Reload...

Today was Wednesday, the day I weigh myself. I started the training and weigh in last week. I was 189.2 lbs. I've eaten relatively healthy for a week, calories around 2600 per day and I felt skinner, I was really excited to see how much I lost. Turns out I didn't lose, I gained 0.6 lbs. Damn!!!

Before I stepped on the scale I prepared myself for any bad news and decided I'll just make adjustments if it's not going in the right direct. Well, adjustments need to be made. Earlier in the week I was talking to Coach Gord and he was saying I eat to many carbs and my body is overly efficient at storing them as fat, he suggested more protein and to get more of my carbs from fruit and vegetables. I guess I should start to listen now.

Today I had a scheduled phone call with a Kerry from Physio-Med. They are a chiropractor, physio, massage, acupuncture, diet, orthopedics, etc, its' a complete wellness center. It's a franchise. I spoke 90 minutes to him, he was very helpful and not pushy. My first question was how much you could make. He said the typical sized one does about $1 million in sales and makes $250,000. That passed test one.

Second question was that I'm not a Chiropractor and if I hire them won't most leave and go on their own and take the clients with them? Or the ones that are hired and want to work for someone not that good? Or if they are younger and it is there first job before they go on their own wouldn't that be a problem with the clients? He has some answers, understood and talked about some options. I didn't pursue it too hard at this point at least until I go down the path further with him.

It turns out that the Medical Fitness centre that I saw last week is one of their Franchises that opened the facility under that name. It was interesting because when Kerry was describing the opportunity and their holistic approach it sounded very familiar to what the guys at Medical Fitness Centres are doing. Actually I was impressed with everything Kerry was telling me, it really seems like this franchise has their shit together.

They are Ontario based and have 40 locations. Many of them are existing Chiropractors that were on their own and have then changed their clinics to Physio Meds and have taken advantage of the offerings. Physio Med has all the admin and software to schedule, they have software that is called "rounds" that all the patients information is entered and all the people within the clinic that work with that person have access to it and can communicate to each other what has been done. They have systems that keep track of the patients health care benefits and help them maximize the use of them. They have a loan department that will provide promissory notes to patients to bridge the time from when they have to pay until the insurance company reimburses. They have a collections department. They have a telemarketing department that calls existing patients or past patients to get them into the clinic for more services. They have a corporate marketing presentation team that goes to large corporations to provide special offers / deals for their employees for your area. They have a legal doctor referral program where a doctor gets paid not for the referral, but they get $250 per hour to write the paper work to refer. They have beautiful, high end looking clinics. They have a full team of real estate experts and guys that would help find a chiropractor to partner with or buy out and convert to a physio med. You could start from scratch, it's just more expensive and the break even takes about 18 - 24 months. The last thing I liked is that they have a deal to put these clinics inside of Walmarts. Apparently Walmart wants them in each of their stores across Canada. They have already started putting doctors offices in the stores and beside them would be physio-chiropractic. He said the plan is to have a small one inside a Walmart for minor procedures and then a large facility right near by for everything else. The area I live in he is aware of and thinks may be ideal. The one thing they want to make sure of is that their is a lot of doctors offices in the area for referrals.

They only have one other Physio Med in Burlington at the other side of the City inside a Premier fitness centre. They protect territories of 50,000 people. Burlington is 175,000 people. I like that owning one would suit my lifestyle, I wouldn't have to be there at strict times, I'm just the managment / owner and according to my brother the Canadian Governement has a program that would guarantee to the bank a loan that could cover the leaseholds. It's not a lot of money upfront AND it suits my fitness focus and I could expand it into other areas.

Needless to say, I was impressed and being strictly a business person and running it is not a problem according to them. They say their largest facility does about $3 million in sales. The cost is $40,000 for the fee and leaseholds that could run between $60,000 - $300,000 plus whatever working capital you need. I started the conversation not thinking it was going to go anywhere and got off the phone very interested. Interested enough to drive to Walmart in Waterdown, about 50 minutes away to see the in-house doctors office. I though there was going to be a physio office there, unless it was inside the doctors office.

