Transcription
Losing weight is easy; at least that's what my doctor told me. He also told me I'm obese and pre-diabetic. I thought the doctor was supposed to help me, not just roast me. Apparently, I gained over 30 lbs of pure fat over the past two years for no apparent reason. But it's time to get my life back on track. So, for the next 100 days, I'm going to do the hardest workout I've ever heard of to see how much weight we can lose. We're going to do the exact daily workout of what people consider one of the toughest men on the planet, and his name is David Goggins. X Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, Ultra-endurance athlete who runs marathons for his warmups. He's literally the toughest man I've ever heard of. Apparently, his daily workout is cardio: nowhere under 12 miles, and I'm in the gym how long's the gym session? 45 to an hour and a half. My goal is to be considered a tough man like David Goggins, cuz right now the hardest thing I do on a daily basis is getting out of bed. I guess it's more realistic if I say this is my dream rather than an obtainable goal, but I guess this is our reality for the next 100 days. To rest? Let's see how long I go.
This time is the first night, 5:00 a.m. I really don't want to do this. I almost didn't get up. I snoozed all my alarms except the last one. But day one, let's get it. Before we start, here's my day one stats: 184.1 lb, a 38-in waist, and 27% body fat. And with the motivation to finally lose weight, we started our run. We have 12 miles to run. My run started off really strong. I ran 10 minutes straight without stopping. That's crazy! Look how motivated I am, so cute. I just have to do this 11 more times. The next few hours are all a blur to me. Mile two, I almost vomited. Mile four, I clocked my fastest mile at 12:08. I think it's because I was running by a bunch of fast-food restaurants. Oh, that looks so good. But by mile eight, ho [ __ ] I'm dying. I'm dying. I'm literally dying. I don't know how much further I can go. We somehow finished our run, but I couldn't even make it inside the house. I was sitting in front of my house for 20 minutes until I was able to get up again. Oh, I don't know what to do. Oh my gosh, I don't know what to do. By this point, you might be saying, "David, how are you going to do this for 100 days?" I don't know how I'm going to do this, let alone one more day. If I'm going to survive this for the next 100 days, let me introduce you to my secret weapon: massage gun, protein powder, and the greatest recovery item, a Home Depot bucket. I heard ice plunges help. Oh, I think I frostbite. Oh, that feels so good. I was enjoying this so much, I forgot I had one more workout to do to finish day one. You see this man's face? He's in pure misery. I found out I could do zero pull-ups, but I can do 11 push-ups, which is one more than I thought I could do. So I give myself a plus one for today on being a tough man like David Goggins. In fact, my girlfriend, Emily, told me I should give myself a plus one for every day I survive. At least I think that's what she said. But that's a good idea. By day 100, I'll either be as tough as David Goggins or be in a hospital bed. But that's pretty much day one. I rested for the rest of the day, hoping that things couldn't get any worse. The great thing is I probably had the best sleep of my life.
It's 5:00 a.m., time for another 12 miles. But the bad news: my joints are really sore. My workout took even longer than yesterday, by a whole hour, as well as the next day and the next day. But on day five, as I weighed myself, I realized I already lost 6 lbs—over a pound a day—and I feel pretty tough already, especially after seeing the numbers drop day after day. On day eight, I hit my fastest run yet. But starting at mile nine, I think I have something wrong with the back of my ankle area. It feels like my entire right leg, all around, has shin splints, even on the back. After another mile, my leg was in the worst pain—to spinning. I could barely walk. My ankle's so swollen. All I can think is that this challenge is over. I was only able to finish seven days. It's kind of depressing. The only thing that cheered me up was a cheat meal. This was honestly the most pathetic I felt in a while. I couldn't even commit to this for more than a week. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised, cuz this is how I lived my life until now. But while I was eating my Chick-fil-A meal, I saw this David Goggins video. So about you don't like to run, that got taken away from you for a few months. But who cares? When the obstacle gets in front of you, don't let it stop you. Don't let it deter you. Navigate around it. Life will not always be 70 and sun, but it was today. Maybe that's a sign. By this point, I'd usually give up by now, feel sorry for myself. But we're on a mission to be as tough as David Goggins. So that day, I made a commitment to myself: no matter what, I'll do the David Goggins workout every day, even if I can't walk or move anymore. I will become as tough as David Goggins. Swimming might be a lot harder than I thought, but we finished the cardio portion of today. I can't keep swimming like this; it kills my soul. I hated swimming so much that I pushed myself to run the next day, and I bet you can't guess what happened next: my injury got worse. Yay. My ankle fully screwed up. Be honest, this is pretty frustrating. My body can't keep up with what I want to do. I forced myself to swim the next few days, but while I let my body recover fully this time, let's take a meal break. I put myself on a strict diet that meant no more cheat meals, no junk food, no sodas. I started counting every calorie: 1,500 calories a day. For breakfast, I usually have some yogurt and fruit, a fruit smoothie, or vegetable omelet. It's not terrible. If I ranked breakfast, it would be a B on the tier list. For lunch, I didn't know how to portion, so I found this diagram online. It's basically what I followed to stay around 500 calories for this meal. It's definitely better than breakfast, but I was usually hungry after this meal still, so I give it an A. Dinner is my main meal, full of protein, easily my favorite meal, as I'd eat most of my calories here. This meal had to make me somewhat full because I usually have insane cravings at night. Oh, and I usually have a banana before my runs. I give that a D.
