75 hard

 I can tell I haven’t written in forever because somehow I got through the entire 75 hard challenge and didn’t write about it. Lord knows I talked about it enough though 🤣

In case you don’t know 75 hard is a challenge created by Andy Frisella. The requirements, every day for 75 straight days you have to work out twice a day for at least 45 minutes (one of them outside), drink a gallon of water, stick to a diet, read 10 pages a day of a non-fiction book, and no alcohol.

Why the hell did I do this? Well, after going through the first half of 2021 in pursuit of a purple belt that I ultimately did get Ikind of felt like I was just floating. I had a knee injury that I was sure was going to require surgery and so I slowed down a bit in jiujitsu. That does not mean I stopped going, quite the opposite. I kept going but I had to lessen the intensity. Which really bothered me at first, if I am being completely honest but a little feedback from Steve (lead instructor at my school) showed me that by slowing myself down I was taking the time to actually let the technique I worked so hard on absorb to the degree that I could teach it adequately to people. That’s a good thing.

Physically, what wasn’t good was holiday season was approaching and I was eating more. Not even like, pigging out overly much or drinking overly much but a lot of weight gain and really, any bad habit comes on by degree. It’s never all of a sudden. I felt myself stagnating and I didn’t like it. 

I happened to be on Instagram one day and saw my friend Sean and his wife Jennifer were doing the 75 hard challenge and when I saw what it was it…sparked something. It didn’t look easy and maybe, just maybe, it would be the thing that would wake me up from whatever funk I had gotten myself into. So I gave it a shot.

For the two workouts I chose what I felt in some ways was a path of least resistance but in other ways was just simple and effective: my outdoor workout was always a 45 minute walk. Indoor workout I already had in the bank with jiujitsu but on the days that I didn’t do jiujitsu I often chose yoga. Yoga was yet another one of those things that I kept kicking the can down the road on restarting. My lower back and upper glutes were getting progressively tighter to the point where a false step could result in a spasm. Not good. So for 75 straight days I did some combo of a walk, jiujtsu, or yoga.

Not drinking wasn’t a huge issue for me. I don’t know if I have gone 2.5 months in my adult life without a drink, but I have never been one where I NEED a drink. When I told people about 75 hard the biggest thing people swore they couldn’t do was give up drinking for that long. Ok, cool, that is your journey but I would really worry about is why anyone thinks they NEED to drink. I felt amazingly empowered to walk into a bar, hang out with people, and NOT drink. Very heady feeling.

It was also heady getting a walk in every day. Winter months were a wild time to be walking outside in Charlotte. Some days were cold. It snowed. Twice! Some days were rainy but every day I was out there walking. That first day it snowed I remember taking a big sigh like YEP, I’m doing this lmaoooo. I was so proud that I got it done because it represented making no excuses, just get the job done. 

I would also record myself every day I walked. I sent an Instagram story to all of my friends to hold myself accountable but also to put myself outside of my comfort zone by recording myself impromptu and sending it out into the ether. What I got back was amazing. There were people who wished me well or told me what I was doing was encouraging to them in some way and that really made me glow.

I was most worried about the water consumption. 128oz is a lot of water but I was more worried about losing count during the day. Once I got that down, things were pretty easy. I would make sure to get my number way high before noon-1pm so the rest of the day wouldn’t be as mentally stressful for me.

Reading was just flat out awesome. It was a microcosm of the whole thing, really. I have not made time to read in so long. I read comic books, etc, for podcasting which does count but sitting down and reading a real book was very gratifying. Taking time for myself to do this whole thing was extraordinarily gratifying and uplifting. 

I kept the diet easy as well. I have read so much recently about how all diets are caloric intake. If you eat less than you were? You lose weight. Eat the same as you were before? You don’t. Eat more than before? You gain. Simple enough. I just ate less. Admittedly, I would have done even better had I tracked my food but I simply hate doing that. I did eat a normal breakfast, made it a point to buy lunches that were pre-made, and eat a smaller dinner. I started taking a scoop of protein as well and additionally took creatine. 

The 75 straight days were the craziest obstacle and biggest mind game. You got all your stuff done one day? Sweet. Do it again tomorrow because nothing you did yesterday matters. You going out of town and taking an airplane? Better plan your day and figure out how to get this stuff done! Going to go to a party? Better get ready to tell people you are not consuming alcohol that evening. All of it took that subtle rewiring of your brain and habits to make sure you got what you needed to get done…done.

Downside? None, really. I got anything socially I wanted to get done taken care of. The only nitpick may be Andy himself. I did download the 75 hard app as a way of tracking my progress. There was one day I completed all of my stuff and went to mark it but the app was having difficulty. Once midnight hits and you haven’t completed tasks you get this nastygram of Andy looking at you with his arms crossed asking did you forget to mark or did you give in to your inner bitch.

Sigh. I’m an adult male. I don’t need some guy I don’t know talking to me like that. That turned me way the hell off. I also wasn’t the hugest fan of being subscribed to his e-mail listing that wanted you to listen to his podcast and…based off of the guests he has on his show and even the header of some of the e-mails? Let’s just say it’s a podcast I’m not going to listen to and a mindset I’m not going to embrace. I could write, a lot, about that kind of mindset and maybe I will soon.

But what is undeniable is that Andy used 75 hard to turn his life around and he shared it with the world. That’s cool. I can now tell you from experience that it was not easy but nothing worth having is. I’ll even go so far as to say sometimes that inner bitch can talk to you and convince you that you’re not good enough; that you should stay scared and in the corner. Literally the last day of the challenge I had two crazy temptations that I never saw coming:

The first was that I’d invited my friend Patrick over. I poured him a drink and obviously none for myself. I had been around people drinking before and for some reason, I REALLY wanted a drink that time. It was a gin and tonic, which I love. Fever Tree tonic water. A gin that I had not tasted before. I WANTED. IT. I resisted. 

I wound up going to bed a little early that night, before midnight, and there was some voice in my head telling me to ruin all of my progress and have a drink before the night ended. It was literally the strongest temptation I encountered the entire time of the 75 hard challenge. I used a very good mental trick that I have used before: I heard the temptation in my mind and I got mad at it. I am NOT going to be afraid of progress. I am NOT going to let fear get in the way of seeing what’s on the other side of that progress. I was alarmed there was a mechanism in my brain that even sent me that panic response to just…destroy it all from the previous 75 days. 

Change is scary. Terrifying, sometimes. You have to let go of what you have and risk it for the opportunity to experience something new. Unfortunately, maybe fortunately, there’s no other choice: risk it, or be content with what you have. The choice is in your hands. I’m super grateful I did this challenge and before I float too long, I’m going to wrap myself in another challenge. I feel like I am accomplishing something and that I’m a part of something greater when I get myself outside of my comfort zone like I did for 2.5 months. I am a better person because of it.