summary

I've been reminded that it's been a while since I've written here, so here's a quick summary of the last few months.

Obviously I haven't had too much to write about. The Java class I started back then is nearly finished. Our last assignment is due this week and our final is next week. I went into the class knowing some Java, but it was good to get a formal education in the language. Now if I can only leverage that with my experience programming in C and recently C++ into a new job. Haven't made much progress on that front. Paid a service to write a resume for me and have had a number of recruiters contact me for contract, web programming, or both position. None of which I'm actually interested in.

Now that's it's December, it's eight months out from my shoulder surgery. That was primarily a biceps re-attachment with some other clean up.

Back at the beginning of Sep, I started a more normal weight training program because I could finally hold a bar across my back. It was not comfortable by any stretch of the imagination, but I at that point I could do sets of squats as long as they weren't too long or too heavy. Not too long because it hurt and not too heavy because I couldn't hold the weight. At least I could do some. The physical therapist thought I was a bit overzealous, but said it's a good stretch for my arm, so go ahead.

In mid Sep I caught up on a number of articles I have been meaning to read. One of them was "Eat Like a Warrior King" by Dan John. In it he wrote about "the secret to nutrition", which was to "eat like an adult."

The highlights of the article were:

"Stop eating fast food, stop eating kid's cereal, knock it off with all the sweets and comfort foods, and ease up on the snacking. And don't act like you don't know this: eat more vegetables and fruits.

"Really, how difficult is this? Stop with the whining. Stop with the excuses. Act like an adult and stop eating like a television commercial. Grow up.

"Every success in your life doesn't call for several extra rounds of beer, a salutary doughnut, and high fives from everyone. You're an adult now; you don't need a cookie every time you do something special.

"...if you want to look good in the future, you have to start looking at food like, well, food and not a reward."

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The arm/shoulder bugs me off and on. For example, in mid Oct I made it ache practicing volleyball with our daughter. I didn't hit the ball very often, I was mostly throwing it to her at different speeds, vertical angles, and distances from her. I did hit it some and caught her hits most of the time. One was a jumper, which was a mistake. I learned that reaching my arms up high to catch a ball is not a good plan. That one catch was probably the one thing that aggravated it the most.

The problem was I wanted to help her. The old man can play with her. My wife has usually been the one to practice with her, because she knows how to play, but for just practice, I figured I didn't need to know how to pass or set, but it turns out I have to be capable of catching and throwing. I'll have to be more conservative today or fess up that she should wait until we pick up the wife from the airport and they play.

Last saw my orthopedist in mid Mov. He said I should be using light to moderate weights on upper-body exercises and no push up, dips, or other heavy work like those for at least a year post op if not 18months (minimum of five more months). Anything overhead is to be limited, and people shouldn't be doing overhead press anyway. However, I've always read that overhead press is THE exercise for working on shoulder strength, but the behind the neck version was out.

A few days after that I saw the PT to get exercise recommendations. Upper body work should be in the 10-15rep range, so 6s, 5x5, etc. are out. Overhead press with DBs is okay if inclined and not heavy. No pullups. Pulldowns are okay, but not heavy and not too wide, but not too narrow either (becomes a pullup) and palms facing is better, but I don't have a bar to do that. No dips. No pushups. No overhead triceps work like French press. No bench press, but DB floor press is okay with palms facing. Lateral raise is okay if not above shoulder. Bent-over lateral raise is okay.

Took a couple pictures to see what my arms look like. The pictures confirm that my left biceps is smaller than the right. The lift numbers are more interesting. Those took a nose dive when I injured the shoulders, of course, and are recovering. I'm back up to where I started two years ago and now have to progress to ... something more.

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A few weeks ago our daughter went to an evening birthday event, so my wife wanted to go out and felt like having fish. She's less inclined to be a veggie than I am, so, while I've been "strict" about my dairy-egg-veggie habit, she has some turkey or fish occasionally. We went to CreoLa, which is a Louisiana-themed restaurant near us. She's been there before, but I haven't because it has no veggie dishes. Before we went I checked the Seafood Watch chart, but afterward it occurred to me that because most shrimp comes from overseas these days, the shrimp I had was probably not from the "best choices" list and was from the "avoid" list.

My wife invited a guy over for Thanksgiving, but he came down with something the morning of, so called to cancel. She had bought a turkey breast (for him), so now we had it. I cooked it and ate most of it. Another foray into meat eating.

I learned a new saying related to shopping on Thanksgiving Friday: people buying things they don't need with money they don't have. Shopping for the adventure of it. Weird.

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My wife and I recently watched "Sugar: the Bitter Truth" on youtube. It's about 90min long though. Interesting stuff about the role of sugar and high fructose corn syrup in the American diet. There's also the not so interesting details of the digestion of sugars, but discussion points out how fructose is bad for our system. As a medical practitioner, she's oohing and ahhing about how horrible those things are. If you want more reasons to stop eating sugar and drinking alcohol and sodas/pop, check it out.

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I don't normally write about exercise motivation, because it's not something I think about much. Last week I read something by Frank Zane about it. He broke motivation down into five categories:

deficiency: you're not satisfied and want to change.
goal-oriented: you're training for something, e.g., competition.
success: you're responding to positive feedback and want more.
ongoing: you're feeling great from what you have done and want to continue.
structure: you're following a plan.

Success and ongoing motivation seem similar, but former is externally driven and the latter internally. The last one is for the OCD in all of us.