Fitness, Friendship and Finding Yourself Somewhere Along the Way

Do you have a fitness goal? Maybe you dream of running a marathon. Perhaps you’re training to bench press a lofty percentage of your body weight. Or, maybe you’re working your way up to the Fitbit-recommended 10,000 steps a day. Whatever your ambition, it’s safe to say that fitness is a common area in life where we all strive to improve.

It was that same desire to be better that brought Universal Parks & Resorts Vacations’ Christopher Martin and Joseph DiBella together. Longtime coworkers, Martin and DiBella found themselves utterly exhausted by the grind of work and life with seemingly no time in between. Then, in 2019, the two agreed that something had to change and thus their co-fitness journey began. What followed was a series of lessons in goal setting, accountability and starting over (and over again).

Accountabilibuddies

Perhaps a new word to some, Urban Dictionary defines the word accountabilibuddy as, “The name for a buddy you love so much that you hold yourself accountable for his well-being.” It’s also the key to Martin and DiBella’s ongoing success.

That’s not to say that this endeavor has always been easy. Martin explains that the duo had their fair share of struggles when it came to committing to their fitness co-journey. “We knew that something had to change because we felt like crap. We needed to hold each other accountable,” says Martin. “That worked OK for less than a year, but we yo-yoed. We went back to square one — we didn’t feel good, weren’t eating well and we had generally horrible lifestyles. But then we said, ‘screw that,’ I had my reasons and Joe had his. We said, no B.S., this is what we’re going to do.”

In 2019 Martin and DiBella began to focus on individual goals, they shared articles with each other twice a week — 2 articles on fitness and 2 articles on nutrition — and, most importantly, they committed to holding each other accountable.

“We joke around a lot but we’re also very hard on each other when we need to be,” says DiBella. “And that’s what’s important, not just sugar coating like, ‘you need to eat that,’ or, ‘you need to work out.’ We have those difficult conversations when we need to instead of just letting it go because that’s being a true accountabilibuddy.”

Stay Hard

No two people’s fitness journeys are the same. Each experience is uniquely personal and Martin and DiBella are no exception to this rule.

“We met at a place where we were continuing our own personal journeys, but we found that it was helpful to go through the journey together because we ultimately had the same end goals. But how we got there was in our own individual ways,” says DiBella. To cultivate those goals, the pair adopted the motto ‘Stay Hard’, a term Martin read about in the book “Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds” by David Goggins. “Staying Hard is not going out and running a marathon today, Staying Hard is accomplishing a goal and immediately having the next goal, and the next, and the next—it does not stop,” says Martin.

Easier said than done, right? That’s where mental toughness comes in, a technique that DiBella is continuing to master. “What I was always missing was that mental edge,” says DiBella. “I was always working out in one way, shape or form, but it was the diet that got me. They say, ‘abs are made in the kitchen,’ meaning, you can work out to your heart’s content, but if your diet’s not on point you’re never going to get to your fitness goals.”

While DiBella continues to struggle with mental toughness every day, he’s found inspiration in Author Andy Frisella’s “75 Hard Challenge,” a 75-day program where participants partake in five daily tasks to help them meet their goals:

1. Eat a restrictive diet of your choice—no cheating or alcohol allowed.
2. Workout 45 minutes twice a day with one of the workouts being outdoors.
3. Drink a gallon of water.
4. Take a picture of yourself every single day. This, DiBella notes, is the easiest step to forget.
5. And finally, read 10 pages of a physical non-fiction book to help develop your mind.

The idea is to do these five things for 75 days in a row, but there’s a catch—if you miss even one day you start over at day one.

Getting started was the hardest part. “I put it off for a number of months thinking, ‘I have that event,’ or, ‘I have my cousin’s wedding then, I’ll definitely have to drink,’” says DiBella. “Finally, I was like, no, I have to do this for myself. We really are our own worst enemies in many ways and our thoughts are sometimes limiting. But, when you’re able to break those barriers it allows you to do so many things you didn’t really think were possible.”

DiBella completed his first 75 Hardchallenge in November of 2020 and continues to use the steps provided as a guide in his daily life.

Make Yourself Proud

For Martin, the call to change came just before a major birthday milestone, “I thought, ‘I’m turning 50 next year, I don’t want to feel this way.” He recalled a section from “Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds,” where Goggins asks readers to consider what they could do so that when they look in the mirror they’re proud of what they see. The question rekindled Martin’s desire to be an ultramarathoner, “I thought, I want to swim a marathon, I would be proud of myself if I could do that.”

Martin was scheduled to swim his first 5k in April 2020, but, like many things, it was canceled due to COVID-19. However, instead of being discouraged and giving up, Martin continued to work toward his goal. He joined a gym, lifted weights and started swimming in the open ocean. In early 2020 Martin swam his first open water race. And at the end of it, he was glad that COVID delayed the Swim Miami half marathon because he wasn’t ready. So, he hired a coach and kept training, swimming a minimum of eight miles a week. Soon, Martin was in the best shape of his life.

Finally, in May 2020, Martin participated in the Swim Miami 5,000-meter open water race. “I finished it and my first reaction was, ‘2 hours and 11 minutes, well that stunk,’” says Martin. “I called my coach and she was like, ‘slow down, can’t we just appreciate that the goal was to finish the race?’” Martin took some time to celebrate his achievement, but in the tradition of Staying Hard, he was already setting a slew of new goals.

So, what’s next on the docket? Martin is registered for his first half-Iron Man in May followed by his first full Iron Man in Cozumel this November. Plus, all his hard work will go to a good cause as Martin will support Erica’s Lighthouse, an organization that raises awareness for depression and provides resources and tools for adolescents, teenagers and schools. Why? “I’m doing all this for that (organization) because the number one medicine prescribed for people with depression is movement.”

Tackling the Unexpected

It’s no secret that 2020 was one of the hardest years in history for the travel industry. Martin and DiBella saw this firsthand. However, as newly remote workers struggled to find the sweet spot of work-life balance, Martin and DiBella applied mental toughness to deal with the evolving situation. 

“I think that we were able to effectively deal with it (the pandemic) and everything that followed because of these skills,” says DiBella. “A lot of people had a bad pandemic, Joe and I didn’t, we already had a balanced mindset,” added Martin. “Joe and I didn’t need to find work-life balance, we had already found it because we had pursuits that had nothing to do with work or family.” 

And while Martin and DiBella’s extreme fitness regimens aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, anyone can benefit from the mindset. “Staying Hard is not always about doing an Iron Man. Your Iron Man might be training dogs for an agility competition. Your Iron Man or 75 Hard might be writing a novel or writing poetry. Whatever it is, Staying Hard is doing it, focusing on it,” says Martin. “It all started with a simple goal of feeling better, but now, I’ve got something that has nothing to do with work and nothing to do with the kids. In hindsight, this is the single best thing I’ve ever done for myself.”

Originally appeared in the Spring 2022 issue of The Compass magazine.

About the Author

Senior Editor for VAX VacationAccess and world explorer, Jenna loves writing about all things travel. When she’s not busy creating content, she spends her time exploring the great outdoors, cuddling with her two black cats and researching her next big (sometimes strange) adventure.