Health and Fitness Bets

A recent health and fitness bet has proven beneficial for me.

The Bet

Each year as football season rolls around, it becomes increasingly difficult to get a handle on my daily habits as the hectic nature of the season pulls me this way and that way. It’s the reason why you see a lot less activity from me on Substack during those months.

This year, in an effort to not let things slip away too much, I entered a health/fitness bet with two friends and other people who work in the NFL content industry who also see their schedules filled up from September to January, Davis Mattek and Matthew Freedman.

The parameters of the bet were pretty straightforward:

• 5+ hours of sleep a night

• 30+ minutes of exercise daily

• No Dessert

• No Alcohol

• 10 “cheat” days

• Duration: NFL Regular Season

The exercise requirement we approached pretty loosely (light cardio, like a long walk counts). A cheat day was for one item. So, if you ate dessert and alcohol on the same day, that was actually two cheat days. We also waived the exercise requirement for anyone who was sick on a given day.

The goal of the bet was to maintain some semblance of healthy habits, as it’s really easy to let all facets of a healthy lifestyle slip during the NFL ground, and these parameters did that by hitting sleep (personally would have lobbied for 7+ hours as the requirement here), activity levels, and diet all in some capacity without being too restrictive.

Takeaways

There are two takeaways from the bet that I found interesting:

First, I love bets like this. A health/fitness bet is an investment in yourself, and the combination of skin in the game and camaraderie with other participants makes it much easier to follow through. Going through this with other people also gives you a different perspective.

I’m not sure if I was making a bet with myself if I would have laid out the parameters quite like we did, but that’s a feature, not a bug. For example, I run frequently and work out at a gym twice a week, so I may not have found the need to make a minimum daily exercise requirement. Doing so, though, ensured I had a base level of activity each day, which I found to be important and better than simply throwing away my 2-3 non-running/gym days a week with the rationalization that I was doing enough already (and made me less likely to skip a planned workout since I’d have to fulfill the exercise requirement anyways). 

It particularly helped me on football Sunday, a day that was often a “lost” day for all things health related because of the “demanding” work schedule. I put demanding in quotes because, well, sitting at a computer updating spreadsheets, talking on a show about DFS, and watching football is a pretty first world definition of demanding.

Nonetheless, it was easy to end up sitting all day and somehow be tired by the end of it and finish with a step count south of 2k. With the 30-minute exercise requirement, not only did I have a forced level of activity, but it also had a good mental impact on me to tell myself “hey, there are other things that are important, too”, something I’ve mentioned I’ve struggled with in my post about not tilting. 

The aspect about the bet, though, that taught me the most about myself was probably the ‘No Dessert’ parameter. I’ve always known I’ve loved all things chocolate and had a bit of a sweet tooth, but I didn’t realize just how frequently I’d find myself reaching for a sweet as a snack out of boredom, convenience, or hunger. 

Having a constraint I wouldn’t have considered if doing this alone, was a great way for me to unravel some bad habits that were ongoing unbeknownst to me consciously. I’m much more cognizant now about eating dessert type foods mostly for special occasions or if it’s something truly delicious as opposed to reaching for a ‘meh’ cookie or mini Snickers bar simply because it’s laying around the house.

The second takeaway for me from this bet is I work better with objective constraints. Having a clearly defined allotment of “cheat” days helped me a lot, as opposed to a vague wish to “eat healthier” or “limit desserts”.

I’ve read/heard that the moniker “cheat day” isn’t mentally healthy for some people, so it might not be for everyone, but it definitely works for me. And your objective constraint shouldn’t be overly restrictive; it does have to be clearly defined.

Moving forward, I’ll probably give myself a more relaxed allotment of cheat days for dessert, but try to keep something objective. I’ve given myself a liberal break the last month, but looking forward to getting back to it and will probably do something like “5 desserts a month”. I will physically track that somehow, as opposed to keeping a purely mental tally

Okay, I said I had two takeaways, but one final thought I had while writing this: The No Alcohol parameter is one I’ve toyed with on my own even before this bet. I don’t plan to ever fully abstain from alcohol, but I don’t enjoy it as much as I used to, especially as I’ve tried to prioritize my sleep habits the last few years.

There are plenty of occasions where I want to engage in social drinking and will continue to do so, but there are also scenarios where I’ve previously felt obligated to have a drink, even if it’s just 1 or 2, when I haven’t wanted to. Having this bet made it a lot easier and empowered me to abstain from alcohol in those situations.