362. ????The 40-Day FORGE (Revisited)????

0:00:04 – Jeff Pelizzaro
The 18STRONG Podcast, episode Number 362 Revisiting the Forge. Welcome back to the 18STRONG Podcast. This week we’re going to highlight an episode that we did, episode number 335, where we talked about the 40 day forge. The reason we’re doing this is we’re about ready to hit the new year and we know that a lot of you are out there working on what’s my resolution how am I going to change what I did this past year and become a better version of myself in 2024. We know that the 40 day forge is a program that we’ve been doing for several years. We’ve had hundreds of golfers go through it and it’s a mental and physical challenge and program that’s going to help you not just get in better shape, but work on building your habits, building your resiliency and, ultimately building your self-confidence in you becoming a better, stronger version of yourself, which ultimately plays out on the golf course. So enjoy this episode that is a revisited version of 335 on the 40 day forge.

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Now let’s get to this week’s interview. What’s up, guys? Welcome back to the 18STRONG podcast, where we know the stronger we are, the better we play. And for those of you that have been listening to the 18STRONG podcast for a long time, you notice this episode. The beginning already has a little bit of a different feel to it, and that’s because we’re going to be doing something different on today’s episode. We’re going to be talking about the 40 day forge. You’ve heard me talk about this before and I wanted to lay out the rules, the specifics, the details of the forge, because I’ve had a lot of people asking questions about it, wanting to learn more, or they want to pass it along to somebody else that they know is going to benefit.

Now, for those of you that maybe this is your first time listening, maybe somebody introduced you to this episode or sent it to you, or maybe you just stumbled across this not really knowing what to expect. First of all, 18STRONG is a golf lifestyle fitness brand where we are all about helping you become the strongest version of yourself on and off the golf course, and today’s episode, specifically, is a little bit different. Normally, I either interview somebody or we talk about a specific topic regarding golf and fitness and lifestyle and interviewing different people and experts in the world of golf, but today is just going to be me and I’m going to be talking about the 40 day forge, which is a program that we started at the beginning of 2022 and is not just a physical challenge but a mental challenge that many people have now completed, and so I wanted to give more details for everyone out there that has more questions Now, I want to also let you know that this is a program that is completely free. We don’t charge anything for this. There’s no upsells, no downsells.

This is something that we are doing because we know the 18STRONG crew is constantly looking for ways to better themselves and, in my personal opinion, there’s so much stuff out there that we all get caught up too much in the not knowing what to do. Thinking we need more information, thinking, we need to learn more thinking. There’s a bright new, shiny object that we haven’t found that’s going to get us where we want to go faster, whether that be our golf game, whether that be our fitness, whether that be our diet, our nutrition, all of these things. But I have personally found over my own experience in the fitness world my own personal fitness, exercise, golf, as well as my experience with hundreds, if not thousands, of golfers in person and online that what we’re all missing is not the what to do or even the how to do. It’s simply the fact that we aren’t doing anything. We aren’t accustomed to finding one thing and sticking to it for a long enough period of time and committing to that, and so that’s what the forage is about is sticking to a commitment and keeping these commitments to yourself. You’re going to hear more about this throughout the episode, so this is how this episode is going to go.

I’m going to do my best to answer as many questions and go through the details. There’s basically four parts we’re going to go through today. First is how and why this program came about, because I think that helps explain a little bit of not just the background of it, but why it’s so important and emphasize how impactful this can be to you and to the people around you and why this isn’t just another fitness challenge or diet challenge or cleanse or anything like that New Year’s resolution. The second thing I want to do is I want to go through the exact rules of the forage and why each of these rules was picked, what the specifics are and even ways that people either try to cheat or kind of rationalize the rules or maybe clarify a few things that people have had questions on. The third thing is I want to give you some suggestions Once you decide that you are going to start the 40-day forage, some suggestions for you to get the most out of the program, because the last thing we want to do is have you just mail this in and just kind of go through the motions and not get the full extent out of it. And then, lastly, I’ll talk about maybe a couple frequently asked questions and really what you can expect over the 40 days and what you can expect to accomplish by the end of the 40 days, so you get a better picture of what that can look like 40 days from now. So, first of all, we call this program, the 40-day forage.

Obviously, as a golfer, you’ve probably heard the term forged before. Forging versus casting. You hear that with clubs all the time, but forging is basically the process of taking a solid piece of metal, sticking it in a blazing hot fire and then banging it into shape. Now they use heavy fancy equipment and machinery to do this, but even going back to the black smiths of old with knives and swords and those types of things, they would take a piece of metal, they would stick it in a hot furnace and they would bang it into shape to sharpen it and smooth it out. And ultimately, that’s really what this process of these 40 days is meant to do is to sharpen your edges through a series of repetitive challenges that are ultimately going to make you stronger both on and off the golf course. And I want to clarify that if you’re here, you’re obviously likely a golfer, but if you are here for the intention of just dropping a few strokes, that’s not what the 40 day forage is about. In fact, the 40 day forage has a couple of golf components in it, simply because we know that our audience is basically made up of golfers, but this is not specifically about getting you to swing a golf club better. It’s way, way more than that.

So just as a little background on how this whole thing came about first of all, we have to face the fact that golf is not necessarily really a sport. That quote, end quote requires you to be in the greatest physical condition. Right Now we’re seeing athletes on the PGA tour, we’re seeing these guys that are coming out and they’re basically physical specimens now. But that doesn’t mean that all of us require incredible athleticism and physical nature and to be in great shape to play a game of golf. We’ve all played with the guy who is very out of shape, overweight, old, has banged up hips, knees, whatever, and can still play a pretty decent round of golf. So it’s not about that. We realize that golf is not a life or death sport, right?

So it’s kind of really easy to get by out on the golf course just being in okay shape, and it really kind of gives us the okay to be a little bit lazy with our focus, with our nutrition, with our diet, and we simply start to expect and accept the fact that as we age, we are supposed to have achy joints and we’re supposed to gain some weight and our club head speed is supposed to go down and all these different things I’m supposed to not really look that great with my shirt off, these kind of things and we just assume that’s kind of normal, right. But let me ask you, is that just what you’ve been telling yourself? Because I know that I have found in the past myself telling myself that these things are okay. I’ve been telling myself in my early 40s and it’s okay for me to kind of let these things go a little bit. But that is exactly why we’re here, because, at 18STRONG, we don’t believe that you have to accept that. And so the Forge is here to challenge that narrative that you and I have been telling ourselves and prove that with some direction, some serious commitment and daily action, that you don’t have to tell yourself that same old story, that we can change this right now. You can put yourself on a different trajectory.