I finally recovered on day 20 and I joined a run club. Let's just say I was getting a little lonely working out by myself. But it was the greatest decision because on the run I heard, "Let's slow that down. The Asian who's going to carry the boat, we are." It felt so good, someone finally noticing my hard effort. I guess I am becoming like David Goggins. "I'm the best thing that has ever happened to you. The way my hands feel on your body. The way we're dancing in the—" Everyone left me. I'm too slow. Let's be real, I'm too slow to be considered an Asian Goggins. If I want to be considered an Asian Goggins, I have to work even harder, and the first step to do that, do that early. I signed up for my first race. This is a distance of a typical marathon in Los Angeles; it goes from one side of the city to the other. Anything above this is called an ultramarathon. This is what David Goggins is known for; the distance sometimes goes from one state or country to another. I signed up for the smallest ultramarathon I could do: a 31.1-mile race, cuz you know I got to start somewhere. It's 104° right now and it's beaming. This run is going to go throughout the night. 30 days of running and now an ultramarathon. I expected to collapse at some point, but somehow I'm tired, but I still have a bit more in me to finish this race. But I'm pretty positive my toenail came off. So how was the race? Well, the race, it was one of the greatest feelings I've ever had. You should be so proud. But this is definitely one of the toughest things I've done so far. But I am pretty damn happy. When it first started, I barely even survived doing five, six miles. I never imagined my body can just keep going and pushing like this. We finished one month of this challenge. My waist is now 32.5 in from 38 in, and my weight is 163.5 lb—20 lbs less than day one. I'm almost a third of the way there. And when I weighed myself the next day, I weighed more than the day before. I gained weight after running 30 miles. Huh. Is this what people call the plateau? A plateau is when weight loss stops even when you diet and exercise. I guess that makes sense because there's this one quote I always hear: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." For the next few days, I started gaining more weight, no matter how much I dieted or worked out. At this rate, I'm going to be fat again. So maybe I'm not working out hard enough; maybe I have to do more. I weighed myself one last time before I went to bed—honestly, I probably weighed myself 10 times today—and I went to bed knowing that tomorrow something has to [Music] change. To beat this plateau, we're going to start with a new approach: burn more calories plus eat less calories equals more weight loss. We started doing runs on harder routes, sometimes even climbing mountains. Hey, hey, you don't know me, bear. Holy [ __ ] All right, I'm going to finish my run, but I'm going to just ha ass. That was [ __ ] scary. After a few days of doing this, we started dropping weight again. We are back on track on being like David Goggins. And on day 44, we finally hit under 160 lb. I haven't seen this number since I was a kid. I stood there for a minute, mesmerized by the number. I can't believe it. The biggest question I got during this time is how I make time to work out so much every day. I'd sleep eight hours a day; I'd then work for eight hours a day; I'd work out for at least three hours; I'd also film and edit daily fitness update videos that took four hours. That leaves me about an hour to eat three meals, do laundry, clean the house, spend time with Emily. I think you should rest, or rest. I usually chose rest. So cold.
