“The Way is in training.”
– Miyamoto Musashi
It’s been 28 days since I embarked on my first 30 day challenge.
In honor of this, I’ve decided to share my experiences from the past four weeks, and summarize what I learned.
- Once you get into a routine, working out is easy.
Seriously, the hardest part of the whole challenge was “finding time” during the first two weeks. After about 10 days of dragging myself to the gym, exercising stopped feeling like a chore and I started looking forward to my daily lift. While I had planned on missing about three work out days, I ended up never missing a single one.
- Eating healthy is really easy.
When planning my challenge, I scheduled in three cheat meals a week. I figured that between the holiday season and social obligations, I’d end up eating left over Christmas cookies, fast food, and unhealthy snacks at least twice a week. Never have I been so wrong. Over the past four weeks, I’ve eaten one cheat meal. After this month, I don’t think I have any interest in eating sweets or fast food ever again.
- I’m a dirty liar (and lazy)
At the beginning of the challenge I promised to post about the following:
Weight training
Nutrition
Epigenetics
Supplements
Gyms
Bodybuilding
And much more
If my math is correct, I wrote about less than half of those topics. Instead I wrote about subjects that I actually had expertise on, like juicing and hydrotherapy.
- Having a goal turns days into minutes.
Dale Carnegie said it best, “Research men rarely have nervous breakdowns. They haven’t time for such luxuries.” This past month was completely stress free. While all my friends got worried over trivial matters, I was too busy to join them. January is usually considered to be the bleakest and most depressing month of the year, yet I enjoyed it more than I did October, November, and December. I’m even kind of sad that the month is almost over. Of course, had I not made a goal for myself, I guarantee that I would have gotten stressed and depressed.
Final thoughts:
Taking up a 30 day challenge was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. This was one of the best months I’ve ever had and I feel like I accomplished a lot. I’m definitely looking forward to starting on my next goal.
P.S. Just because working out is no longer my 30 day challenge, doesn’t mean that I’m abandoning it. In fact, I plan on keeping exercise as a major part of my life.