Yo DaVita!

I think I last left you Wednesday a.m., immediately before my workout. Wednesday was a good day in the Casa, including a long and thought-provoking meeting on payor contracting. I had to leave the office about 7:15 p.m. to get to my 7:30 dinner with Rich Whitney, our CFO (Chief Financial Officer). The good news about that dinner is we covered our full business agenda, which was long since we had not had a good one-on-one session in six weeks. The bad news is we went to a restaurant where I have a favorite pasta dish … and well you can guess what I ordered.

I got back to the company apartment at 11:15 p.m., where Coach was still awake and wanting to cover some issues. We talked until about 12:45 am, at which point I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open ….despite the energy boost I received from the cereal I ate while we talked!

The 7:30 a.m. alarm the next a.m. was not welcome, although I like the Eagles CD that it turns on. I got a 16 minute lifecycle in with some stretching and shoulder rehab, and then headed into the Casa. For breakfast I just had ham and a banana. Read more…

Yo DaVita!

I think when I last left you I was on the plane to Michigan on Sunday.

I got to the hotel about 11:30 p.m., called home, called Cheryl (my asst), and was in bed about 1 a.m. Up at 6:45 to go over the outline for my speech. The darn hotel has no hot breakfast, and their workout room only had a treadmill and an elliptical machine! With my torn knee ligament I can’t use a treadmill and I don’t get a good workout on an elliptical.

Anyway on to the speech. More than 90 percent of the first year MBA class showed up, over 400 young men and women. I had the pleasure of talking about our efforts to be a community first and a company second, about investing in our personal as well as professional growth, and about leadership. It went well, you guys have created quite an impressive body of material! Who would have ever thought some of the top business schools in America would be inviting a dialysis company to talk about stuff they are doing? But this Fall we are invited to speak not only at the University of Michigan, but also UCLA, Harvard, Northwestern Kellogg and the University of Wisconsin – Madison. What you guys have done is special, no brag just fact!

I had two bananas in the course of the morning, then a high-fat lunch where the only main course was chicken and broccoli in cream sauce. I then did several hours of meetings, my normal productive plane flight, and was back at home about 9 p.m. California time.

On Tuesday I had scheduled a doctor appointment for 7 a.m. That was the only way for me to get my rotator cuff worked on and still have time for a 20 minute lifecycle session with some stretching before I ate my normal breakfast and flew down to the Casa DaVita in Los Angeles. I worked on emails and a PDR (professional development review) on the plane and then hit the Casa for a day of meetings. We do the meetings straight through lunch, and the food that was brought in was one of my favorites, and I ate way too much! Darn.

One of the highlights of the day was my first meeting with our new Chief People Officer, Laura Mildenberger. She is going to help us with a bunch of things to become a better place to work and I am incredibly excited by her thoughts and plans! I have not done well in finding the right leadership for this spot, and I am feeling like I have finally delivered to you what you deserve in this regard.

At 7:30 p.m. I left the Casa to have a group dinner with 10 VPs. Each had been told to come to the dinner with their most important thoughts about the strategy presentation they had been exposed to earlier in the day. We had an excellent talk until 9:40 p.m., when I had to leave so I could call home before 10 p.m. to make sure I caught Denise before she went to bed. I had crab cakes for an appetizer and salmon for the main course, with plain mixed berries for dessert. So that was neither decadent nor impressive. Once I got back to the company apartment (that visitors to the Casa use), I had a couple bowls of cereal, which was not so good. Then I did some email and went to bed at 11:30 p.m.

Up at 6:30 to type this. I will now leave the computer to hit the lifecycle for an intense 17 minute session, followed by a little shoulder rehab and stretching. At 7:45 Cheryl will pick me up so we can cover issues during the 20 minute drive to the Casa.

Make it a good day!

KT

Yo DaVitans!

Saturday, I nailed about 300 emails, catching me up from the China trip, and burning some finger calories.

It is now Sunday afternoon, August 24th. 55 days left of the campaign! I am on a plane heading to Michigan to give a speech at the University of Michigan Business School and do some other meetings. Hopefully the speech will help us recruit some great people in the future. One of the attractive things about a 4.5 hour plane trip is I get an immense amount of work done with no interruptions.

I have done OK on the consumption front since returning from China, and have done well on the exercise front too.

