I finally completed my 30-day running challenge

“Discipline is the key to everything.” An age-old adage that every single person knows, but, unfortunately, discipline doesn’t come easily to everyone.

It never came easily to me either. I consider myself to be selectively disciplined. Discipline in sedentary and mental tasks was never a problem, be it studying, reading or learning something new.

But physical activities were always a challenge.

All my life, I have had a fairly heavy built, with some years being way more and some years less than what I have been on average. Nonetheless, losing weight was, and still is something I target.

In the past, I have often tried to engage in activities to lose weight. Exercise, watching my diet, going to the gym, walks, but unfortunately, nothing has been a consistent sustainable activity till now. Something would eventually break the flow and then, it would never be consistent. It’s been years now and it bothered me when I would sit and think about it.

The recent pandemic lockdown was the tipping point.

I recently finished my post-grad and was at home waiting for the joining date of my organization. Truth be told, when you have no schedule to your day, things become quite haphazard. After talking to my friends, we found ourselves in the same situation: weird sleeping pattern, binge-watching things online, terrible eating habits and all other running the lifestyle. It was as if the day was not allowing me to break away from all the bad habits.

One evening, I got extremely frustrated climbed onto the weighing machine. I was furious to see my weight. The number in front of me nudged me to get serious this time. Enough was enough! If I can’t learn how to manage my weight and maintain a discipline health routine, how will I tomorrow when the day won’t be enough in a high-stress work environment?

And so, with this mindset, I decided to engage in yet another 30-day challenge.

I had already done a 30-day challenge to limit my phone usage and the results were phenomenal. Another 30-day challenge wouldn’t hurt much.

And so, I decided to engage in a 30-day challenge to focus on my health with some ground rules:

1. Get up every morning at 6:30 without fail: After days of terrible odd sleeping hours, it was extremely important to get the sleep cycle in place
2. Go for a run: Start slow, but keep it sustainable
3. Do not have any sugar or sweets, no matter what: I have an extremely sweet tooth. And when I say that, it’s because I have sugar cravings after every single meal. I was literally having ice cream three times a day for more than a month. This seriously had to stop
4. Watch my food intake: Keep it simple and disciplined
5. Check the weight only once a week: In the past, I would check it every day and at times I would get extremely demotivated when I put effort and saw that I was weighing more the next day. So now, weigh once a week and see the cumulative effort. Forget the fluctuations.

With these ground rules set, I decided to set forth for my challenge. The night before I was to start, I set my alarm with the hope that the next 30 days will go as planned.

Day 1

My first day was here. I woke up on time and within 30 minutes, I was out of my home, ready for a run. Since it was my first day, I decided to listen to some music to keep me distracted. In the past, whenever I tried running without music, I would give up soon. So, listening to music would keep me from giving up.

I walked about 300 meters and started running. I felt breathless after about 500 meters but pushed myself. I was running after years. After about 1 km, I felt extremely breathless and decided to walk for 200 meters. Once I caught my breath, I ran again.

The music distracted me for a while, but after a point, the tiredness and exhaustion are so overwhelming, the music fails to distract you. All my thoughts went on how tired and breathless I was. Just waiting for the ordeal to be over soon!

I finished my run with 1.5 km of running and 200 meters of walking. I was panting but satisfied with my progress.

Once I reached home, I was feeling a bit sleepy and extremely tired. I could barely keep my eyes open while I climbing up the stairs. I crashed on my bed and slept for an hour. Not what I planned for, but at least I managed to run today. 1 down, 29 days to go.

Day 2

I woke up again at the same time. But today, my legs were painful. The body had gone in a state of shock from months of inactivity. I expected that.

I started my run, but I could barely run after a few hundred meters. The run was way tougher than the previous day. The feeling of pain crept in while running, and the breathlessness hit me earlier than it did compare to the previous day.

After a lot of struggle, I completed the track. And again, I went home and crashed on my bed. Exhausted.

