Chest + Rambling

Yesterday at work actually went pretty well. I did the new evals while giving the new therapist most of the treatments for the day, which left me by myself most of the time and I got a lot done. So while not perfect, the work week is off to a good start.

Chest last night was really good, too:

inclines:

• 135 x 12 x 2 (warm-up)
• 170 x 3 x 1 (easy)
• 195 x 3 (4 with spot) x 1

declines:

• 135 x 12 x 2 (warm-up)
• 185 x 6 x 1
• 215 x 2 x 1 (actually pretty hard, but I left a couple reps in the tank)
• 230 x 3 (4 with spot) x 1 (surprised I got that much)

flat dumbbells:

• 65s x F x 5

incline Hammer Strength machine:

• 135 x 12 x 1 (warm-up)
• 185 x 7 x 1
• 185 x 6 x 1
• 185 x 5 x 1

dips:

• bodyweight x F x 3

Numbers went up on the major stuff, though I still don’t know if I should be doing more volume, which is why I threw in some more incline stuff at the end. At this rate, in a month I should be done 215 for sets of 3 on incline and 245 for sets of 3 on decline. Not quite my old form of 245 on incline and 275 on decline, but it’s getting there.

Other News and Notes:

• I’ve been coughing my lungs out since Friday despite physically feeling better from the weekend. I don’t know what this is but it doesn’t feel like a regular cold. A lot of people at work have been sick. The cough is brutal.

• Jaylynn called in sick Sunday, so later on that day we saw Dark Knight. Definitely a very good (not sure I want to call it ‘great’) movie and Heath Ledger was awesome. The more time that passes from seeing it, the more amazing his performance was. All I can talk about right now is Batman and Batman villains. I sound like a child. “…and Batman did this and this and this, and he can do this and this, and he has the Batcycle which does this and this…” Molly and I have been hypothesizing and reading rumors about the next movie in the series and who could be the villain. The two I’ve read so far are Daniel Day Lewis as The Riddler (not happening) and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin (brilliant!). Despite that it’s all I want to talk about, I still think I’m in the camp of the movie almost living up to the hype.

• Some trailers I’m excited for: Watchmen and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Definitely in a sci-fi mode.

• I don’t think I’m going to go into work till 9:30 today when I have a patient scheduled. I just want to relax for a bit.

• Listening to so much Lil Wayne recently, both Carter II and Carter III. It took me a while to buy him as a great rapper, especially since my only real exposure to him since “Tha Block is Hot” and “Get Off The Corner” were his garbage verses on Kanye’s “Barry Bonds” and Jay-Z’s “Hello Brooklyn 2.0.” However in anticipation for my New Orleans trip I figured I’d get reacquainted with Lilweezyana, and man is he good. I still don’t quite get why Time is writing features about him and I don’t know how he sold 1.1 million albums in a week, but I’m now in the Pro-Weezy community.

• I’m about 50 pages away from finishing Jared Diamond’s Collapse, a book I’ve spent the better part of a month trying to get through. It’s about this close to reading a textbook, but it’s still pretty interesting. It makes me feel smart.

So that’s about it in my recent world. As you can see, nothing earth-shattering. Back and a little biceps tonight.

Sleep Through The Static

OKAY, peeps, we are back.

Back in the gym, back in the mindset…at least for now. I know I’ve said that about 5 times during the past few months.

Had a great weekend celebrating Jaylynn’s graduation from MGHIHP with her Doctorate of Physical Therapy (she’s so much smarter than me it’s not even funny).  Went out to eat three separate times (all on her parents’ dime, too) to the Lotus Blossom for Chinese, Bullfinch’s for Fillet Mignon, and Gibbett Hill Grill for Prime Rib.  Quite the experience.  Not sure how we’ll go back to The 99 and Papa Ginos after all that, but whatever.

My gym drought is over. I went tonight and did a few 5×5s of upper body stuff:

-Incline Dumbell Bench 5×5

-Cable Rows 5×5

-Barbell Push Press 5×5

-Dumbbell Shrugs 5×5

Felt pretty good.  I’ve decided to screw a program for right now and just go to the gym and have fun.  Granted it’s hard to have fun when you don’t know anybody at the damn place and loathe its clientele, but I screwed around and did some stuff I wanted to do to feel bigger again.  The only semblance of routine I’m going to have right now is doing an upper/lower split so I’ll go at least twice a week and lift pretty heavy, sticking to my 5×5 sets.  I’ll do supersets if the equipment is available but otherwise I’m not going to kill myself over it. I need to start going for walks in the morning again, too, so I’ll do one of those tomorrow.  I’m off from work tomorrow (at least for going to Bourne, I have to drive to Andover for another mentor meeting), so I’ll do a lower-body session after I get back from that.

Otherwise things are good.  Look for more workout-related updates.

