John: This is frickin' hard.

Todd: Yes, that's why we do it.

John: [laughs]

Todd: If anything we do doesn't seem that difficult for you, then you're doing it wrong.

John: Okay. [laughs]

[INTRO]

Healthcare Professional: Come on, Chris. How you doing? How's-- where's that thumbs at? Still good? Very good. Let's go. Work for it.

John's Voiceover: Day 17 was a Wednesday, and a self-directed exercise day. Chris got in an excellent workout, because he had to do a stress test.

Healthcare Professional: Very good! You can step off of there; have a seat and we'll get you some towels and some water. 

John's Voiceover: Fortunately, it went well. He's very healthy. His resting pulse is low because, you know, he's fit.

On the downside, Chris is doing a terrible job of photographing his food, and I'm not doing that great. But I do have some pictures from this day. Like, I ate these tortilla chips, and a sandwich and strawberries, and soup with cauliflower. But I also ate some granola bars that I didn't take a picture of.

Day 18 meant another workout with Laura, but this time she took us to a local park that has a path with obstacles along it. And she had us run the loop and stop at every obstacle for a different exercise.

Laura: Hard or not hard?

John: Hard.

Laura: [laughs]

Chris: Back's just a little sore.

John's Voiceover: Chris's back was acting up from the start, but he pushed through. I wasn't experiencing any physical pain, I just wasn't that psyched about exercising. After a little warm-up, we launched into chin-ups. My face right there is when Laura told me that I'd only been holding that for 12 seconds. Who knew that 12 seconds could feel like 45 minutes?

Then we did these high legs and high knees, which is a good opportunity for me to show off my sweet argyle gym socks. 

John: You guys like my socks today?

John's Voiceover: And, of course, Laura brought our favorite workout bands to the park. Suprisingly, we didn't get any funny looks while we were doing these back-to-back wall-sits or these weird reverse sit-ups. This was about when I started to wonder whether any of this equipment had ever been cleaned.

Laura: We don't need a gym to workout!

John's Voiceover: One thing I've noticed about Laura, no matter where we go, she always finds a way to make us do pushups. 

John: Everything just jiggles when I did it. I hate height crap. Why is there so much height crap in 100 Days?

John's Voiceover: Monkey bars were a new one though. We didn't quite master them. Specifically, I could not make it through one monkey bar. That said, overall, this was a pretty fun workout. It's hard to beat running around the park with your best friend, and plus I now have a new appreciation for my kids when they do the monkey bars.

Chris: It's so much fun being outside in nature. That is my preferred way to exercise right there.

Laura: [laughs]

John: What a move.

Chris: I stuck it.

John: What a move.

John's Voiceover: And here's some of my day 18 food. I just love soup so much. I feel like soup is the solution to most of my nutritional problems. Also, I totally earned this beer.

On day 19 we returned to Todd Beattie's gym that you might remember from day two. We certainly hadn't forgotten it. This time though, he was gonna run us through his boot camp workout.

Chris: Last time you saw us we weren't athletes but we are now.

Todd: [laughs] A lot's changed since I last saw you.

Chris: Lot has changed.

John's Voiceover: Todd also brought his dog, Remi, to the gym and I just have to say Remi might be the greatest dog I've ever met which is really saying something. We started with some moves that we know pretty well thanks to Laura: squats, scissor kicks, burpees. But then he taught us some new ones like these renegade rows which is a push-up with a kettle ball which you then pull in to your chest. And yes, it is as hard as it looks.

John: [sighs] That was a good first three minutes.

Todd: [laughs] There you go.

John's Voiceover: We also used those kettle balls in the sit ups and then we did an obstacle course run through. Then back to renegade rows and sit ups before running through the obstacle course again. We were also taking lots of rest breaks, which is what the whole workout is based around: getting your heart rate up and then bringing it back down and then getting it up again.

Todd: Just about everything we do is high intensity interval training.

John: Yeah.

Todd: And you're always moving through all your heart rate zones so we're burning fat, we're getting you time to rest, plus we're hitting that peak, as you just noticed,--

John: Yeah.

Todd: --heart rate.

John's Voiceover: Then Todd taught us another move, the clean and press, which you can see here and we alternated that with lots of squats and some more obstacle course. It was a tough workout but both Chris and I enjoyed seeing how much progress we made just in two weeks doing the obstacle course.

John: For me that was the day where I started to feel like, "oh, I'm making progress."

Chris: Mmm-hmm.

John: Like, I am changing.

Chris: I remember thinking, "oh, I'm going to be so sore the next day." And I wasn't. Which to me was-- is a sign of getting more fit, and it's gotten progressively better as well that way.

Todd: One more.

John and Chris: [grunts]

Todd: Great job. [claps] You may now collapse.

John's Voiceover: Day 19 was also a pretty good day nutrition-wise. The new eating regimen is all about balancing different types of food rather than cutting out entire food groups. And you can see that I ate pretty well in all these meals: some fajitas with vegetables and chicken, a healthy sandwich, even a banana and peanut butter. The combination of carbs and protein is supposed to help me refuel after boot camp. And in general I felt pretty good about my food that day. I wasn't too hungry but I also didn't eat too much.

So week three is now in the books, and I feel like 100 Days is getting easier for me, the exercise was great this week with one notable exception. I genuinely enjoyed the days training with Laura. I thought going back to the obstacle course and doing that day at boot camp was awesome. Everything was really great except for rock climbing.

And then on the whole in terms of nutrition I think this was probably my best week so far. I mean, I did make a few mistakes like I ate a Snicker's bar for lunch one day which probably isn't ideal. But that actually wasn't so much because I wanted a Snicker's bar, it was because I'd done a poor job of planning my eating for the day and some work things went long and then I was like, "what can I eat that's approximately 300 calories and has some carbs and some protein and some fat? Oh! I know. A Snicker's bar."

And then there were a few times when I ended up eating out when I would have preferred to make something for myself and just didn't have time or didn't meal plan correctly. So going into next week one of my big priorities in going to be on Sunday sit down for about an hour and plan out most of what I'm gonna eat during the next week.

And then there's my mental health. This was another very good week for me mental health-wise, and it's a good reminder that while it's extremely difficult practically to use exercise as a treatment for my anxiety disorder it's also very effective. My head just feels like a much safer and calmer place after I spend an hour exercising and it's really a profound difference.

Chris, by the way, has totally given up on meditation. I sent him a bunch of studies about how, on average, it's good for people and he sent me back an e-mail explaining that if you look closely at the study it says that it's not good for all people and he's part of the group it's not good for.

Chris: I found it more stressful than relaxing. Working out for an hour, doing exercise for an hour, going to play golf I get more relaxed and more introspective doing that than I do through meditation.

John's Voiceover: So Chris is saying farewell to meditation but I'm gonna keep trying for a while at least. Thanks for watching. I'll see you on day 20.

[OUTRO]

Chris: I will destroy Gotham, Batman.

Cameraperson: [laughs]

Chris: Do you know who that is?

Healthcare Professional: I do not.

Chris: It's Bane from Batman.

Healthcare Professional: Oh.