In this Day‑2 vlog of the 28‑day health challenge, the host and family members share a candid look at their morning run, the role of routine in staying on track, and how they handle unexpected distractions. The speaker reflects on weight‑loss progress, noting improved but still imperfect sleep, and emphasizes the psychological benefits of completing a run early in the day. Throughout the day, they discuss the importance of sticking to a structured routine, citing a family saying that "people love routine" and describing how they reset after interruptions. A poignant anecdote about a mother disciplining her children highlights the speaker’s thoughts on positive reinforcement versus self‑criticism. The vlog also details the evening meal preparation: lemon‑pepper creamy chicken, stir‑fry vegetables, and a vegetarian side for the son, with a focus on flavor‑boosting seasonings (Montreal steak seasoning, Bragg Liquid Aminos) while staying low‑carb. The day concludes with a family "tent time" ritual—wine, almonds, and low‑carb dessert—underscoring the balance between discipline and enjoyment in their weight‑loss journey.
Chapters
So it's day 2, it's about 5:30. I never really did sleep well, but now that I've lost some weight, I sleep harder, but I still don't sleep as well as I'd like to. And I'm gonna get probably in a 5-mile run this morning and get going on the day.
So it's not yet 7 o'clock. Just finished a 5-mile run, which has kind of been my, I guess, my go-to pace or my go-to distance for a while now. I run in the morning because I like mornings, but I'll tell you, when I was a lot heavier, over 300 pounds, and started this thing, it was easier for me to make an excuse to go out and run if I was doing it in the middle of the day. It was kind of like, it was my reward for breaking the rules and stepping away from work for a little bit. Of course, owning your own business, you really kind of set your own time, so I was able to do that. But you've got to do whatever it is that works for you. In the wintertime, we run the afternoon. It's February 2nd today, the second day of 28 days, and, but the weather is just unbelievable. I bet it's probably 65 degrees, very foggy. I don't know exactly where Grant is in his run, but he and his running partners will come up pretty soon. But the great thing about running early is that you've already gotten it out of the way and you've started your day on a positive note. You don't feel very much like cheating the rest of the day if you've already put in your run. Now, of course, the other thing is if you're waiting to run till the afternoon, you may not feel like cheating, but if you do, then you won't run at all. So, you know, if you've eaten a big heavy meal or something, you're less likely to run. Running, walking, whatever it is that you're gonna do, you need to do something to move and to get moving out there if you want to live more.
So it's a little after 9:00 and a lot has happened since my morning run, and most of it's just been distractions, things that are not planned for, things that I didn't want to have happen this morning. Nothing bad, just things that got in my way and things you have to tidy up and little things that just, you know, kind of sidetrack you. Easy to get off track, easy, easy, easy. Easy. And it's important that you become a slave to your routine. So even though everything was kind of going a little bit haywire on my plan this morning, I still stopped the world, cooked my eggs, had my bacon, got things ready to go to work, got off to work on time. But really just kind of made me think about how when you're trying to accomplish something and something that takes a long time, something that's a long-term goal, It really is important that you have a routine that you can live by. My brother used to say, "People love routine," and he's right. It's the thing that keeps you on track. So whatever you do, build a lot of routine into your day. Plan for there to be distractions and plan for ways to get back on your routine. So yeah, beautiful afternoon. It's, golly, February 2nd. It's got to be in the 70s. Getting a little windy. We're supposed to get a bad storm tonight, and then the temperature will get back more towards what, February be where he should be. But we're getting ready to head out for our walk this afternoon like we like to do in the afternoons, and we'll probably walk a mile or two and just spend some time together as a family. And like I was saying earlier today, just kind of keep our routine up. And routine is just, uh, you know, I was thinking just a second ago though, because yesterday I mentioned, uh, or no, I guess actually this morning I mentioned the idea that I used to cheat, kind of. I would use the excuse that I had to get started running during the middle of the day and