I didn’t finish 75 Hard. What now?
Several months ago, I set out to complete a physical fitness and lifestyle challenge called 75 Hard. It was meant to kickstart a new push for me to get healthy. I made it about halfway through the 75 days, after restarting a few times, and then failed.
Clearly, this doesn’t feel good. However, it doesn’t mean I’m going to try again.
Let’s dive in to the aspects of 75 Hard, what worked for me, and what didn’t. Bear in mind that each of these tasks had to be completed every day, and if not, you had to start over on day 1 the next day.
1. Take a progress pic. I did this part, without issue. It didn’t take much for me to just snap a photo, but the mirror I had was tall and at an angle on the floor. My photos made it look like I had really long legs, but my face looked like a potato. I DO have a moon face, though, so that’s not necessarily an inaccurate representation of how I look.
2. Read ten pages of a nonfiction book. Audible did not count here. I mostly kept up with this without failure… or so I thought. Turns out, your “ten pages” needed to have 200 words each! I have no idea if that can be said for every book I read (though I made the conscious effort to not count pages with photos on them as pages). Honestly, I like reading! However, when I quit for the last time, I didn’t read that day at all. So much for picking up good habits!
3. Drink a gallon of water. I was TERRIBLE at this! I didn’t feel thirsty during the day, so I’d end up chugging water late at night. My sleep cycle was ravaged with regular wake ups to use the bathroom. It was not great. Every time I’d wake up the next morning with the hope that I’d remember to drink throughout the day, I was brutally mistaken.
4. Pick a diet and stick to it. This was obviously the toughest part. Calorie deficits? Avoiding binge eating? Either way, I failed. I found out later that if you read the fine print of the book/listen to the podcast behind the 75 Hard Challenge, you have to eat clean the whole time! Considering I was eating plenty of the foods I loved, it looks like I failed before I even started.
5. No alcohol or cheat meals. I didn’t really think of anything as a full-on cheat meal. I guess that was my mistake! My final “failure” came on my birthday weekend, when I enjoyed a frozen margarita the weekend of my birthday. Ironic: the part of the challenge that gave me the least amount of pause ended up being what triggered my demise.
6. Two 45-minute workouts a day, at least 3 hours apart. One workout MUST be outdoors. I played zigzag with this rule. I either did a high intensity workout and a low intensity workout, or two low intensity workouts. Rarely did I do two high intensity workouts. Think a long, tranquil walk and a 45 minute yoga stretch before bed, and I called it a day. That’s probably not what people have in mind!
I know we’re shocked: 75 Hard is Hard.
I felt myself getting more and more fatigued. It became harder to keep up, and a burden to carry on doing poorly.
That was my biggest failure of all: I kept doing it, but I did it poorly. That’s why, I think, I failed.
So, what comes next? Another attempt? A backslide?
Honestly, I find myself falling somewhere in the middle. I think these tenants are good for health, in general. You shouldn’t drink alcohol to excess. You shouldn’t really believe in “cheat meals.” You should eat healthy, drink water, and stay active! However, this challenge leaves no wiggle room. If you don’t follow these rules to a T, you’re not doing 75 Hard. That’s how the challenge works. There’s no “lazy Keto” around it.
Here’s how I’m looking at my future lifestyle goals, under those same practices:
1. Take a progress pic. I find progress pics less terrifying than getting on a scale. I will continue taking photos every day.
2. Read ten pages of a nonfiction book. I will keep doing this one, too. The reading IS good for me.
3. Drink a gallon of water. I want to work UP towards this. I definitely noticed that my skin was better when I was drinking more water!
4. Pick a diet and stick to it. This needs to be more concrete for me. Obviously, weight loss is heavy on my mind (pun intended, because I am hilarious). Does that mean I need to operate in a calorie deficit? Do I need to cut off chocolate, cheese, and bread, since that eliminates half of the things that I tend to go crazy eating? Should I instead just try to strike a healthy balance, since I don’t intend on not eating those foods ever again in my life? I don’t know!
5. No alcohol or cheat meals. I don’t really drink alcohol, so I don’t worry about this one. If I see friends and want to get a mimosa, I should have a mimosa. It’d probably be the only alcoholic beverage I’d be having that month. Cheat meals fall under that same quandary in item 4. What is a cheat meal? Is that even a healthy way to look at eating? Should I not be thinking of foods as cheat meals in general, based on my track record with poor eating habits? I am lost.
6. Two 45-minute workouts a day, at least 3 hours apart. One workout MUST be outdoors. I actually very much enjoy doing the workouts, when I’m not tired (from going to the bathroom multiple times a night). However, breaking them up between a few hours doesn’t always work in my favor. A lunchtime bike ride to boost my tan is awesome, but unfortunately, I’m in that part of summer where Florida is either going to have bake-you sun or drown you rain, and it’s not always predictable. I’d say I’m more likely to do those two workouts, but make it more like a ninety-minute workout of both strength and cardio before I start my workday. I’ll note that my strength training workouts usually take 30 minutes, not 45, but that just gives me more time to actively stretch after a workout, which I don’t do often.
So, don’t call my intentions to move forward 75 Hard. I don’t even think there’s a name for it! Maybe it’s just called “Doing my best.” How hard can that be?