Jorg’s Brain Log

Last night I was testing out another social networking website called Netlog. More on Netlog later, because I had some inspiration while filling in my profile over there which would also stand pretty okay to publish on my own blog. When being asked to write something about myself, I thought it was better to describe the (one of…) perfect day for me. As I wrote it in Dutch, below is the translated version.

Get up early to do something sportive. For example a day filled with snowboarding at snow world. And of course not like 4 hours of apres ski and 4 hours on the board! No, just 8 hours on the board raging over the course. Or for example a day of diving in Zealand. As long as it is challenging, sportive and giving me an adrenaline boost.

At the beginning of the evening we go to the sushi place to be, and we enjoy the food and talk about what we have done and what we are going to do. After that we go sit outside at some cafe and enjoy the people walking by and let the food set in.

After midnight it’s time to go crazy is some club and stay there until the early hours around 5-6 in the morning. And what happens after that all depends on the whole day that has gone by already.

Any other people out there who are somewhat like minded in my perfect day?

Damn, another 3 months have passed without even one single post from me. So many things have happened in all parts of my life that it would take some serious writing to catch up again. But instead of bringing up the old again it’s time to look at the future. There are some interesting projects coming up including some nice challenges.

Let’s start with a good new years resolution by saying that I’ll write here again at least 2 times a week! Not that I’m writing for other people but just for myself. So that after 1 year I can look back and see what I’ve done.

I read back my old posts and it was funny and nice to read some things back I almost forgot about because of the very busy and intense last 3 months. So it made me wonder that I should change what I’m writing about a little bit. I’ve decided to write some more about myself and the personal stuff I do and encounter but also stuff I just find interesting to write about like for example movies, books, locations, etc. So we will see how this will go in the next weeks.

Anyway, I hope everybody had a great Christmas with their family and friends and I wish everybody a very good and happy new year’s party! In the picture attached you see our Christmas and new years card we made for our friends and family. As you can see my daughter Indy and son Rody had some good time in their Christmas outfit.

Wow, this year really flies by! It’s just amazing. I need to make a promise with myself that I make at least one post in my blog every week. I just read some stuff back from the beginning when I started this blog and it’s fun and nice to see which goals I already achieved and especially which ones I totally forgot! So from now on some more structural writing over here, because it’s already been 6 weeks since the last entry.

I’ve made a new website for my wife (and myself) were she, and all her friends, and their friends, etc, etc.. can chat and post about all things related to their kids. The website just began and is running production now for around 9 days or so and we already have almost 5000 posts and 130 members. So it’s going pretty well over there. I promised everybody to give a party if we reach 1000 members. Yes, that’s dangerous I know, but also fun… It’s nice to hear the words of these ladies that they finally found a place were they feel at home to discuss stuff about their children.

I’m also very pleased to mention that I finally found my dream gym were I finally can do my thing. Really hardcore, lots of weights, and dumbells to 70 kilograms! Finally some stuff to play with and nobody that will complain because I move to much weight and I could damage the floor. It’s was especially motivating to see some other guys lifting some heavy weights. I just finished my 4th week of getting back to a full schedule and this Monday I start with a regular training schedule of 4 times a week full body workout, very intense hard work. Did I mention intense? Very curious how much I can come to my former strength level.

The Shark company is coming along well. Due to some private happenings in the last 3 months I had to slow things down, but I’m glad that now I can go full throttle again. Many things in the pipeline and some very interesting things to come ahead, definitely already in this year.

Oh yeah, I setup an interesting test project, something everybody is probably interested about. I’m going to show the world real results from a real test soon! What’s it about I’ll tell you later, but it will definitely be fun!

So from now on some more updates! I promise you and especially myself!

Wow, already two months since my last post. Time flies when you’re busy. It’s almost christmas again! So many things to write about, and so little time. Okay, again a new promise to myself to write at least once a week at this blog. Personal stuff, things that I find interesting, etc. So what to start with? I’m just back from a vacation with my 5 year old son and we had so much fun! It gave me again lots of energy to go forward. So soon some more writings from me about some stuff, who knows what.

By the way, it’s not that I didn’t do anything in the last two months! If you take a look at Shark Freeediving, my freediving weblog about everything related to freediving, you’ll probably find some interesting posts. The same with Sharkbait. We did a lot of training and are making big progress exactly as planned. So also a lot to mention on that weblog. Furthermore there are almost some other projects finished which we soon can show to the outside world. Some pretty nice things coming up. Back to work now…

Oh yeah… Let’s include the inspirational picture of today!

