What 140 Days of Sport Did to My Body

It always starts the same way.
A buzz. A ping. An airdrop.
You open it. And there it is.

THE picture.

On the surface, it's nothing. A casual group shot at a party. Everyone's smiling. Harmless stuff.

Except—it's not.

In reality it is punch in the gut. Because there, standing (or rather slouching) in the middle of this otherwise delightful moment… is you. And you look like the human embodiment of the word oops.

You zoom in.

And the worst part? Nobody else seems to notice.

To them, you look normal—because they've seen you every day. They know you slouch or that your chin doubled itself in the past 6 months.

Now if you are anything like me here's what you do next:

You frenetically search for a 'Fix /insert your problem/ in 20 minutes a day' video.

That first night, you do the exercise twice and swear on your ancestors you’ll do it every day.

But then, around day four, life happens. A girl comes over. Your kid pukes on the carpet. You impulse-buy a last-minute ticket to Coldplay. You skip a day—but hey, you’ll do it tomorrow. Pinky promise.

You never do it again.

The gut-punch fades. The motivation disappears. And nothing really changes.

You're not, but you'll only find that out in a couple years when you get another buzz, ping or airdrop.

I thoroughly tested this method for the last 15 years and the results are in: I failed to fix my slouching or grow shoulders 100% of the time.

But in the last 140 days my posture got a lot better.

For the first time in my life I stand tall, and my physique is better than it ever was, without even trying to fix it. So how did I finally beat the slouch?

Close the Rings or Die Trying

This is a sequel to How I tricked myself into doing sports everyday. If you haven't read that, start here. Or don't, you do you!

When I agreed to compete with David for a year, I had to immediately reverse-engineer what it would take to hit 600 Apple Watch points - the max you can get - a day.

Because I know David.

David is a gentle soul with the competitive instincts of a caffeinated velociraptor. He will not go easy. And also: there was money (the loser has to pay a vacation for the other) and pride involved.

So here's the deal.

You have three circles on Apple Watch (or rings):

• Move (calories burned)

• Exercise (minutes of activity)

• Stand (hours where you stood up for at least a minute)

You set daily goals for each. We went with:

• 500 Move calories

• 30 Exercise minutes

• 14 Stand hours

Hit a goal? That ring closes. That's 100 points. So, close all three and you've got… 300 points.

Wait—only 300? But we need 600.

That extra 300 has to come from overshooting the Exercise and Move rings. You know, doing bonus movement.

So in our case, it boils down to two main options:

1. Do 75 minutes of full on heart-pumping cardio (and some stretching)

2. Do 2 hours of low intensity exercise

The bad news? Apple Watch is a ruthless little snitch. You walk too slow, or stop at the corner store for a couple minutes? It knows and won't count it. You can do an hour of walking and end up with only 20 minutes of exercise if you drag your feet.

The good news? Apple Watch is super inclusive. Almost anything counts: yoga, frisbee, diving or dancing at a party. And the heart rate sensor is always watching. So even everyday tasks like hanging laundry, scrubbing pans, fighting with fitted sheets count towards calories and (above a certain heart rate) exercise minutes.

Small decisions add up.

Walking to the store instead of taking the bus? You are already 20 minutes (or around 66 Exercise points + 20 Move points = nearly 100 points) closer to your goal.

The biggest lesson in habit building

It definitely felt like cheating the first time I logged a "stretching" workout on my Apple Watch.

Meanwhile, David is probably somewhere doing CrossFit in a thunderstorm while on fire.

Even walking felt like cheating at first. Like, "Am I really getting credit for existing slightly more aggressively than usual?"

But I couldn't have been more wrong.

Because it turns out: this is the genius part of the whole setup.

Let me take you on a quick tour of why past-me was a spectacular failure at fitness:

Past Marci had big plans

He Googled workouts. Made spreadsheets. Watched YouTube videos of shredded people doing upside-down things with kettlebells and smiles.

The plan?

1. Go to the gym.

2. Do All The Things™.

3. Become a Greek god by summer.

BUT - there was one tiny problem:

Past Marci's brain was a bit of an idiot.

Because it operated on this lovely little rule:

Which meant that when life happened (and life always happens)—

Like when I accidentally pulled a muscle sneezing, or I ended up in a hotel in the middle of nowhere with no gym and unlimited free croissants—

I did… absolutely nothing.

