Archive for October, 2009

If you haven’t checked out the Perfect Gift for a Man as yet, head over to www.theperfectgiftforaman.com.au and see what all the fuss is about.

Here’s my 12seconds.tv contribution

Back in July I wrote a post called “The Path Back” which touched on my battle with depressions and facing up to it, with all the feelings of hopelessness, the self doubt, the loneliness, the vulnerability and the fear that goes with it.

It was part of a  project called Man Week. From the series of posts by a variety of bloggers Gavin Heaton and Mark Pollard decided it would be great to combine a whole range of the stories into a book and publish it for the benefit of the Inspire Foundation and so today is the launch of a book called “The Perfect Gift for a Man”. The stories look at a range of subjects from a very open and honest perspective.

I’m lucky enough and honored to be involved and as friends and supporters of my journey I’d ask each of you to visit the website and consider buying the book for a brother, son, father, uncle, cousin, nephew, work mate or friend.

Visit the Perfect Gift for  Man website to find out more.

Buy the soft cover book at Blurb

Buy the ebook at The Perfect Gift for a Man website

If you’re in the media, why not promote the release, access the press release here, or see below (sort of makes the link useless doesn’t it)

And if you haven’t sponsored me yet, hurry there’s only 4 weeks and 5 days left! Do it now!

Blurb “Man book” on sale to support Aussie men
Australia’s first “man book” raises money to lower suicide rates in Aussie men

A group of Australian men have banded together to create a book about some of the tough issues facing the average Aussie bloke.

The book, “The perfect gift for a man – 30 stories about reinventing manhood” aims to get men talking about their feelings in a bid to help prevent male suicide in Australia. This collection of stories was designed and published using Blurb, the creative publishing platform that enables anyone to design, publish, market, and sell their own professional-quality books.

The “man book” is available for purchase in the Blurb Bookstore at www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/915312 with all profits benefiting the Inspire Foundation, a national non-profit that delivers online programs to prevent youth suicide and improve young people’s mental health and well being.

Touched by the mental health, drug and alcohol problems facing young Australia men, Australian bloggers Gavin Heaton and Mark Pollard appealed to their readers, friends, and family to share honestly the intense emotions and experiences of being a man.

“As bloggers, we have been talking about men’s issues such as depression, mental health and coping with loss for years,” Gavin Heaton, one of the books creators said.

“We had the idea to do a book for men, about men, but finding a channel that helps us design, compile, publish and sell the coffee-table type book isn’t straightforward. But now any Australian can create his or her own professional-quality books, and use the Blurb publishing and marketing platform to reach people around the world and sell books in the Blurb Bookstore,” Mr  Heaton said.

Tim Parsons from Blurb Australia said self publishing was an increasingly popular way to create a book for those who are finding it hard to get a book deal but have something interesting and important to say.

“Blurb is very pleased to help these gentlemen publish “The perfect gift for a man – 30 stories about reinventing manhood”. Developing a book to encourage young Australian men to feel comfortable sharing their feelings and reinventing the idea of Australian masculinity is an important step towards a generation of happier and healthier men,” Tim Parsons, Blurb Australia said. “We encourage anyone with a story to tell to visit www.blurb.com and get started today.”

An excerpt from “The perfect gift for a man – 30 stories about reinventing manhood” reads:

“If I’ve learned anything through all this it is that there aren’t any hard-and-fast rules for how to be a man
in this crazy and unpredictable emotional tornado we call life. The only thing we can really be assured of
is that life will continue to change for us all, regardless of how much we wish it wouldn’t. All I know is that how you grow and evolve as a man to meet the challenges that life will inevitably throw at you is what really counts. I’ve learned that no matter how alone or broken you feel there are men and women who care enough to be there for you, to help you feel less broken and alone.”- Scott Drummond

“We want men to read the stories of others and find strength in knowing that others have lived through the same issues and gone on to live rich lives. It was important for us to find a way for Australian men to share their life experiences and help young men realise that it’s ok to reach out and ask for help when its needed,” said Gavin Heaton.

“The perfect gift for a man – 30 stories reinventing manhood” is priced at $44.95 and is available for sale http://www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/915312.