____________________

Got Jack Johnson’s new album Sleep Through The Static and it’s not bad.  Other than two or three songs, it hasn’t really grabbed me, but certainly very pleasant to listen to.  I think this album came out in February, even though it should be illegal to listen to Jack Johnson albums between September and April.  It is strictly summer music.  If I were you I would check out “Go On,” “Angel,” and “Adrift.”

Tuesday

I went to a weekend seminar this Saturday and Sunday in Natick called Dysphagia Practice: Taking Services to the Next Level of Evidence-Based Practice, which was about the current and future treatment of swallowing disorders in hospitals and nursing homes.  It was my first continuing education class since I’ve graduated, and even though I didn’t enjoy spending 12 hours inside on the first nice weekend of the year, I thought it was a fantastic seminar and I’ve already tried implementing some ideas into my current practice, including how medications affect swallowing, esophageal concerns, and an overall different view of aspiration pneumonia.  Even if I wasn’t reimbursed the $315 registration fee, I think it would be worth it.  I’m going to take advantage of as much continuing education as I can.

A lot of the information given would be great for hospitals because of the nature of the patients.  So far from my experience, nursing home residents appear to be hospital patients in first gear.  While I do get some interesting ones every once and a while, most of them are just standard nectar-liquids-chin-tuck-alternating-liquids-and-solids dysphagia patients and we either make progress or we don’t.  Nursing homes aren’t as exciting as hospitals (and maybe over time I’ll look at that more closely when I decide where I want my career to go).  One of the things I loved about New Bedford Rehab was the teamwork involved.  Every week we had IDC meetings with the doctor, therapists, and other important members of the rehab team and talked about patient progress.  Everyone clearly cared about getting the patients home.  In the nursing home setting it just doesn’t feel that way, at least not where I am.  I brought up something with one of the unit managers yesterday about looking at the oral care protocols because I felt I could help improve it (I’m on an oral care jihad after the seminar) and she snapped “well we brush their teeth, what else do you want us to do?”  Those kinds of reactions don’t feel very good, nor to they do much for the “team.”  I went to the Director of Nursing (whose daughter is an SLP, luckily) and asked her for a written copy of the protocols, so hopefully I can get something done by going to the higher-ups.  I feel like the culture of the building needs to be changed in many, many ways.

We also have the corporate ring wraiths coming in to do chart audits and make sure everything (written orders, evals, progress notes, etc.) is in its right place.  Based on a few reviews yesterday, they are not.  I know in my first couple of weeks of work I made some mistakes with that stuff, so I’m sure it will be brought up today.  Of course I was going to make mistakes my first few weeks, all I can do is make sure I do it better in the future.  I don’t really expect to be ripped for it because other people who have worked for years have made the same mistakes, but it will hopefully shock me out of my comfort zone.  After a month or so of work, I decided it was okay to leave some paperwork for the next day if I worked my 8 hours.  Then after a few weeks of that, I decided it was MANDATORY to leave some paperwork for the next day.  These chart reviews are sort of a wake-up call that people actually DO look at my work and I can’t afford to be too lazy.  Maybe I will actually stay past 8 hours some days to make sure it’s all where it needs to be.

So that’s work.  It’s looking like another gym-less week, which I don’t feel too good about.  I’m still sleeping 8+ hours every night and really not wanting to get out of bed.  Not waking up early means I haven’t been plugging my financial stuff into the computer or reading any books, which is straying from a couple of my other big goals for the year.  These are all casualties of focusing more on my career, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in the short term.  As long as I get back on it soon, there won’t be any problems.\

Off to hopefully fight the good fight at work.

Nobody on the road, nobody on the beach

I haven’t been writing very much in this blog lately.  It’s partly broken-laptop-related, it’s partly writing-about-the-same-thing-all-the-time-related, but in any case, not much to write about.

I’m down to 191 pounds, even though I haven’t been working out very hard.  I went to the gym three times last week but haven’t been able to get there this round.  For whatever reason I’ve had the hardest time waking up lately, even though I’m getting 8-9 hours of sleep a night.  I struggled with this when I started work.  My diet has by and large been pretty good, I’m back to eating baked chicken breast every night, so that’s something filling with a ton of protein.  Not going to get to 185 in two weeks for May 1, though maybe by Memorial Day.

I’m somewhat bothered by the fact that in my gut (though there’s much less of one now), I know I’ll never be fully engulfed in fitness again.  I’ve got a decent balance where I eat healthy most of the time, I work out hard 2-3 times a week, I stay active at work, and I enjoy myself on the weekends.   As I get older that might be all I’ll be interested in doing.

Work has been pretty good for the most part.  The caseload has been so slow for all of us in rehab, I’m seeing about 3-4 hours worth of patients per day, just because there is no demand for therapy right now.  I’ve been splitting up some of my days by going to the other homes in the area.  The two in Falmouth called the Royals are palaces.  I drove home today listening to “Boys of Summer” by The Ataris on repeat, and I’m really looking forward to picking up more hours in Falmouth.  The Cape is just a beautiful, beautiful place.

