Yo DaVitans !

First, a big thanks to those who signed up and helped me, and others, pay more attention to this stuff !!

Second, an extra big thanks to those who shared some of their travails and triumphs!!

Third, a final thanks to those who responded to the zoomerang survey so we can live our value of continuous improvement.

There were 901 signed up participants in the campaign.  103 completed the survey right after the end of the campaign.

30% of those did not have an exercise program before MM II, and started one!

49% increased the number of days they were exercising!

52% increased their daily minutes by more than 20 minutes!

57 had a weight loss goal.  They lost a total of 610 pounds, an average of 11 pounds per person!  (makes my failure here all the more glaring)

96% said they would participate in Match the Mayor (MM III) if we do it again next year. Read more…

“I enjoyed reading how other teammates were doing on the program.”

“I enjoyed the support that I received by reading the Mayor’s blog.”

“Kept me motivated because Kent was doing it, especially with his busy schedule.”

“I liked reading KT’s journal. I was impressed that at how even a super busy CEO can fit exercise into his day.”

“I liked that it encouraged me to keep track of how much I was exercising and motivated me to meet the goal I set.”

“I tend to do better with the support of a group and following other peoples stories and success. I enjoyed the articles and information provided. After reading about Yoga I intend to try a class.”

“I was able to cut my blood pressure pill dose by 50% and may be able to go off totally. My Dr is evaluating at this time.”

“It was nice to hear about other teammates successes and struggles.  It makes it a little easier when you know there are other people working through it too.”

“Just signing up for some of the Village Vitality programs has kept me focused.  I especially enjoyed some of KT’s comments and the fact that he responded to individual teammate accomplishments.  KT is definitely an inspiration.”

“That we have someone who will inspire us to work and still have fun doing it.”

“I like the info sheets and knowing that I’m not alone. Couldn’t wait till Wednesday to check my e-mail!!!”

How did you do?  If you haven’t filled out the survey yet, please take just a few minutes to let us know how you did. Being healthy is contagious! Your efforts just might inspire someone to get active and make a move toward better health.

Take the survey here: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229ZHGMQHGZ

Yo to my fellow MM II Partners!

Well the Match the Mayor II Campaign ends tomorrow.  Working on this stuff with all of you has made it more fun, more important, more fulfilling, and more consistent than I ever would have otherwise.  I am particularly grateful to those who took the time and had the courage to submit their own entries.

I will do a wrap-up email over the weekend.  Right now it is about midnight on Wednesday night, and I am on a plane flying down to Los Angeles.  I don’t know if I will be able to get up early enough to workout tomorrow a.m.  That would be quite ironic to miss out on the last day.

But today was glorious !!  2 hours of pick-up basketball on a full-size basketball court.  I shot terribly but played good defense, and the team I was on won every game so we never left the court.  When I drove home after the games I stiffened up so much I could barely get out of the car.  But 120 monster minutes on day 59 of the MM II saga!  Also zero diet cokes and healthy/lite eating.

Tomorrow is a day full of meetings until the Casa Holiday Party in the evening.  I miss being at the Casa, there is a strong Village spirit in much of the team there.  The Village lives when individual teammates decide to make it live, and in the Casa there are many who do.

Today I had meetings on the VA,  DaVita RX, Compliance, benefits, FMC contracts, healthcare reform, private patient retention, and one or two others I don’t remember.  A good day.

Hope you are all well.  I look forward to “talking” to you over the weekend.

To Tammy from Winter Park, Florida,

I wish some of the rest of us could have been there to see the faces of your mom and husband when they saw you with that 10 pounds gone!  Please give your son a hug from the Mayor and 900 others for taking those cookies away.

Yo to Angela from Greenville, South Carolina,

I do hope to see you on the Tour next year.  I don’t think I will be able to keep up with you, so I will talk to you back at camp!

Mucho respect to Karen of Cold Spring, Kentucky,

Bilateral mastectomies could set anyone back for awhile — but it is awesome that you are one week without smoking and two weeks into exercise.  I hope this note finds you at two and three weeks!

Shout out to Jamie of Memphis, Tennessee,

Did you run in the marathon this past weekend?  How did it go?  You go, whatever you are!

Congrats to Jackie of Evansville, Indiana,

8 pounds!  Well done, especially right after dealing with H1N1.

Encouragement to Joyce from Lufkin, Texas,

Please do get back in the saddle!  If you can’t do the strenuous stuff because of the coughing, just do some good walks, gentle but sustained stretching (buy a yoga dvd), or whatever … establishing a routine is half the battle, deciding what you can put into it is the other half — and sometimes it just cannot be as intense as you would like.  The key is taking control of your scheduling.

A huge hug to Tess of Tacoma, Washington,

We are in this together, darn straight!  I am sorry that you were, or are, in a rough stretch.  Hopefully the healthy activities can be a sort of oasis in the midst of those tough days, when you know you are being good to yourself and your loved ones.  Your 900 partners wish you well not only in exercise, but in life.

Welcome back to Rebekah from Gilbert, Arizona,

One of our most regular contributors …. please do measure your bp each morning.  Sometimes it is useful to think of something like that, or exercise, as just another part of your job.  Not negotiable, it just is something you do.  Best of luck !!