kind of take a little bit of time off work to go ahead and do that. And I realized that this past weekend we saw a really sad situation where a mother who was trying to discipline her children— at least she was trying, a lot of them don't even try, right? But she was trying to discipline her children and she stopped them in the middle of the parking lot, berating them for I don't know what they did. But she said, "That's it. Both of you were going to get to play this weekend, but now you're going to do nothing but read. Read all weekend long." And we just thought, "Gosh, how sad." I mean, I understand what she was trying to accomplish, but the idea that now these children believe that reading is punishment is just, um, it really was kind of disheartening. And I thought to myself later this morning after I had said the thing about kind of rewarding myself for getting out by taking a little bit of time off, I thought to myself, you know, most of us, we spend time beating ourselves up for what we've done, you know, with— we've gained weight or whatever we're trying to, you know, fix. I know that I spent a ton of time beating myself up over my weight and what I looked like, and I couldn't wear any clothes and all that, instead of spending time in a positive fashion reinforcing the things that I had done positively and working on those. So just kind of a thought that I had today, but gotta get on our walk now. Stretching is my friend. It really is. Well, the weather has changed quite a bit since we walked just a little more than an hour ago. We've been in the club, the fitness club, and we've— we're going the wrong way, buddy. Our car's over there. Yeah, work so hard, we can't remember where our car was. But it started to cloud up and get windy and cool. Done with the workouts today. I think I'll probably We're going to try a new recipe tonight. I have no idea where we're parked. Do you? Okay, good. Because that was— oh yeah, we're 3 rows over. That's nice. Looking for the wrong car. Anyway, I'll probably— we're going to try a new recipe tonight, so I'll probably record that and that'll be the end of the videos for today. So everything is about balance and we're trying to take advantage of one of the few warm days in February. So we have this tent outside our house that we gather around and sit under and then have tent time, is what we call it. And tent time isn't tent time without a little wine. So it's only 3.5 carbs in a 5-ounce glass of wine, so that's what I'll have tonight, and a few almonds will be my cheap food. We'll have a good time. I guess tent time isn't nearly as warm as I thought it was. The weather is far too cold for my liking, please change it.
So one of the great things about being on a diet is, you know, so many people try it and they give up. And so my wife's able to find all sorts of great things. Tammy, she finds just great books and stuff like this. We've got this book she bought, I think, at the Salvation Army for like 25 cents or maybe a dollar, I don't know. Anyway, we're gonna try some lemon pepper chicken and gravy tonight. We're gonna have some stir-fry vegetables with it, and one of the challenges I have is I've got a son that eats nothing but— he's a vegetarian, so he's gonna get some rice and stir-fry, and then we don't get the rice, at least I won't. And I'm doing a double thing on chicken so that I can have chicken for the salad tomorrow, and I already have it done, so Let's see how this turns out. Like with everything else I cook, I end up just improvising. This is my chicken for my salad tomorrow. I put just a good squeeze of Greek dressing in it. I'll cook that around, let it cook down, then I'll refrigerate it. Tomorrow it'll be on my salad. And then the lemon pepper creamy chicken thing, well, it kind of just took on a life of its own. I did everything. It's got like, you know, about 1/4 cup of lemon— I mean, of heavy cream and some chicken stock and some Dijon mustard.
And I'll let that cook down a little bit and we'll have some stir-fry, and that'll be our dinner for tonight.
So one of the biggest challenges you have when you're on this diet is keeping things, you know, having flavor. You're just constantly trying to increase the flavor. I use a ton of this Montreal steak seasoning. Seasoning. You can see I buy the big thing of it. And then there's this stuff here, it's Bragg Liquid Aminos. It tastes like soy sauce to me. I don't know what it really is, but the health food doctor said use it, so that's what we use. And makes stir-fry taste real good.
And so there's the finished meal. I've got my lemon pepper gravy chicken— I think it's just creamy, but that's what they called it— and some stir-fry vegetables for dinner. And I'll probably have some sugar-free Jell-O for dessert, and that'll kind of wrap up day 2.