I had chicken and vegetables for lunch both yesterday and today, as well as for dinner last night (with risotto). Denise makes an awesome Moroccan sauce that helps prevent me from getting sick of chicken. In the spirit of full disclosure, I did have dessert on Thursday night, my first night back — but in China I went 14 of 16 days without dessert so, I felt OK. No desserts on Friday or Saturday, and hopefully not tonight. My snacks the last two days have been fruit and wonderful banana bread that my wife makes when our bananas start to go bad.

I have exercised all 4 days since my return, including a great intense 80 minute session today, with 46 of those minutes being significantly uphill. Also have done my rotator cuff rehab each of the 4 days, and sit-ups, and a few curls and some stretching. I don’t know if I mentioned that I recently was told I need knee surgery for a torn meniscus. Therefore, I can’t do any running, basketball, yoga or tennis until I have it. Darn! Read more…

Greetings from Coach’s Corner…

My fellow teammates in Village Vitality encouraged me to write– so here goes:

This year I set a goal to run 300 of the 365 days. I hurt a hip at our Nationwide meeting and it cost be about three weeks, so I won’t make it. As of today, I have run 165 days. I travel a great deal, and that’s the hard part. I have some favorite places to run when I am at Casa DaVita, or near the Grove. When home in North Carolina, I mostly run the Duke Trail– a place where KT and I walked three years ago to talk about my joining the Village and his team. So it is special for many reasons.

I played basketball in college, finishing thirty years ago, and have the usual aches and pains, but as long as I can run, I will. My Mom died of an aneurysm at 57, and I don’t know anything about my biological father, so I try to eat right, and get my exercise for the known health benefits, and to hopefully help the unknown where heredity comes in.

I encourage all of you to strive to hit your goal, Match the Mayor as best you can. And even if you don’t, that’s OK. What I say is, there’s always tomorrow–or next year for my 300.

Do it for your family and friends, your patients and teammates, and for yourself.

One for All (in good health),

Coach

Yo Davita!!

It is Friday as I type this, I am back from our family trip to China. It was great! Not only the Olympics, but also the traveling I did with my 20 year old son. We covered a lot of countryside over 8 days, including a day with the Mayor of a small village (population 2,300 with an average income of $1,300 per year per family).

The bottom line regarding my goal of 9 in 90?

I broke even. Meaning I am still at 195. No gain, no loss. This means I gained weight in the first week, when we were in a nice Marriott Hotel in Beijing, for the Olympics. They had big buffets, where I always feel pressure to get my money’s worth. I know I lost some during the second week, as my son and I spent a lot of time in places where the food was not so attractive or safe.

So I remain down 2 pounds, but now it is after 22 days. 57 to go.

I was a good boy on the plane home. Cheryl, my assistant/boss, sent a bunch of stuff for me to review. And I was able to work on some plans and professional development reviews, so I got a good 8 hours of work done on the plane. I landed at 8 a.m. California time, because of the 15 hour time difference. I went right to work and was able to stay awake all day, meaning I stayed up for about 30 hours straight. Once, I started to drop off I went and did a 30 minute workout to re-energize. I collapsed into bed at 8:30 p.m. California time.

Today started with email at 7 a.m. and a call at 7:30, so I am back in the swing of things. I stopped working at 6 p.m., leaving time for a solid 45 minute workout before dinner. My lunch was chicken, cauliflower and brown rice.

I hope you are all well! I look forward to hearing how others are doing, and how many have joined hands in the quest for better health and greater “Village Vitality!”

KT

From The Grove/Navigators – Irvine California

Here’s the progress from each teammate:

(The teammates have not weight in as of today because we do not have the scale. However, they will weigh in once the 90 days is up)

Grace Reyes: lose 15 lbs and apply for the RN programs by the end of Aug 2008. = walking during lunchtime, working out each day at the gym & I have a schedule appointment on Aug 27^th to apply for two RN programs at a JC college.