Wow, time flies when you’re having fun! Or should I say, when you’re busy… Last week was such a busy week at work, that I barely had time to do something else then work. This weekend our cat got a big problem with his bladder so he had to be taken to the vet immediatly and I only just picked the poor basterd up from his cage. Anyway, we’re glad he’s home again.

Workplace here is still okay! Woohaa! No more headaches since 1,5 week! Incredibly. Really enjoying going to work again. Productivity is high and mood is good.

Yesterday I put on my inlineskates I bought like 8 years ago and used them only once. My son on the bicycle and me behind him, for over an hour! When we came back I didn’t feel my feet anymore, but I told myself it was a good thing… so it doesn’t matter. Oh and I didn’t fall once! Just like the old days, only difference is now that I’m almost 40 kg more heavier. But still no problems with jumps, spins and grinds… and that for the first time! It’s fun to do, and also a good workout, so when the sun shines I’m going for some rounds again.

My own business is looking good. After some long months of preparation, brainstorming, discussion, etc, I’ve now finished the whole idea behind it and what we’re going to focus on. Basically you can divide Shark.nu in two; the sport side and the IT side. We’re working heavily on the Shark-IT website which will show a whole new concept of IT management. I’m pretty proud of the idea and so are some other companies who already bought some licenses for the ‘new plan’. More on this later, for now it’s still top secret. hehe.

The sport side of Shark.nu is also looking good. I’m especially proud about the performances of my Team Sharkbait members. Seems that the hard winter training really worked out okay so we have started Phase 2 of the plan. This plan ends end of the summer… I probably tell something more about the plan in the future, but for now we keep the results and news of this new training style to ourselves.

Time to go. The sun is shining so the weather is good. These days give me so much energy, it’s just amazing!

Finally feeling better. I was sick for a week and now finally I’m on the better hand. My stomach was turned around several times in the last week to get the sickness out. It’s unbelievable how non-productive you can be when you’re feeling miserable. Even thinking and some braincracking doesn’t work! So what have I done in the last week:

1. Sleeping, a lot!
2. Watching TV series and movies (I still have a collection of around 600 gigabytes to watch)
3. Sitting on the toilet, again a lot!
4. When I didn’t have a headache a little bit of reading in very light material, think comic books. It’s fun to read comics, I forgot a little about it. I still have a large collection of donald ducks but also the complete collection of Don Lawrence, the maker of storm and more.

And that’s about it… So I’m glad to of yesterday I’m feeling somewhat better so at least I could go outside again and DO SOMETHING. I still find it amazing that some people are throwing away their lives by going to work everyday, coming home to eat, watch a lot of sitcoms, and go to bed… Everybody their own choice, but not mine! Back to work!

When I was 18 years old, just before starting with serious weightlifting, my weight was 80 kilos. When I turned 19 it had gone up to 90 kilos. The year after that I added another 10 kilos and reached the 100 kilos. At my 21st birthday I touched the scale at 110 kilos. And again the year after that at 22 I reached 120 kilos. Somewhere halfway at 23 I reached my heaviest weight ever with 128 kilos. Normally you would think that would be one big pile of fat carrying with me all the time. But this weight was all the result of a very strict diet and powerlifting/bodybuilding scheme. Unfortunatly I was not below the magic 10% fat line but I was at an healty 15% so that meant that of the 128 kilos I ‘only’ carried around 19 kilos of fat, which gave me a fat free bodymass of 109 kilos which is a lot. But hey! I come from a big family. And before someone comments on this: No I was not using some kind of m&m’s or other strange pills! Just hard work, dedication, a lot of sweat, pain and puke!

So, here I am, 6 years later. Things have changed. Sportive time was more invested in organisational things and coaching then using it for myself. Research, writing, testing, producing costs a lot of energy. It has been interesting, but it’s time to use it on myself again. So what are the numbers? At the moment I weigh 125 kilos. Well great, you would say. Not so, because things have changed dramatically. It’s not the kilos that count it’s the fat free mass that counts. Fat percentage is around 25%, way too much for a guy like me. Max number for this should be at 15%. So what should be done?

First of all, at the moment I’m carrying around a big pile of fat with a weight of 31 kilos! Imaging that! 31 kilos! Not so difficult to motivate myself to get rid of a lot of those kilos! That means that my current fat free mass (FFM) is 94 kilo. Which is still great but I’ve lost 15 kilos of muscle mass! Which is quite a lot if you consider. Fortunate for me, that’s not a big deal, I’m not a bodybuilder. So if I want to go back to 15% I have to reduce the 31 kilos to 18 kilos. Which means that I will go to a more healthy and easy (94+18=) 112 kilos. Well that sounds pretty good. While dieting I will sure lose some more muscle mass, so I will put it to a round number: 110 kilos as a first goal. That sounds about right.