We Fly High

Tuesday morning, April Fool’s Day.  I only have to work for 2 hours in Bourne before driving to Andover for a mentee seminar from 12:30.  Always good to have something like this to break up the montony of work (and great to get reimbursed for gas mileage).

I did really enjoy my job yesterday, though.  I met my productivity and was pretty busy all day, but with fewer patients I got to see some of them for a longer amount of time.  Usually I see each one for 30 minutes, whether all at once or broken up over a couple times throughout the day, but I saw a few for 45 and one for 75.  I’m officially caught up on all paperwork and I felt pretty good about being there overall.  The week is off to a good start.

Also off to a good start this week is the gym.  I worked really hard yesterday morning both with the weights and on the treadmill for a total of 45 minutes and it really jump-started my mood for the day.  I haven’t weighed myself, but this is definitely the leanest I’ve felt in a very long time.  I’m down to the 6th hole on my belt.  I would guess 191-192 pounds.  I’ll keep this up for the week and then weigh myself on Saturday.

I will be picking up extra hours at a home in Falmouth starting Thursday, and I’ve committed to 3-4 hours on those evenings and then whatever weekends I am interested in getting.  Depending on what I have planned from weekend to weekend, I’ll probably try for a couple Saturdays/Sundays a month for a few hours.  My last couple paychecks have been pretty awesome and it’s hard to pass up this kind of money when it’s being offered so readily.  After doing the math about how much just 4-6 extra hours of work per week would do to my yearly salary, it’s pretty amazing.  Considering Jaylynn and I are getting married, looking at apartments, planning on a buying a house within a year of getting married, looking around at more practical cars, and just generally enjoying improving our quality of life, it really helps to put as much money away as possible.  I hate to look materialistic, but it’s a nice self-esteem boost, too.  Time to make it rain.

I’m reading two new books that came from Amazon yesterday: William Martin’s Back Bay and an Ernst & Young financial planning guide.  I really enjoyed The Lost Constitution and I finished the Kiplinger book I got for Christmas, I anticipate these being good time-fillers.

Off to work, then Andover.

Can’t think of a title for this one

It’s probably not the most efficient use of time scrolling through iTunes to find a song title that relates to what I’m writing about, so that’s enough of that.

A better week than last, at least in terms of my mood and energy.  Work at the home in New Bedford went very well.  I did 3.5 hours of therapy in 4 hours, I stuck to the patients’ written goals, and it was a good experience overall.  I will definitely take advantage of more opportunities like that in the future when they are available.

Through two days I’ve felt pretty good at work.  My caseload is certainly lighter and it’s a better crop than the past couple of weeks.  I actually feel motivated to read some research and do some extra preparation for some patients with disorders I’m not familiar with.  While I do find myself getting a little bored at times, it helps to have these weeks every now and then when I can catch up on some paperwork and screens.  During the busy weeks I got myself into the habit of leaving paperwork for the next day, only to have it keep piling up.  This week has been good so far for catching up.  During weeks like this I would definitely be interested in going to another home in the afternoons to see some patients in need of treatment time, just to break up the monotony.  I guess the company is interested in me go to a home in Falmouth for bonus work a couple of nights a week if I was interested, so I’ll talk with them about that on Friday.   It’s hard to turn down the opportunity for money, especially given the rates I would be making for bonus.  I would almost double my weekly paycheck with two or three afternoon/evenings a week of moonlighting.  However, I have to be careful not to overextend myself.  I tend to stress out over very little and I don’t want it to completely interfere with the gym.

Speaking of the gym, I’m three-for-three this week.  Did parts A and B of the FL workouts Monday and this morning, with an abs/cardio session yesterday.  That’s probably it for this week unless I go for a walk tomorrow or something.  The diet hasn’t exactly been tight as I’ve given in to some twice-baked potatoes and Oreo pie we had laying around after Easter.  As usual, though, I think my calories are pretty good. I was 193 on Saturday and I’d like to be 192 this weekend.

I ran out of protein powder the other day so I ordered 10 pounds of bulk metabolic protein (lower-carb, slower-digesting) which should be here in a couple of days.  That will last me about 3-4 months.  As with anything, ordering online is the cheapest way to go.

In the meantime, I picked up a small bottle of chocolate Muscle Milk protein which might be the best tasting shake I’ve ever had.  I mixed it with water, a splash of milk, frozen spinach, and a tablespoon of peanut butter and it tastes like those frozen Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup ice cream things you buy at 7/11.  Of course it looks like pea soup, but I’m clearly beyond that.

