Yo DaVita !!!

We are at 3400 teammates in living healthier lives!  That is a lot of produce!  About 375 HealthCare Partners teammates, 12 from international, over 100 friends and family.  Great stuff, please picture that many people rooting for you every single day !!!

There will be no rooting for me today, however.  I did a series of calls and then went out for a great 72 minute mountain bike ride, with some good vertical.  I also had a high fibre breakfast which equals 1 serving of fruit.  HOWEVER it all goes downhill from there.  For lunch I was starving, and feeling virtuous because of the strong workout, and so I treated myself to a Burger King Whopper (no sauce).  It was fantastic!  But the little bit of tomato would only count as half a serving.    Yikes.

I am off to the same Men’s Camp this weekend, so once again I will have a hard time scraping for vegetables at lunch and dinner, beyond a meager serving.  Next week will have to be quite a rally.

I forgot to give an update on my weight.  I was home for one morning this past week, and it was UP to 197.  I am hoping some of that was water weight, but I know I have been bad lately, especially with wine and desserts.  Yikes again.

I hope you are all well.  I am off the grid again from 5 pm Friday until Sunday mid-afternoon – so be good!

This is not a dress rehearsal.  This is your life!    kt

Quick Addendum:  The reason I stopped work early, at 5 pm, was that it was Denise’s birthday.  After my workout we went out for a nice birthday dinner!

Yo DaVita !!!

Good evening, it’s Thursday night, about 9:30 pm.

I am exhausted, so this will be short.  I am surprised I am so tired – the Board meeting started at 8, and I did about 30 minutes of email work before that.  We met until 2:30, going thru our overall enterprise strategy, and then in sequence the individual strategies for US Kidney Care, HealthCare Partners, DVA RX, and International.  We had very high quality discussions.

After the Board meeting I had meetings and conference calls, but only until 5 pm.   At that point I went out for a road bike ride.  I did my classic route, where I coast down to the valley floor (which takes about 13 minutes), then pedal the 5 miles and 2000 feet of vertical back up.  Very good workout, very efficient. But my time was unusually slow today, 55:05, a full 5 to 8 minutes slower than usual.  My legs were just dead, I guess.  Or my brain.

On the Colorful Choices front, I had one serving of fruit at breakfast.  I had 1.5 servings of vegetables at lunch.  I had 1 serving at night.

I have some bad news I have forgotten to include previously. After my two weeks on the road, I weighed myself the other day.  197 pounds, I am going the wrong way !!

Tomorrow I will persever.

All the best, KT

Good Morning Fellow Citizens, Teammates, and Others of DaVita HealthCare Partners!

I have to do a quick one, am racing off to day two of the Board meeting.

Yesterday I did email first thing, then off to a day of Board sessions.  At the summer meeting we have a tradition of doing a hike in the afternoon, which we did for 80 minutes, with some nice little vertical.  We talked business for about half of the hike, the rest was personal catching up which is healthy.

When that was over I went out on a 45 minute mountain bike ride with some substantial vertical, and so I got some very good cardio.  It started raining, with thunder and lightning, which made the last 15 minutes more exciting than I wished.

It was a terrible day for MTM however, as my team forgot to ask for extra vegetables at lunch and dinner!  So I had a serving of a low value salad at lunch, so it should probably only count as a half serving.  And dinner was a small portion of vegetables, with much of it being corn which is low nutritional value, so I would count that as a half serving.  Oh wait, the dinner salad had excellent vegetables and was large, so I would get a total of 1.5 servings at dinner.  Dessert was fruit with a small amount of some sauce on it, so that would be one serving of fruit.

It was a working dinner, that ended at 9:00 pm.  We talked mainly about HCP and International.  Also some executive succession issues.  Dennis Kogod and Javier Rodriguez were with me with the Board.  I had one final meeting for 45 minutes, with Javier and one of the Board members, and then was in bed about 11 pm.

I hope you all had a great Match the Mayor day, I have to run!  Be good! Picture the 3000 teammates, locked arm in arm!

KT

Good Morning DaVita Village!

