Day 178: My First Lifting Session in a Few Weeks

Last night I missed my goal of 7 hours of sleep again only getting 6.5 hours. However, the biggest difference between the past 2 nights was last night I got under 3 hours of deep sleep.

One big reason for this was that usually Darren sleeps with Laura but last night he shifted near me moving from between my legs to behind my legs to my feet to demanding to being petted. 

We think he was doing it to feel safe in our new home but it didn’t make for a consistent night of sleep for me.

We tried a new route to my office this morning but got a bit confused/lost so ditched the route and took the same route that we did yesterday against great advice from colleagues.

Fortunately at the end of the day a friend and colleague of mine offered to give me a ride to Laura’s office since she had to go over that way anyway. 

That meant that Laura didn’t have to cross back over to come pick me up which reduced the amount of time it took us to get home.

Since Laura has to be in Menlo Park tomorrow I am going to try taking the VTA light rail since it is only about a mile from our new place and drops off right next door to our office. 

It will give me an additional 2 miles of walking which will be a nice way to hit my steps goal of 10,000 per day.

It takes about an hour by the light rail to get to my office but hopefully I’ll have WiFi the entire way so I’ll be able to get work done.

The work day was busy with several meetings being scheduled last-minute as we prep for a few things. I still also have a ton of catching up to do from traveling for 3 weeks. My inbox is a scary place right now.

When I got dropped off near Laura’s office I ran into Susie Schulman who I had never met in real-life before but who has been following our journey since the beginning. 

It was fun to chat with her for a few minutes before heading over to Laura’s office. 

Once we got back home I changed and hit the gym for the first time since moving. It is a decent gym with a few more pieces of equipment than the last gym had however not as heavy of dumbbells. Of course it doesn’t compare with a full gym but it will do for now.

I decided to do a modified version of a new chest workout that Scott Herman recently posted.

While I couldn’t perform all of the supersets I was happy with how my shoulders held up during the lifting session. You can check out the video to see the full workout from Scott but here is what I ended up performing:

- Seated Bench Press (4 sets: 30 reps, 25 reps, 20 reps, 15 reps)

- Incline Dumbbell Bench Press (4 sets: 30 reps, 25 reps, 20 reps, 15 reps)

Superset
- Dumbbell Chest Fly (4 sets: 10 reps)
- Dumbbell Low Chest Fly (4 sets: 10 reps)

• Rest 60 seconds MAX between sets & supersets

By the time I finished I could barely move and I was covered in sweat. I’ll be interested to see how sore I get over the next couple of days.

The workout was high volume and meant to completely exhaust your chest and triceps. I can say that I successfully did that.

I would like to work my chest back up to where it was pre-seizures so that I could accomplish the full workout. However, I am happy with where I am at this point in my recovery. 

Lifting weights was something I was told I wouldn’t be able to do again and I am doing better at it than I think many expected.

I hope to get out for a run in the next couple of days as a way to check out the area around where we live.