And, like I said before, I don’t believe that we should fall into the trap of these mantras that we tell ourselves that I don’t have time, I don’t know what to do, or here’s a good one I’ll start it tomorrow, or I’ll start it next week, or I’ll start it after the Masters, or I’ll start it January 1st, all of these things. Well, this is your opportunity to prove to yourself that all of that is BS and that you aren’t going to put it off any longer, and so, hopefully, you’re going to stop searching and you’re going to start doing, because it’s not about not having the right program, it’s not about not knowing the right diet, it’s not about all of these things. It’s about not having the discipline and not having the habits. And so the way that you find discipline is by putting yourself in situations that require discipline. The way that you build habits is by forcing yourself into situations where you need to build habits, and you do them and you commit to it, and that’s what the Forge is about.

Okay, real quick. For those of you that are new here and don’t know me from Adam, don’t know 18STRONG or haven’t listened to a show before, I just want to give you a little bit of background on what we do here. Nothing to brag about, anything that we’ve done, but just so you have a little bit of context of where we’re coming from. So my name is Jeff Palazero. Again, I’m a golf fitness professional. Went to school for physical therapy. Had my Masters in physical therapy have been named the past three times. Golf Digest top 50 golf fitness trainer in North America, wrote a book called the Golfers Guide to a Buggy-Proof Workout, and we’ve had the longest running golf and fitness podcast, which started back in 2014. That’s what you’re listening to right now the 18STRONG podcast and we’ve had a chance to have incredible guests on the show PGA tour major winners, some of the best medical and fitness advisors to the PGA tour, some of the greatest instructors in the world and many, many more people even outside the world of golf, all under the guise of helping all of us get better, both on and off the course.

18STRONG was founded by myself and my cousin, ryan. Ryan and I have been best buddies since we were little kids. Ryan is more in the marketing world and is very good at the online stuff. My expertise, obviously, is with the physical and fitness and medical side, and so we combined forces years ago. But most importantly, myself, ryan, we are both guys in our early to mid 40s. We love the game of golf and we are here to not just help you guys but also help ourselves along this journey.

I’ve got kids, I have a wife, I run a business. I grew up playing soccer, I didn’t play golf, but now golf is a huge passion of mine and so I obviously want to get better at that. But even more so, I’m constantly on a journey, just like many of you are, to feel as good as I can, to look good, to be strong and to play golf as well as I can. The only way that I can do that is if I keep my body healthy, keep my body moving well, and that’s going to allow us to play the game for much longer. So everybody talks about growing the game. You know, grow the game. I want to lengthen the game. I want to lengthen your game so you can play for the longest amount of time possible as well as you possibly can. So that’s really kind of where we come from, and so I created this program.

Ultimately, it was kind of selfishly for myself, and it happened over the course of a couple of years really, but in many ways, I needed to create this program for you, the 18-strong crew, in order to hold myself accountable to doing this as well. So again, this is not a quote-unquote golf fitness program. This is not a weight loss challenge. This is not a nutrition challenge. This is not a cleanse. Ultimately, this is a physical and mental fortitude program. This is a program about you helping yourself become a better you and, to be honest, it was designed in order for all of us to change our perceptions of what we can and can’t do when we really put our focus, really put our attention into the details and into committing to the process and daily tasks. I told you I was going to give you a little bit of history on how this thing occurred and I want to kind of acknowledge a few people and situations that really had an impact on bringing this whole thing to light. So for the past I don’t know five, six years, whatever it might be I have been giving up alcohol for Lent.

Lent is the 40 days that lead up to Easter. I grew up in a Catholic education system grade school, high school, jesuit college and Lent has always been something that I have adhered to. And during Lent, typically you’ll give something up or you commit to doing something, and it always fascinated me that, no matter what I gave up for Lent whether, you know, sometimes people will give up sweets or chips or things like that. Since I was a little kid, I can remember whenever I gave something up for Lent, I was dogmatic about sticking to that commitment, and it always kind of fascinated me that there were other things in my life that I would tell myself I was going to do or going to complete, and I didn’t do it. But when Lent came around, I always stuck to that commitment, and without waiver, and I have come to realize that it primarily was the fact that I was committing to something not just for myself, but I was committing to something bigger, and during Lent, it was committing to God that you weren’t going to do whatever you said you weren’t going to do, and that was always pretty intriguing to me, and so I would say that that really was the first facet, the first piece of the puzzle that came into play that eventually brought about the 40-day forge, and in fact, that’s what the 40 days started with, because last year in 2021, I did a version of the forge with just a couple of buddies that I’ll tell you about in just a second here Now, during these last, however many years let’s say, five years when I would give up alcohol for Lent I’d noticed that that ultimately had a very good impact on what I was eating.

It had a very good impact on my clarity of mind and for those 40 days I always really felt great, felt very productive, got a lot done, and it was just always a great refreshing time where I was like man, I’m just kind of crushing it by the end of these 40 days. So fast forward a little bit of time and on the podcast I had a chance to interview a gentleman by the name of Ed Milet. Now if you have listened to our show, you’ve heard me talk about Ed Milet a lot of times. It was episode number 216. And I remember it like it was yesterday and Ed said something during that interview that I have probably heard several times before. I know I had heard it on his podcast, but it wasn’t until he was there staring me in the face on our zoom call and he said it and I was looking directly at him that it really hit home and honestly, I feel has kind of changed.

It was one of those life changing moments where you you know that that had a huge impact and what Ed said was that self confidence is the process of keeping commitments that you make to yourself, period. And that’s kind of when it hit me that you know that statement right there says so much about every goal that we create for ourselves every fitness goal, every nutrition goal, every golf goal, all of these different things. And you know, during Lent I always felt so good. First, just physically and mentally, because of the nutrition piece, right. But it was also the process of the fact that I was keeping that commitment to myself and I was. I was doing something that I wouldn’t normally do and was able to stick to that commitment.

