Naptown Roller Derby Team Member: Look at you! You haven't even fallen yet! How you feeling?

John: [sighs] I mean, like I need you here for the rest of my life for sure.

Team Member: [laughter]

[INTRO]

John's Voiceover: Welcome back to 100 Days. So our week off had officially come to an end. It was day 36 and we were back at Laura's gym once more. We started with a metric test. Chris had a resting heart rate of 62 and mine was 73 and then after running half a mile Chris's had risen to 129 and mine to 148. We can expect these metrics to be a bit bumpy but we're hoping that over time both our resting heart rate and our exercising heart rate will go down.

Then we did push ups. Chris did 35 and I did 29 but let it be known that I was very close to 30. Also I am now only eleven and one quarter inches away from touching my toes. Chris's wrist, meanwhile, is two inches away from the floor. 21 days ago I was 12 inches away and Chris was four inches.

As for planks I went for one minute and thirty seconds and Chris for two minutes twenty eight seconds which was an improvement for both of us by thirty five seconds for me and eighteen seconds for Chris. So then Laura gave us a boxing workout, which, as you may remember, is one of my favorites and it was incredibly fun and also incredibly hard.

We did a lot of high knees and punches and squat jumps and planks, and this workout was the first time in a couple weeks where I have just been unable to do something. There was a moment when I was supposed to be doing a plank and punching Chris and my muscles just failed. That noted, not to sound like a motivational poster or anything, but just because your muscles fail doesn't mean that you failed.

Anyway, the day was still pretty fun. I feel like Chris had a lot of aggression to get out so I was a little scared when he was hitting me but I enjoyed the workout which is not a verb I thought I would ever use in association with exercise. As for food that day I had some toast and popcorn and this delicious curry in a hurry fish cooked by my wife, Sarah. You can find the recipe for that in the community tab. And we finally convinced Chris to take a picture of his dinner because we were literally right there next to him telling him to take a picture. Yes, that's the same fish.

And then that evening we had a follow up appointment with our dietitian, Kim. In other words, it was time for us to fess up about the problems we've been having with food tracking and following our meal plans in general.

John: So for the first two weeks I was really good about tracking all of my food. Taking pictures of it and not breaking too many of the rules. And then in the last two weeks I've been terrible. I've been totally off the rails both in terms of tracking my food and what I actually eat.

Kim: Okay. Anything in particular?

John: Processed carbohydrates; uh, goldfish crackers--

Chris: [laughter]

John: --granola bars, cookies.

Kim: If it's helpful to look at doing smaller meals during the day so it's not a full blown meal with all the different food groups. My goal is always to get at least a balanced meal.

John: I mean, to be honest with you, Kim, before this I almost never ate before about five o'clock.

Kim: Mmm-hmm.

John: So, I wake up, go go go go go, and then, like, when the workday is over I eat.

Kim: From what I could--could recommend is again going back to maybe not even a meal but just a couple things throughout the day just to get your metabolism going in the morning.

John: Mmm-hmm.

Kim: Just because I don't want you to go so long. Ideally we say to eat within, maybe, the first hour if not two hours of waking up to get your metabolism running and then from there every four to six hours.

John's Voiceover: And Chris admitted that some parts of Kim's plan just weren't gonna be feasible for him.

Chris: If there's multiple cheat days of anything it probably involves my consumption of, like, beer and wine and spirits.

Kim: Mmm-hmm.

John: [laughter]

Chris: There will probably two or three meals a week where I am a little--am more liberal than I should be.

Kim: Okay. My goals for you guys was to get the idea of what it is to eat healthy, what it is to have a balanced plate, practicing your portion control. It's not that I expect you to be to a tea every single day even--even though you guys have said that your goal is to have maybe just one of those cheat days. It's not that I expect you to be 100 percent meeting all of those other goals every other day. I think just being mindful of it and watching how often and how much.

Chris: If that's the goal than I--I would say it's been a very successful 36 days for me.

John: I would say that I had a really successful 25 days followed by a steady decline the last 11 days followed by an astonishing success for the remaining 64 days.

Kim: Okay. We're gonna get back on track.

John's Voiceover: Kim listened and encouraged us and also gave us some advice for how to stay on track.

Kim: Think about the reasons why you're doing it. If it's helpful to make a list of those reasons that's always a good thing. And I also think it really helps, if it's not a dietitian, maybe a friend or a family member who can be there to help keep you accountable. If it's someone that says, "hey, let's--let's share this meal when we go out to eat". Or, "let's make a healthier dinner together". That sort of a thing.

John's Voiceover: So in the end we promised to do better. We promised to track our food and check in with Kim every week via e-mail, and overall this meeting was really what I needed; I wish we'd done it sooner, in fact. Talking to her refocused me and it reminded me that this is something I can do. There are gonna be successes and failures within this hundred days but I can celebrate the successes and not be so hard on myself during the failures.

