[John's Voiceover] Okay its day 10. Chris and I are 1/10th of the way through our 100 day health and fitness challenge. I can do this nine more times. Maybe...

[Intro]

On the schedule for day 10 was swimming at the local Jewish community center. We had an instructor, Todd Landwehr, which is just a fabulous name for a swimming instructor.

He was a great coach and super helpful, but I have a complicated relationship with swimming. I grew up in pools and swimming in the ocean so I know how to swim, but I've never found it particularly enjoyable, partly for mental health reasons. Whenever I'm swimming I always feel a little bit nauseated and I also get super concerned about bacterial contamination in the pool, even though I know that's totally irrational. I mean there was obviously plenty of chlorine in this pool, just look at my eyes!

But I was there and I was ready to learn, and whenever I started to get anxious I would just tell myself, "well, this isn't rock climbing!"

We started out with our front crawls, and then Todd gave us advice on breathing and kicking. We also worked on our breaststrokes. Todd explained that many swimmers actually do this stroke out of order, the correct method is pull, breathe, kick, then glide. It took us a few tries to get it right.

And finally Chris and I were ready to race with our newfound freestyle and breaststroke skills.

[Todd] Take your marks, set, go!

[Voiceover] I just want to emphasize again that 100 days is not a competition between Chris and me, and I know it's not a competition because Chris always wins! I would argue it's actually a gift to the audience that I wasn't willing to go full Speedo to win this one. Also, for the record, neither of us is a winner when it comes to high-fives. 

Swimming was a pretty grueling workout, so maybe it wasn't a coincidence that both Chris and I used that day as our weekly non-tracking day, or "cheat day". For Chris, that meant a couple extra beers on the golf course, and for me, it meant Twix bars (and yes that's plural).

I did manage to eat a lot of nutritious food on day 10, like I think our dietitian Kim would've given me credit for these fruits and vegetables, but I had a lot of Twix bars. I ended up paying for this overindulgence during our day 11 training session with Laura.

[John] Chris and I both made bad choices yesterday so today's workout is gonna suck, and I'm kinda down in the dumps a little bit, but we're going to do our best. At least we're wearing matching t-shirts.

[Chris] *Aggressive clapping*

[John] Alright Laura, we're ready.

[Chris] Let's do it.

[Laura] Alright, let's do it.

[John] Be gentle.

[Laura] Okay.

[Voiceover] The workout was mostly enjoyable. Like I learned that I truly love boxing. 

*Boxing Sounds*

[Laura] Four, three, two, one.

[John] No need to uppercut... no need to uppercut.

[Chris] Just felt good.

*Boxing Sounds*

[Laura] Got something that'll stretch you out this week. Oh! Five, four, three, two, and one! Woo

[John] That was great. I could hit that thing all day.

[Voiceover] I also relearned that I do not love squats and lunges, and, in fact, nor do they love me. These are just not my most beautiful angles. 

*Boxing Sounds*

[Laura] Alright, switch!

[Voiceover] Now I know that I said I truly love boxing and I do, but love is not always simple and uncomplicated. Sometimes it involves dry heaving.

*Sounds of dry heaving*

[John] I'm okay. Ahh. It's the candy. If I hadn't had the candy I'd be fine.

[Voiceover] But that aside this was a pretty great day and after my disappointing non tracking day, I was able to get my nutrition back in order. Look at all these fruits and vegetables I ate! And this Starbucks breakfast sandwich. But no regrets - it was delicious! 

Day 12 and Day 13 were both self directed exercise days, which in my case meant running four miles each day and in Chris' case meant two rounds of golf. And then day 14 was a rest day which for me meant resting, and for Chris meant a round of golf.

So week two of a hundred days is now over and mostly it's been great. My biggest challenge so far is with the diet stuff. Like if I wake up in the morning and I know what I'm going to be eating all day, the diet feels totally doable and sustainable. Honestly, it doesn't feel like a diet, it just feels like eating. But when I don't know what I'm gonna eat, and I have to kind of plan on the fly, it starts to get difficult and I'm more likely to eat way to much at night.

And exercise-wise this was a pretty fun week. I really enjoyed cycling with Chris. I'm never gonna love swimming, which may make it seem like a bit of a disappointment, but it reminded me of something Aaron Carroll told me when we started this whole thing.

[Aaron] And if you can find over the course of this, something that you enjoy and that would- you'd sustain over the long-term, that's a win, that's what you need.

[Voiceover] I enjoyed many of the swimming parts of swimming but I also have to acknowledge that it's a source of anxiety for me so I think I can cross it off my list for the future. But this week I also found one exercise I love: boxing! And that's a surprising development for me because I've never actually hit another person. Back in, like, sixth grade I was sometimes made to hit myself and that wasn't fun, but boxing is!

And then there's meditation which has been going okay. I'm still not that enthusiastic about meditating and that's one of the things I haven't done every day; there's been several days that I skipped meditation. I'm doing guided meditation and one of the focuses is on letting thoughts that you have pass across your consciousness like clouds or like cars going along a road that you're standing at the side of. That's very hard for me to do practically.

On a minute by minute basis, not just when I'm meditating but all the time, it is extremely hard for me not to get in the car with my thoughts. And in fact to be totally honest I'm not even sure I can control whether I get into the car, so that's my big concern about meditation but I'm still trying to work it.

As for Chris I think week two has been mostly good for him. I think he's able to get through the exercise stuff a lot easier than I am because he's fitter than I am and has a base level of fitness that goes back to when he was, like, 12. I think some of the diet stuff has been hard for him, like on Wednesday I know that he drank significantly more than the two drinks that were allowed to have per day.

But we're definitely both making much better nutritional choices than we were before 100 Days, and, really, the point of this is to do something that's sustainable for you. And I think when it comes to diet both Chris and I are still trying to learn what's sustainable for us.

Last thing - by the way, me from the future here, hello! - on day 100 Chris and I will be participating in a 10 kilometer race alongside some of the people you'll be meeting over the course of this show, so I'm gonna be training for that, if you've been following along with us I'd encourage you to find a local race some time around day 100. There are tons of them all over the US and in many other countries.

Many of these races benefit awesome causes. If you've decided to do one, please head over to the community tab and let us know about it. We'll talk about training and raising money for charity. And by the way, if you wanna sponsor us on our 10 kilometer race you can do so; there is a link in the video info below to learn more.

Also, for those of you who effectively meal plan I'm really interested in your advice, so let's start a discussion on that as well. Thanks for watching. I'll see you on day 15.

[Outro]

[John] *heavy breathing* Oh God.

[Chris] You know what Kevin Spacey says in American Beauty?

[John] I don't remember.

[Chris] "I just wanna look good naked."

[John] Yeah. Sad, though. Remember that's a sad movie not a happy movie.