That commitment then snowballed into better commitments of workouts and nutrition and all of those kinds of things, and I realized that this was a very important factor that plays into everything that we do here at 18STRONG and everything that anybody following us is trying to achieve, whether that be for their golf game or their fitness level or the way that their body feels. It all boils down to this and, ultimately, when you show up as a more confident person self confident person on the golf course, in the boardroom, whatever it is, when you’re more self confident because you know you’ve been doing the right things, that plays into the way that you then execute, whatever that thing is. Many times on the golf course, if you know you’ve put the work in, you’ve put the time in, you’re going to step on a tee box much more confident in your golf swing than if you hadn’t. And that small little conversation right there got me thinking a lot about what we do here and how we can help more people. And ultimately, as I boiled it down, I started to notice that there were kind of four big things that factored into people making a commitment, sticking to a commitment and ultimately succeeding. And over the years we’ve done several different trials of this with our online community. We’ve done some small group sessions where we’ve charged a lot of money for people to come in and work in a small setting Online still, but doing their own workouts, but communicating back and forth with us and with different groups and what we’ve noticed is that there were four big things that help almost anybody that we’ve seen massive success with and this includes myself, ryan and all the golfers that we’ve worked with.

Four big things. It kind of boiled down to where we saw the most success, in droves really and the first one is that much like for me with Lent, it had to do with you or that individual having something bigger, some sort of a mission, some sort of a target, some sort of a challenge that they were part of. So we did a small group called the RFG the Real Fit Golfers and all of those guys crushed it. I personally have done a couple trail races, trail runs and it’s like anytime I have something like that that I can focus on and train for something bigger than I’m focusing on, I always dedicate it and stuck to my training program. If any of you have run a marathon or done triathlons or gone on a golf trip that you really want to perform on, you have these things that you’re looking forward to, that you want to reach your pinnacle and so you put the time and effort in to get there and that’s really one of the big reasons why, for me, lent was always one of those things that I stuck to.

The second thing and this kind of goes along the same lines is that you’re committed to a group or to something bigger. So really that kind of speaks to the Lenten thing of being a part of a team. I always grew up playing team sports. Like I said, didn’t really play golf growing up, but having a team beside me, working for the team, not having an individualized goal, but knowing that if I succeeded or failed, it was in helping the team and people relying on me. The same went for our small group settings with our guys. If you have a team that you’re committed to, you have other people that you’re also accountable to, and so I saw that that was a big factor of bringing a team together having people work together to support each other or to push each other or to be supported when they needed to be supported. That was huge.

The third is something that I don’t see a whole lot outside of kind of the fitness community. Some of the trainers that I know and people that are working with trainers is having some sort of keeping of being able to keep score. As golfers, we keep score on the golf course, right, but when you’re trying to make a big change, if it’s transform your body, if it’s lose weight, whatever it is, if it’s gain swing speed, are you keeping track? Are you keeping score? Are you having some way of saying, yes, I did what I needed to do, or no, I didn’t? Am I getting better? Am I getting worse? Am I staying the same? So, keeping score just like you would. In a fitness program, we have all of our clients track the weights that they use, and so you can see the progress or maybe take a picture of yourself so you can see yourself looking better. Keeping score is a big part of making that change and keeping that commitment.

And then, the last thing I think is probably the most important, and if you’re in a situation where you’re trying to make some sort of a big change which, let’s face it, all of us if you’re listening to this episode, still, you’re interested in changing something. But the fourth piece here is that you don’t commit wholeheartedly unless you’re really ready to make that change. And I like to think of my younger brother, scott, when I think of this, because he was a smoker for a long period of time, and it’s probably been over 10 years now. But there was just one point where he and his girlfriend at the time now wife decided you know what? We don’t want to be smokers anymore, we’re done. And they quit cold turkey. Still to this day, I’m amazed at how they did it, but they just shut it off.

And you see that with people that stop drinking alcohol, you see that with people that make a massive change in their lifestyle and all of a sudden they go from being the fat person to now the super fit person, these people were ready to make that change and, believe me, I’ve tried to help people that come in here with good intentions but aren’t quite ready to make the change yet and they just aren’t dedicated to changing their nutrition, changing their habits, changing their workouts and just doing the small, consistent things that they need to do. Nothing has to happen overnight, nothing’s going to change overnight dramatically, but it’s getting in that mindset of, hey, this is for the long haul and doing these things consistently are going to make a big, big deal. So, with all four of those things in mind, that kind of got me thinking about what we could do here at 18STRONG and really kind of got me thinking about what I could do personally to develop something to help me with my own personal habits. So last year is really where the idea of the Forge came about. In 2021. When Lent came around, I was going to do my typical give up booze for Lent you know, don’t touch any alcohol for the 40 days and then I kind of thought back to my conversation with Ed, thought about these things that we’d been talking about a lot on the podcast and really just was ready to step it up a little bit, and so that’s when I decided to enlist a couple friends of mine, a couple college buddies the two Pats, ted, and another buddy from Kansas City, rob and reached out and said hey guys, here’s what I’m doing. I’m giving up booze for Lent, but I’m going to take it up a notch and I’m going to do these couple of things every day, want to see if you guys would be interested. And they all shot back yes, I’m in.

This was 2021 when, you know, covid was still keeping people pretty separate. People were still staying at home, a lot weren’t getting out, nearly as much weren’t going to the gym, and I think everybody was ready for some sort of a change all of these guys. And so we embarked on this journey and those 40 days were really. They were transformative for all of us. We got together at the end of those 40 days and talked about basically everybody lost 20, 15 pounds. All of those guys were looking to lose some weight. I was looking to do some some leaning out and, just, you know, better habits, and we all saw massive, massive changes.

But what struck me the most was, when you get these guys started talking about the mental change that had on all of them, and I experienced it too. First of all, they felt like they had a purpose every day, working, getting up and communicating with each other, sending texts to each other, supporting each other, but also the fact that they were mentally much stronger, not just keeping their commitments, but you know, when you haven’t hung out with people for a long time, it can get pretty, you can go into some weird mental spaces, and I think that many people over the past couple of years have either fought some depression or gotten into these times where you’re just in a funk, right, and so this really helped everybody in this situation get out of that funk. And that was one thing that I really really thought was cool about just getting moving more and having a purpose behind your movement and building your habits. And then I noticed that these guys kept a lot of these habits after these 40 days, and so then that’s when the light bulb kind of went on and we were like, okay, we’re going to do something like this for the 18STRONG crew, and that’s where we then came up with all right, the 40 day forge and, as I mentioned, forge is the name of you know a way to build irons and to basically mold them to be as strong as possible, and that was really the idea is, how do we create something that’s going to help people build habits, help them mold themselves? And so after the 40 days, it’s not just like your typical cleanse or whatever it is, where people are just going to go back to their old habits. They’re going to go in some crash diet for 40 days, lose a bunch of weight. That wasn’t the intent.

