- I mean, can you even remember what it was like
before March of last year?
I've been thinking a lot about what my routine was.
I get up around six or so,
walk the dog, make some coffee, take a shower, go to work,
hit the gym for an hour, hour and a half,
come home, have dinner, hang out a little bit with Robin,
maybe watch some TV or a movie,
go to sleep and do it all again the next day.
Then all of a sudden that completely changed.
No more driving into work, no more going to the gym,
feeling confused and scared and helpless,
worrying about everything I touch when I had to get stuff
from the grocery store, or if the virus might be
on a package that was just delivered.
It was crazy and I'm sure many of you
had the exact same feelings as me.
Now, if there are two things I really know about myself
it's that one, I perform best when I am locked
into a routine and two, when that routine gets upset,
bad things happen, and five terrible things
started to happen to me and I found myself falling
into some really bad and unwanted habits.
You're gonna find out what those were, and more importantly,
how I got myself back on track,
but the general idea was tied to two things,
putting the effort into taking care of myself
and committing to a routine.
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So the biggest thing that happened to all of us
was that we were forced into a situation that wasn't planned
and that was completely beyond our control.
For me, that kind of crazy 180 degree change
is just something that I've always had trouble
adapting to immediately, and this was just different
on a whole other level.
I'm not a huge extrovert,
but I do enjoy being around people,
so the fact that I couldn't see family,
I couldn't see friends, there were no hugs,
there were no handshakes, led me to start seeking comfort
in something that I associate with being together
with people and enjoying that time together,
and that was eating.
Robin, I know, felt the same way, so we started cooking
really rich comfort meals almost daily.
My personal favorite
was Peter Clemenza's Godfather spaghetti.
- Tomatoes and tomato paste.
You fry it, you make sure it doesn't stick.
You got it to a boil, you shove in all your sausage
and your meatballs.
- As a way to cope with the fact
that there was this kind of social void in our lives now,
it's okay to have a meal like that once in a while,
but every day, kind of a bad thing.
And then there was the sense of dread
and uncertainty and just plain scariness of everything.
And then like being just cooped up, can't go anywhere,
and along with that, the loss of structure to the day,
so, you know, what else is there to do?
Well, why not have a drink?
I mean, I don't have to go to work.
It's three o'clock in the afternoon.
All right, I'll have a Negroni, or two or three.
And having too many drinks just became a bad pattern,
not out of any kind of dependence,
but mostly just out of boredom.
And as I was feeling so bored, you know,
along with all the uncertainty and fear,
I just kind of got to the point where I was feeling
like there really wasn't anything to look forward to.
One of the things I did look forward to on a daily basis
before the pandemic was going to the gym,
and I remember the day that I was on my way into the gym,
and as I got to the door, they were just closing up
because of a statewide mandate.
I don't like working out at home.
I need to be in a different space.
I like to have all the equipment at my disposal,
so I just kind of stopped exercising
for a pretty long stretch.
So add to that eating and drinking more than you should,
and you can kind of see where this is going.
Where it was going was that I felt
like I had a complete lack of control over everything.
And in that mental space, instead of trying to take control,
I just kind of let it spin more out of control
and that kind of crept into areas of the house
like the studio and my closet where I
just didn't take the time to create order,
which is another way of saying that I let
a whole bunch of messes pile up and that just kind of added
to that sense of feeling out of control.
I was unmotivated.
We weren't making videos.
I wasn't really producing anything at all, which led me
in general to not take very good care of myself.
So eating poorly, drinking too much, not exercising,
letting messes pile up and just generally
not taking care of myself,
these are the five bad habits that I fell into.
But how did I turn it around?
Well, the thing that happened was that I
just got sick of it all.
The way I was living was not me.
I'm a healthy eater.
I drink in moderation.
I love to push myself with exercise.
I like to have a neat living and working space.
And I was just hating how I felt,
hating how I looked, and hating having all my clothing
feel a whole lot smaller.
But remember, this all comes back to me feeling
like I didn't have control and that I didn't have a routine.
So knowing those things, I decided to finally commit
to making a better and healthier routine for myself.
Was it easy?
Absolutely not.
You know, the thing about bad habits
is that they're very easy to fall into,
but they're really hard to break.
It takes effort and it's much easier to do nothing
than it is to do something.
So I took control.
I got back to basics with eating right.
I completely cut out alcohol.
I got down with the resistance band
and body weight exercises.
My rowing machine finally came in, which was awesome.
I neatened up all of my spaces
and committed to keeping them that way.
And I wish I could tell you that it was like
instant gratification and I immediately felt better,
but that is definitely not the case.
It's hard to make a switch like that.
It takes time, especially in the case of exercise
and changing your body.
But what happens is once you start to see those results
from hard work and commitment come in,
it kind of becomes addictive.
You want to keep moving forward.
You want to keep improving.
And once you get to that state,
that's when you know you've gotten into a good routine.
If you find yourself in a similar situation,
what I want you to know is that you have the power
and ability to take control.
If I can do it, you can do it.
And one thing that I believe is that investing time
into improving your style has a very positive effect
on how you feel about yourself.
And that video right over there
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that you can make right now,
so click right there if you're ready to make that change.