It is kind of fun to say good morning to 3000 DVA HCP teammates in one fell swoop, and picture everyone setting out to reach their Healthy Eating goals, or exercise goals if that is what they chose.  As most of you know, I am doing both.

Tuesday was a tough day for me.  Since I only had one night at home it was a late night.  My Monday business dinner ended at about 8:30, but then I had calls with our Asia teammates until 9:45 or so.  Then I drove the 30 minute drive home, and started unpacking and packing, called my wife who is in California, did some email from over the weekend, etc.  So it was well after midnight when I went to bed.

I got up, unhappily, at 5:15 so I could get my workout in.  It was only 20 minutes on the lifecycle and 3 min of stretching, but it felt so much better than going without.  I had a 7 am appt with a chiropractor because my back was producing a lot of pain over the weekend.  It is much better now.  After the doctor appt I started my business calls at 7:40 as I drove into the office.  Per the norm I had back to back meetings all day long, covering HCP, Board of Directors prep, International strategy, etc.

At 6:30 pm Dennis Kogod and I started the drive up to the mountains for the annual Board strategy retreat.  We covered a huge number of issues during the 2 hour drive and 75 minute dinner stop, as well as doing a conference call in the middle.  At 9:30 I called my wife, and at 10 pm I sat and had a drink and discussed business stuff with 2 members of the Board until a bit after 11 pm.  Then I headed to my cabin for email and sleep.  I read some wonderful emails about some new clinical accomplishments that we can all be proud of!  Also I read some emails from teammates who were expressing deep gratitude for some of their DaVita University participation.

On the scoring side for Colorful Choices, I want one point for my high fibre cereal.  I had 2 servings of vegetable at lunch, some great zucchini combined with some spinach and something else.  I must admit to the group that prior to MTM I probably did 1.5 servings of vegetables each day in the casa, but I am asking for more during the MTM campaign!  I had one serving of strawberries at the end of lunch, which is my standard routine when in La Casa del Mundo (our headquarters in Denver).  I also had one banana in the late afternoon, when I was craving a cookie, searching for one, and my assistant forced me to eat a banana instead.  A perfect example of how teamwork helps in MTM!

At dinner I had half a vegetable serving with the entrée, but also ordered a side dish of Kale, so I racked up 1.5 servings.

I hope each of you had a great day, in general and in your Colorful Choices!

One for All!    KT

Yo Fellow Travelers on the Journey to Better Health,

We are over the 2900 mark, please grab a friend at work or home and let’s get over 3000!  The more the merrier, and the more team momentum we can establish.

I had a BIG return day.  Up early to head to the airport, I had a great meeting on the flight, followed by trying to zoom thru as many emails as I could before landing.  Then I had a series of meetings on Kidney Care US, HCP, and international.  It is always a challenge to book the international calls, the folks in Singapore are 14 hours ahead or something like that.  My business dinner was productive, then I came back to my office to do the 9 pm call to talk to the Singapore teammates.

I did voicemail on the way home, arrived at home at 10 pm, called my wife who is in California to see her mom,  and started unpacking and packing, as tomorrow I head up to the mountains for a 2 day intense Board of Directors meeting.  I have a doctor appointment at 7 am, so I will have to get up at about 5:15 to get a workout in.  Given it is after 11:30 pm right now, I wish I was going to get more sleep.

But the way in which it was a BIG day was on the MTM front.  I had one serving of fruit at breakfast, at camp.  I then had a solid 2 vegetable servings at lunch with my chicken, followed by a serving of strawberries.  For dinner I had 2.5 servings of vegetables, a mixture of asparagus, tomatoes, and I can’t remember what else – actually another half serving from the healthy salad which had veggies mixed in, and then a serving of fruit after.  So I am back to rally with each and all of you!

Now it is time to move to bed.  Long day tomorrow, as we will be working until 9 pm or so and then perhaps having a late business dinner, unless I am just too tired.

One for All & All for One – I hope you are doing well in achieving your goals!   KT

Yo DaVita HealthCare Partners!