So, thinking about the way that we were going to structure this and the couple of things that the few things that I wanted to include in there that we have been preaching for years at 18STRONG, if any of you have heard of the 75 hard program, which was started by a guy named Andy for cella, who is happens to be another St Louis guy, a guy that went to a neighboring high school. That of me went to high school called Viany, here in St Louis. I went to slew high and so we kind of hung around the same people in high school and Andy has created now this huge supplement company called 1st Phorm and he started the 75 hard program, which ultimately has changed hundreds of thousands of people’s lives, taking them through 75 days Of daily tasks, multiple workouts a day. There’s a lot to it. It’s a pretty intense program and by all means, if you want to go check out the 75 Hard Program, go do that. But I knew that I loved the premise of the program, I loved what he was doing and I knew that we could do something like that for our crew here at 18STRONG, but something that was modeled more for our guys and girls and their lifestyles. And so I looked at that model and kind of decided you know what? Let’s kind of follow that model that Andy has put together, because if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

So the 40-day forge is basically 40 days of completing seven daily tasks where every single day you check off on your list and we have some resources for you to print out. If you go to 18strong.com, slash the forge, you’ll put your email address in. It’ll take you over to the page. It gives you all the resources. But we’ve got a calendar where every single day you check off the seven things that I’m going to go through in just a minute as to whether you did them or didn’t do them. And if you go 40 days straight without missing a single task, then you are considered to be forged and those are basically the rules. 40 days straight, you complete all seven tasks every single day. If you miss one of the tasks, it’s considered a DNF or a WD, however you want to say. In the Gulf world it’s often WD, withdrawal, dnf has did not finish.

And I know that that sounds extremely harsh, that if you miss one little simple task that you have to start the whole program over or that you’re out of the program. And it’s not meant to be a punishment, but it’s meant to make you focus on the details of the program Because, again, this isn’t just a fitness program. This is a program that’s going to help you in all assets mentally, physically, emotionally, all of these different things. And, to be honest, at first, when I was putting this together, I had kicked around the idea of you know, if you miss a day, maybe you tack on two days at the end, or you know having some of these different rules, and it just I started to think no, that’s not what this is about. This is supposed to be hard. This isn’t supposed to be some cakewalk where you can make your way through it and if you make a couple of mistakes, no big deal, because, let’s face it, that’s what we already do. And if you let those little things slide, then you continue to let the habits slide and then you find yourself back right where you were.

And so we decided that’s where the hashtag no more mulligans came up Because it’s time to stop giving yourself the leeway, it’s time to stop giving ourselves this little plan B where you know you screw up and all well, no big deal. Because, again, golf, it’s really easy to get complacent, it’s easy to hit that shot in the woods and be like, ah well, whatever, you know rounds over, I’m playing again tomorrow, I’ll get it back. You know we’ll have fun tomorrow. That’s not the mentality here. The mentality is you’re going all in for 40 days because you know that at the end of the 40 days, what lies there is so much better than you taking that little shortcut right now. And I will tell you, most of you not some of you, most of you will screw up in the 40 days. And how do I know this? Because I did it myself On day 20,.

I missed one of the tasks. I didn’t cheat on my meals, I didn’t cheat on my alcohol. I simply forgot to do something, which I’m going to go through the seven tasks here in just a minute. I forgot to do it and at first a wave of panic washed over me when I woke up that next morning and realized that I had forgotten to do some mobility exercises. And I went through all these different emotions of you know maybe nobody will know because obviously nobody will know, because I’m the only one that knew I didn’t do it. But then I owned up to it. In fact there’s even a video still that I will always leave up in the Facebook group of the day that I realized this happened. And I owned up to the group and I said I’m starting a new day, one today.

So 20 days in, I’m halfway through the thing and 20 days in I realized that I screwed up and so I had to start it all over. So ultimately, in order for me to get to my forge, I had to go 60 days straight of these next seven tasks. But I will say that those having to do that, having to own up, was one of the best things that could have happened to me. First of all, it made me stick with these habits even harder for the next 40 days, and I made a vow to myself to go even harder for those 40 days. But when I let other people know that I, jeff the one that started this thing, that I effed up. I think that gave people a lot of leeway to realize like, oh geez, I screwed up too. And I had several people reach out and say, oh man, I screwed up last week, but I didn’t want to say anything. I’m going to start over with you, because I got sick last week and had a bunch of people that had gotten sick and so they decided, you know, they were going to start it again with me, and so we had a whole crew that started over that same day, which I thought was awesome. Okay, I know I’m rambling. I told you I would.

But let’s go through the seven non-negotiable daily tasks and for each day of the 40 day program you’re going to do every single one of these. Again, I mentioned 18strong.com, slash, theforge. All one word Go there. You’ll put your email address and you can get all the printable resources. We have a printable calendar of the 40 days. We’ve got a couple lists, or a list of all seven tasks that I printed out and I put all over my house, especially after I screwed up. I put one in my office, I put one on my nightstand, I put one on the fridge just so I would see it all the time and be able to kind of check it off before I went to bed. So you can go and print those out. We’ve even got a couple screensavers for your phone, so every time you click your phone on you see the forge there. So here are the seven tasks of the 40 day forge.

Task number one is that you’re going to drink at least 24 ounces of water at the beginning of your day. This is going to be the first thing that hits your lips in the morning. I highly recommend that you put a squeeze of lemon in it, because there’s some benefits to having lemon in it. But primarily, I know that sometimes you’re traveling and maybe you don’t have lemons on hand. So we said 24 ounces of water First thing that hits your lips every day. If you’re fasting and you don’t take in any liquids or food till lunchtime, still make sure that that water is the first thing to hit your lips.

Now, why do I say lemon water? Because some of the benefits of squeezing a fresh lemon into your water and I typically do a quarter of a lemon or a half of a lemon there’s several different benefits. First, just doing this gets you hydration immediately in the morning after you’ve been sleeping. You’ve been fasting for about six to eight hours, whatever you’ve been sleeping. Getting that into your system quickly is going to help everything work better for the rest of the day. Also, we know that as a society we tend to not get enough hydration, and so this is a way for you to get a head start during your day.

