The Challenge rules and why

100 day challenge

So, originally, I was thinking to myself “How about I do a challenge for 100 days of fitness?”. The thing is, I’ve sort of done that before. Ive done smaller challenges, with great intentions, and always fallen off the rails about halfway through. The one challenge that I set myself that I followed through on was 21 days of activity. I challenged myself to be active every day for 21 days, because 21 days is the minimum needed to embed a new behaviour.

I did it. I was so proud of myself. And then a week later I looked at my week and I had barely done anything since. I hadn’t embedded the new behaviour I was trying to. I had just looked at 21 days and thought that was all I needed to change from being a couch potato to the fabulously fit person I wanted to be. It didn’t work.

I think that the reason is that I saw it as just 1 thing. 1 thing I could fix and everything would be okay. 1 thing and everything else would just fall into place. That was a big fucking lie I told myself. I was still a couch potato. I still felt anxious. I was still afraid to try new things. I was still spending money just to make myself feel better for a few minutes.

Recently being diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder sort of made a lot click for me. I am always overthinking the worst things that could happen and taking no action as an alternative. It supposedly makes me feel safe, but also miserable. It is one of the strange and delightful mixes of anxiety that you intentionally miss things then feel sad about missing them later. I guess I am tired of that feeling now.

So I am doing a 100 day challenge, of which the fitness is one part, but not the whole part. 100 days starting on Saturday the 14^th of September. If you are wondering why, it is because that means 100 days later is Christmas Eve, and the rewards of challenging myself can be my own little Christmas present for myself.

So what am I aiming to achieve? Well, fitness as discussed, but a lot more. I want to stop wasting money on shit I don’t need. I want to stop missing out on things because “That’s not my thing” or “That seems scary”. I want to aim for things and probably fail miserably just to get over my fear of failure from being a perfectionist. Being a 37 year old, people might wonder if it isn’t a bit late to try to change myself, but fuck that. If you can try to change yourself why not go for it?

So, here are the rules I am going to try to live by for the next 100 days.

Fitness:

Every day, have the activity monitor on my Apple watch reach 1000 calories burned. Exception would only be for sickness, where I legitimately cannot get out of the house.

Consume only 1200-1800 calories a day, aiming for 1500 most days if possible. I may also consider specialised diet options such as Ketogenic again if I decide to.

Weights 3 times a week, and cardio 4 days a week in terms of specific types of workouts. I can even do some HIIT in the park.

However, knowing that life still must be lived… 5 cheat meals, and 2 full “Fuck it” cheat days are bundled in.

Finances:

Make a damn budget and stick to it. Specifically, I am giving myself $20 a day as discretionary spending. Not a lump sum of $280 a fortnight to blow through, but $20 a day. That means If I want money to go do something, I need to be disciplined to have it in advance. I will probably float a starting amount of $100 to make my first week not completely suck. So any ubers, snacks, drinks, morning coffees that I didn’t get with my grocery budget of $120 a week is out of discretionary. If I manage to buy all groceries and have money left over, I can put it into discretionary.

I want to pay any bills the day they land. So I am setting aside $500 a pay into a bills account just to have them ready to be covered.

If I want to buy something, I have to announce on my blog and Instagram that I want to buy it, and then wait 7 days. If I still want it after that, then I will buy it IF I can afford it out of my budget.

Fun:

I want to say “Yes” to more things. So I am going to do that. The only time I can say no is if it fucks up my fitness or finance rules. Other than that, when people say “Hey wanna come try….” I am going to say yes. Bonus points if the fun things are also going to help me with fitness too.

I really struggle with saying yes to things I feel I won’t be “good” at instantly. I feel like I will be judged (Thanks anxiery you insidious bitch), and then get incredibly self conscious and try to hide it behind my own loud judgements and apathy. It’s not cute.

Breaking myself out of my apartment, out of my comfort zone is the healthiest thing for me now. I am in danger of becoming a total hermit really, and as much as I say I like being alone, no one wants to end up lonely. I’m not lonely often, but sometimes you can feel isolated and in need of some fun.

To track all this, I need some accountability. On that, I will be sharing a daily blog of my successes, and yes, the very probable failures. I will also upload an Instagram post each day of one of those things, including a link. I’m not after attention… to be honest I would love to do this with no one paying attention at all. But having other people see keeps me on focus, both to know they are watching and noticing, and also maybe helping.

Follow me daily here and on https://www.instagram.com/adamelliott_27/