It is Monday morning and I am back on the grid.  It was absolutely wonderful to be off the grid for Friday and the weekend.  Pretty much the only weekends I do not do some serious work are when I am on vacation (which I want all of you to take advantage of you vacation time!), or off the grid in the woods.  So it just feels amazing.

Let me quickly relay the camp info – it is a men’s camp, with lots of music, theatre and guest speakers.  There are about 1500 men there, spread across about 100 camps.  I slept in a little hut, meaning just a simple square room, with screens for the walls on all four sides, a single light bulb in the middle of the room, 4 small single beds.  We eat our meals at picnic tables.  It’s great.

But I did not have the same control over eating as normal life.  Every breakfast was 1 serving of fruit, and on Friday and Sunday I also had a second serving later in the day.  I had one vegetable at lunch, and another at dinner, but that was it.  So I have some catching up to do.

On the exercise front I did a 70 minute run/hike in the woods/hills on Friday, with 10 minutes of additional stretching and strength stuff.  On Saturday I only did a quick 35 minute run/hike, and my time up the big hill was 11:34, 56 seconds slower than the day before.  Sunday had a strong 100 minute run/hike with 10 minutes of additional healthy stuff after.  The exercise was made a little more exciting by the fact there had been several mountain lion sightings near camp, including 3 moving around together which is unusual.  I was out alone on Saturday, at that point I thought there had only been individual sightings.  On Sunday I went out with a buddy.

I am sure I did poorly on the weight front, as I ate a lot and much of it was not healthy.  So I am looking to rally, and I am looking forward to your help!

Right now I am working away on the plane, and I have meetings every minute all day as usual, followed by a business dinner.  After dinner I need to unpack and re-pack, as I head out to the second quarter Board of Directors meeting tomorrow early evening.  The summer meeting each year is focused on our overall strategy, so we do it up in the mountains to help us step back and think about the long-term, our strengths and weaknesses, the competition, government trends, etc.  Super interesting stuff.

I am eager to hear how many teammates and citizens and friends are participating, and I hope that we are banding  together to live healthier lives!!!!  This company is New, it is Ours, and it could be Special.  Darn straight.

Your Mayor, KT

Yo DaVitans!

It is late afternoon and I am flying to California for a 3 day weekend at a camp where I am off the grid.  There is a small chance I will exit the camp and get reception and be able to send something.  If not, I will talk to you on Monday.

2700!  That is how many Village citizens and friends are banding together to improve our individual and collective health.  Over 300 from HealthCare Partners.  Over 1800 from Kidney Care clinics.  Over 125 family and friends.  No pets yet.

I am off to a strong start on the produce front!  This was necessary as this camp may not be as good, the lunches and dinners typically just have one serving of a vegetable, and there is limited fruit.  But I will do my best.

I weighed myself yesterday morning, Wednesday.  193.6 pounds.  Ugh, that is ugly.  My goal is to get down to 189.  Not a huge goal, but since MTM last year I have not done well.  I can feel the difference, and it is not a good feeling.

I am still in decent shape in some respects.  About a month ago I did a 50 mile Mountain Biking race, with 5700 feet of vertical, and 60% of the race was single track.  400 others in the race.  I finished in 7 hours 4 minutes and 34 seconds.  It was a glorious day, and I did better than I had the prior 2 times I have done this race.

But on to today’s metrics.  I started the day with 26 minutes on the lifecycle (medium intensity with 3 intervals at the end), and only 5 minutes of stretching because I had to run to a phone call.  Darn.  I had a bowl of shredded wheat cereal, which I am going to count as 1 serving and 1 point, because I believe that high fiber stuff is so good for you.  MTM Referees, don’t mess with me on this one, I don’t want to give up my fiber for fruit.  For lunch I had zucchini and broccoli with my chicken, 1.5 servings.  After lunch I ate a green apple, so that is 1 serving.  And on this plane I just finished a big bowl of mixed berries, 1.5 servings.  Tonight at dinner I know I will have 1 serving of vegetable, so Referee you can add all this up for my score for the day.

