I was obese, and I had just turned 40.
It took me 40 years to reach 233 lbs.! At 6 feet tall, that weight put my body mass index (BMI) at 30.2—classified as Class 1 obesity, according to the Cleveland Clinic. While there are exceptions for those with a high percentage of muscle, trust me, that wasn’t my case. I wasn’t muscular at all, and I was well on my way to Class 2 obesity and the more serious health risks that come with it.
How did that happen? To be honest, I didn’t ever care about my weight, so I didn’t prioritize it. I guess my weight gain was such a gradual thing that I didn’t really notice, and neither did my wife and partner for over 20 years. I hid it well with XL shirts and what I like to call charisma. I guess we don’t see things that are progressing minimally. Our brains aren’t programmed to notice those things. And no one told me—I get it that would be offensive to tell me I was fat, but in retrospect, I hid it well and looked like a lot of other 40-year-old men I knew.
Adding to this: I was not what you would call ‘active’. I never took walks. I never ran. Though, in my late 30’s I did start playing hockey in a men’s D league, and I was only sick once due to exhaustion. Even this bit of exercise didn’t help much as there was always lots of food and drink in the locker room after the games to replace whatever calories I had burned on the ice. In fact, I think I actually gained weight while playing ‘beer league’ hockey.
I remember telling people that “I’m allergic to fitness; my brain burns my calories”. Plus, I worked a lot so that kept me fit—or so I thought. Over time, many people told me my metabolism would slow, and boy, did it. That’s when my fatness started. I gradually got heavier and heavier until I hit my maximum weight.
This was in 2020 just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and I had gone in for a general health checkup. My doctor's office called me afterwards to tell me I was obese and that my blood work also was out of whack. Passing along a message from my doctor, they told me that for my health’s sake and for my insurance’s sake—at the time my insurance gave a healthy living discount off the monthly premiums which I no longer qualified for—I needed to seriously work on improving my health. He also added that I should want to be in good health. That hit me hard. I had to make some changes and lose weight. So, that’s what I did.
I Put in the Work, Monitored All the Metrics, & Saw Results
OK, no more excuses because in many ways, my life depended on it. Far too many people my age, facing similar health crises, don’t take action until serious health problems arise. I didn’t want to be one of those statistics. Plus, I was fortunate to have the time to act, as the pandemic was in full swing, and my commitments outside of work had disappeared.
The hospital assigned me a coach, which was great. She helped me see the world differently. My wife, an avid fitness enthusiast, was also a huge help. I bought a smartwatch that measures many metrics like distance, heart rate, exertion, calories burned, recovery time, etc. and a fancy smart scale that logged my weight to an app. With these cool gadgets and technology, I started tracking everything and reviewing my progress daily against simple goals—200 minutes of activity per week, 10,000 steps a day, and a 2,000-calorie intake.
I went all in, and even though my body felt broken every evening, I was determined to shed my Class 1 obese status. After a couple of months, I decided that I should expand beyond walking and try running, so I bought my first pair of running shoes since high school.
I set out to run daily. My first goal was to work on my stamina, starting slowly. I did this by alternating between running and walking between lamp posts. And I built from there. Eventually, I got stronger, so I could run longer. I quickly realized that running daily wasn't feasible, as my knees couldn't handle the strain. I backed off to 3 days per week, continuing to walk on the off days—which worked out much better. It took 92 days to run 5 kilometers all the way through, and at that point, it took me 40 minutes and 6 seconds to cover the distance. (I’ve still got the data, so I looked that up.)
I felt much better and saw improvement/progress. And the weight came off. Although I rather quickly shed the required weight to drop the Class 1 obese status, I kept going. I dropped 45 lbs. and 6 inches off my waistline in just over 5 months through a combination of activity, diet change, dedication, AND measurement. Above all, measurement was key to my success and continues to motivate me to live a healthier lifestyle still to this day.
March 2025 Marks My Five-Year 'Healthy' Renaissance Anniversary
Five years later, my focus remains not just on health but also on measurement. I've maintained my weight and even ran a 9K at a fundraiser in Boston this past summer—finishing in 52 minutes and raising money for a great cause.
I continue to run three times a week, completing 5 kilometers in about 26 minutes, followed by a walk to cool down. I measure everything and have recently taken a focus on my sleep and my resting heart rate as it is indicative of fitness, stress, and good intake.
