John: You know how, like, when a duck is flying You're like, "that thing looks so awkward. How does it stay in the air?" And then it lands and it's so beautiful and graceful when it lands in the water? That was like me doing that.

Chris: Do you guys dry clean this rug?

John: So we're into week 2 of 100 Days, I don't yet look exactly like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, but we're getting there. Meredith wants me to say that the goal of this whole experiment isn't to look like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, it's to be healthier. But also to look like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

So day 8 of 100 Days started out with my new favorite pre-workout meal, a bowl of yogurt and granola. All things considered, week 1 of healthy eating and exercising went pretty well. There was some barfing and quite a lot of soreness, but on the whole, I felt much better than I expected to, so Chris and I were not too nervous about our third session with our personal trainer, Laura.

I don't know if Laura saw the confidence on my face or something, but looking back, I should have been more wary. We started with a run to a nearby park where Laura managed to take benign playground equipment and turned it into my worst nightmare.

[music plays over a workout montage]

(1:22) I'm not particularly fond of the "bear crawl," I would not have made a great bear. [music slowing]

Lora: So natural. You look so natural. All right, you can just stop. I can't watch it anymore. *giggle* Good job.

John: Also, you'd think that nothing really bad can ever happen at a picnic table... but you're wrong. [more music montage]

*grunting*

Laura: And one... good. All right, take a minute.

John: After that we were pretty tired, but not tired enough to convince Laura that we should drive back to the gym. Her transportation method of choice was alternating between running and lunges.

Laura: Are we having fun yet?

John: Once we got back to the gym we did various stations. There were lots of wall sits and lunges and squats and pain. *grunting* Oh my God. Ahhhhh. Ahhhh, don't slow-mo this Sheridan.

Chris: Oh. Ooooh. Be careful not to pull something.

John: It's very painful. *grunting* Ah, that hurts! Today sucks. Ah it hurts!

Chris: Oh! I hate push ups! F you, rope!

*John grunting*

John: But I will say this, it was an incredibly effective workout, and it's worth mentioning that Laura was giving us exercises that you can easily try with either minimal equipment or stuff you can find at your local playground. Admittedly, people might give you weird looks if you do the "bear crawl" through a playground, but it's not illegal. Anyway, as always, head to our Community tab to get more details on everything we did so you can get some workout ideas of your own.

By the end of this workout I realized that week 2 was probably going to be harder than week 1 had been, but then I remembered Dr. Aaron Carroll's advice about exercise.

Dr. Aaron Carroll: There's so much evidence that physical activity is good for you, but it's a little bit of physical activity. That almost all of the studies are just talking about the levels that you need are, like, 30 minutes a day what we would call moderate physical activity, 5 days a week. Which is like, walking fast. You know, even, like, some household chores would qualify. But it's sort of like, get up and go for 30 minutes. If you do that 5 days a week, you get the benefits of what are known for physical activity.

John: So on day 9, Chris and I took that advice to heart and went on a leisurely cycle around Indianapolis.

[music plays]

(4:445) John: It was a lovely bike ride. We got to go to the 100 Acres Park that was partly curated by my wife and featured in my book, The Fault in Our Stars. And in general, it was just a nice reminder that we don't have to be killing ourselves every day in order to get fit.

To be honest with you, it felt kind of like a day off. Like, I guess our heart rates were where they needed to be for it to count as exercise, and that's important to note. While a lot of the work we're doing over 100 Days is really hard, something as simple as biking at 10 miles per hour is good exercise.

So I'd say if you're looking for an appealing, fun way to get moving that still has health benefits, just get together with a friend or 2 and ride around town for half an hour. And speaking of which, if you've been following along with us, first of all, congratulations on making it a full week. And second of all, I'm wondering what type of low intensity exercise you've been enjoying. Let me know in the comments or over at the Community tab.

As for food, things were still going fairly well, but I'm trying to perfect meal planning. Because when I don't, I end up eating something like day 9... just a lot of toast and jam.

I still managed to get in some pretty balanced meals, but when I don't plan my food in advance, I'm all ready learning that there's some potential pitfalls. Chris, meanwhile, has rather fallen off the wagon when it comes to actually photographing his food. So we're just going to have to take his word for it when he tells us that he did great on day 8 and 9. But we'll keep badgering him Thank you for watching. I'll see you on day 10.

Chris: That's gold right there. My footwork there. I mean, I still have 4 years of college eligibility left. If any coaches are watching.