Because why do 50 pushups when I could just hate myself for missing a "real" workout?

After a few weeks of this "do everything or do nothing" logic, my momentum was deader than my childhood dreams.

And here's the thing: the whole plan was doomed from the beginning because it was built on a delusional idea of what "counts" as a workout.

The parent paradox

You ever see a parent casually carrying around a 10 kg toddler like it's a handbag?

They're not doing reps. They're just living their life. Random baby lifts. Unplanned shoulder holds. No sets, no timers.

And guess what? Their arms get strong.

No gym. No plan. Just repetition + time = results.

The same parents usually feel like they don’t have time to workout, because stepping away from a baby for hours is just impossible.

But let's do a tiny bit of math:

Let's say they do something—anything—for 10 minutes, twice a day.
Pushups, squats, crunches, stretching, interpretive dance—whatever.

That adds up to 2 hours and 20 minutes a week.
That's basically going to a gym/class twice.
Without putting on shoes. Or deodorant. And you get the same result.

So here's what I finally accepted, after years of making beautiful plans and zero progress:

• You don't need a 90-minute Viking war workout.

• You don't need to rearrange your entire life.

And the best part? Just because you set the bar low…
doesn't mean you'll stay there.

On most days, you'll clear it and think, "Eh, might as well keep going."

But on the hard days—the "everything is on fire and I'm held together by 6 espresso shots" days— that low bar is your lifeline.

You still win. You still showed up.

During the last couple months I had days when I finished my points by:

• walking around for two hours in a rural North Vietnam village,

• running on dirt roads between rice terraces,

• doing extensive stretching on a bus in the Philippines,

• rolling out my yoga mat at 10 pm in random Airbnbs

But, this allowed me to fit sports into my days consistently even when I traveled. And that consistency had consequences.

Our competition didn’t force me to go to the gym at all, yet I became a bigger gym rat than I ever was.

It didn’t say I had to run, yet I logged more running workouts than the last 3 years combined.

I even got better at wall-climbing and can reach my toes again.

What 140 Days of Exercise Did to Me

When I started exercising consistently, I thought I knew what would happen. I'd get a bit stronger, maybe feel less like a croissant when I stood up from the couch, and that would be that.

But the reality?

It was much more than that.

Here's what really happened after 140 days of showing up:

1. I Look Different Now — And Not in a Subtle, "Maybe It's the Lighting?" Way

Let's be honest. Most people start working out because they want to look better naked. Or in clothes. Or just… in mirrors that don't have that weird gym lighting.

And while I knew exercise might change how I looked, I didn't expect the transformation to feel this real, this fast.

I started noticing things like:

• Muscles deciding to show up to work

• Lines and shapes where previously there was just "vibe"

• That smug little "Huh. Not bad." moment post-shower

It's not just that I look better. It's that the improvement is obvious, even to me — the person who used to stare into the mirror hoping the lighting would lie more generously.

Progress is visible. Tangible. And, dare I say… addictive.

2. My Body Isn't Fragile Anymore. It's a Machine That Can Actually Take a Punch.

For most of my life after 25, my body felt like an overprotective parent.

Every time I pushed it — climbing, lifting, trying a new movement — it would yell:

"What are you doing?! Be careful!! We are NOT built for this!!!"

Cue joint pain, mystery aches, and weeklong timeouts "just to be safe."

But something changed. Slowly and then suddenly.

After a few weeks of consistent training, my joints stopped protesting.

After a couple months, my knees and shoulders were like:
"Oh this again? Cool, go ahead. We got this."

Now I can push harder without worrying I'll snap in half like an old breadstick.
I recover faster. I'm not afraid of trying new stuff. I trust my body — and that is wildly new.

3. Old, Annoying, Built-In Body Problems Are Quietly Packing Their Bags

This is the part that honestly blew my mind.

I didn't target them. I didn't do some 37-step corrective mobility plan from YouTube.

I just trained.
Consistently.

And then… these lifetime background annoyances started disappearing:

• Slouchy posture: Got much better.

• Shoulder pain: Gone.

• Those rock-hard knots between my shoulder blades that have been there for decades: Loosening up.

• Flat feet: I’ve been using medical insoles since elementary school. I don’t plan to buy one ever again.

Turns out, when you move your body… it heals stuff. On its own. Like it wants to help.