Three cheers for David from Houston, Texas,

Congrats on the 8 pounds, that seems to be a popular number — wish I had hit that!  It is pretty striking what 3 long walks a week can do over 9 weeks, with a little “no seconds” will power at dinner.  Like so many big things in life, this one comes in little steps.  Lots of little steps, taken every week, add up in kind of amazing ways.

Lots to learn from Lori of Glen Allen, Virginia,

The Tour DaVita strikes again!  It is amazing how many teammates refer to the Tour as an event which helped to set them on a new course.  Down 3 dress sizes!  Reading about all these successes I am thinking perhaps I should not be so happy about hitting my minutes and beating my diet cokes goals, I should be tougher on myself for missing my 5 pound weight loss goal!

Salute to Diane from Tempe, Arizona

Back surgery!  ouch.  My herniated disc was bad enough for me.  I had to take up swimming laps because for months that was the only intense exercise I could do.  Stay healthy!

Greetings to Pamela from Minneapolis, Minnesota,

3.3 points down on BMI is awesome.  You earned a little Thanksgiving decadence!  Now all you have to do is root for the Green Bay Packers to beat the Vikings and I will really be in your corner.

To Maggie from Deland, Florida,

Superb job in not taking the easy way out when confronted with that buffet filled with fatty food!  That was a real test.

Find and Savor the Peace and Strength in Doing Good for your Body, and Anticipate the Sense of Well-Being to Come.

Your friend and mayor,  KT

Good Afternoon DaVitaLand !

It is late early evening, let me get a quick update out.

Yesterday started with email at 6:30, the first phone call at 7:00 am, then 15 more calls with the last call ending at 6:30 pm.   After 20 minutes of email and planning, I was off to the gym at 6:50 pm.

It was a good session, and a good MM II day overall for me.  A long bike workout while watching the Green Bay Packers on TV, so much more fun than my usual listening to voicemail.  35 minutes on the bike, 35 push-ups, 80 crunches, some good stretching, some weights.  Total of 50 minutes.  When combined with zero diet cokes and good eating, a strong day!

I was surprised this morning when my weight was 192.  This suggests that after my bad couple of weeks when I went back up to 195, that I have made some recovery.  I will have a better sense tomorrow.

Today started the same way, email at 6:30 and first call at 7:00 am.  Them live meetings and calls up until now — now is workout time, followed by an evening event where one of the people running for Governor of California will be at my house to speak to and take questions from a group of 30.  It will end early and I have committed to take a long evening walk with my spouse, so i will rack up some more healthy minutes later on.

Tomorrow will be great exercise — it is rare I am home on a Wednesday night, there is a good pick-up basketball game.  Then I will catch a plane about 10:30 pm to fly down to Los Angeles.  I need to catch that one so I get to bed by 1:00 am, so I can get up and get a little workout in before going to The Casa for work — since that is the last day and I know I am close to my minutes goal.

We are in the closing stretch —

One for All,

KT

Check out KT’s tracking sheet: http://villageweb.davita.com/go/?id=46044

or you can link to the tracking sheet by going to the right side of the Match the Mayor page under “ KT’s goal tracking sheet.”

Yo DaVita Villagers !

It is Monday.  Quick update on the rest of Sunday.  I did get a second workout in after the long flight home from the east coast.  It consisted of a strong 34 minutes of lifecycle, and 8 minutes of stretching and lifting.  I had another zero diet coke day!  And another day of reasonable eating, meaning no gain, no loss.

Happy Monday!   I will be working out tonight, as I watch the Packers on Monday Night Football — I will Tivo it so I can watch it after I finish work, so don’t send me any emails spoiling it!

Warm regards,

KT

Greetings to the Good People of DaVita !

Quick addendum.

I added a 70 minute walk in the snow yesterday (Saturday), for a strong 125 minute day (remember I did 55 minutes of other exercise in the morning).  Zero diet cokes!  Reasonable eating, but not good enough to make meaningful progress.

One of the reasons the exercise felt good is that I slept 11 hours on Friday night.  I was tired I guess.  The first hour I was tossing and turning, awake and asleep, so I don’t know if that counts as a good hour or not.  I couldn’t stop thinking about DaVita issues.

Last night was 9.5 hours of sleep, and today I feel completely rested.  I started the day with 20 solid minutes on the bike, 40 push-ups (an MM II record!), 100 crunches (I never know for sure if I am getting stronger at them or doing them in an easier way so I don’t attach as much significance to a new record on those), and 9 minutes of stretching.  33 minutes total, and now I am on a plane flying back to California from DC.  I hope to get over 400 emails done on this 5.5 hour flight.

Once I get home I am looking at working most of the rest of the day, and getting in some more healthy activity minutes.  Most of my work will be on DaVita, but some of it will be to help raise money for a Gubernatorial candidate I am supporting — I want to be a good citizen and support those that I think will lead well.  We need them!

Speak with your life, not just your words.

KT

Yo DaVitans !

