84-28-5 - My Personal Health + Fitness Challenges

I'm like a lot of people - my diet and workout schedule has been wildly unpredictable for most of my adult life. The problem I have is that I am in the beer industry - which means that if I don't watch myself I could spiral out of control pretty fast. And trust me - I've done that many times!

Over the past few years, I have been working on a tracking system to monitor my diet and fitness. Most importantly - this system helps me think about what I'm doing on a daily basis so at least I am aware of my behavior over time. Because of the way my brain works, I have created 3 separate sheets to help me stay on track and I'll explain each below:

84 Day Challenge

From what I have read, most habits take between 28 and 300 days to form, with the average being about 70 days for most people. I picked 84 days because that equals 3 months - which just seems like a timeframe I can wrap my head around. For this challenge, I choose one simple fitness goal and one simple diet goal. For a fitness goal example - I have a minimum distance I need to run or bike each day. For a diet goal example - I choose something simple like drinking 1 liter of water each day.

28 Day Challenge

Some things I just don't think I could do (or won't do) for 84 days - but I think I can do for 28 days! Giving up beer would fall into this category. So for this challenge I stick to things that are reasonably simple to do daily - like tracking body weight, no eating after 8pm, and meditating. What's cool is that I can do three different 28-day challenges while tracking my 84-day challenge.

5 Day Challenge

I created this challenge because I noticed that there were a few things that I was really bad at - I was probably rebelling for all the good things I was doing for my 84-day and 28-day challenges. Again - there are things I can probably do for 5 days in a row that I might not be able to "will myself" to do for 28 or 84 days. This would include things like eating a specific breakfast, cutting out carbs, or challenging myself to not drink beer for 5 days!

How To Track Your Personal Challenges

1. Print the challenge form(s) below and keep them accessible.

• I choose realistic goals that work for me for each challenge.

• Remember to set the bar LOW (especially when your just starting out) so that you can accomplish your goals!

• Don't set goals based on someone else's expectations - they need to be your goals if you are going to achieve them.

2. Review these forms each morning

• I put a happy face on the days that I accomplished my goals and a sad face on the days that I mess up.

• If you don't accomplish a daily goal it's okay - hopefully you see more happy faces than sad faces at the end of your challenge.

• If you see a lot of sad faces it just means that you need to set your goals lower until you are able to achieve them!

• Achieving the goal of walking 1km each day is better than setting a goal of running 3km each day and not achieving it!

Do What Works For You!

• Creating theses challenges was a personal process that has taken me years and something I have really never shared with anyone until now. Hopefully there is something within these that works for someone else that struggles with maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

• I would suggest starting with one of the three challenges and then implementing the others if you feel motivated to do so at some point.