I am definitely eating more produce because of Match the Mayor!  I hope  that is true for all of you as well.  Living a healthier life is a gift to our families, our communities, and ourselves.  Let’s Do It!  Carpe Diem!  (Latin for “seize the day!)

I am going to try to respond to some of the messages, so ciao!   All the best, kt

Yo DaVita !!!

What a great day I had!

1. Town hall with 48 teammates from around the country, all preceptors.  Great questions.
2. Academy #147, over 400 teammates from around the globe, including 42 from HCP.
3. Lots of good meetings and calls, booked one after another like virtually all days, keeps me on my toes
4. AND a heckuva MTM kind of day, with a banana mid am, then 2.5 servings of vegetables at lunch (asparagus, broccolini, corn and peppers), and 1.0 serving of fruit.  For dinner another 2.5 servings of vegetables with my chicken, broccoli and zucchini that hit the spot.

It is good that I have scored heavily the last couple of days because I am flying to California tomorrow evening (Thursday), taking Friday off, and am staying the long weekend at a camp where it will not be easy to score as well.  For things like my lunch today I pulled rank and asked the cook at our Casa cafeteria to give me extra vegetables.  I won’t be able to do that at camp.

Hopefully you can feel the collective force of over 2000 Village citizens rooting for you to achieve your goals!

I am especially glad it was a good day because given how late I landed in Denver last night, I did not get to bed until 1:30 am body time (since I had spent the last 2 days on the east coast), which was 11:30 pm Denver time.  I had to get up at 5:30 to get my workout in.  26 minutes of lifecycle, 8 minutes of stretching and balance, and about 4 for strength.  Total of 38 minutes.  Felt good!

I worked until 7 pm, then visited my mom at her long-term care facility.  Now I am doing some emails, but as it is almost 11 pm denver time, it is bed-time.

All the best folks!!!!!!!!!!!   kt

Greetings to the good people of DaVita HealthCare Partners!

Welcome to the 1875 teammates who signed up for MTM on the first day!  Please take a moment and picture all of us in an arena, cheering each other on as we slam some produce!  Now that is quite an image ….

It is 11:45 pm (Tues. PM) and I am about to land in Denver.  It has been a long day as I only got 5.5 hours of sleep last night, so I am wearing down a bit.  I started the day with 28 minutes on the lifecycle in the hotel gym, and 15 minutes of stretching and rehab.  That gave me a good energy boost.

No time for breakfast as I had to zoom for a meeting with a company we are thinking of doing business with.  That meeting went all the way thru a working lunch, at which point I traveled over to our own Washington DC office and had a couple meetings and a conference call.   Then we zoomed over to the capitol for 3 meetings with members of Congress – first Senator Bennet of Colorado, then Representative Cummings from Maryland, then Senator Warner of Virginia.  I have to tell you it is so cool to be able to talk about your clinical accomplishments!  All 3 of these members of Congress are reasonably familiar with us, and have been supportive on some of our policy issues in the past.

Then I headed to the airport, doing a couple calls and voicemail the whole way.  Once on the plane I started working on the presentations for next week’s Board of Director’s meeting, with one of our VP’s.  We toiled away for 3 hours and 15 minutes, at which point I said I have to do my MTM entry before we land!

As to my day, I was worried when they did not have any real good vegetables or fruit at the company hosting our morning meeting.  Horrors, I did not want to start Match the Mayor in the hole.  I was able to take a bunch of tomatoes from the salad and sandwiches, eking out a .5 serving.  Fortunately our team on the G-Force (our policy advocacy team) saved me, because when I got to the Casa Blanca (which is what we call our DC office) they had fruit and veggies they saved from their lunch.  I wolfed down a big banana, a bunch of strawberries, and some corn, for a sweet 3 servings and the happiness of re-establishing MTM momentum.

On the plane I had a double order of vegetables, and then a bowl of fruit that I had brought.  So this means I rallied and ended up with 6.5 servings and 11.5 Colorful Choices points.

Fellow citizens of our Village, remember “There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude.  A quiet joy.”  Well I am grateful I get to work on living a healthier life with the 1875 of you !!!

One for All …. kt