I already wrote a blog post about rebooting my body with 75 Hard, but I felt like the experience was so life-changing for me that I wanted to go into more detail about how we successfully navigated our way through the 75 Hard Challenge.
As a reminder, here are the rules for the 75 Hard Challenge:
75 days–no alcohol/no cheats/no compromise
-Two 45-minute workouts per day one of them HAS to be outside(no matter the weather) spaced no less than 3 hours apart
-drink 1 gallon of water(only water, no flavoring)
-read 10 pages per day of a self-development book(physical book, not audio)
-follow a diet plan of your choosing
-take a daily progress picture
If you fail to perform all of these in a day or if you deviate from the plan in any way, you must start over on day 1!
So…before starting, we made sure we had our plan in place. We both decided what we wanted our workout plan to look like, what books we wanted to start with, and what diet we were going to use. We made a pact to hold each other accountable! I’m a forgetful person and at times I get so busy in a day that it’s easy to let something slip my mind. It was very nice to have Andy help me double-check that I did all the things before I fell asleep at night…because, if I was going to do this, I was going to do this right and NOT start over on day 1!
1st up, our workout plans. Andy was already in a very good routine of getting up early in the morning before the kids and I woke up to go to the gym where he has a membership. He continued to do that for his first 45-minute workout of the day. He would do the elliptical machine at the gym along with a variety of weight training. I decided that would be the best time of day for me to get in my first 45-minute workout as well. I decided to get up at 5:00 a.m. and do my workout at home. I have a subscription to Apple Fitness+, which costs me $9.99 per month. I set up a workout plan on my account and it chooses my workouts for me each day. In the plan setup, I’m able to tell it what kinds of workouts I want and for how long.
My Apple Fitness+ plan goes like this:
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday=30 minutes of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), 5 minutes of Core Training, and 10 minutes of Yoga
Tuesday and Thursday=30 minutes of Strength Training, 5 minutes of Core Training, and 10 minutes of Pilates
For our second 45-minute workout-which has to be outside, we chose to walk together. These walks became a great time for us to talk and spend time together. We also discovered that we can walk pretty darn fast. Before long, we were able to walk a 5k in under 45 minutes, then we started getting even closer to 40 minutes for a 5k. That was putting our walking pace at 13-14 minute miles. We did this challenge in August-October…some of our walks were extremely HOT, some were in the rain, and some were even close to 10:00 or 11:00 at night because we had busy evenings with 2 kids being in high school. But again, we powered through, because we refused to start over at day 1! On the weekends, sometimes we would go for a morning and evening walk for our 2 workouts. We played pickleball a few times, we went for hikes, or we went for bike rides. We tried to make some of our weekend workouts a little out of our “normal” 75 Hard weekday routine.
Next, let’s talk about water drinking. It has to be water only…no flavoring. We didn’t even count our morning Athletic Greens. We had to drink a GALLON of water per day. Before this challenge, I thought I was a good water drinker…I wasn’t drinking near a gallon. I quickly found out that I needed to pace myself throughout the day. A couple of nights I noticed around 8:00 p.m. that I wasn’t close to my gallon, so I had to chug some before bed…then it’s getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom a couple of times. So, I discovered if I could have my 1st 40oz. Stanley of water drank before 9:00 a.m., it would pace me properly throughout the day. Andy found August and September easier to drink this much water since he had to work in the heat. Staying properly hydrated with water truly does make your body feel so much better.
