I celebrated my birthday a week ago marking the end of my 28 Before 28 list. As I get older, I’ve noticed that my receding hairline is making rapid progress at colonizing the top of my head while my nose hair has grown long enough to require monthly trimming.
On to the results!
Diet
- Eat Four Servings Vegetables for 200 Days: 38 Days
- Drink 12 Cups of Water for 200 Days: 77 Days
- Eat Four Servings Fruit for 200 Days: 79 Days
- Cook / Eat at home for 500 meals: 236 meals (Didn’t track well)
The thought with these goals was that if I didn’t manage to cut off junk food, I could at least ensure I was eating the healthy stuff. It’s amazing how many days I would go with out eating ANY vegetables. Twelve cups of water a day was too much as I would chug water before bed to meet the goal only to wake up three or four times in the middle of the night to empty the tanks.
Triathlon
- Bike 5,000 Miles – 1941.46 Miles (27Before27: 1935.53 Miles, 26Before26: 2042.82 Miles)
- Run 1,000 Miles – 732.71 Miles (27B27: 589.57 Miles, 26B26: 654.60 Miles)
- Swim 500,000 Yards – 162,913 Yards (27B27: 69,311 Yards, 26B26: 154,868 yards)
- Weight Training 50 times – 24 Times, all in the second half of the year
‘Twas a decent year across all triathlon disciplines, with in increase in mileage from last year for every sport. At one point, I was completing a ‘workout’ in each of the sports every single day. I ran at least one mile for 200 consecutive days, biked at least three miles for 197 days out of a 198 day stretch, and swam at least 100 yards for 55 days out of a 56 day period. Those streaks were all a result of my ‘commitment contract’ which I’ll discuss later.
YouTube – Lethal Engineering
- Create Patreon Account – Yep!
- Solar Death Ray Video – Nada
- Halloween Video – Zilch
- Three Thermite Videos – Yes! Destroying Peeps, WD-40, and AXE Body Spray
- Call to Action at end of Videos – Yes! A little awkward, need some work
- Build Workshop – Partial, need to finish up lights and shelving. Also, get more organized
I posted three videos this year which was a significant increase from the one video from last year. I also learned a little bit of Photoshop in order to make interesting thumbnails.
Lethal Tri
- Track Goals Daily – Probably 50% of the days
- 20 Blog Posts – 7 Posts, with my favorites being the Mother’s and Father’s Day posts
- Reread 10 Favorite Books and Summarize – None! (But read 10 other books)
- Two Courses MIT Open CourseWare – Bought a Calculus Book, watched one lecture
I created an Excel spreadsheet with 16 sheets that I used to track each goal. It’s effective, but I didn’t fill it out everyday.
Personal / Miscellaneous
- Train Dog Sit, Down, Stay, Come, Heel, Fetch, Potty Train – All but heel!
- Be More Positive / Smile More – Stayed the same
- Help Alexis – Definitely! I do 99% of the chores around the house
- Net Worth (Alexis Debt Excluded) $100,000 – $60,154.11
Surgery residency is all consuming. Alexis consistently works 80+ hours works, and as a result, I do do all household chores, take care of the dog, and pay the bills.
Zucc is considerably better trained, but still has an insatiable amount of energy. We’ve taught him all the basic commands using advice from YouTube videos, while our friends and family taught him to shake and roll over (thanks Chris and Ben!)
I logged all of our expenses for the year. Having two incomes is a fantastic change, but we spent a lot of money. Net worth increased about $16k. That doesn’t factor in the additional bathroom we are putting in, which has so far cost approximately $8k, and should add an equivalent amount to the value of our house. Spending is one are we can certainly improve on.
Stop Doing
- Facebook – 72 Days
- Watching YouTube Videos – 60 Days
- Junk food / Soda – 9 Days
- Distraction When Working – 5 Days
- SECRET – 27 Days
- Complaining / Getting Angry – 16 Days
These were all haphazardly tracked as well, specifically ‘distractions when working’ and ‘complaining / getting angry’.
Tracking these actions made me aware of what triggered them. Any minor anxiety from work and I reflexively reach for my cellphone to escape it. The best solution I found was to remove the Facebook and YouTube apps from my phone and then place my phone out of reach.
The Secret Weapon
I mentioned under the ‘Triathlon’ section all the different streaks I maintained. Those were the result of the commitment contract I made with my sister. Here’s how it worked. I first committed to running everyday, then over the course of a couple months I added biking, swimming, eating fruits/vegetables, drinking water, and giving up Facebook and YouTube. If I missed a day doing any of those things, then I owed my sister $100. In total, I payed her $200. The commitment contract worked great, until a got stress fracture running the Los Angeles Marathon. I didn’t run for six weeks and also stopped swimming and biking, which snowballed into canceling the commitment contract all together.
Summary
I accomplished 5 of the 28 goals that I set a year ago which is a low completion rate. Looking back, there was nothing extreme or notable that occurred on the ‘goals’ front. That said, I’m very happy day to day and feel fortunate for the opportunities I have. Maybe I’m just growing complacent. The commitment contract looks to be an effective tool which I’ll need to reuse next year. Stay tuned for the 29 Before 29 List!
Lethal Tri 
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