A loose rule of thumb is that you should be drinking about half of your body weight in ounces of water. So if you’re a 200 pound person, you should be drinking roughly 100 ounces of water per day. If you knock out 24 ounces first thing in the morning, you’re already a quarter of the way there almost. But throwing a lemon in it also helps with immunity. You get a lot of vitamin C, which is also good for your skin and for overall health because of the antioxidants. It helps absorb iron better, it improves your digestion and helps reduce your risk of kidney stones. So there’s a lot of different benefits. Primarily the hydration, though, of just getting the water. In A quick note, with the lemon water, the lemon can be a little hard on your teeth, on your enamel, and may exacerbate heartburn. So if that’s the case for you and you’re concerned about that, just stick with the regular water, okay.

Number two is what we call our Move EFD, or our daily motion program. Efd stands for Every Effing Day, because this is something that we have our golfers do every effing day. I do this every effing day even when I’m not doing the forage, and it’s because it’s so important. Now, this is a small little daily mobility routine that you will get delivered to you. When you go to that page, 18strong.com, slash the forage, you will get access to the videos for the EFD. This is a program that we have had in all of our online fitness programs, and it takes five to ten minutes every single day. Once you get the hang of the different motions, you can really do it in five to seven minutes or so.

It’s meant to get your body moving from head to toe. It’s going to increase your range of motion at your neck, your shoulders, your trunk, your shoulder blades, your hips, your low back, your knees, your ankles all of these different things that are super important for you as a golfer to make sure that you’re moving well. Our bodies suffer injuries when they’re not prepared for whatever stress happens to them. So this is one way for us to get our body moving in so many different directions that you’re kind of prepping it for the stresses that are going to occur in daily life as well as on the golf course. So this is a way to kind of help build good stress on your joints, your muscles, your tendons, all of these different things. It’s going to increase what we call the pliability or the tensile strength of these different tissues. It’s going to help you move a little bit better. What golfer doesn’t want to move better?

And here’s a little fun fact for those of you that have any kind of joint pain aches, pains, typically where you have your pain is not necessarily the actual cause of your pain. The cause of the pain is that something else isn’t moving very well, and whatever part of your body is hurting is then taking up the brunt of it because something else is stuck. So if we get everything moving well, odds are you’re going to be experiencing less pain in whatever area hurts. Typically for golfers, this can be the low back. If your hips aren’t moving well, your shoulders aren’t moving well, your low back is going to take up a lot of the stress. So this is going to definitely help. This, we like to say, also keeps you perpetually warmed up so you’re always ready to perform. This is a great little warm up that you can do before you run off golf, before your workout, so you’re always ready to go.

And lastly, doing some sort of movement every single day, especially if you do this in the morning, which is when I recommend you do it. You don’t have to, but it improves your mood, it improves your energy, it gets your blood flowing right away, which is great for everything. It’s great for your mental acuity, it’s great for your mood, your attitude. Just getting blood flowing through your body provides nutrition to everything to the muscles, to the organs, everything that you need. And so, again, that’s why we call it our EFD, because we want you doing this every effing day.

Okay, number three is a 10 minute meditation or breathing routine, or even just deep breathing for 10 minutes. This is meant to help you unplug from everything else and to just kind of tune into your body, tune into your surroundings, tune into nature. So we are embedded with distractions every single day our phones, the TV, computers, people, everything. There’s so much going on around us that rarely do we take the time to sit quietly and just enjoy our surroundings. No longer are we a society that can ever get bored, because we’ve always got something to stare at right. So the idea here is to put your phone down, to not use a device unless you’re using it for like a guided meditation or some sort of meditative music. Otherwise, we don’t want you taking any input in. So I don’t want you reading, I don’t want you listening to an audio book unless it’s like a guided meditation to help you relax or help you focus. That doesn’t count for your 10 minutes.

This is going to provide a break from the constant stimulation that surrounds us all the time. It’s an opportunity for us to appreciate and be present, which is so hard for us to do. So this is going to be a way to help you improve your control over your emotions, over your energy, over how you’re feeling on a regular basis, and how beneficial will that be when you’re out on the golf course. We’ve talked many times to Gary, nicole and Carl Morris about the importance of using a bit of a walking meditation in between shots, taking time to chill out. This is going to help you with your focus level, and there’s a couple of great resources that I would recommend. If you’re new to meditation, if you’re new to breathing exercises. Wim Hof, w-i-m last name H-O-F is a great resource for some breathing techniques, and you’ll hear his name in the next daily task as well. Amishi Ja just wrote a book called Peak Mind, which is incredible about focus and beginner level meditation. There’s meditation for beginners by a guy named Jack Cornfield, so there’s many different resources for you to check out and if this is something you’ve never done, I encourage you to really embrace this and look into utilizing this as a daily habit beyond the 40 days, for your golf, for your mental health, for your fitness level.

Okay, the fourth task is a one minute cold shower or cold plunge. Now, this is probably the one that has gotten the most pushback initially when I announced the daily task to the 40 day forge. So this means at the end of your shower. This is what I would recommend. At the end of your shower, you turn the hot water all the way off, you turn the cold water all the way on and you stand in that for one minute straight. Or, if you have the opportunity to do a cold plunge, maybe you live near or you’re out by a river or something like that and you have cold water that you can jump in.

I would highly suggest doing that, or an ice bath, a cold plunge for one minute. Now why the heck would I do this? Many of you that played athletics back in the day have probably experienced a cold bath or a cold plunge and you realize that it’s a pretty shocking event. That’s part of it. That’s part of why we’re doing this is basically just to change your state. This is a great thing to do again in the morning when you’re just getting ready to start your day. It changes your state. It changes your energy level and your mood and really kind of weights you up. There’s also a lot of science showing that it helps to reduce stress levels. It helps improve your alertness and your awareness and it helps improve your response, your immunity response, which obviously we know that that’s a big thing that we need to worry about these days. The healthier we are, the more likely we’re going to be able to fight off infections and viruses and things like that.

