Yo DaVita,

Well after the first 7 days….

The bad news is I had “A Diet Debacle” over 36 hours on Friday and Saturday. Bad food. And I broke the dessert streak at 6 days. Horrors.

The good news is I am still down a pound or so since the original amount, based on this morning’s weigh-in! I find my morning weights are the most comparable. My weight fluctuates a lot through the course of a day, especially in terms of liquids, and especially on big workout days. Anyway I have moved from 197 pounds down below 196. Not enough of a move to be sure, but at least it is in the right direction. It makes some sense, because I did eat less, I did get solid exercise and I did go 6 days without any sugar bombs. Read more…

Yo DaVita!

I have good news, and bad news.

The good news is that the reading of some of your entries has enabled me to stretch the string of no dessert days to 6. And since I am only on Day 6 that is great! There really is strength in working on this together.

The bad news is on this visit with our friends in New Jersey, at their rented house on the beach, we twice had meals at the local burger joint. In addition, although we did a lot of playing sports on the beach, it was not great calorie burning exercise. So even though i was good at breakfast and reasonable at dinner, I fear the worst on the scale front.

Tomorrow will be Sunday at home, where I have more control and so expect a good day on the consumption front, and a strong exercise day as I will go road-biking with Jess Parks, who is running Village Health — where by the way we just had another CMS review of our California Integrated Care Global Capitation demonstration project, and we met 11 of 12 clinical objectives and will be getting a big quality bonus check!

One for All,

KT

(To affect the quality of the day, that is the art of life. Thoreau)

Yo DaVitans!

I last left you late in Day 4. I got to the hotel a little after midnight, did some email, read the paper a bit, had a bag of popcorn at 160 calories, and turned the lights off at 1 am. My wake up call was at 7:15, so I could get in a short workout before my 9 am breakfast. I did some lifecycle, my PT, and some stretching.

The breakfast was with the Executive Director of the Kidney Care Partners Coalition, the coalition that we put together to advocate for our patients and you! We celebrated the passage of the Medicare legislation over water, and then began to plan for 2009. I had shredded wheat with a sliced banana, then 2 eggs with ham. Read more…

Yo DaVita!

Well I am nearing the end of Day 4.  I had the dinner with the doc group in the Northeast, it took three hours.  Good conversation, I hope I added value.  Back to the airport I trotted.  But bad weather meant the plane could not take off, so I did 75 minutes of phone calls and emails.  Now I am on short flight to DC, will land about 11:30 pm and get to the hotel a bit after midnight.  Not a long enough flight for me to catch up on all my emails, but I will make progress.

Crab cakes and chicken for dinner, no potatoes or dessert.  This will be the 4th day with no sugar bombs!

I was weakening — but then I read some of the postings from some of the other 212 teammates who are joining hands to bring more health into their own and each other’s lives — and I will not weaken tonight.  Reading the postings strengthened my resolve.

The bad thing about being late is it may be difficult to get up and exercise before my first meeting, which was the original schedule.

I saw some great stats today on implementing the improved heparin protocol,  some impressive anemia management numbers and a report of 2 more Nephrologists in the northeast that have signed up with our own DaVita.

Rock on.

KT

(It is easy to be mindful.  It is hard to remember to be mindful)

Yo DaVita!

Greetings from what I think is Day 4.  I think i left you early on Day 3.

After my 6:30 to 8 am conference call on our quarterly earnings report I was only able to do a short but intense 16 minutes on the life cycle with some stretching after.  Before the call I had a healthy breakfast, shredded wheat with some cheerios to add flavor, plus some mixed berries, plus some ham.

Then into the Casa DaVita I went.  It was a fun day for the most part, a marketing meeting, a home-hemodialysis meeting (we are doing some interesting stuff there, and lots of learning.  We are probably doing more “mfd”, meaning more frequent dialysis, meaning short almost-daily dialysis, than anyone else in the country. By far!)  I also did a Town Hall with a group, and had lunch with two CEO’s who represent a group of 70 CEO’s.  They want to all come to the Casa, listen to me yap for 90 minutes about our concept of a Village, of actually trying to create a special place, of the fun stuff we do … and then ask questions.  So we are going to do that in March of 09, it will be very fun.  That lunch, by the way, was the healthy Chipotle lunch again, chicken with healthy beans, lettuce, and tomato salsa. Read more…

Yo, DaVitans!

It is Tuesday a.m., July 22, the beginning of Day 3.

I successfully got myself to bed last night, with just having a banana and a glass of milk. Okay, and a 1/2 beer also, but not at the same time as the banana and milk. I had a terrible time getting to sleep, too many issues careening through my brain, the last time I looked at the clock it was 2:30 a.m.

Started the DaVita day with email at 6 am, and a good 90-minute call about our upcoming quarterly earnings release to Wall Street. Really good team to work with.

Now I’ll work out on the lifecycle, and do a little stretching, then into the Casa DaVita I go. So far this morning I had some shredded wheat (NOT the frosted type) and Cheerios, with 1 percent milk.

I hope you are having a great day!

KT, Mayor, DaVita Village

Yo, DaVita!

Well it is Monday July 21, the end of Day 2. Yesterday was a 12-hour workday for me, so I am happy that I went to bed and read before the ice cream cravings got too intense last night.

Today was a good day with all three meals being reasonable, and no sweets. I did 27 minutes on the life cycle, my physical therapy, some crunches and a few curls. I had one of what we call my “Monday call days,” where I started at 6:30 a.m. with the first call, and ended at 7 p.m. with the last one.

Now it is 11 p.m. and I am flying down to the Casa DaVita. It was a good day of work. I opened up some letters from teammates in the field — it is what I do when my energy or spirit is low … It always works, because I am so amazed by the wonderful things so many of you are doing out there in DaVita-land.

You guys are impressive. No brag, just fact.

One for all ….

KT

Yo, DaVita!

Greetings to the good people of DaVita, this is KT your Mayor. All of me in fact. Which is a little too much. Which is the point of this missive.

197. That is how many pounds I weighed this morning, Sunday July 20. 188. That is how many I want to weigh in 90 days.

A bit of personal history. Read more…