J: Day 101 ran 5K! 

[100 Days Intro]

John: [voice over] Welcome back to 100 days. So, as you may remember at the very beginning of this series Chris and I met with a group of experts for their advice on this project and they helped us along the way too. So now that 100 days is officially behind us, we wanted to see them again to talk about how we've improved and what we can do going forward. On day 101 we met with Erica Galmeyer our psychologist who we'd actually seen the day before at 10 kilometer race, but the last time we officially met with her was at the half-way point, so we caught up.

Erica: I really do want to know, like, what you guys have learned about yourselves, cause there's gotta be some lessons, some take-aways.

J: For me the biggest take-away is that mental toughness which I had previously thought to be a made-up idea, is real. 

Erica: Yeah.

J: When we did metrics for the last time I did a 4 minute wall sit versus a, like, 40 second wall sit on Day 1. And the big change was not that my thighs became significantly stronger, although they did, uh, but just that I realized that I could do it. 

Erica: Yeah.

C: Yeah, and I think the key with exercises is once you get used to the pain of it, because it hurts it does, like, it hurts, like running yesterday hurt. 

Erica: Yeah.

C: Ya know, it hurts like running up the hill and your body, your lungs hurt, your legs burn, and once you get used to, like, that and you almost embrace it a little bit - 

Erica: You're right!

C: That's when you start enjoying it.

Erica: When you accept it.

J: The real lesson from the work outs and everything is keep going. It is a huge change in my life to realize that daily aerobic exercise is an extremely effective treatment for my OCD.

Erica: Yeah. That's really cool that you figured that out.

J: The food take away for me is in the last 30 days I think I locked in by using the things I'd learned about exercise and trying to apply them to diet. And so hopefully that'll be sustainable. I feel less certain about that than I do about the exercise. 

C: Think about this too is we're 39 and 40 -

Erica: Right..

C: And so when we're 45, when we're 50, when your metabolism slows down even more, like, it's just a matter of like you just can't ingest the same things that you used to. So it's gonna a continual evolution. It doesn't stop now for sure.

Erica: Right. I know there was a tiff over food.

J: We did - 

C: [laughs]

Erica: [laughs]

J: I love that they - 

C: I forgot about that - 

J: I love that they put our fight in it. I could - I couldn't believe you guys put our, our one fight - we had one fight in a hundred days.

C: John, I am not gonna go the rest of my life without eating pizza. Okay.

J: I'm not, I'm not yelling at you man.

C: I'm not gonna quit eating f*cking pizza:

[laughter]

Erica: Yeah.

C: It ain't gonna happen.

[laughter]

John: [voice over] Then we talked about goals for the future.

J: I really, really, really want to be able to do 100 push ups in a row. 

C: That would be, yeah! I think it'd be awesome. We fully realize that most people who watch this and ourselves even going forward, like you're not gonna have a personal trainer's there waiting for you, and you're not gonna have all that stuff set up for you, so the personal responsibility is back on us a lot. I have to put the onus on myself to, or like ya know, like we said, like, plan at least a couple times a week that we do it together.

Erica: Right. Stay accountable to one another.

John: [voice over] And she had some kind words for us, as she always does.

Erica: I'm super proud of you guys.

J: Thank you.

Erica: I think people can find a lot of strength in the balance that you've shown. I hope people draw off of the idea of the buddy system, I mean that's huge. 

J: Yeah.

Erica: The accountability. I hope that they draw off the idea of continuing, just keep going because like you said, you know, you you made changes because you kept going. The self compassion and, and goal setting. I mean, you guys did all of that. 

John: [voice over] And then the following day we both had appointments with our 100 Days physician, Dr. Henry. Chris was up first.

Dr. Henry: How are you doing?

C: Good, good.

Dr. Henry: The EKG, unchanged from last time. 

C: Which is good.

Dr. Henry: Which is pretty good, exactly exactly. What about your back?

C: It's good - 

Dr. Henry: Okay.

C: It feels a lot better actually. I went from being able to do like, hold a plank for like an a minute and 45 seconds to 4 and a half minutes - 

Dr. Henry: Oh wow

C: So that's like a big increase in core strength, so like different things like that my body just got a lot stronger.

Dr. Henry: Excellent.

C: Which I think helped.

John: [voice over] After all the normal check-up stuff it was time for moment of truth. Chris' triglyceride level results.

Dr. Henry: Your triglycerides are what concerned us last time - 

Dr. Henry: And lastly is triglycerides level, basically measuring how much grease is flowing through the blood. We want that level to be 150 or less, yours is 184, okay, so that's a little bit high -

Dr. Henry: Last time it was 184 - 

C: Mhm - 

Dr. Henry: This time it's 115.

C: Oh! 

Dr. Henry: Exactly!

C: Look at that!

Dr. Henry: We saved the good news for the end. 

C: That was a good build up there. You have a good poker face.

Dr. Henry: 

C: [laughs]

C: I have a family history of high cholesterol, and so it was actually really encouraging to know that they did go down and that it is something that I can control versus something that's out of my out of my control.

John: [voice over]

Dr. Henry: So your heart rate that's really different and it's 50 which is actually good because that shows more of an athletes heart. That's a better EKG than before. Your total cholesterol we want to be less than 200, last time it was 190. this time it's 140 which is even better.

J: Wow. Great.

Dr. Henry: Yeah, exactly. The LDL is the bad cholesterol, comparing your LDL last was 104, we want that level to be 100 or less and this time it's 59. 

