Every year I publish my life goals for the year – a collection of goals I want to accomplish across a variety of different areas in my life.  You can see the list under the Goals main menu item on this page. My 2013 life goals extend and build on those from 2012 and my assessment of how I did against those goals.

Physical

• Work out four days a week – Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday – In 2013 I had the goal of working out five days a week and was successful with that.  In 2013 I want to take one of those workout days – Saturday – and use it instead to have a physical activity with my daughter.
• Take time Saturday or Sunday morning for a physical exercise activity with my daughter.  This could be a hike, bike ride, game outside, a trip to the swimming pool or some other daddy daughter outdoor or exercise activity.  This would give my wife a chance to have a few hours without a child around and would give daddy and daughter some bonding time.
• Maintain weight around 175 lbs.  I lost a lot of weight about four years ago prior to getting married.  Since then I have continued to lose weight and for the last few years I have kept my weight to around 182 lbs.  This is still, however, slightly into the overweight territory for BMI and I have always wanted to slim down even a little further.    For 2013 I am planning to drop another seven pounds and have an average weight around 175 pounds – getting me lower into the average BMI target I should have.

Diet

• Take a supplement mix of Omega Three, Vitamin D and Probiotics daily.
• Be good to my bones – eat enough calcium from bioavailable sources
• Drink the same amount more often – a few drinks several times a week – moderate daily drinking has a positive health benefit.  While I have drastically decreased the overall amount I drink over the last few years – welcome to your thirties – I still tend to drink nothing during the early part of the week and then most of what I drink in the latter part of the week.  Instead, I want to drink a regular, daily amount of wine or other alcoholic beverage.
• You can keep drinking diet coke – just not too much. Last year I made a resolution to eat more natural, less processed foods.  Overall this resolution was successful and my diet in 2012 consisted of more whole grain foods, fruits and vegetables.  My one vice for processed food, however, remains Diet Coke and I still drink a 20oz diet coke a day most working days of the week.  To that end, if this is one of my limited vices I think I am okay – I just want to keep it to a 20oz diet coke and not drink a 40oz diet coke.
• Drink a 8oz cup of coffee in the morning (and then not again.)  There seem to be mild health benefits associated with drinking several cups of coffee throughout the day.  However, since I have a slight caffeine sensitivity drinking a cup of coffee in the morning and then not again seems like a good strategy.

Personal

• Develop a family hobby. My wife had a great idea on this front of getting some artist easels for everyone that we could use to paint.
• Go on a date with my wife at least once a month.
• Take a trip at least once a quarter with the family.
• Publish book notes on books read
• Learn some Hindi
• Have a night a week where we work on side projects and not watch TV

Professional

• Execute the plan for 2013.
• Hit 7.5M in revenue run for the year.
• Secure SSB’s position as lead software and services provider in accessibility market.
• Grow laterally into development services market and prepare for movement into secondary compliance domains – SEO as a primary starting point.

Every year for the last few years I have used January and February as month to diet, take off a few extra pounds from the holidays and generally clean-out my system.   This year I wanted to drop my target weight a few extra pounds from 180 lbs to 175 lbs.   To that end here is my approach for January:

Eight(ish) Hour Diet – I just read about the Eight Hour diet in Men’s Health the other day.  The basic concept is that you have an eight hour window within which you can eat whatever you want.  For the other sixteen hours a day you don’t eat anything.  I haven’t read the book but they claim some benefits from the fasting for a sixteen hour period.  On this I remain skeptical.  I do, however, expect that the total calories consumed drop significantly simply by dropping the window in which you can eat.  I tried it this last week and it is, overall, doable although an eight hour window is a little difficult to make work on days that you aren’t in a more structured schedule or environment.  So I have adopted it for the five days a week that I am at the office with a little flexibility to a nine hour day as needed.   Generally that sets me up from a 10AM to 7PM window for eating which works for me.  On the weekend I am to keep the spirit of the diet and simply not eat after my evening meal.

No Alcohol – For the last few years I have taken time during January or even longer to abstain from drinking and generally detox my body.  In addition to getting better sleep I probably drink another 3/4 of a pound a week ~ 2600 calories – in wine or beer.  So eliminating this is an easy low hanging fruit and has the positive benefit of detoxing my body.

Calorie Counting – As I have done in years past I plan to track my calories using a Google Docs spreadsheet.   A few years back I lost a bit over forty pounds using this system and since then I have managed to keep it off.  So this is just the same system that I have used.

Posting Progress – When I did this last year to shed a few extra holiday pounds I also started to post progress to Facebook on a weekly basis.  This had the effect of both having me commit publicly to the goal and to gain encouragement throughout the process.   This year I plan to post notices to the blog, my Twitter account and to Facebook to spread the word and keep me motivated.

I started on January 2nd – January 1st is to cliche and there was football to be watch and beer to be drunk.  On that day I started at 183.3.  As of this morning I weighed 182.1 which is on track for what I expected to lose. My plan is to lose about a pound and a half a week and get down to about 175 lbs by the end of the month.  I will keep posting status updated as I go and let everyone know how things progress!