For the reading part of this challenge, you must read 10 pages per day of a self-development book (a physical book, not an audiobook). This can be any book that will help and inspire you to improve something about yourself. I chose the You are a Badass series by Jen Sincero https://amzn.to/4jDHfiS I also continued reading my daily devotional. I was already a reader, but I typically enjoy reading fiction. So, switching genres was a little different for me, but I found the self-development genre to be quite beneficial…especially during this challenge. Andy was NOT a reader…it was just not something he has never really done in his spare time. But this challenge completely changed his outlook on reading. We have been done with this challenge for over 3 months and he still reads a self-development book daily. It made him a reader! During the challenge he read:
Die with Zero https://amzn.to/4aOk0Pd
Iron Cowboyhttps://amzn.to/3WPtUds
Can’t Hurt Me https://amzn.to/412B3d7
Never Finished https://amzn.to/42PWHSW
A Runner’s High https://amzn.to/3CGOE0i
The diet plan we chose for us was just simply, no processed foods, eat clean foods, and use a food tracking app. We became label readers at the grocery store. If there were ingredients that we couldn’t even pronounce we put the item right back on the shelf. We are now label “snobs” and we look for only clean and natural ingredients. Andy used the 1st Phorm app to track his food, macros, and water. There is a standard version for $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year OR a premium version(which he chose) for $29.99 a month or $159.99 a year. The premium version gets you a personalized experience with a 1-on-1 advisor. He was placed with Taj as his advisor and it has really been a wonderful resource for Andy. Taj offers excellent advice and encouragement. If Andy ever has questions, Taj gets back to him promptly with a response. It’s been a great form of camaraderie for Andy and he’s even made new friends during this journey through his 1st Phorm app. I, on the other hand, use the Lose It! app to track my food, macros, and water. A few years back, Lose It! offered a deal for a lifetime subscription for a pretty good price, so I just stuck with this food-tracking app since it had already been paid for. It truly has everything I needed for this challenge. There is a free version, but you get more options with the paid version of this app. Both mine and Andy’s trackers provided what we needed to be successful in 75 Hard. We entered everything that we ate and drank in a day. It would tell us how many calories, fats, carbohydrates, and proteins we had consumed. Both apps have a water tracker, food scanning option, and they both save foods from previous meals. They both have the option to enter your daily weight and you can set your own goals. Food tracking apps were hugely successful for us and helped us get in the habit of doing this daily. We are both still tracking our food daily!
The daily picture, at first, this part of the challenge gave me a little anxiety because I thought I would have to post my daily picture on social media or somewhere for the whole world to see. Nope! It’s truly just for you so you can SEE your progress. My regret…not taking side and back photos too. All the photos that I took were from the front. I made so much progress that I wish I would have photographic proof from all angles. So, my advice take front, side, and back photos. I also wish that I had taken body measurements too, so I could see how many inches I lost. I KNOW I lost some because all my pants and shorts are now too big. Both mine and Andy’s app had a place for a daily photo. There is also a 75 Hard app that you can purchase for $6.99 to help you remember what you are accountable for each day and a place for your daily photo. It’s amazing to see the difference in yourself from day 1 to day 75! These are our Day 1, 50, and 75:
Andy and I decided to take our challenge 1 step further….save money! Since we were doing so much cooking at home and not going for drinks on the weekend, we decided to save the money that we would’ve spent in those 75 days if we were doing our normal thing. That was a nice little chunk of change to add to our savings account!
My biggest takeaway from this challenge is protein! I never knew the importance of getting enough protein and how it can change your body when you DO get enough. I learned that you should be eating the amount of protein in grams as your ideal weight in pounds. So, if your ideal weight is 125 lbs, then you should be consuming 125 grams of protein per day. By reaching my protein goals and staying under my calorie goals daily, my body started losing fat and gaining muscle. I actually started getting toned muscles! You can set your protein goal in your food-tracking app!
Andy’s biggest takeaway…or eye opener, was food serving sizes. When he started weighing and measuring proper serving sizes of the foods he was eating, he was shocked! He quickly realized how many calories he used to consume by how large his serving sizes used to be! Tracking your food really helps you with portion control.
During this challenge, we referred to a saying that Andy learned in the book 75 Hard. Don’t listen to your “bitch” voice. This is that little voice that helps you make excuses. You know…the excuses that sound like this…I’m too tired to work out, my back hurts so I should take it easy, I don’t have time to cook…let’s go through a drive-thru, I’m too tired to read today, I don’t want water today…I’ll just have this one soda, I can’t do this…it’s just too hard. Excuses like those are the ones that make you fail! When that little “bitch’ voice starts to weasel her way into your thinking, you have to be strong! Don’t listen and power through, you’ll be so proud of yourself and your body will thank you!
If you’ve been considering 75 Hard, I encourage you to take the leap and just do it! You will be so happy with your results, you’ll be so proud of yourself for making it through, and your body will feel so much better! Your mental and physical health will thank you for it! It’s not easy, that’s why it’s not called 75 Easy. It’s HARD…but, you have to believe in yourself. You CAN do hard things!
Proverbs 11:25-Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.