Progress Log: Week 31

I was moved into a newly formed directorate with a group of awesome people, but leadership never really knew what to do with us. I, my director, and my colleauges, were left…adrift.

Many of us continued doing the work we did prior to the reorg, even though that work was still for the departments we were removed from. Some of us, myself included, did our previous work and had additional things added to our plates. Things like Lean Six Sigma certification, working out of classification as a business analyst, along with being an instructor, a platform administrator, and a help desk coordinator.

It was a frustrating time for everyone involved.

We were told back in March that we were going to be “realigned” because the original plan (or lack of one, to be honest), was not working. We waited. And waited…and waited some more.

It was finally announced 8 days ago, and took effect this past Monday. I was moved back into my original department, which makes me happy. I was moved into a developer slot on the org chart (which is what I’ve been for 10 out of past 15 years, but not officially and not pay wise). I’m also being asked to consider moving into a newly formed role that will have much more growth potential – but I need to see the position description first. I’m already doing much of the work of this new position. So…we’ll see what happens.

It’s an exciting time, and a promising one as well, but also a very demanding one. My brain feels overstuffed most days and I’m still packing the old work that I was doing while juggling the new. This won’t last forever, but the transition is difficult.

It’s major life changes like this that can throw a big wrench into even the best detailed fitness plans. The ironic thing is that when a human is stressed by life, one of the best things to combat the effects of that stress is exercise, but time and exhaustion often end up conspiring to foil things.

So, while I’ve enjoyed the luxury of starting work at 6 am, working for a very focused 2 hours, then jumping out and hitting the gym for two hours between 8:00 am and noon, my daily schedule at work won’t allow for this any longer. I need to shift back to the early morning workouts. This means getting to the gym by no later than 6 am (5:30 is actually ideal). This means getting to bed at a decent hour. It means being organized and disciplined with my time.

It means also setting firm boundaries regarding work to avoid letting it creep in and rule my life.

Details

Mode

It’s a low rep/high weight week.

Sunday

Chest and Biceps – had an outstanding session.

Nailed a very clean 225 for a single on the Smith flat bench press. This ties my all time PR and it went up very easily. I’m going to go for 230 next cycle.

Furthermore, this set the pace for my entire chest work out. I leveled up on every set for every single chest exercise.

Biceps are what they are. I’m stupid strong here. I’m not a huge fan of how they have set up their preacher curl bench. Instead of having a standard EZ curl bar where you can add and adjust the weight as needed, they have fixed EZ curl bars with set weights that you need to drag across the gym to the bench. Additionally, the bars have an extreme angle to their bends and they’re just not comfortable for me in a seated position.

So I do standing EZ bar curls and I’m almost maxed out there. The heaviest those stupid bars go is 110. I can do 100×4, clean.

I supplement with reverse grip EZ bar curls and cable standing curls with a short, straight bar, then I finish it all off with the preacher curl machine.

I also hit my forearms on this day.

Monday

This was the first day of our realignment. I had scheduled myself for 8:00 – 10:00 at the gym, then bumped it out to 10:00 – noon. Then gave up. The day was that chaotic.

Tuesday

Another day of chaos. This is when I discovered that I would need to change up my gym time strategy.

Wednesday

Legs and Shoulders – nailed a set of 3 clean reps at 795 on the leg press machine. I can’t stress how big this is. Less than 9 months ago, I could barely walk. The pain was that severe and my next heavy day will see me over 800 lbs.

I’m crushing my heavy shoulder days, which makes me really happy because I hate the high rep shoulder days so much…but I know it’s those high rep days that are giving me this big payout here.

I hit 170×3 for my leverge shoulder press. Out of everything on my body, it’s my shoudlers that have grown the most over the past 4 months or so. I’m at the point where my t-shirts are fitting real snug, which makes me very happy (as long as my shirts are fitting loose around my gut, that is).

I’ve hit the full weight range on the Leg Extension machine. I’m now doing 300×5. I seriously doubt it’s actually 300 lbs, but that’s what the mark says. I’m not too sure what to do after this. It’s probably time to start researching a bit.

Thursday

Back and Triceps – I’m still eyeballing those pull ups. Frankly, it’s the bodyweight pull ups and and dips that are the most challenging things for me on these days.

Everything else is really pretty easy for me…which is probably a sign that I need to add some variation into the mix.

Friday

Fridays are nice for me as I only work half days (I work 9 hour days M-Th for this).

I started the day with some early morning yoga then hit the gym after lunch.

I got a solid circuit training day in and then followed it with 20 minutes on a stationary bike. All in all, I burned up 3800 calories.

It felt good.

Saturday

Got in an hour of yoga this morning and it felt really nice. I took my time, really focused on keeping my mind clear and breathing deep and with intention.

I have some lawn work to do today and some shopping. I might get in a little walk, perhaps.

Or I might just be lazy. We’ll see. 🙂

Diet

I did better this week on my record keeping. I was in deficit all week, but had one day where things got pretty close.

My weight doesn’t seem to be aligning with my inputs and outputs. I may have had some water weight messing around in there, but it can also jsut be the fact that I’ve been focusing on adding more protein to my diet over the past month or so. I’m defnitely feeling very full up through my chest, shoulders, arms, and back.

Day	Caloric Deficit/Gain	Protein	Water
Sunday	-981	190g	72oz
Monday	-786	77g	72oz
Tuesday	-889	105g	48oz
Wednesday	-262	182g	72oz
Thursday	-538	172g	72oz
Friday	-1276	162g	72oz
Saturday	cheat day