Heck, I don’t consider my week complete until I’ve run my three 5k’s. Some weeks I have to go to the gym on Sunday night at 7pm to get my run in (my watch reminds me when I haven’t hit my goal). And that’s okay; it’s just part of who I am now. I am also still making healthy food choices and even started lifting weights. Measurement keeps me in my routine and keeps me accountable.
So, why this story? And how does it relate to GENESIS version 11? I’ll tell you.
Unlimited Process Historian: A Bold Move in GENESIS Version 11 for Unmatched Process & Machine Measurement
ICONICS made a bold move by embedding an unlimited process historian into every edition of GENESIS version 11—a decision all about enabling customer projects to be more data-centric. Our mantra is to be the most data-centric system on the market.
Over the last thirty-plus years, ICONICS and other competing companies in the market have offered varying levels of data logging options. Most products include some type of light built-in capabilities to store process data, usually in a relational database like Microsoft SQL Server or CSV files. Some have paid add-ons to enhance data logging that used more SQL functions, while others provide full-on process historians that are huge additions with respect to cost and functionality —either developed in-house or white-labelled from third-party partners. Customers can add these historians to their projects for an additional license fee that usually dwarfs the investment in the base platform.
Now, it’s time for ICONICS to rewrite the playbook for process historians. It’s time to be bold with our software, so our customers can deploy more intelligent data-centric solutions with the full unlimited power of an industrial grade historian—no matter what edition of GENESIS version 11 they choose.
Why Choose a Process Historian Over SQL?
This is a long-standing question and could be a blog in and of itself, but I’ll throw down 3 key reasons. Historians are:
- Highly optimized for high-speed and/or low speed data collection.
- Easily configurable for high availability and redundancy and can be activated later if your project needs change as your system grows.
- Specifically designed for industrial use cases, including store-and-forward, local drivers, multi-layer networks, and more.
If you’ve ever tried to accomplish the above in a SQL data logging application, you know what I’m talking about. Simply put, process historians outperform SQL in performance, architectural flexibility, and reliability.
Over the last three decades, industrial demand for historian type functions has driven the growth of a large OT historian market, to the tune of about 10 major players with a combined revenue exceeding $1 billion. The historian market also had some spillover into the mass cloud market through the rise of many time-series database companies and open-source options that focus on tackling other use cases.
Recognizing an opportunity for growth and innovation, ICONICS entered the market in the early 2010s with a new product offering called Hyper Historian, which has since secured numerous projects against industry leaders and built up a large customer base. Today, Hyper Historian is deployed worldwide, with some of the largest-scale customers leveraging its powerful data platform capabilities. It’s an outstanding product in its own right.
Breaking Barriers: Unlimited Historical Data Collection Without the Cost
Through the years, GENESIS projects have increasingly required more extensive data collection. With Hyper Historian in our portfolio, we introduced a scaled-down feature set as an option in GENESIS64 version 10—Hyper Historian Express. It offered basic process historian capabilities, was limited by tags, and was typically purchased for specific tasks requiring only those capabilities within the project. This paid option was designed for smaller-scale customers, while medium-to-large-scale customers usually upgraded to a full Hyper Historian or deployed a separate Hyper Historian system running in parallel within their architecture.
This option introduced many challenges, primarily the need to select only the crucial data items in a system for historization due to budget constraints. These were critical project barriers to being more data-driven that affected not only our customers but also the industry as a whole. Removing these barriers enables more collection, calculation, analysis, and other historian-based capabilities in projects. I compare this type of selective adoption to working out with a smartwatch that only captures just one data point while other times, the smartwatch collects all significant data points. Without complete data, you can’t see the full picture or make meaningful improvements.
To be frank, process historians have traditionally been expensive add-ons to standard OT platforms. As a result, adoption was largely limited to Fortune 1000 companies, while the broader SCADA market continued to rely on SQL Server for smaller, less funded customers. SQL Server’s Express edition—though lacking redundancy and limited to 10GB of storage—was free thus making it a budget-friendly choice for the cost-conscious OT space. While it wasn’t ideal for large-scale needs, it was often considered ‘good enough’ for many applications.
This limitation meant that OT projects weren’t collecting as much data as they could have been—just like how I wasn’t tracking my weight, waist size, or anything else as I gradually gained weight over 40 years. Had I been measuring things, maybe I wouldn’t have missed the weight gain! But once my doctor gave me a wake-up call, tracking my health metrics became essential to my weight loss journey. Measurement changed everything for me.
