The last of the sabbatical blogs and the next time I go off work it won’t be called a sabbatical.
There were certain things I wanted to try and achieve throughout my time away and one of them was to have a look at myself and see whether being off work made a difference to my health and my physiology. I heavily suspected that the answer would be yes and the answer is a resounding yes.
We took some photographs week on week through my time off work (except for week 6 when I was in Tenerife) and this was done by my friend Stuart Reekie. I have to publically thank Stuart here for taking the time to do that, he’s an extraordinary individual and a great artist. I’m so grateful for him for doing that. The blog photograph today (which you will need to view on the web version of the blog) is week 1 and week 7. You can decide for yourselves if you think there is a difference but the 2 things I noticed were the eyes and the nasolabial creases (the diagonal crease from the nose to the edge of the lips which is definitely a lot shallower in week 7 that it was in week 1).
The photographs don’t tell the full story – the way I felt at the end and what I wrote to myself in my diary about how it was are probably the real answer. But for completion.. my weight was 13.2 at the last measurement. Weight on a downward track towards a summer target of much less than that but certainly all in the right direction (for comparison, my best race weight of recent years in a Triathlon was 13 stone so only a large poo above race weight!!).
I lost a little bit of bulk off my waist but not enough, but that’s summer downward track too and a little bit of volume off my chest (moobs, again on a downward track).
The real satisfying thing for me is that my blood pressure was fine when I started the sabbatical and fine when I finished. I have a family history if hypertension which is something that catapulted me into a much healthier routine in years gone by and i’m really delighted that that’s stable.
My CTL score, which was my overall fitness score, is through the roof. I went 10% over the target I even set myself for the end of the sabbatical and hit then end at approximately 65. I am more than half way to a crazy CTL target for July and I have instituted exercise into my life in a really structured format together with better eating and sleeping. It remains to be seen whether that is maintainable to any significant degree as we go back into work but, in truth, I refuse to let work get in the way of that and that’s perhaps one of the great legacies of the sabbatical.
I said in another blog that I think I should set up a consultancy service to assist other people to set their own sabbaticals up but in truth, I would charge a fortune for that because the value is so great and I’m not sure many people would understand or get it. If you do want some individual advice on what it was like for me and how it might apply to you then email me and I promise I’ll try and email you back.
With that in mind though, and with my new-found understanding of the curse of interruption in my life and how I managed to get rid of it through the sabbatical period, here are a couple of notes for anybody trying to get hold of me from now on in as I try to have better structure to my life and look after myself a little bit better for the next 40 years:
- Don’t message me on Facebook because I don’t look at my messages and you probably won’t get a reply. It’s not rude; it’s just not a channel that I use.
- The blog goes on Twitter but I never see Twitter so it’s only for your convenience. I don’t get messages on there.
- I have turned the emails off my phone so I can’t instantly reply. I do emails on a Wednesday and a Friday and there’s an out of office reply on my emails to tell you that I do that. If anything is more urgent than that then phone the practice and they’ll try to help.In order to get any sort of possible quality work done, it’s important that I don’t jump to emails all day, every day. So I will get back to you, please respect that, but unless it’s life or death then it will take a few days.
- My Facebook page will be shrinking down to be something I use as a tool to communicate with family and close friends for positive interactions. Please don’t see that as a slight or an insult to anyone, it’s just that I am choosing not to use it to communicate anymore.
- The way to get hold of me is: colin@campbell-clinic.co.uk
- If you leave a voicemail message on my phone, again I will try to get back to you as soon as I can but please don’t be upset if that takes me a little while.
I firmly believe that for me to get to a better place and be more useful to everybody else I have to control the amount of interruption and I intend to do that as much as possible. I know that people that like, trust and respect me will understand and be happy with that and the people that don’t understand or aren’t happy with that probably didn’t like, trust or respect me in the first place.
Blog Post Number – 1197
Leave a comment