It is an AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL DAY IN MARYLAND.   It is Saturday, mid-day.  Huge, light snowflakes are falling, covering the branches of every tree and the ground.  No wind.  It is like being in a Christmas movie!  We are visiting friends who moved here from Poland, something we promised to do this fall.

I last left you Wednesday afternoon in Washington DC.  After I left you the entry,  I met with Senator Conrad from North Dakota (we know him well, he came and spoke at one of our nationwide meetings, and has been to my home for dinner, he is a longtime supporter of the kidney care community) and Senator Lincoln from Arkansas (whom we also know pretty well, who also has been to my house for dinner).  Then we had a dinner with Congresswoman Carolyn Kilpatrick, who also has come to one of our nationwide meetings, and is from Detroit.  You should all feel good that these people care enough about DaVita to visit my home and speak at our meetings — because if it were not for the letters and emails you have sent over the years, if it were not for the campaign contributions you make … they would not care enough to do those things.  And doing those things is essential for them to learn how different we are from most healthcare companies.  And how special our clinical outcomes are.  And what a leading innovator we are.

No brag, just fact !!

I have a good Match the Mayor story for Wednesday.  When I got to the Casa Blanca (DaVita’s office in DC) I wanted a little boost.  So I asked one of the assistants to bring me a diet coke with my lunch.  She said “But what about the Match the Mayor Campaign!”  I told her I needed it.  She brought it in, but by that time her words had strengthened my resolve, and I took a little walk around the office for energy, and told her to take it back!  Thanks Cam !!!!  So zero diet cokes on Wednesday.

Read more…

Yo!

It is Wednesday noon.   I don’t know where I left off, so let me catch up a bit and I will fill any gaps later.

First, FUN NEWS FOR ME.  Mary Kay will attach the updated grid, but as of Sunday I was right on my goal for minutes!  a little ahead for diet cokes!  and, sadly, way behind in the weight loss category.

This is a dynamic week.  San Francisco on Monday, New York on Tuesday, Washington DC on Wednesday, Dallas on Thursday, back to DC on Friday.  Evening flights on each of the first 3 nights.  Life’s rich pageant!

I got up and did a solid workout on Monday morning, in time to get to my 8 am breakfast with a member of our Board of Directors.  20 solid minutes on the bike, only 5 additional minutes of activity so 25 total.   Then I had a meeting on ROPS (our reimbursement operations) for a few hours at Maverick (the home office for DaVita RX, they let me use their conference room regularly, quite nice of them).  Then off to the airport to fly to New York.  I got to the hotel about 10:30 pm, worked until 12:30, had some room service dinner, bed at 1:30 after some reading.

I decided to sleep until 7:30 on Tuesday instead of working out.  I attended a thought-provoking Healthcare CEO Roundtable in the morning, and a New York Stock Exchange meeting in the afternoon — where I was also one of the speakers.  I got to the airport at 5:30 pm, did 3 conference calls to help people prepare for the upcoming Board of Directors meeting, and at 7:30 or so I was on a plane to DC, landing an hour later.

I got to my hotel room about 9:15.  I worked until midnight, and treated myself to a cheeseburger room service dinner.  Not smart.  But I did get up and get a solid workout this morning, with 22 minutes on the bike, 2 sets of push-ups, 1 crunch set, and good stretching.   Total of 42 minutes.

A good meeting with Senator Nelson of Florida this morning, and a good one with the Chief of Staff for Senator Baucus from Montana.  Some other good internal sessions, and now I am back to the Capitol to see a couple more Senators, unless they get called to a vote.

Hope all is well,   KT

Check out KT’s tracking sheet: http://villageweb.davita.com/go/?id=46044

or you can link to the tracking sheet by going to the right side of the Match the Mayor page under “ KT’s goal tracking sheet.“

Greetings to the Good People of DaVitaland ….

Yo Mandi from Reidsville, North Carolina!

You have been impressive in your post-birth weight loss, I hope you have knocked off a few more towards your goal of 55 total …

Congrats to Tess from Tacoma, Washington !

Size 12 is size 12, even if it is a little tight ….

A Shout Out to Rebekah from Gilber Arizona !

Thanks for sharing that link with Kizmet and others, the one for the Couch to 5K/Coolrunning.com.  Are you still off the bp meds?

Our Support for Toni of Tucson, Arizona,

We are sorry to hear of the loss of your father.   We hope you can wrap yourself in the cocoon of hundreds of warm memories of your time with him and his life.  And we are grateful to your teammates picking up your work so you could fly and be with him.  Please take care of yourself spiritually as well as physically.  The good news is there is typically alot of overlap in what is important to both.

Hooray for Diane from Tempe, Arizona !

I have the same difficulty “taming the sweet tooth monster), but it sounds like you are doing it.  The niece’s wedding is a nice deadline ….

Top of the morning to Sharon from Boise, Idaho !

4 pounds in 2 weeks, due to a mix of exercise and diet is awesome.  I hope you have kept it off …

To the rest of the 901 partners in this Healthy LIving MM II Campaign — I wish you the best !

(someone once said “I have had a wonderful life.  I only wish I had realized it earlier”)

I realize I have one now.  Much of it due to people like you.  Darn straight.  Take care.

KT