Things to Improve Upon

The main area I need to improve upon this week is work.  Last week was long and my caseload keeps increasing, which means the amount of paperwork I have keeps increasing.  Despite staying late a few days I have paperwork left over that I need to finish today even if it means a really long day.  I had to stay late a few days and I anticipate the same thing this week.  Luckily I was able to come in Saturday for almost 4 hours and do some evals I wasn’t able to get to Friday, so I made a few hundred extra dollars in bonus.  This week is going to be even longer in terms of time spent at Bourne and a couple of surrounding nursing homes as I put in for bonus time, but that will mean a couple of gigantic paychecks in the next coming weeks.  It’s a pretty big trade-off to cut into my leisure time like this but it’s readily apparent that this is my life from now on.  Right now I really don’t want to go to work.  Typical Monday.

Financially I’ve been much better the past couple of weeks with spending.  I’m only buying essentials, I’m paying off things right away, and I changed my direct deposit so I higher percentage of my paychecks go into savings and 401K.  I really enjoy reading about all this financial/investment stuff and I can’t wait to have enough knowledge and money to apply it.  I’m still in the tracking-where-my-money-goes stage.  I’ve cut back on my pleasure reading (though I wasn’t getting much pleasure out of Lord of the Flies anyway) and sticking to the Kiplinger book for now.  I wake up every morning at 5 and mark it up with a highlighter for about an hour before going to the gym.

In terms of diet and the gym, last week was really good. I did two lifting sessions, two cardio sessions, and went for two 30-minute walks.  I weighed in at 194 pounds on Saturday morning, down a pound from the previous weekend.  I only had a couple of cheat meals last week so the diet itself was good, too.  I just did an abs/cardio session this morning, so off to a good start.

Punched in the Head

After trying to verbally deescalate a situation with a very angry demented man at work, I got punched in the head and had to fill out an incident report. No damage, but that dude was strong. Also my “18-0″ Patriots mug that I made during our 3-hour pottery session last month is gone after some therapist knocked it off the table (it was on the middle of the table, I don’t know how she did it), so I’m pretty pissed about that. I didn’t get out of work till 6, so all in all it wasn’t the greatest day I’ve ever had. I’m hoping today will be better.

I didn’t do any exercising, though I did get at ton of walking in around the facility at work. Mom also had some sort of pasta/hamburger/marinara sauce thing already on the table when I got home (actually now that I think of it I think that qualifies as American chop suey), so I’ll count that as Cheat Meal #1 for the week. That means nothing tonight but since Molly isn’t home I doubt she’ll bring home pizza on a Thursday.

I came close to bailing on the gym just now but I’m dressed and out the door in a minute. Doing Part B of my workout. I’m not going to bother posting the numbers as I don’t really care what they are. I just want to lift for 45 minutes and be super-tired after.

Maybe I should do a strength workout in case I have to fight off any more demented WWII vets?

Sunday/Monday/Tuesday Workouts

I’ve been very active so far this week.  I did a TT bodyweight workout Sunday night, NROL FLII Part A Monday morning, a 30-minute walk Monday evening, and cardio this morning using 15 minutes of elliptical intervals and 10 minutes of incline treadmill walking.  I’m pretty beat after work (7 hours of treatment in 8 hours of work), so I’m going to eat a big omelet and watch American Idol tonight.

Things are going well.  Work has been good (though today felt very long and somewhat disjointed at the end), I’m keeping both my productivity and confidence up, and all that other stuff.  I’m making it a point to see a lot of patients for dysphagia treatments as snacks instead of at meals.  That makes it far easier to space patients out during the day as well as get over the fact that some patients won’t want me there.  I’m starting to care less, which sounds bad but that’s something I’ve had to get over.

I’m eating well so far 2 days in by sticking to TNT and avoiding the cakes and cookies that are always around at work.  I’m really looking forward to some pizza towards the end of this week.

Feeling Better

Thursday morning and I’m off to work in a few minutes so I’ll keep it short.  I called in sick yesterday after much deliberation with my cabinet, and I’m glad I did.  I wasn’t the walking dead yesterday but if I had gone in I’d have be en miserable all day. My throat is still sore but the general sickness is gone, which is good. I am so not looking forward to working today, maybe this is just a bad week.  I no energy or motivation. I’m dressing down with beat-up khakis, a sweater, and sneakers instead of my usual button-down/dress pants/tie getup, so this is my “sick and don’t care” uniform.

I finished The Lost Constitution and while the ending could have been a little better, it was a great book overall.  I picked up where I left off in State of Denial, Bob Woodward’s book about Bush at war.  Once I finish that (frankly I don’t want to read it right now but I already own it and I want it out of the way), I’ll read another of William Martin’s Boston-based novels, either Harvard Yard or Back Bay, and then follow that up with The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam.  So that’s a good 3-4 months worth of reading all planned out.

Here’s to a better day at work.