Sarah: You did it John

J:
*. That was right at the f*ckin edge of human capability.

C: That was, uh, that was like a good off day.

[100 Days Intro]

John: [voice over] Welcome back to 100 Days. So Day 81 was a Thursday, which usually means a workout session with Laura, but instead Chris and I did the Day 8 worksheet from the Community Tab trying to get an effective home workout like many of you do. We went through the whole thing 3 times. As for equipment, we didn't have a medicine ball, so we used the World Book encyclopedia from 1983 which was very effective. I do have a resistance band though, so that was helpful.

In general, the workout wasn't too hard for us. Mostly because, ya know, it was from Day 8, and we're now on Day 81. 

C: What's the very first entry from the A's?

J: Aadrvark. Gotta be aardvark.

C: Take a look.

J: There's a preface, there's a ton of contributors... A-1, the sauce.

C: A-1.

John: [voice over] So in order to get our heart rates up a little bit more we spent the last 20 minutes doing speed work on the treadmill and elliptical. This was fun, and really hard. Like, the last three minutes I was running at 8 miles per hour, which is the fastest I've run... ever. This is stuff most people can do even if you don't have an encyclopedia you can even do some of these exercises by your desk on your lunch break.

And speaking of lunch, look at all this great food tracking I did! Chris didn't do so bad either. 

John: [voice over] Day 82 was a boxing workout with Suzana. Sarah joined us for this one as well. We started with some dynamic stretching. Then we had 5 sets of 100 punches and 50 high knees. Afterwards, Suzana introduced us to the deadmill. You get on the treadmill, don't press any buttons, and just start running, like you're a crab in the sand. 

Suzana: Whatever you do, don't stop that belt. That's it, just like that. Everybody's on point. 4, 3, 2, set. Yeah, catch that breath, we go right back in. That's the deadmill.

J: That was the hardest 50 seconds of 100 Days. 

John: [voice over] Then we moved on to 100 upper cuts, 10 burpees, and then back to the deadmill. 

J: I've seen the tape of it, and it doesn't look hard, I don't know how to explain how hard it was.

C: What if we slow-mo it, do you think it would look harder?

J: I don't know... it was so -

C: Or would it look even slower, does it look like it's already in slow-mo?

J: Yeah, I'm sure it already looks like it's in slow-mo.

John: [voice over] I know I've said this before about Suzana's boxing classes, but this was extremely difficult. 

J: 100! Ahhh! C'mon. 

John: [voice over] So when Suzana said that the next set was the hardest set, I was sufficiently worried. We did hooks, mountain climbers, and then 50 reps of renegade rows which we learned previously from our other instructor Tod Bede.

Suzana: If everybody thought about fitness like money, everybody would be workin out, right? Make your money right here. You're investing in yourself.

John: [voice over] Then we moved on the 40 push ups, 30 squat shoulder presses, 20 sit up lift ups, and we had to do 100 punches in between each of those. We had to get that money!

C: This is so f*cking hard. I got nothin.

John: [voice over] We finished with 10 walking plank combos, and a 30 second burn out.

Suzana: Hook, 2, 3, 4, hook, straight, hook set! Done, darlin. Good work guys.

John: [voice over] It's hard not to reward yourself with food after a workout like that, but I stayed in control and Chris only gave us one meal picture that day, so here are some unflattering images of him. 

John: [voice over] Day 83 was a Saturday and Chris and I went on a sloppy, freezing 6 mile trail run with some of our friends. We even vlogged it. 

J: How ya doin Chris?

C: Good!

J: What are we doin?

C: Uh, doin a trail run in an ice storm.

J: [laughs] Here we go!

C: It's like two gazelles right there in front of us. 

J: It's miserable, as you can see the camera lens in fogged over, it's uh, coming like raining but it's kinda ice-rain? 4.2 miles so far, kinda having fun though. Gotta say. Trail running is just so much more fun than being on the treadmill, so. Woah! Alright, I think I'm gonna turn off the camera.

John: [voice over] Not to brag, but I did a great job tracking my food on Day 83, and of course here's one food picture from Chris. At this point I'm tracking 100% of my food, and Chris is... not, so it's looking like he's gonna get that workout with Suzana. 

In general last week was my second best diet week of 100 Days, and this week was my best week. By and large I'm sticking to the rules I set for myself. 

Before I made those rules it was really frustrating for me to feel out of control, especially when it came to my carb cravings. But now even when I slip up and eat something that I shouldn't, I can stop myself from falling apart completely and that's a really profound change. 

I'm still meditating 10 minutes a day, and another interesting thing Chris and I did this week was spend 90 minutes in sensory deprivation pods. We couldn't really see or hear anything and our pods were filled with so much salt water that you really didn't even feel like you had a body. And after that 90 minutes I did experience an almost euphoric relaxation. To be honest, once 100 Days is over, I think it's more likely that I will return to sensory deprivation pods than continue to meditate. 

As for my mental health, that continues to be better than it has in many years which I attribute mostly to exercise, but also probably party to meditation. I've been more professionally productive in the last 3 months than in any 3 month period in the last several years. And I think that's down to these changes in my mental health. The only set-back I had this week was when I was dealing with that knee injury and that was mostly stressful because I'm now really dependent on exercise as a part of my mental health treatment. So, I was really relieved when Dr. Henry told me that I could keep running. Which is not a sentence I ever thought I would say.

Thanks for watching. I'll see you on Day 84.

[credits screen]

C: I didn't eat the right thing for lunch today. I just had a salad, but I had like a bunch of brussel sprouts and cauliflower.

J: Okay... why can't we talk about food guys? Let's just literally talk about anything else.