But I think the biggest I know this the biggest benefit of the cold shower is the fact that you don’t want to take the cold shower. That’s it. That’s Ed’s statement. Keeping promises to yourself. That’s it in a nutshell. You said you were going to take a cold shower and you really don’t want to take a cold shower, but you took the cold shower anyway, I guarantee you. I have heard from almost every person that I have communicated with that has done the 40-day forage. Many times they communicate first saying that they don’t want to take the cold shower, but then afterwards they say how much they love it. Almost every single person has continued doing the cold showers after they finished their 40 days. It’s that staring yourself in the face. This happens to me every single morning. I’ve been doing a cold shower for close to two years now, every single morning. I look at it and I’m like I really don’t want to do it, but I do it anyway, and that’s the point doing it when you don’t want to do it. One I didn’t mention, which many of you will really be appreciative of, is cold showers have also been shown to help increase your ability to burn fat. If that helps out with it as well, that’s one of those logical reasons that will maybe help push you over the edge Again. Wim Hof is the guy who really pioneered the whole cold shower, cold plunges and deep breathing exercises. He’s got a book called the Wim Hof Method, which I recommend you listening or reading if you’re interested in learning a little bit more about that.

Task number five is an intentional physical activity. This means that for 40 consecutive minutes or more, you can do more. You have to do an intentional physical activity that, in one way or another, challenges you. The intent behind this is that you are exercising or doing something pretty physical every single day. We like to say we don’t care what you do, just do something and do it every day. So this could be resistance training. This could be hiking, biking, practicing golf. This could be playing a round of golf. This could be a hit workout. This could be rocking, which has become a favorite of mine, throwing a backpack on and throwing a weight in the backpack All of these different things. The intention is simply to get you moving every single day in one way, shape or form.

Now, everyone is going to have a different version of this, of what is right for them and what challenges them. The importance is that you look at this as a challenge. I don’t want you just going for a stroll and walking the dog and thinking like, oh, I’m just going to walk the dog for 40 days. Well, that’s probably something you already do, so how can you challenge yourself a little bit? There were days when walking the dog was my physical activity. On those days, I threw a rucksack on, not saying you have to do that, or I would take the dog and walk a few hills while we did that and make it a little bit more challenging.

For many of you, you’re going to have a strength training program that you’re on, or you want to be on, a strength training program. Obviously, we have programs that you can utilize here at 18STRONG, but this program, the 40 Day Forge, is not just for people following 18STRONG programs. In fact, we’ve got tons of friends that are professionals in the golf fitness world that we would highly recommend. Many of you may already be doing some of their programs. Take that program and use that as your IPA is what we call it your intentional physical activity. We have several of those golf fitness professionals doing the 40 Day Forge or have done the 40 Day Forge.

So our mission is to push forward the idea that us, as golfers, we’re kind of a new breed of golfer, where we live an active lifestyle, we’re healthy, we’re fit, we love to play golf, we love to enjoy life and we’re dialing in good habits. So, no matter who you are, no matter what fitness program you’re following, I don’t really care. That’s not the point of this. Like I’ve said many times, following any kind of a program, even a mediocre program, consistently is going to produce way better results than finding the greatest program and not staying consistent to it. And just one more note on that if you start the 40 Day Forge and maybe something low key is your activity, maybe walking is the thing that you start with, the goal here is to then try to push yourself through those 40 days, and I know many people that do this. They did the same thing with the cold shower. They start with the one minute cold shower. One guy was, by the end of the challenge, he was up to an eight minute cold shower just because he loved the idea of pushing himself a little bit further. So, doing things that are a little bit harder, you’re going to find and I’ll mention this at the very end, but you’re going to find that as you start to do these things and you realize you’re doing something that other people may think you’re crazy for and that other people aren’t willing to work as hard at. You’re going to find yourself thinking, man, I want to do a little bit more, I want to push myself a little bit more. You’re going to start finding opportunities to make yourself better that you didn’t even see before, and that’s going to be one of the biggest benefits here.

Task number six this is the big one. In fact, this is the biggest one, especially for any of you that are looking for a physical change. You’re looking to lose fat, you’re looking to lean out, you’re looking for some body composition changes too. Number six is no cheat nutrition. So you’re going to check off on your sheet that you didn’t cheat on your nutrition or alcohol consumption. Now, we are all about having fun, having some cocktails, having a couple beers here and there, but during the 40 day forge, there’s absolutely no alcohol, which I know it pains me just to say it. But no alcohol for the 40 days. And this kind of goes back to my Lenten promise that I’ve done the last several years no alcohol for 40 days and no cheating on your diet.

Now, what does that mean? Not cheating on your diet? Well, we are not going to give you a nutrition program. We are not going to tell you what you should and shouldn’t eat, because I don’t think that that necessarily is up to me. Everybody kind of has their own proper ways of eating or lifestyle. That’s a very big thing. You can’t just blanket statement what somebody should and shouldn’t eat. Now we have our guidelines that we like to live by here, and you can find those on our resource page too.

We call it our nutrition stack, but we’re proponents of pretty much just eating lean meat, vegetables, good fruits, good fats. You know the standards, but for the 40 days, the key here is that you need to know exactly what is allowed and what is not allowed on your nutrition plan. This is not necessarily meant to be oh well, I’m going to give up chips or I’m going to give up sweets. This should be an overall I’m eating healthy kind of a plan. Now again, I’m not going to tell you exactly what that is. You can either find some resources to help you out with that you can ask us and we’re happy to help you with that but this is up to you. This whole program is up to you. The idea is for you to be self-sufficient in finding these things, helping to empower you to take action on these. But you need to know exactly what it means. Did I cheat or did I not cheat? I continue to get a lot of questions about this one from people regarding whether this counts or whether that counts. Again, most of the time I’m going to tell you I don’t know, that’s up to you, but we like to employ here at 18STRONG the don’t be stupid rule. So I like to think if you asked a fifth grader, is that healthier, is that not healthy? And they knew the difference, then you probably know what you should and shouldn’t be eating on your nutrition program. But make sure you write it out and you can blankly say yes or no, I cheated or did not cheat, okay.

And the final task is and this one is specifically for you guys, the golfers out there 15 golf swings, right-handed and left-handed, every single day, and do this without a golf ball. So we threw this in there. Obviously, we knew that this program is primarily for golfers. Now, if you’re not a golfer and you were forwarded this, I have another suggestion for you in a second. But 15 golf swings, right-handed, left-handed, every single day, and this does multiple things. It gets your body moving in both directions. We basically rotate one way all of our life Swing in a baseball bat, swing in a golf club, it’s typically all the same. So this gets us moving in a different direction, which helps with our balance. It helps with our proprioception, which is our awareness of our body in space. It also helps with accelerating and decelerating in both directions.