I wasn't "fixing" these issues — my body was just fixing itself, now that I finally gave it what it needed (muscles).

3 Steps to Building a Lasting Habit

So here's the 3 lessons I learned from our competition about how to build a lasting habit:

Step 1: Set the bar so low it's underground.

Choose a goal that is laughably easy.

Here are a few examples of low-bar goals:

• Read 1 short story before bed. Takes less time than scrolling your Instagram feed. (Here’s a free website with short stories from famous authors)

• Write 1 sentence in your journal. Literally just one line.

• Eat 1 healthy thing a day. A cucumber slice counts.

• Talk to 1 new person a week. Yes, the cashier counts.

• Do 20 minutes of exercise every day. Even an air guitar performance counts.

• Go to 1 event a week. Even if it's a weird poetry slam where you don't understand anything.

The goal is not to be impressive. The goal is to be consistent.

Step 2: Set an end date

Now, the secret sauce: SET. AN. END. DATE.

Something like: until the end of the semester, 30 days, until New Year's, until the marathon.

Your brain needs hope. A finish line. A moment when it knows,
"Okay, I just have to survive until [insert date], and then I can go back to sloth mode."

Without this, your brain will panic, rebel, and stage a coup.

With it, you've got a shot.

Step 3: Put the gun to your head.

This is the most important step.
You have to set up a trap for yourself that forces you to stay on track.

You've got four options here:

Option A: The Friend with the Whip

Find a friend who can hold you accountable.

Even better, find one who already does the thing you're trying to do.
Trying to read? Find a friend who reads books for breakfast.

Your excuses will look ridiculous next to them.

To make it better/worse, put money on it.

• Miss a day? Pay them $20.

• Or flip the script: Give them $600 upfront, and they give back $20 every time you succeed. Reading 2 pages a day for $20? Now it feels like you're making easy money.

Option B: The Competitive Frenemy

Find someone with a similar goal, and challenge each other.
Different levels? Doesn't matter. It's about consistency.

You: "I'll read 2 pages a day."
Them: "I'll set the bar to 20."

Still works. Because when they read and you didn't, you'll feel like a melted crayon.

Use an app like HabitShare or Folksable to stalk each other’s progress—nothing fuels motivation like a smug notification that your buddy’s already done their part.

Option C: The Social Butterfly

Don't have a friend? Make it everyone's problem.

Post your goal publicly.

Then post daily progress in your Stories.

Congrats, you've now crowd-sourced the accountability.

You'll feel your followers' imaginary judgment every time you think about skipping.

Option D: The Self-exploding Trap

If you want to keep habit building to yourself, you can put pressure on yourself as well.

Want to eat something healthy every day?

Set up a recurring online order for healthy foods. If it keeps piling up at your place, you will probably feel bad if you don't eat it.

Want to rebalance your financial portfolio every quarter?

Set up a sell order for all your assets by the end of the quarter, so you will have to proactively think it through and cancel those that you want to keep.

There's even a habit tracking website called Beeminder, that charges you money if you go off track from your goals.

Bonus Step: Give yourself a badge

Recognize your progress and celebrate the milestones.

You finished your first book in years?
Badge.
You did 10 pull-ups for the first time?
Badge.
You hit your 30-day streak without dying?
Super shiny ultra badge.

Celebrate them.
Post it. Brag. Buy yourself an ice cream.

And then set a new goal!

You don’t need Duolingo to do that for you. My dad ran 2018 km in 2018. It’s a cooler brag than any badge in an app.

Your brain is a simple creature. Give it treats. It will do tricks.

Let’s get you and me started!

Thanks for reading—I hope you find these three steps as useful as I did.

A big breakthrough for me last year was realizing that I’m super motivated by peer pressure (in the best way). Once I accepted that, I started setting little “traps” for myself—accountability systems that nudged me into action.

At first, I tried sharing one big goal with my friends to keep me in check, but that didn’t really work. What did work was shifting to smaller, daily or weekly goals. That simple change made me a way better habit builder.

If this inspires you and you’ve got an Apple Watch, let’s connect! Add me at [email protected]—you can set your own goals and still compete with me (and David) on consistency. No need to commit for a year; try it for a week, a month, or however long feels right.

I’m also planning to pick up a few new (or old) habits, like reading and journaling, so if you’re on HabitShare and looking for an accountability buddy, I’d love to team up.

See you soon,

Marci

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