And maybe that's a good note for those of you following along at home too. Lifestyle changes are hard and there are going to be small setbacks within broader successes, and when you acknowledge that it's a lot easier to move forward.

Day 37 was a self-directed exercise day. I ran for about 45 minutes and I had a pretty good eating day keeping in mind Kim's advice. And then on Wednesday, day 38, we visited the Naptown roller derby, our local roller derby team. I went in with relatively low expectations thinking it was gonna be a fairly easy day for Chris and me, you know?

I thought it would be like the roller skating birthday party I went to in sixth grade: I'd roll around for a little bit, fall over, everyone would laugh at me, and then it would be over. But when we arrived and I saw the warm up and scrimmage it became clear to me that this was serious business.

Team: [yelling]

John: Oh, so she--

Chris: Oh Jesus!

John: God!

Chris: You're getting hammered.

John: Oh, ow!

Chris: Is it--is it any part--

Referee: [blows whistle]

John: Oh, ow!

Chris: Jesus.

John: God.

John's Voiceover: So if you're not familiar with roller derby basically here's what's going on: there are two teams each with five players on the track at once and both teams have a jammer who tries to break free and do laps around the circle. That's how you score points. And, as you can see, it's pretty intense. These women are astonishingly tough and strong.

Team Member: Are you ready for this?

John: No! No, I mean I can't even roller skate so I'm definitely not ready for this.

John's Voiceover: So then it was time for Chris and me to put on our skates and gear.

John: I'm right back in seventh grade.

Team Member: Okay, you got it? Oh, you're perfect!

Team Member: Oh, you're great!

John: How do I--

Team Member: Want me to push you forward--

John: How do I go forward?

Team Member: --a little bit? Here, I'll push you forward a little.

Team Member: Yep. There you go.

John: Oh, s--t. Oh, God. I'm gonna go down.

Chris: There we go. And so--yeah. And so we just roller skate.

Team Member: Keep leaning forward.

Chris: Oh, look at this.

John: F--k off, Chris!

Team Member: Told you!

Team Member: He's a natural.

Chris: Just a natural.

John's Voiceover: Chris, of course, took to skating pretty much immediately as he does for every physical activity. For me it was not quite so easy.

Team Member: You're doing good. Another thing: you have to just keep telling yourself that you're doing good and that you're doing it and part of your confidence is gonna come from your mental game.

John's Voiceover: Then we got into these lines and there was a leader who would pull us along and after one lap the leader would change, and at this point it became pretty clear to me that I was going to fall. We started to go faster and faster and I knew I wasn't taking the turns correctly and I just couldn't figure out how to make my roller skates not wobble and then--

Team members: Woah!

John: [grunts]

Team members: Woah!

John: [grunts]

Team member: Are you alright?

John: Yeah.

Team Member: Are you sure? You need a second?

John: [sighs] I just need a second.

Team Member: Okay. Take a second.

John: [sighs]

Team Member: Yeah, there's usually one of those.

John: [sighs] Yeah, I just hurt my tailbone.

Team Member: Your knee bothering you?

John: I just need to--

Team Member: Tailbone?

John: I'm gonna place out for a second.

Team Member: Yep.

Team members: Grab on! [yelling]

Referree: [blows whistle]

John's Voiceover: I definitely wasn't about to put those skates back on so they let us do a scrimmage wearing regular shoes and this was around when I started to really understand how difficult roller derby is. Essentially all I had to do here was just run around the track but it was absolutely exhausting to try to get through all those bodies. The idea of doing all of that with roller skates on while going backwards, moving at incredibly high speeds, falling, blocking, trapping, it just blew my mind.

When you watch elite athletes, and make no mistake these women are elite athletes, it's easy to forget that what they're doing is being done with actual human bodies. And all I could really do was marvel and try to stay out of the way. Anyway, the sneaker scrimmage had tired me out but we still technically had a workout to do. We did planks and partner squats and lunges, jump rope and partner push ups. Then we all circled up and did this difficult move. They were basically burpees with dumbbells. It was so hard that I was seeing stars.

John: I hate this shot, Sheridan.

John's Voiceover: And then we finished up with a bunch of cone drills.

Team: We are strong! We are Naptown! Wooo! [clapping]

John's Voiceover: And did I mention that many of these women were just using this as a warm up? After we left they did a full workout. I emerged from this experience with a whole new respect for roller derby and also a pretty significant tailbone injury. But overall it was a fun workout although I think at the age of 39 I can officially announce my retirement from roller skating. Thank you for watching. I'll see you on day 39.

[OUTRO]

Chris: Okay, I'm just gonna get small so you can't see me. Gonna get small so you can't see me. Oh, where's he at? Where's he at? Where's he at?

Referee: [blows whistle]

Team: [yelling] Sit low! Sit low! Sit low!

Chris: [laughter]