Last Updated on June 23, 2025 by Michael Brockbank
Today, I’m starting a new challenge that I intend to follow through. Of course, I say that all the time and am sounding like a broken record. Still, I’ll keep trying until I succeed.
This time, the challenge is all about putting in the effort to be more physical. As a desk jockey, it’s important that I find time to be more active, especially as I get up there in years.
I’m not the spring chicken I was 20 years ago. Who is?
What Does The Summer Fitness Challenge Entail?
In a nutshell, this challenge is somewhat similar to the 100 Days of Fitness challenge that I wasn’t able to complete. It’s not enough to simply lose weight, I also want to improve my overall level of fitness.
So, I tweaked a few things and have made several adjustments to my upcoming routine. The hope is that I can maintain motivation throughout the next three months. Between holidays, weddings, and my birthday on the horizon, it’s going to be a difficult challenge as there are so many things happening.
Activity Point System on the Spreadsheet
I’ve changed a bit of how the point system works on the spreadsheet. It focuses more on weight lifting and time spent on activities. I still earn points for each step, but only at 100th of what they were last time. The idea is to put more emphasis on the time I spend working out.
The point system worked relatively well for me during the last challenge to stay motivated. I thought it was quite fun to keep my points in the green as opposed to the week before. The idea was to get more points this week than I did in the last.
Finding a way to gamify fitness can greatly improve your chances of finishing health goals or challenges. If you make it fun and really get into the “game” of it, you’re less likely to quit. That’s what happened toward the end of the last challenge – I stopped focusing on the fun.
Keeping Calories Green
I am giving my Net 600 Calorie Diet a go once more. The plan is to keep the calories in the green, which means I’ll burn twice as much as I eat. When I get closer to 215, I’ll have to re-evaluate my diet plan as I don’t want to burn myself out. The Net 600 Calorie Diet is a fat-burning diet, not a maintainer.
Plus, I’ll be trying Whole30 starting in August, which will be about the mid-point of this challenge. From what I hear, it’s going to be a rough month as I have to cut out all kinds of things that I love – like processed sugars and sweeteners.
When I start the Whole30 diet, the plan is to create a YouTube Short of each day. So, if you want a good laugh, you might want to follow the Crossing Colorado YouTube Channel.
Adding Workouts to Asana as Tasks
This time around, I am adding workouts as Asana tasks every day. Lately, I’ve been pushing to improve time management and have been having the best weeks of 2025. By adding the workouts to my Asana board, I ensure quality time for fitness, whether it’s playing the Oculus or riding my bike.
One of my biggest issues is forgetting to exercise. As I am extremely busy throughout any given day, it’s difficult for me to remember things unless it’s a task in Asana that I can check off. In this case, it’s making sure things are done in a timely and orderly fashion. At least, as orderly as it can get with all of the side quests I have going on right now.
Nonetheless, I think adding workout time to my daily routine will make a vast improvement in getting things done, losing some weight, and boosting my overall fitness.
Weekly Blog Updates
I am going back to writing weekly updates on the blog. Since the updates only take about an hour, I can do them right after working on the Substack newsletter for WriterSanctuary.
Since a lot of things changed for me over the last couple of weeks, I have a bit more time on my hands. Not enough to go all-in with this blog or ColoradoPlays.com, but enough to write a few things here and there. Besides, I really miss writing blog posts on this site. And I really miss the research when writing about something big…like having thick blood (which will be coming soon).
Regardless, I will publish a new update blog post every Monday.
Incentive to Keep Focused
Lastly, I have an added incentive to focus on being progressively active each week. It was an idea we had during the last challenge.
Instead of thinking of a reward that I might not care about for completing the challenge, I thought of the most embarrassing thing I could think of to do in public. If I don’t make more points throughout any given week than I made in the one before, I’ll do the Tuesday night live stream topless.
Oddly enough, there are several viewers who want to see that. And because I’m a guy, it won’t be against YouTube’s ToS. After all, I would love to monetize the channel at some point.
Anyway, I made a deal with everyone that my punishment is set in stone. Absolutely no excuses or loopholes this time. Even talking about it ramps up my anxiety level.
The reason I decided to go the route of embarrassing myself is because I know myself all too well. I don’t care as much about certain types of rewards and can live without getting them. But giving my word to everyone, including my audience, that I’ll do embarrassing things taps a different part of my brain. For one thing, I don’t want to be viewed as a flake or unreliable. I am demonstrating that I am a man of my word.
So, I’m using my viewers and readers to hold me accountable for an embarrassing penalty.
Why 100 Days Again?
For the most part, doing a 100-day challenge is more marketable. You see all kinds of things labeled as 100 days of this or that. And I’d like to show what a 49-year-old desk jockey can do inside of 100 days.
The hardest part is that I’m doing this during the summer months. It gets pretty hot here, which makes it difficult for me to get out and walk as often as I normally do. That’s one of the reasons why I’m not focusing as much on making points through steps. I am prone to heat exhaustion, partially thanks to my thicker-than-normal blood. So, I need to be extra careful during the summer.
I’ll still try to get on the bike and see if I can break some riding records on Runkeeper. But I’ll have to make sure I do that long before the sun starts coming up.
What Makes This Challenge Different?
I know I’ve said it multiple times before, but this time feels much different. I think a big part of that is because of the focus I’m maintaining on time efficiency this month. Things are clicking into place quite nicely now that I’ve been putting in the effort to build WriterSanctuary. And if I add fitness to my daily routines, I believe I can maintain motivation.
That’s the biggest contributor to losing weight and boosting fitness. Without motivation to maintain your activity over the long term, you’ll easily slip back into bad habits of the past. That means it’s imperative to keep finding things that will motivate you to accomplish and maintain your goals.
Something else to consider is how we’ve been working to improve my health overall. Now that I’m doing blood-letting therapy (donating to Children’s Hospital to reduce my red blood cell count), increasing my vitamin D intake, and letting the doctors figure out the small issues here and there, I’m feeling much better overall.
The best part is that I’m not nearly as tired throughout the week. Sure, I have my off days when I have four hours of sleep the night before. But for the most part, I’m feeling much better since I started donating blood. I’m relatively confident I can manage the challenge this time.
Let’s See If I Can Follow Through This Time…
I’m feeling good about this challenge. Perhaps there is something to be said about getting checked out by a doctor. I’ve never had the best of luck with doctors, but most of them were in the emergency rooms. In any case, it looks like we’re on the right track to fix a few things.
I’m virtually positive that’s why I feel so optimistic about this challenge attempt. Between getting over a vitamin D deficiency, dealing with a blood issue, and getting more sleep, I’ve been feeling good about the future. This is in addition to finding my give-a-shit and getting things rollin’ as an author and creator.
It’s not going to be easy, and I still have a lot of bad habits to break. But I believe that I can see this challenge through to the very end this time. Even if I have to do a few shows without wearing a shirt.
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