After a few more days, we reached day 50 of working out like David Goggins. We reached a halfway point, yay! And I'm starting to actually look like a runner, and I feel like one finally. All the running is paying off; averaging 13 to 15 minutes per mile to now [Music] under eight minutes. I went to the medical facility to get my body fat [Music] percentage. "Most people are not doing so—um—generally want to be more conservative—um—so I workout three times a week." I don't know why he's telling me his workout routine; I already have mine. We just got our body weight scan. Now let's go work out, and we'll get our results in about an hour or two. I'm actually really excited to see my results, to see what David Goggins' workout has done to my body already. I hung out with my parents, who haven't seen me since the start of the challenge. Then we ran with the Run Club again, and this time I kept up with the group the entire time. I finally got the results for the medical test, and I was so excited to tell Emily that I'm finally—I think he should rest at least one day. Not unhealthy. In fact, my doctor said I'm not fat in any category. After day 60, I got this question all the time. People DM'd me, "When do you rest?" Mom and dad asked me, "When do you rest?" People I barely talk to anymore asked me. Emily asked me every day, "Why?" Is everyone so obsessed with this? No one asked me this when I was fat two months ago, and now that I have something good going for me, it feels like everyone wants me to stop. You could be misunderstood by everybody. When you are misunderstood to the point where [ __ ] people think you're psycho and you're nuts and you're this and that, you will never understand. The most frustrating thing in the world for me is when normal people judge a man like myself on what it really takes to extract toughness from nothing. The only time the questions went away was when I was by myself: no run clubs, no friends, just me. It's 3:30 a.m. right now. I finally had silence. At this point, David Goggins is the only one that understands me. So, so where are we going today? We're going to an event, and I'm bringing you with me. We're at an event of like-minded people like me, people that understand that they don't need rest, people that are tough, some even tougher than me. There's someone I want to meet here. We'll find out soon enough who it is. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I broke my legs two days. [Applause] "Bro, come on, just rest one day, please." This question again. Let's go back to day 54, when I was first told to rest. A little over two and a half weeks later, I lost almost another 20 lbs. I'm making insane progress. But to Emily, what she saw was the guy who ran until all his clothes were drenched in sweat, a guy who ran even when his feet were bleeding, a guy who realized that 12 miles wasn't enough, so he ran even further and further, and when he got injured again, swimming wasn't enough, so he started adding weights to his swim. And she knew if I couldn't go, I wouldn't make it to the wall. But the biggest thing she was scared of was that I was so obsessed with being tough, I was so obsessed with seeing the number go down. A lot of the days I didn't eat just so I could see some progress, and most days I worked out more than I slept. When Emily asked me why I have to work out this late, I couldn't think of an answer. It's the stupidest thing I said, "I rest when I sleep." She is not happy with me. So when Emily asked me to rest, which way did I come from? That's what she meant. Emily was the one that actually encouraged me to come here. We have a few more weeks of this challenge, and I still don't feel tough. And I came here to ask David Goggins how to be tough like him. And during the Q&A portion of the event, I went up to ask, but someone asked before me. "People want this [ __ ] answer that I can't give you. You have to go inside your heart and your soul." How the [ __ ] am I going to help [Music] you? "Kobe, Kobe, that's a bad ass name. Up [Applause] to you. You have to explore, examine the insides of yourself, and what do you really want out of life." I just finished the book, and I realized I had a distorted view on Goggins this entire time. I felt like Goggins got strong because he was isolated his entire time, but he spent the last five pages of his book acknowledging all the people that made him the person who he is. My acknowledgement would probably only have me in it. And at this point, I don't really even know why I'm doing this. I got faster and stronger than I imagined, but if David Goggins can't help me, then who [Music] can? Tomorrow something has to change. [Music] I think I'm out of a 26-in waist. Next few days, I'm going to need to start gaining weight, which is the most wild thing I've ever said in my life. That's because I now look like a dehydrated version of David Goggins. Since we're only eight days away from finishing this challenge, I'm panicking a bit because I feel like there's so much to do this week. That's because we made two big changes this week: one, we're going to take every opportunity to work out, yes, even with people and run clubs; two, we signed up for our next race: an Ironman. I can't believe I actually registered. That was $1,000. 140 miles. Have like really big stomach cramps. This is the worst I felt in a really long time. I knew the moment I went home Emily would say—but this time she didn't. Rather, she asked, "Why is working out so important to me?" "Are you [Music] ready?" "Yeah, it is." "I know. There you go, David. Why do you run?" I said, "I rest when I [Music] sleep." "Welcome to your to your journey. And the final thing I want to ask you to remember: everybody's got their why, that thing that got you out of bed on those dark mornings, that got you out of the door on those long days. Don't forget your why." How do you feel? Because it's your why that will make you an Ironman today. If I have to answer, it's because I hate the person I was 100 days ago: the person who was obese and pre-diabetic, the person whose nickname was Fat Lar throughout middle school. Oh, that looks so good. And if I had to answer, I'm running away as far as I can from this person. Oh, I don't know what to do. I bet you don't understand that you could be misunderstood by everybody. People want this [ __ ] answer that I can't give you. I've been running away from everything: my past, my weaknesses, my flaws. I was too busy running to see that I wasn't fighting this battle alone. I bumped into a dude named Sylvester. "Please post a long-form video. I know I—I'm going to work on it. You've been super busy, probably, but your videos are so good. Probably do like the full 100 days. So yeah, yeah, that's good, man. You're right. Yeah, today is 100. Yeah, thanks, man. I appreciate you." We ended up riding the next 50 miles together. This is one of the first times where I actually enjoyed working out. For 100 days, I was telling myself that no one understood me, but maybe for 100 days I'm the only one that didn't understand myself. The next 100 miles is dedicated to you. Thanks for being so tough when I was too busy [Music] running. David Park, you are an Ironman. Thank you for everyone that was part of this journey: the Run Clubs that welcomed me, whether I at the time wanted to be a part of it or not; my family and friends that always supported me; you all for watching; some of you that even encouraged me since day one; but most importantly, I want to thank you, Emily. I know you were worried every day for 100 days and wanted me to stop, but thank you for not stopping me. It helped me be able to find myself. [Music]