The DYC 30-Day Challenge
Don't ask us to explain why, but everyone loves a 30-day challenge. Perhaps we truly want to become better people. It’s equally possible that these challenges are simply a way of paying penance for previous excesses. Regardless of the reason, we all clearly enjoy committing ourselves to short-term, sweeping life changes.
In this spirit, we offer the 30-Day DYC Challenge: Thirty days in Austerity Mode paired with exercising five days per week.
In this spirit, we offer the 30-Day DYC Challenge: Thirty days in Austerity Mode paired with exercising five days per week.
30-Days in Austerity Mode
Austerity Mode has been described as Basic Drink Your Carbs on steroids. Austerity removes the remaining sugars and starches left in the Basic diet. Whereas Basic includes limited quantities of dried fruit, brown rice, quinoa and sweetened meats such as ham and peperoni, Austerity eliminates these entirely. You will, however, have plenty to eat. Austerity includes all of the fresh fruits and vegetables you can hold down, as well as all lean meats, nuts, beans and low fat dairy. Austerity Mode is not about limiting food or portions. The 30-Day Challenge is not a commitment to starve. If you are anything like us, you’ll eat more than you have ever eaten in your life while losing weight at an astonishing pace.
This is a Drink Your Carbs Challenge. You are allowed to drink alcohol. This is the best part of the Challenge. Just be sure to abide by the No Mixer Rule and don't go beyond our admittedly vague Healthy Drinking Guidelines.
This is a Drink Your Carbs Challenge. You are allowed to drink alcohol. This is the best part of the Challenge. Just be sure to abide by the No Mixer Rule and don't go beyond our admittedly vague Healthy Drinking Guidelines.
30-days of exercising five days per week
The second part of the 30-Day Challenge is to increase your exercise to five days per week. While Austerity Mode contains easy-to-follow rules, exercise is far more personal. If you have not trained for it, going out and running a Marathon will injure you. If you do not currently exercise, you should plan your program around our Basic Exercise recommendations. It may also be worthwhile to find a personal trainer. At a minimum, your workouts should revolve around getting your heart into your target heart rate zone and keeping it there for at least 20 minutes. If you don’t know your target heart rate, ask your doctor or personal trainer to help you figure it out. Any decent trainer knows how to do this. If your doctor doesn’t know how to find your target heart rate, fire him or her and find a doctor who occasionally exercises.
If you currently work out, you probably don’t need our help designing your exercise program. Our biggest piece of advice for people who currently exercise is: vary your routine. Hitting the same machine or even the same muscles over and over is a recipe for injury and poor results. If you already work out and approach your workouts with serious intensity, check out our recommendations in Advance Exercise. Pairing Advanced Exercise with 30-days in Austerity Mode is even more effective. We’ve done it and the results are impressive.
A word of advice on grading: throughout the month, we encourage you to grade your progress. We understand that 100 percent compliance is unlikely. Most of us do not prepare all of our own meals so we are often faced with choices that are less than ideal. The bright side is that 90% compliance is still an “A” on Major Morgan’s Grading Scale. 90% is easy if you regularly grade yourself and make adjustments before the occasional cheat derails your 30-Day Challenge.
So raise a glass to the 30-Day Challenge.
We would love to hear about your progress as you advance through the Challenge. Share your thoughts and let us know what is working and is not. As always, we will try to reply to questions as quickly as possible.
If you currently work out, you probably don’t need our help designing your exercise program. Our biggest piece of advice for people who currently exercise is: vary your routine. Hitting the same machine or even the same muscles over and over is a recipe for injury and poor results. If you already work out and approach your workouts with serious intensity, check out our recommendations in Advance Exercise. Pairing Advanced Exercise with 30-days in Austerity Mode is even more effective. We’ve done it and the results are impressive.
A word of advice on grading: throughout the month, we encourage you to grade your progress. We understand that 100 percent compliance is unlikely. Most of us do not prepare all of our own meals so we are often faced with choices that are less than ideal. The bright side is that 90% compliance is still an “A” on Major Morgan’s Grading Scale. 90% is easy if you regularly grade yourself and make adjustments before the occasional cheat derails your 30-Day Challenge.
So raise a glass to the 30-Day Challenge.
We would love to hear about your progress as you advance through the Challenge. Share your thoughts and let us know what is working and is not. As always, we will try to reply to questions as quickly as possible.