Eating no sugar was extremely difficult for me. The craving was overwhelming, so I literally had to gulp down a lot of water to kill the craving. This was way tougher than my run.

Day 3

I had felt cramps in my legs for the entire time during the previous day. So, when I woke up on my third day, the pain subsided. I went for my run again, and with a little pain, I could feel the breathlessness creeping in after a delayed time.

This was my best run till now. When I reached home, I was exhausted, but I did not feel sleepy or that tired. I continued my day as planned and was happy that I could see a slight improvement.

Week 1

I had managed 7 straight days of waking up at 6:30 and going for a run. The breathlessness crept in slower as days passed by. I was feeling better with the quality of my runs as days were passing by and felt glad that things were on track.

My no sugar challenge was going as planned. After 3 days, the sugar craving had died and I was comfortable now without any sugar. I had fruits but no sweets, chocolates or ice-cream no matter what.

Week 2

14 straight days of waking up at 6:30 and going for a run. The stamina improved by the day and I started running faster than I was in the last week. The sleep quality improved with appropriate sleeping hours. Overall, I could feel a change in my body. Less lethargy and more energy throughout the day.

On the sugar front, my challenge was intact. It was as if I had never craved sugar. This was a whole new me.

Week 3

During the middle of my third week, I decided to abandon the earphones. I started focussing on my breathing and surroundings. During the runs, my mind would wander off to think of some interesting things. I had read in an article that running is extremely good for your memory and creativity. Without the earphones, the quality of runs somehow improved. I couldn’t put a finger on the reason, by they just did.

Sometime during the middle of the week, I decided to convert the entire 1.7 km to running, with no catch-up walk in between. The first day was tough, very tough. But by the end of the week, I was comfortable. 21 days and my challenge was still intact with great results. I was thrilled. I just had a week more to go now to complete the thing I have been intending to for years now.

Week 4

Sometime during the end of the 3rd week, my friend had suggested a running app on the phone to see my running stats to assess my runs. So, I spent the entire week checking my results. With the new app in place, I cut down my running time from an average of 6’35” per km to 5’32” km. I was more than happy with how things had panned out for me.

And so, after 30 days of the determination, with some struggling days in between, I had managed to run faster, and longer. People who run regularly might find that running 1.7 km is nothing, but for me, it’s a great deal. As a person who has been overweight for a long time in his life and has struggled to keep a running routine in place, this was truly a big achievement for me.

I had managed to go for 30 days without any sugar, which I felt I could have never done in this lifetime. I am glad I managed to.

With 30 days of running and no sugar, I managed to knock off about 4.5 kgs with no tweak in my diet. I run more, I run faster, and I have control over my sugar craving.

On the 30th day, I treated myself with an ice-cream. Oh boy, it sure as tasted amazing after all these days. I think I might find sweets to be tastier when I eat it after intervals and let my palette enjoy the flavours more.

What am I doing now?

Now that my 30-day challenge was over, I took a 2-day break to incorporate a new routine and hope to maintain it.

I am sleeping on time, giving my body hours 7 hours of sleep and waking at 6.30 AM without fail. The body is extremely energetic now with a proper sleep cycle.

I am now running a little more than 3.2 km a day along only 400 meters of walking in my entire track. I have jumped from 1.7 km to 3.2. I plan to hit 5 km soon: 5 km of continuous running, no stopping. I hope to hit that target very soon.

I run on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I do 30-minute home workouts on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Sundays: I rest, and have one-ice cream.

How do I feel? I feel great! It’s been years since I have been intending to doing this, and it’s finally done. Let’s see how far this goes.

What have I learnt? Only one lesson: everything is in the mind, and let your mind be the master. Your senses might want you to stop or eat sugar or feel lazy, but your mind needs to discipline every single cell of your body. If you have a mind that is ready to make you push beyond your limits, everything is easy and falls into place. The mind and the will are the keys to everything. And they surely were the key for me.