25 Oct 2021 – 7 Jan 2022
Hey y’all!
A few months ago, I heard about the #75Hard Challenge online. An acquaintance of mine was doing it, and it sounded interesting.
For the last year, I have been trying to get healthier, exercise and eat right and drink water. I would try for a few days or weeks and then have some excuse for why I had to cheat or stop.
I wanted to lose weight for our daughter’s wedding in October. My initiative lasted about three months, and then I didn’t really try very hard and just got overcome with life.
I found a very beautiful dress to wear to the wedding that was long, elegant, and stretchy. I had a local hairdresser fix my hair and her daughter did my make up. I got many, many comments about how beautiful I looked. When I looked at the pictures afterwards however, although I did look beautiful, I still had a belly. I didn’t like my belly. Also, I know it’s not healthy to have fat around your midsection.
I ordered the 75 Day Hard book. I thought it was a book that you read, but what I had actually bought was a journal (there is a book about the program that I’d like to read, but this was not it). So, it just had a list of things to check off every day for 75 days, but no explanations. I thought, “Well, I better go online and look up this guy that came up with this program”.
I googled Andy Frisella and found his podcast. A couple of nights after the wedding, I listened to the podcast where Andy talks about how to do the 75 Hard Program (REAL AF with Andy Frisella: 75HARD: A 75-Day Tactical Guide For Winning The War With Yourself, with Andy Frisella – MFCEO290 on Apple Podcasts).
It was funny because he was talking about how people come up with all kinds of excuses not to finish this program or that program. And as I was moving around in the kitchen, I stubbed my toe very badly. I have extremely sensitive skin, and I can get a bruise that turns horribly purple and lasts for a week. My toe swelled up and looked like I had a blood blister. I put ice on it and kept listening to Andy.
He was talking about how you just have to start, and you can’t come up with excuses. At that time, I was thinking, “Oh, maybe I should wait a week because I have a blister and I don’t know what’s going to happen.” But by the end of the podcast, I was jazzed, and thought, “You know what, I am just going to do it. If I have to wear sandals and walk for my 45 minutes of exercise in winter, I will!” (I didn’t have to…it miraculously healed by the next morning). My last day of 75 Hard, I ran 3 miles in 15 degree weather!
The thing that helped me the most in the 75 Hard Program was the fact that if you miss any part of any task that you’re supposed to do each day then you have to start all over again at day one. I did not want to do that!
So here are the “Rules” for 75 Hard:
- Take a progress picture of yourself every day
- Eat a healthy diet (he doesn’t give one, you find one and stick to it)
- No alcohol or cheat meals
- Two 45 minute workouts, not consecutive, and one HAS to be outdoors
- Drink a gallon of water
- Read 10 pages of a non-fiction book
For the first couple of weeks, I filled the chart in with pencil, just in case I did have to start over, and would have to erase everything. But after a few weeks I said, “I don’t care what happens. I am in this till the end.” And then I started filling it out in pen!
I lost some of my belly, got firmer and smaller and built more muscle everywhere, as well as losing 12 pounds. I also am so happy that I actually finished something! It has given me a lot of confidence and motivation to work on other areas of my life.
I have built some really good habits that I’m going to continue. In fact, I started training to run a half marathon in April and later in the year I am going to train for a triathlon, one that we actually host on our farm, the CiderMan on September 10, 2022. You can read more about it on this website (look for the CiderMan Triathlon page in the Menu).
Y’all come back soon to see how my training is going (tomorrow I run 7 miles, my longest run yet!).