Imagine if data selections were based purely on functional needs, allowing engineers to spend less time determining the exact functions of the historized data—deciding between included components or required add-ons—and more time engineering impactful solutions. ICONICS recognizes that customer needs have evolved to be more data-centric. To meet this demand, we must enable seamless and scalable measurement of all data coming into GENESIS. And that’s exactly what we did.
GENESIS Version 11 Gives You the Power of Unlimited Measurement, Unlimited Insights, and Unlimited Possibilities
ICONICS took a bold step by integrating its industrial-strength historian, Hyper Historian, directly into GENESIS—full blown with all features - and we made it unlimited.
By including an unlimited data historian in GENESIS, the previously discussed limitations are gone. Now, you can collect and measure all data—operational metrics, equipment performance, energy usage, environmental conditions, and more. You can therefore see the full operational picture, uncover insights, and optimize like never before.
It took guts and perseverance for me to change my perspective, slim down, and regain control of my health. But I could only do it with data—the historical perspective kept me motivated and helped me correct course when I strayed from my plan. Measuring the data revealed insights I had never noticed before.
Now, every GENESIS version 11 project can have that same level of insight.
Imagine running hundreds of calculations on historized data from your processes, buildings, or machines—instantly and seamlessly. In GENESIS version 11, that’s no problem. With over 250 historian calculations, expressions, functions, and performance calculations built in, you can do all of that without scripting or developing custom stored procedures—right out of the box. And you can extend it with customizations if you need to.
Also, imagine seamlessly storing and forwarding data from remote collectors into a GENESIS system—effortlessly and in real time. With GENESIS version 11, that’s built in and ready to go. Think of the unlimited measurement you can now do in GENESIS version 11 as the smartwatch for your process—continuously collecting data to give you deeper insights into your processes, machines, buildings, and even other software systems. More importantly, this data empowers you to:
- Design and deploy advanced analysis to enable more precise process control.
- Leverage GENESIS to help your team make more informed decisions.
I started measuring my health and fitness metrics, and for the past five years, I’ve done it every single day. I’m still tracking my data and using it to stay trim and healthy. After all, data drove and still drives my results. Now, with GENESIS version 11, you have that same power—unlimited measurement, unlimited insights, unlimited possibilities.
Real-Time & Historical Insights to Achieve Continuous Improvement
Across all our projects, we observe a clear trend: customers who leverage extensive historian-based data collection achieve better outcomes. Combining real-time and historical data is crucial, as understanding reality is key. As the father of modern management, Peter Drucker famously said,
"You can't improve what you don't measure."
True operational visibility emerges when you deploy a system designed equally for real-time monitoring and historical analysis, providing a comprehensive view of your operations.
Remember what I said about my slow progression to obesity? Even when I reached 233 lbs., in my mind, my residual self-image was that of a fit 20-year-old. But in reality, I was obese. At a glance, I didn’t look overweight—but the truth came out after my doctor measured key health metrics during my physical. If I had had access to consistent data in my 30s, especially if I had tracked these metrics over time as my weight gradually increased, perhaps my story would have been different.
Just like my own journey from obesity to fitness, data drives improvement. The engineer/six sigma green belt in me responds to data. The ICONICS team responds to data. Our customers, their systems, and their people respond to data. And that response leads to more effective processes, better problem-solving, and greater efficiency.
ICONICS strives to make the best, most secure products for our customers to use for projects that change the world. And to achieve this, we needed to enable every GENESIS project to be data-driven, so projects can use real-time and historical insights to achieve continuous improvement. After all, it is estimated that only 20 to 30 percent of problems can be adequately solved using current data alone, while the majority—70 to 80 percent—require both current and past data for a more comprehensive solution.
An Unlimited Historian: Being Bold Is What GENESIS Version 11 Is All About
Having an unlimited historian in GENESIS version 11 is a bold move—one that no other market player has made yet. But consider the words of one of the greatest Lean thinkers, Shigeo Shingo—a quote that perfectly puts all of this into context:
“Improvement usually means doing something that we have never done before.”
With that in mind, we encourage you to discover the power of data collection with GENESIS version 11’s unlimited historian. Take the bold step—measure more, analyze more, and improve more.
And as a parting note: if you haven’t started your health journey yet, I encourage you to start now—and most importantly, start measuring. It changes everything.
To learn more about this revolutionary software, check out our GENESIS version 11 webpage.