So how will I reach this? I will get in detail later but to be very short: cardiovasculair work, weightworkouts, stretching, diet (not in the normal sense of its word; athlete diet!)

It’s good to set goals!

Part of my 1200 day program to the ultimate goal is finding out what exactly is important for me. As I’ve done a lot of self exploration in the last year some things are pretty clear to me.
I know for a fact that:
- I love sports! Practicing that is, not watching! Think weights, water, freediving, cardio, athletics, cycling, running, etc, etc
- I love technology! This is very broad, but think of internet, software, gadgets, computer hardware, electronis in general.
- I’m very interested in humans in general, social stuff, physical stuff, everything that has to do with that.
- Family is the most important thing in the world! Especially my wife and two kids. I plan to have at least 1,5-2 hours each day during dinner time with them and one day in the weekend.
- Traveling is very important to me! I want to see the world, not only the land, but especially underwater!

So how can I combine all these things? Currently I’m earning my money as an IT specialist (microsoft, networking, solutions). I work 4 days a week for a good company to pay the bills, the rest of the days I work freelance (manage, design) for my own company. So one part of my company is looking into one of my interests: IT. The other part of my company is into sports; coaching people that is! So that is humans and sports together. Hmmm seems that I’m doing a pretty good job already ;-) The problem is that 80% of time I’m doing IT and only 20% of the time the other stuff. So I want this to change… And at the end of my 1200 day program I will be my own boss. But I think you already guessed that after reading my other post. So how am I going to do this? I got some pretty good ideas, I’ll write them down later.

Okay, something has to change about the lack of energy. The picture attached clearly shows my current state. Like I mentioned, my workplace sucks and I still don’t go out for a quick walk too much, maybe it has to do with the snow that was falling today… It’s spring for gods sake! Weather in the Netherlands… Anyway, at work in the afternoon still feeling very energy depleted. And at night feeling awake. Hopefully the physical training I started yesterday will change some of this energy problem. 2 days in a row I did some serious training. Yesterday legs (ouch!) and today delts. Feels good again to do some serious business in the gym. As always everybody leaves me alone, because when I’m training, I’m training… My training sessions with the weights are only around 30-35 minutes of very VERY intense workout, almost puking in the end. But hey, that’s what I love about the weights. New factor in all of this is that I jog to the place. It’s around 10 minutes easy jogging to go there instead of 5 minutes by bike. So that doesn’t matter and it’s better for warmingup and cooling down. Only factor I have to include with this in a week or two is the stretching program.
In a month or so I also change my food/fluid intake, and start again with some supplementation like multi vitamins and minerals. But that’s something for later.

Wow, what a good weekend! Like a told you in the post about freediving we had a very special training on friday evening. Well, not wanting to reveal to much, we had an excellent evening! Soon, I will unleash the team. ;-)
Saterday was a very productive day for me. I’ve got a nice office at my place but it’s a big big mess, and because I’m very fast distracted I needed to clean it up and throw things away I don’t use anymore. I think I threw away half of all the stuff in my office! So that’s a good start. Next is ordening the place and making it an productive environment. Put some motivational quotes and posters on the wall, getting a fridge over there so that I don’t have to walk every time through the house to get a cold drink or something else, etc. Anyway, the project isn’t finished yet, but when I’m done, I’m sure I will post some pictures of it.
Sunday was very relaxing, during day time spending time with my son, daughter and wife. Family time is important for me. As I’m very busy with (too?) many projects I find the time that I spend with my family very valiable, and as soon as I have time, I want to spend it with them outdoors, just going places.
The evening we went to Heemstede, somewhere near Amsterdam, for a freediving competition. I would coach my 2 athletes and be a last minute judge also over there. Unfortunatly one of them, Notis, had a too busy week and was feeling weak, but at least he showed up to support Sanne. It’s funny to see how most freedivers need so many time and warming ups to perform well. One of the basic rules I use is that a freediver can perform anytime within a small range from his peak with minimum warmup time. And so was the case for Sanne as well. 30 seconds before his start he stepped in the water with his bi-fins and swam an excellent and especially important, easy 109 meters. Very clear, more to come! The big performance that evening came from Peter Wurschy with a 146 meter distance with his monofin, which is a new dutch national record. It’s good to see where Peter comes from, after I first introduced Peter to freediving during a course I gave beginning 2004 untill now, where we can see he belongs to the best freedivers in the world.