Introduction
What is 75 Hard?
The general idea here is to document my journey going through the 75 Hard Challenge.
The 75 Hard challenge is essentially the consistent completion of 5 or 6 (depending on how you count them) things daily without any days off etc.
The daily activities are:
- Progress photo every day
- Drink 4L of water every day (plain, unflavoured water)
- Perform two 45-min workouts (at least 3 hours apart and at least one must be outside)
- Pick and follow a diet
- Read 10 pages of a non-fiction book (something that will help you in your personal or professional life)
- No cheat days or alcohol (This is the iffy one if it should be counted or not)
So those are the general rules. You must do each of those things every day without missing a single one for 75 days. If you miss even a task, you need to start at the beginning again.
Why this Blog?
Well, at it's core I think a lot of the reason behind this blog can be explained by the fact that I am a software engineer and I love playing with tech, so this is really just an excuse for me to play with some new tech.
Other than the opportunity to play, I wanted to write this blog more as a way to document my plans and then be accountable to them.
I have tried to complete the 75 hard a few times in the past, with varying levels of success. The best I have done was get to day 28 when I failed due to running out of time to do two workouts with the proper separation between them.
So I like to think I know what I am in for a little. The biggest thing that I learnt from failing last time was that you should plan for things not to go right. Many people reading this would be familiar with the quote attributed to Mike Tyson:
Everyone Has a Plan Until They Get Punched in the Mouth
Last time I attempted 75 Hard I realised that life really likes to punch you in the mouth sometimes and, you better have a plan for not just when everything goes perfectly, but also for when things start to fall apart.
I mentioned that last time I failed due to not being able to have a large enough space of time between my two workouts. This is only partially true. I had gone well for three weeks, I was getting everything does quite easily during the day, but then one day I slept in a little missed a morning workout, the missed workout became a lunch workout, which pushed my after work workout to after dinner, and this started a domino effect that made workouts, reading, and water consumption getting later and later into the night, and I just couldn't keep on top of it.
So I want to document here what I plan on doing, what happens if something goes wrong, and then how I did at executing this.
Some other thoughts
I also wanted to document, here in the introduction, some of my motivations behind doing this. There is the general, get fitter, live healthier etc. These are all great, but when talking with my brother-in-law during the Christmas holidays about my previous attempts, he mentioned something that I thought was quite profound.
If someone is always telling you they will do XYZ thing and never following through with actually doing it, you lose trust in that person and believe what they say less and less. Well, this same phenom can happen to ourselves.
I feel like for me, I have had a few things on my "to achieve" list for some time now and each year they just get pushed back and pushed back. I will be turning 30 this year, during the timeframe of this challenge, actually. I think enough is enough, and I should actually start ticking some of these things off my list, or they may never get done.
For me, 75 Hard is a way to kick-start these goals, the year, and my 30s in general.
Follow along here to see how I am progressing.