Now I don’t propose that you swing as fast as possible in your non-dominant direction, because I think that without the coordination being built up, there is an opportunity for you to injure yourself or create some tweaks or strains, things like that. So on the non-dominant side, just do it smartly, right, don’t try to overdo it, don’t hurt yourself. I also say don’t do this with a golf ball because I want you to be less technical about these golf swings. I want you to almost visualize your golf swing, visualize what the ball is doing for each swing, so you kind of get that body moving. Because you’re creating this visualization not necessarily based on the contact that you felt or your club position. In fact, you could do these swings without a golf club. You could do it with a broomstick, you could do it with a PVC pipe. I did it with an umbrella.

One night, one night, I forgot to do my golf swings earlier in the day and I was taking my daughter to the Fox Theater for a show and I forgot that I didn’t do my swings and I knew we were going to get home late. So, as we were parking, I stepped out, grabbed my umbrella from my trunk and did my swings right next to the parking garage, and the people walking down the street thought I was crazy. But I got my stuff done, which is one of those things that you would never do unless you were tracking and making sure that you did the habits that you said you were going to do. So I looked crazy, but I got my stuff done. So 15 swings right handed and left handed.

Now, if you are not a golfer and you still want to participate in the forage, I encourage you to find some sort of physical task that you can supplement. In here I’ve had somebody decide to do planks, like a one minute plank on their elbows forward and then a side plank one minute on each side. I thought that was a good one. Another one that I suggested to somebody, because I know most people don’t necessarily get up and down off the floor and as people age, that tends to become one of the hardest things that clients of mine complain about as they get into the older years is getting up and down from the floor. So one thing would be lay down on the floor on your stomach and get up 10 times. Lay down on the floor on your back and get up 10 times. I don’t care what it is, just find something physical that you can do that doesn’t interrupt one of the other tasks and do it, commit to it and do it On your sheet. You can just check that off where it says golf swings.

Now, one note with all of these tasks is that each task is to be completed individually, so there’s no overlap. So your EFDs do not count in your 40 minutes of your IPA, or if you’re playing golf and you’re using that as your physical activity really if you’re playing golf at all your practice swings don’t count as your 15 golf swings. Do those 15 swings either before you play your round of golf, when you’re warming up, or after or some other time during the day. You’re not allowed to overlap your different activities. My last note on the seven daily task is don’t over complicate this. Look at the tasks and take them pretty black and white. I’ve got a lot of questions that really didn’t need to be questions, and it’s us going into that confusion mode. That is really a delay tactic. So just see it for what it is, and either you did it or you didn’t do it. Don’t over complicate the different tasks. For example, I don’t really care how cold the cold shower is there’s not a temperature that I’m looking for but turn the hot water all the way off, turn the cold water all the way on. Sometimes it’s questions like those that actually keep people from taking action, which is really silly. We all do it, so don’t fall into that trap, okay, lastly, I have just a few suggestions on how to get the most out of this program, because if you’re doing this and you’re ready to commit to it, you want to make sure that you get the most out of it.

In 40 days doesn’t sound like that long of a time, but you’re going to go through roller coasters of emotions when it comes to this thing. There’s going to be times when you think why am I doing this stupid thing? I thought that throughout. Why did I start this? Why am I doing this? And so you need to have a bit of a backup plan to help get you through those. I call it kind of the tail of two golfers. We all have the two golfers inside of ourselves, kind of a Jekyll and Hyde theme.

And many times it’s in the morning. We start out fresh, we start out like, hey, I’m going to crush today, it’s going to be awesome. And then you get home by the end of the day You’re worn out, you’re tired, you’re hungry and it’s like f that I can do that tomorrow and you blow off your workout or you blow off your good meal, or you decide I just want to have one drink and you have a drink and that leads to two drinks or three drinks and that leads to you eating a bag of chips on a Saturday night, watching Netflix, watching Narcos and I may have just given you a glimpse into a couple of my Saturday nights in the past. It’s those times when you need to have something bigger than you to say, no, I’m not falling into that trap again. That’s happened too many times. So here’s the deal.

I first suggest that you really figure out why you’re doing this. What do you hope to gain in these 40 days and, if it helps, write it on the back of your calendar. Write out why you’re doing this. Are you doing this for you? Are you doing this to get your body to feel better? Are you doing this to look better? Are you doing this because you need a change in your mental attitude? Are you doing this because you want to play better golf? Whatever it is, you’ve got your own reason, but write it down and look at it every single day, or at least on the days when you’re feeling like shit and you don’t want to do what you have to do left. You’re sitting on the couch 9.30 at night, you’re getting ready to go to bed and you realize you didn’t do your meditation or your daily motion, which that’s what I forgot. On my 20th day. We went out, we had a Christmas party for the gym and I forgot to do my daily motion, came home, went to bed and totally forgot. So, trust me, you have to have a plan to make sure that you’re checking these things off.

Second thing I suggest is take a picture of yourself before beginning this, preferably where you can see your body. So, if you’re a guy, take your shirt off. If you’re a lady, in a sports bra and underwear or yoga pants or whatever, so you can see what your body looks like, because I guarantee 40 days of eating well, not drinking, exercising every single day, you’re going to notice some pretty serious physical changes. In fact, I was just joking with somebody a couple of days ago because I’ve had so many friends that have started doing this now that I’ve gotten a lot of text messages, kind of as accountability messages, guys sending me their before pictures. And I said, man, I hope nobody hacks into my phone and sees that I got a bunch of pictures of half naked dudes in my DMs because it would look really, really weird. But I also think it’s pretty cool that these guys are committing and sending that to me and I take that to heart, that these guys are trusting me, first of all not to show them on social media and to the rest of our friends, but also that they’re saying, hey, I’m ready to do this thing, here’s my ticket to ride and I’m in. So take some pictures of yourself and even take them weekly. You’ll see a big difference from week to week to week. Next suggestion is write down what physical aches and pains and things you have going on or that you’ve been dealing with lately, to be able to compare those by the end of the 40 days, or write down maybe the moods that you’ve experienced, the attitude, whatever it is that you’ve been struggling with a little bit. Write that stuff down and see where that is in 40 days and how this has impacted you.