Along the way I killed time talking to my brother, over 3 hours to be exact. He's looking for his next venture and we were talking ideas. I don't like his garage door idea. Too much money and no return. Some how we got on the topic of hair salons and I remember the guy, a partner of AG, Ari, the guy I negotiated parts of the AG sales owns a bunch of franchises called melonhead. It's strictly a hair cutting place for kids only, with all kinds of games and kids stuff to keep them occupied. I remember Ari telling me it's a cash machine, he does great with it. I also remembered another kids place around the corner from us called Sharkeys Cuts for Kids. I gave the info to my brother and he started to look into it. The Sharkey one looks superior and they are out of the states and have none in Winnipeg and have just started rolling out in Ontario. I walked into one today to get a flavour and it is very cool, more geared for young girls. It has TV's in front of the chairs and kids themed chairs and a party room in the back for birthday parties and a styling room like a Hollywood movie set and haircuts are $20 each and the girls get a manicure with it and the boys a tattoo. They have PS2's and all sorts of crap. The fees to get in with leaseholds are between $80,000 - $110,000. My brother called the guy in Woodbridge and he said his shop was crazy busy. I much more like the idea of a hair shop for kids for my brother than any other idea. Getting people to cut hair is easy and most of the women who cut the hair at the kids shops are mom's or older mom's that work part time or just love kids. My brother was joking, not a bad idea, of having a mobile kids haircutting service that goes to daycares.

I also took my bike back to the shop today. I had them take off all the ultegra stuff and put back my dura ace stuff and give me a dura ace rear cassette at 12 x 27. They were good about it they didn't charge me a restocking fee and it cost me $330 for the cassette and installation. Actually, we did a swap with what I paid and I paid for the cassette plus a tune up and new cables and new handlebar wraps. I think I'll come out a head. I did mention the pricing seemed a little high, they got their back up, I backed down. They have been good to me getting things back ASAP. Moving forward I may start buying my own stuff and have John Proc's mechanic buddy in Hamilton do the work. I need to figure out ways to make this sport cheaper. I won't lie, it feels good knowing I have dura ace back on the bike.

Needless to say I didn't work much today and I had lots to do. I need to do a pricing proposal for a client and I have a power point presentation I needed for the Chicago graph expo show on Monday morning. Instead I drove around and got manic talking about franchises with my brother. I also had a terrible day of eating, the worst. It started with a grilled chicken sandwich at Wendy's and then I stopped at three different McDonald's and had an aero Mcflurry and then Reid had some McDonald's and I asked Alice to pick me up an Aero Mcflurry. That's 4 McFlurries in about 3 hours. I also ate liquorice, taco chips and potato chips. The upside is I didn't add calories by eating any dinner.

Part of the eating was depression from seeing my weight not move down after a week, part of it is the seasons, every year this time I get cravings for carbohydrates, it's part of being bipolar according to health care professionals and part of it was being manic over the franchise deal and maybe another part of it is the weather, it's sucked over the last few days. Cool and raining. With my bike in the shop I didn't do my bike session tonight and even if it wasn't I wasn't prepared to ride in the cold. I'm not worried, I have lots of time and missing a 90 minute session is no big deal. I'm also riding tomorrow and doing a 100 mile ride in the finger lakes with Alan Adcock and buddies on Saturday.

On the Poochie side I really like what he's doing. He's made more progress in the last 3 days than I did for the last 6 months. He's on it. It's nice to have a guy who is intelligent and focused on doing 4 hours of work a day and supervisors standing over him. All day I was getting email questions or cc'd on emails he was sending the programmer. Every night before I leave work he sends me an email of what was accomplished today. It also feels good giving a guy in a third world country a job and knowing he's taking it seriously.

Tonight I passed out in front of the TV and had dreams. I slept until near midnight on the couch. I was going to go upstairs to bed but was too tired and I had a dream I needed to complete. It was about my house and a second of it about 8 feet wide by 8 feet tall had the bricks missing and I could see into the house. I used this as a metaphor that me personally had some holes in my plan or resolve and needed to fix the bricks and make the house whole again. I've never done brick laying but this is a dream I just pretended I could and did what I've seen other brick layers do. It worked and the bricks were replaced it looked good and I figured tomorrow is a new day. My resolve is back. I'm also almost in a competition with Reid for $100 to see who can eat the healthiest the longest. He's trying to get in shape and has tightened his belt by three loops. He weighed himself today and he was 213.5 lbs and 40% body fat according to my scale.

His buddies went out for the football team at his new high school and suggested he should. He played football and knows the amount of commitment and practice and he also knows that this is high school and he needs to do well academically to get to community college. He said he was going to wait a year and see how much the school work is taking up his time and focus on that first. He knows if he has to do school work and practice for football he'll have no personal time. That's where he takes after Alice in that he doesn't over extend himself. Me, I'd try and do it all.

This was Reid's first day going to high school and I took a picture of him. I remember having a picture taken of me on my first day of high school, I was a year younger than him. I also included a picture with my bluish suit at his age. We both had uniforms, mine more formal, I had to wear a suit and tie to the Jesuit High School I went to, he just has to wear a polo shirt and black pants. Tonight he was tired and when he saw me eating junk he joined me, he ended up going to bed at 9:30 pm.

No Training
189.8 lbs
4818 calories