- Ends-
About Blurb
Blurb® is a creative publishing and marketing platform that unleashes the creative genius inside everyone. Blurb’s platform makes it easy to design, publish, market and sell professional-quality books, using our free, award-winning Blurb BookSmart® software, or via the design tool of your choice.  Use Blurb’s Bookstore and online marketing tools to market and sell your books, and keep 100% of your profit. Use Blurb’s social and community features to create and share Blurb books with your friends and colleagues with ease.
Blurb was founded by Eileen Gittins in 2005, and includes a team of design, Internet and media veterans who share a passion for helping people bring their stories to life. Blurb is based in San Francisco with offices in London, and is funded by Canaan Partners and Anthem Venture Partners. For more info, visit http://www.blurb.com.. Blurb supports online community projects for Flickr, Google, Tate Modern, Saatchi & Saatchi and in Australia supports community projects at Australian Centre for Photography, McFarlane Prize for Best Australian Web Design and Concrete Playground. For more info, visit http://au.blurb.com

About Gavin Heaton & Mark Pollard
Gavin is the author of Servant of Chaos, one of Australia’s leading marketing blogs. He is the co-publisher of the ground-breaking collaborative marketing book, Age of Conversation. Gavin has worked in marketing agencies, but is currently holed up on the client side, for global software giant, SAP. He is fascinated with the way communities can create movements which transform the way we see and understand the world.
Mark Pollard is a strategy guy who loves to write. By day, he is a Strategy Director in a communications agency; the rest of the time he tries to be a good dad and husband. Unfortunately, too often, things are actually split like that, but he’s hoping that by writing about his experiences in a way that is both provocative and useful to other people – not purely for catharsis – the split will one day disappear.
About the Inspire Foundation (www.inspire.org.au)
Inspire is an Australian non-profit organisation established in 1996 with a mission to help millions of young people lead happier lives. By combining the power of technology with the face-to-face involvement of young people, Inspire  delivers national online programs, www.reachout.com and www.actnow.com.au, that improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people. In mid-2009, to coincide with the re-launch of Reach Out, Inspire launched the #Manweek campaign to raise awareness of these issues.

Last month I went in for my second last visit to the Healthy Hearts Clinic to get a status update.

Only one more to go on the 30th of November, the change you will see is quite substantial, wither though I have been battling getting the weight off – it has really slowed down, my health has improved dramatically. Most noticeably my risk of a cardiovascular event has declined 55%, over half than when I started. So this illustrates it’s the health aspect more so than the weight that is important. Mind you I still totally intend to drop the full 70 kilo target and give up the cigarettes which will really have further impact.

Here are the comparative results from my visits so far;

Smoker: If I stopped smoking then I would get my overall risk factor cut by half to 2, which is below average for someone of my age.

Systolic Blood Pressure: All good

Diastolic Blood Pressure: This is the pressure coming in to the heart, it remains good if not excellent.

TC (Total Cholesterol); Have reduced by 35.3%, and it is well within the healthy normal range

HDL (Good Cholesterol): Here’s the impact of the changes in my diet, I am now aroundr the 1.0 mark, regarded as the healthy benchmark.

LDL (Bad Cholesterol): Down to an unmeasurable level, how good is that..

Triglycerides: Too low to measure, great outcome.

Glucose: Sitting right in the healthy range..

Weight: have been through a rough period, just not getting the food right, but I’ll get there.

Body Mass Index (BMI): Down 18.2% – not sure if I will ever get to 25.

Waist circumference: Down 15.4% or 23cm. By my weekly measurements I got to 40cm off, but over the past 4 weeks have added 10cm although this will come off very quickly.

Heart Health: Risk factor has dropped from 9% to 4% a low risk to have a cardiovascular event in the next 5 years. My target absolute risk is 2.5% and I am 1.6 times more likely than a person with a low risk profile to have said event, down from 3.6x.

Diabetes Health: My risk of developing type 2 diabetes within 5 years is High, and with this risk level I have a 1 in 7 chance. I’d like to see this drop considerably over the next 4 months.

So I am heading in the right direction to be around to see grandchildren and enjoy all life has to offer.

The Heart Clinic is based at the Alfred Hospital in Commercial Road, Prahran (between Punt and St.Kilda Roads) and you can call them on 03 9076 3398 to organise your own check up. The first time you go takes about 40 minutes and all it consists of is a questionnaire, blood pressure and a blood test. The blood test is cool compared to what I have been used to, instead of taking a syringe to you and extracting a heap of blood, they just prick the end of a finger  and take  small amount of blood through a tiny little straw .. it just runs up there on its own.

