The Wanderer

Hello Friends, Kshaunish here back for another daily blog! Its a Monday, the start of week 2 of 75 hard, and I’m feeling absolutely great. Well that’s not completely true. This weekend me and my friends went up to Wisconsin for a quick weekend ski trip to celebrate my buddy’s birthday. The weekend was fantastic, but came with its fare share of challenges. For one thing, I’m celebrating one of my best friend’s birthdays, and I’m not drinking. For another, I’ve never gone skiing before. While the weekend was fun in its own right, spending quality time with my friends, making new friends, and learning a new skill, the mental and physical challenge of being around so many people drinking was difficult for me. But I’m happy I made it through the weekend without giving into temptation. I came back home the next day feeling mentally and physically exhausted, not having any motivation to workout at all. Despite this, I knew I needed to workout, that the short term pain will only lead to long term longevity, that even as soon as after the workout I’ll feel so much better.

I started my Monday with a yoga routine, watching another video by the goat YogaWithAdrienne. This video was great, doing very similar movements from the last few videos but also focusing heavily on breathing. She asked us to do this exercise where you put the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth with your mouth closed and breath through your nose. The breathing makes an interesting sound that almost sounds like waves crashing onto a beach and then receding back to the ocean. Try it now if you have a moment. Close your eyes, keep your mouth closed, put your tongue on the roof of your mouth, and breath in and out. I loved the workout, and this emphasis on breathing really helped tune me in for the rest of the day.

I spent most of the rest of my day working from home, and then after a quick video game break after lunch, I went to the gym for a light leg day. Leg day goes back and forth as my favorite and least favorite workout routine. On some days I’m excited to move around heavy weight and leave with a feeling of accomplishment that I pushed through the pain. On other days, like today, I dread the workout ahead of me. On days like this, I standardize my leg day to just 4 main exercises, listed below.

Leg Day:

• 1 Legged Leg Press 4×8 on each side + 8 more reps using both legs
• 1 Legged hamstring curl 4×12
• 1 Legged quad extensions 4×12
• Calf raises 4×12

This workout hits every major muscle in the legs, giving you a good pump and a nice burn without taking too much time. I like this workout a lot, and it did the job for me, as about half way through the workout I felt much better. I left the gym about 45 minutes later with sore legs and a sense of accomplishment, aka the best feeling in the world.

I want to talk a bit more about one of the harder aspects of this journey, and one of the main things I failed at last time I tried this. Drinking Alcohol. I feel like a lot of college students and recent graduates can relate to the idea that many social interactions in college and in corporate America have at least some drinking involved. Every birthday, every football game, every syllabus week and final exam would be accompanied by drinking in some form. Mind you this isnt the case for everyone, many people go through life without drinking and have no issues, but in my experience there are a lot of people who will gladly grab a drink at a happy hour or go out to a club on the weekends. There’s nothing Inherently wrong with this either, but for me I think

I think lately I’ve been feeling like there’s more to social interactions than drinking and partying. I think slowly but surely my mindset is changing to move away from drinking all the time. I think as the years go by my credit card bills are higher, my pants a bit tighter, and my energy lower. And for someone who cares so much about keeping myself healthy I’ve decided to cut back on drinking.

So for the time being I’m cutting it out. And while this journey is difficult, I feel that in the long term I’ll benefit. I heard a good definition for discipline the other day, that discipline is the greatest form of self love, that its rejecting pleasure right now for more payoff in the future. At the end of the day 75 hard is about discipline, about pushing yourself to limits you didn’t even know you had. So when your friends are all out drinking, you’re right there with them, but with a mindset of your own. So that when you’re sore as all hell from falling down a mountain repeatedly for 6 hours, you get up and crush two workouts the next day. So till next time, I’ll see y’all later 🙂