The next piece I mentioned it’s important to be a part of a community, to be a part of a team. So we have our 18STRONG Facebook group. It’s called the 18STRONG Movement, and I highly, highly, highly suggest that you jump into that group to join in on the conversation, to be in a group of supportive people many that have done this. We’ve got a lot of our friends that are fitness professionals, golf pros, instructors that are in that group too, that are just great to bounce ideas off of, but it’s all a group of like-minded people in the 18STRONG crew that are looking to get better. They love to play golf and, who knows, you might even find a new golf buddy when you’re out of town on a golf trip or something.

But I think it’s really important to have that community surrounding us when we’re embarking on a challenging journey like this, because typically the people in your social circle aren’t going to know what the hell you’re doing and are going to think you’re a weirdo, to be honest, and we celebrate those weirdos. We celebrate the fact that we’re different and we’re doing things. When I’m over at the park with a backpack on and weight in my backpack and I’m walking the dog up and down the hill, sometimes walking backwards, and I got people looking at me like what the hell is this guy doing? I’m thinking I’d have a whole crew of 18STRONG golfers here with me doing this if they were here, but I don’t have them here. So I’m the weirdo at the park. But you can be that weirdo, you can be the person that does it differently, but you have this crew, you have this community that’s behind you.

And then I think even more important or even more beneficial is find somebody in your group, find somebody that you are friends with already and enlist them as your partner to do this with, enlist them in the same journey. You know somebody that’s kind of looking to do the same thing with you, because then you’ve got that accountability built in right there. It’s like having a workout buddy that you know is going to be at the gym If you don’t show up, you’re going to get shit. So you can play off of each other, support each other, push each other and you’re going to hopefully find that competitive nature that’s in you to push yourself a little bit harder and want to go a little bit harder than your buddy does. And then the last piece of advice I have here is just use the support materials that we have in place for you. Use the calendar, use the tracking sheet, use the visual checklist, because, much like I did, if you don’t have that plan in play to check off everything before you go to bed, you’re going to find yourself slipping, you’re going to find yourself forgetting something, and then you’re going to be you’re going to be stuck in that dilemma of shit.

I’ve been doing this for 10 days. I’ve been doing this for 17 days. I’ve been doing this, for we had one guy, todd. He did it for 35 days and then he had a situation that kind of blew up on him. He didn’t plan for his eating and he screwed up on his diet. And guess what Todd did? He sent me a note and he said day one starts tomorrow and he started back over again. So Todd in all did, I believe, over 75 days for his forge. But that’s what it was about. It was about him taking ownership, saying, man, I effed up, but I’m not going to let this get me down. And, believe me, there are plenty of emotions that go with that decision. And then, during that next 40 days, there’s plenty of times where it’s like, man, I shouldn’t have started over. But when you finish and you can ask Todd, maybe we’ll have Todd on the show. I know we’re going to have some people on the show that have done the 40 day forge and get their experience, but I guarantee he felt like a champion when he finished that final day of the forge, knowing that he pushed through and made that decision.

So, before I close out this episode which thanks for sticking with my rambling here I know this has gone a lot longer than I intended it to, but many people have asked us why we’re doing this and, honestly, hopefully the people that have been following 18STRONG for a long time already understand the reason. But we are basically here to push forward the idea that all of us can achieve more and that we deserve the best that life has to offer. And that starts with how you treat yourself. That starts with how you show up every single day. And, believe me, as I mentioned at the very beginning of this episode. This challenge is as much for me as it is for you.

This is something that I continue to work on, I continue to struggle with and I by no means have all of this life stuff figured out, all of this fitness and nutrition and golf stuff figured out the golf specifically but our mission here is to help as many people as possible, bring as many people into the 18STRONG crew as we possibly can and help them with as much as they can, because we know that by creating a better, stronger golfer, that will play out in your golf game. But to me, I’m much less passionate about increasing your swing speed or dropping your handicap than I am helping you to play with less pain, play a lot longer, be able to play with your kids, your grandkids, whatever that might be, go on great trips with your buddies. That’s what 18STRONG is to us. And so my question for you is what is 18STRONG to you? How can you become 18STRONG? And I think the 40 day forage is just the beginning of getting all of us closer to what that definition is of 18STRONG.

So, as we close out this episode, really there’s just one decision that you need to make, and that decision is am I going to take the plunge and am I going to choose to take the next 40 days as a head start to building some of the greatest habits that I’ve built in years, to becoming the strongest, healthiest version of myself? And when I say strongest, I mean mentally and physically strong. The definition of strength is the ability to withstand great force or pressure. It’s not always about how much can you lift on a barbell. It’s about mentally, physically, emotionally. What can we stand? When can we bounce back? And that’s what the forage is about is looking our challenges in the face, overcoming them. Looking at our commitments in the face and sticking to them when the times get tough. That’s what the 40 day forage is about. So, if you are ready to take this journey, we are here to help you as much as possible and, to be completely honest, my vision is that this is something that just lives indefinitely, and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of golfers utilize this program to catapult them into better habits that then allow them to play their greatest golf, live their healthiest life and really enjoy and be prepared for all of the adventures that we all have in front of us.

So again, 18strong.com, slash the forage. Put your email in. You’ll get all the instructions, all the support materials. Again, there’s nothing here to buy. We’re not here to sell you one single thing. All I ask is that, if you do decide to do the forage, don’t put it off, don’t try to schedule out. Oh, the next 40 days are tough. I’ve got this event. I’ve got this event. Decide to do it and start it very, very soon.

If you have a friend that you want to enlist, send them this episode, send them the website link.

And if I could just ask you one favor listening to this episode. If you got anything out of this, if you think that this is an important mission, if you think that this is going to help you or your friends or somebody that you know, or maybe just some random golfer that comes across, whatever social media you have, please pass along this episode, this episode number 335 on the 18STRONG podcast. It will also be linked up on that same page, 18strong.com, slash the forage. You can just tell people to go straight to that link right there, because we’re on a mission to change a lot of golfer’s lives and we can do that with your help. So thank you for joining me on this little bit different episode of the 18STRONG podcast. We’ll catch up with you soon. Stay strong. Thanks for listening to the 18STRONG podcast and if you found this episode helpful, don’t forget to share it with your friends. And, of course, go follow us over on Instagram @18STRONG. Thanks again. We’ll catch up with you next week. Train hard, practice smart and play better golf.