‘False’.

1. Skillfully investing time in things and people you care about spawns harmony and fulfillment.

2. The human spirit is fueled from a different energy source than the physical body.

3. The best way to think about one’s business career is as a marathoner rather than a sprinter.

4. Protecting yourself and others from high stress is an important part of leadership.

5. In terms of great leadership, aligning one’s public voice with the corporate mission is more crucial to success than aligning one’s private voice.

6. Multitasking is an acquired skill and is essential to success in today’s complex business development.

7. Understanding why one does something is critical step in the process of personal change.

8. Personal effectiveness requires a highly developed capacity for self-discipline and will power.

If you answered ‘True’ to any of these statements, over the next few posts, I’ll blog about how the principles around affective energy management can help us be an effective corporate athlete.

Some of you will get a kick out of the title of this post but others will wonder what the heck I’m talking about.  Well, let’s just say that around the office I take a lot of flak for my meal choices…you know who you are.  Anyway, all kidding aside, I do make some pretty bland meal choices and I DO eat a lot of chicken and broccoli, but I do this with purpose.  The choices I make with nutrition and exercise may not work for everyone and may seem extreme to most but it’s what works for me

In the spirit of the fast approaching beach season I thought, over the next number of weeks (how many is yet to be determined) I would share with you some of my knowledge, thoughts, and experiences  on a number of healthy living topics, such as, diet & nutrition, exercise, fat loss, muscle gain, program design, and much more.

We all have busy lives but no one is too busy to be healthy.  With some simple changes to your diet and added consistent physical activity you will be amazed at the kind of results you can achieve!  Not everyone wants six-pack abs or to be built like Arnold Schwarzenegger; some just want to have more energy, look younger, and live longer (well who doesn’t want the last one).  I hope to share information that will help everyone achieve their goals, whatever they may be.

Final note for the day: I am a certified personal trainer through Canfitpro (so I know what I’m talking about lol), however, though I will be sharing facts about the topics mentioned, mostly I want to share ideas, suggestions, opinions and my experiences.  There is a ridiculous amount of health and fitness related information out there, you will no doubt find websites/articles that contradict some of the things I say, that’s ok, everyone is entitled to their opinion   In all seriousness, these are just ideas and suggestions from my experience with diet and exercise, with maybe a little text book knowledge thrown in.  So please do whatever you feel will work best for you, everyone is different and no one knows your body like you do!

**I would love to hear about what works for you so please feel free to comment on this or any future post**

What’s Next: Check in for my next post where I will share some of the basics and some ideas that will help all of you who find themselves saying “…where do I begin?!?”