Juanita Sandoval: lose 10 lbs = eating healthy daily

Mervie Penid: lose 12 lbs = eating healthy daily

Debbie Dighera: lose 20 lbs = walking everyday during her breaks, lunch time and walking at home Read more…

Red Bluff Dialysis, Red Bluff, CA

Hello There,

I hope you are having a GREAT week. I just wanted to send you a little message with an update on the progress of the team here at Red Bluff Dialysis in sunny California. Since we have started on our quest with our Mayor to a healthier, better lifestyle. The seven of us here have lost a combined wait of 15.6 pounds in the last 3 weeks. Pretty much all of us are on track with our 1 pound a week commitment, a couple of have had to do some catch up, But Hey, were doing it. We will try to update you more as the weeks go on. We are all looking forward to meeting our goals.

Daniel Sumpter

Patient Care Technician

Renee McGowan – DaVita Credentialing Coordinator – Brentwood, TN

Ok, so maybe I’m a little late for my “I Matched the Mayor” pin, but I’d like to sign up anyway! My goal is to eat “low carb,” i.e., less than 100 grams per day, for the month of August, as a beginning to a weight loss success story.

I have 3 children (all boys!), aged 6, 4, and 8 months! Being heavy, I knew that pregnancy had its challenges for me, but twice I was diagnosed (the second and third time around) with gestational diabetes, so kidney care is close to my heart (lol!). During my pregnancies, I was placed on a sensible low-carb diet, and it really worked for me. I lost weight both times around. But – then it came back.

In addition to the Match the Mayor program, the DaVita offering that really jump-started my motivation post-pregnancy was the Dialysis 101 class that I took as a new teammate. It really opened my eyes. I had no idea how difficult dialysis is, and how much our patients endure to prolong and improve the quality of their lives. And – how short some of them are. Considering how much diabetes contributes to kidney disease, and how high my odds are of being diagnosed with it, I decided that I want to become and remain as healthy as possible, not only to avoid dialysis, but to be there for my young family for a long time. I already started motherhood a bit late in life, and I need to hang around as long as I can…!

So thank you for not only challenging, but encouraging me toward a goal, KT, and best of luck with yours. One meal (and one decision) at a time…we can do it!

(fyi…I actually started July 28, and I’ve already lost four pounds!)

Yo DaVita!

It is Tuesday morning, the beginning of Day 17. I weighed in at 195 for the fourth consecutive day, so the two pound loss does seem legitimate.

I have worked out all but two of those days, so I am sure that has helped — even though some of those workouts were just 20 minutes on the bike with some stretches and sit-ups. Every little bit helps if I do them often enough through the course of the year. Over the last several years I have averaged exercising about 75% of the days of the year.

I track my exercise every day. I find I do more exercise when I track it, and do more of it during the sessions. I have a point system, so the more I do on any given day, the more points I get. By tracking it I force myself to stare at what the actual patterns are, so I can’t hide behind an excuse like “it was a bad week” very often without admitting to myself that I am putting exercise too low on the priority list.

I typically know what time my exercise is scheduled for on each of the next 21 days or so, so it is protected. Given my schedule, which is typically full going out 6 weeks or so, I have to do that or exercise will get squeezed out.

I have another four day streak without a dessert. I had chicken and beans for lunch yesterday. Pork tenderloin and zucchini last night for dinner. And my normal breakfast this morning.

In about two hours I leave with my family to spend two weeks in China. During the first week we will be at the Olympics. During the second week my son and I will be traveling around other parts of China. I am incredibly excited, I have not had a two week vacation in a long time — but doing China for one week did not make sense given the time and money it takes to get there.

Therefore I will not be doing any Match the Mayor updates for a bit. It will be hard to get my normal exercise on this trip, so I hope I can reduce my calorie intake.

I saw some good fistula numbers yesterday — Congratulations!!!!

One for All,

KT

Yo DaVita, Good Monday Morning to you!

It has been a few days since we last caught up with one another — 362 of us now joining hands and trying to help each other live healthier lives for us and our families.

I did a big trade — I worked this Saturday and Sunday, and last Sunday … and in exchange went camping and mountain biking with 10 other DaVita Execs for four days. We would do two DaVita work sessions a day, one at mid-day and one before dinner. And we biked, a lot. The epic day was Wednesday, where we did 38 miles including 4,100 feet of vertical.

It was pretty special being out there rooting each other on … the youngest DaVitan was 28, the oldest was 60. Not everybody could do every mile, but everyone did as many as they could, got a great workout in the great outdoors, and that burns a lot of calories. Read more…