Then they analyse the blood in a little machine and that provides results on cholesterols, triglycerides and glucose levels. These combined with blood pressure, weight, body mass index, waist measurement, age and whether you’re a smoker all combine to provide a risk factor.

So give Jan or Liz a call now, it’s free and the information is worth knowing before you end up in the Alfred proper.

Just reading today’s Herald-Sun and saw the story of an Englishman, called Paul Mason who weighs in as 444.5 kilograms, almost 3 times my current size.

It’s easy to mock him or the predicament he finds himself in. This is more proof that weight gain / loss definitely has more to do with mental health, than purely a series of bad habits. It’s why we do things that dictate the actions and eventually the outcomes, we all know that.

Yet Governments look to solve the issues in ways that don’t deal with the root of the problem, sometimes believing (here comes the cynic in me) that it is good enough to be seen to be doing the right thing, saying the right words verus actually understanding the underlying issues and skills that need to be comprehended and positively implemented.

Of the high horse now, check out the story here http://bit.ly/22yBKE

Slept in the morning, missed the hour walk, so am going to have to catch up a little over the next few days. I really need to make sure I confine work to work hours as much as possible.

Well no I can’t!

This evening I had dinner with a former colleague and his ‘Love Partner’, having spoken a little on the phone and communicated via Facebook etc over the past 7 years it was great to see him face to face again. Shame Susan’s voice was lost, but Pete and I covered lots of ground. Always an interesting, challenging and interesting conversation.

The one thing that constantly amazes me is that other people see in me what I don’t see .. need to fix that up!

I ate well, bought dry roasted almonds instead of resorting to a chocolate bar, and ordered grilled fish with vegetables for dinner – tasty and healthy. Now to get on the bike while the washing gets done.

First day for quite a while where I have behaved with food for the entire day, so let’s call today Day 1 and make it all fresh and new again. Food – omelette for breakfast, curry with no rice for lunch and barramundi and vegies for dinner, followed by a little low carb chocolate. Drank loads of water and as a result am going to bathroom quite a bit, every ounce out is a good thing.

I am really annoyed, for the last four weeks I have lapsed back to old behaviours, back to eating crap food and not caring. How can I let myself do that while being so public with this blog I don’t know but I need to tighten up the routine.

If I get back to eating properly and exercising I should be able to claim back all the kilos I’ve added and more, but I wont be able to get to the 50 kilo loss mark by the end of November, which is massively disappointing, but it’s all part of the story. It is so easy to let the old behaviours back in, and keep allowing excuses to become reasons.

So I am about to sit here and do up a schedule for the next week that includes exercise and food. I’ll set up a food diary agaion and make sure I write everything down to bring back a bit of discipline.

I think in the past four weeks I have been able to put 5-6 kilos on, and I reckon I can lose 8 kilos in 6 weeks, so I should end up around the 42-45 kilos lost by the end of November, still a great effort, but it is only the start there is still another 20-30 kilos to lose on top of that. More importntly resolve my issues that keep me switching back to old behaviour patterns.

So here’s the exercise plan for the next week.

• Wednesday AM: Bikram Yoga
• Wednesday PM: 30 minutes on exercise bike
• Thursday AM: Bikram Yoga or 1 hour walk
• Thursday PM: 30 minute on exercise bike (optional)
• Friday AM: 30 minute on exercise bike
• Saturday AM: Bikram Yoga
• Saturday PM: 60 minute walk
• Sunday AM: 60 minute walk
• Sunday PM: Bikram Yoga
• Monday AM: 60 minute walk
• Monday PM: 30 minutes on exercise bike
• Tuesday AM: Bikram Yoga
• Tuesday PM: 60 minute walk

So there it is, can I deliver on it?

The most important thing is the eating, because that is what really loses the weight. I’ve only cooked about 4 times in the past two weeks, so that tells the story right there.

I need some help and support, don’t be scared to drop me a note or get on the phone, that way I know I am not out on my own in this .. it just feels like it.

Weigh ins have moved from Friday morning to Thursday night, I understand you are normally heavier in the afternoon than morning, so I’ll have to discount a kilo or so to allow for that, but the most important weigh in is on Monday 30 November, it’s the only one that really matters.

Anybody up for a cooking lesson, I’ll be contacting those that have said they would – Hoops, Martyn and Stubbsy. If you dont want to be on camera, that’s ok, you can be off camera instructing me what to do.

Let’s see what we can do.

I’m back!