J: Wow!

Dr. Henry: So you're doing better.

Dr. Henry: Any questions.

J: No, thank you so much.

Dr. Henry: Alrighty, I'll be back.

J: Awesome. I feel like I passed a test. 

John: [voice over] After that great news we got to celebrate with a week in Jamaica, which by the way, we worked out every day. Most days we played doubles tennis, but a couple days we did stations like we were back in the gym with Laura. 

C: F*cking majestic.

J: [voice over] And then when we returned we met up with our dietitian Kim who wanted to know how our eating had been going. 

C: Pretty much the exact same, I haven't really changed anything since, although I had a giant burrito when I got home Saturday night from that event. 

J: Oh, ya.

C: It was sitting in my fridge, my triglycerides went down.

Dr: Really? Awesome.

J: All of our metrics are good.

Dr: That's great. 

J: It's actually pretty astonishing how much it changed. 

Dr: Really? You guys have been doing well with the nutrition and the exercise part of things, and I think you can see that come together. That's awesome. 

C: Yeah, you know I think we each have- we still have our Achilles heels, empty calories that we struggle with.

Dr: And everybody does. And like I've always said to-

C: It's part of life.

Dr: It's part of it.

J: [voice over] And she gave us some advice for future dietary slip ups.

Dr: Checking in with yourselves, thinking back to what your goals were, starting the whole project and just refocus yourself to back to what your original goals were. Focusing on nutrition and everything else you've been working on.

J: Like I have a habit of ganging up on myself once I start to make bad food choices, and just like 'forget it!' and you encouraging me to say 'stop' and take a step back, that's been very helpful.

Dr: Good! I'm glad to hear that. 

C: How's your eating been Kim?

Dr: Pretty good! Pretty good, yeah.

J: [laughing]

C: Let's put the shoe on the other foot now.

J: [voice over] A couple of weeks after that, we sat down with Laura to talk about our progress, although that progress is ongoing.

J: Since 100 days ended, you and I have been working out twice a week together for an hour, once a week with Chris, and then once a week with Sarah.

L: Yep.

J: How has it been?

L: It's been great, I mean I personally was a little bit surprised you wanted to come back so, I wasn't sure you were going to.

J: I really look forward to those hour-long sessions. It's fun to see Chris once a week and get to work out with him.

L: It's fun to listen to music.

J: It's really fun to listen to music! Now that we can listen to music we've been having a good time. How's post 100 days for you?

C: It's been good, it is golf season. I have more golf clips if everybody would like to see it. It's just, send me your email and I'd be happy to send it over to you.

J: [voice over] Then we talked about the 10k and future running goals.

J: So now you're helping coach me on my first half marathon.

L: Yes.

J: How's it going so far?

L: Well, we just started really, the main point for your first one is for you to enjoy it, so don't put too much pressure on yourself. Go out there, do the training, but you'll find that during the race you'll find your niche in your group and you just stay with that groove and just have fun with it.

J: I'm excited, I'm mostly doing it though because I have realized that I need a goal.

L: Yeah.

J: Like I need something that I'm training toward, or something that I'm trying to get to, like during 100 days having that 10k race to look forward to was so important.

J: [voice over] And we reflected on the lessons we learned.

C: There's never been a time where I've gotten done exercising, working out and been like 'boy I wish I hadn't had done that'.

L: That's my mantra!

J: I've always hated when athletes talk about how, you know like, sports teaches them real-life lessons about discipline or toughness or whatever I've always thought that's a complete load of hooey, but I kind of buy it now. It's about discipline, like it's about showing up and being there and doing the work, especially on the days when I don't want to do it. Like for me writing books is not mostly about inspiration or where I get ideas. It's mostly about putting time in in front of the computer and fitness is sort of the same thing.

L: Yeah, interesting how you can attribute it to every other thing in your life.

J: Laura, the only thing I want to say is thank you for changing my life, like it's a really dramatic and wonderful change and I don't think that it would have happened without you.

L: Oh, you're so sweet, thank you, thanks for this experience.

C: In the words of John Bon Jovi, thank you for loving me, for being my eyes when I couldn't see.

L: [laughs] You're welcome?

C: You're welcome.

J: [narrating] So that was it for 100 days, it was really nice to check in with our awesome experts. I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of them, and thanks to all our other instructors who took the time to teach us different ways to get moving. When you
work really hard and accomplish something it's important to take some time to reflect on the journey and celebrate your successes, and I hope you all at home do that as well.

J: [narrating] Thanks to everyone for watching and participating alongside us, it's really been an incredible experience and I can't believe it's over, well I guess there is one last thing left to do.

C: I told him, I mean wouldn't it be a show of solidarity if you showed up for this. You know, saying we went through like a hundred days together, like why not do the last thing together. He's like 'no I'm good'. I was like 'your lost man'. What's up Sheridan? Nice to see you, haven't seen that in a while. What's up Zulea?

J: Did you really think I wasn't going to come? 

C: I knew you'd be here! I knew you'd come. I knew you'd come. 

J: I'm ready! 

C: I knew you'd show up man. 

J: Let's do it! I'm excited!

C: Yeah!

Suzana: Set! Time! Good work guys.

[end credits]

C: Do you think people know that John Bon Jovi song? It's actually a Bon Jovi song.

L: Oh, there's a difference.

C: [singing] Parting my lips when I couldn't breathe.

J: Can't clear these rights.

C: Thank you for loving me.

L: I don't know that one.

J: We'll close out the show with this.