I woke up this morning aching.
My lower back ached. My legs ached. My head even felt a little foggy.
This normally would be a good queue to roll over and hit the snooze button until 7:00 when I HAD to get up and start my day.
That was not an option. If I did not get up right then and there, my entire day was going to be royally screwed up and I would not want to face Friday afternoon Ken if that was the case.
So, I rolled out of bed and slowed shuffled my feet towards the bathroom stretching a couple of the kinks out along the way.
After brushing the night fuzz from my teeth, I take a shirtless selfie in the mirror and get dressed. There are only 60 minutes left before the kids need to get up for school and I have to squeeze in my first 45-minute workout for the day.
This morning was a touch chilly so I opted for a Peloton ride in the basement. Even though my ass hurts from the bike seat, I power through 45-minutes of hell from Kendall Toole… I cannot tell if this was the hardest ride I ever did or Kendall Toole is just evil. Probably a mixture of the two.
The sense of accomplishment was totally worth it. To think that just 70 minutes ago, I considered jumping on the snooze button train until I had to get up and now I’m sitting at that same point with a workout complete. There’s one good choice I made so far today. Now I have to focus on the remaining tasks to complete Day#4 of the 75 Hard Challenge.
The 75 Hard Challenge
I’ve been an avid fan of Andy Frisella ever since I saw him speak at Grant Cardone’s conference in Las Vegas. In fact, Andy was one of the few people that took the stage at that conference and actually used the time he had my attention to teaching me something with zero strings attached. Most of the other speakers were touting some gazillion dollar making course they had on sale to conference attendees for a couple of thousand dollars.
After the conference, I began learning as much as I could about and from Andy. He had a podcast (then) called the MFCEO project which brought a ton of value to my work life and mental approach to just about everything. He’s since moved on from that podcast to a new one called Real AF with Andy Frisella that focuses more on current events. This is equally good.
One episode focused on a challenge called 75 Hard.
Check It Out Here: 75HARD: A 75-Day Tactical Guide to Winning the War With Yourself, with Andy Frisella – MFCEO290
This whole thing sounded insane. Here’s the gist.
For 75 consecutive days, you have to do the following:
- Two 45-minute workouts and one of the workouts must be outdoors
- Read at least 10 pages in a non-fiction book
- Drink 1 gallon of water
- Follow a clean diet of choice with zero alcohol consumption and zero cheat days
- Take a daily progress pic
I listened to this episode a couple of times to make sure I fully understood everything involved.
Andy points out this is not a weight-loss challenge. This is actually a mental challenge. A way to rewire the way our mind has been conditioned to think.
Sure, working out twice a day, drinking a gallon of water, and eating clean should lead to weight loss… but that is a byproduct of the real prize.
Why I Chose to Do 75 Hard
Like a lot of people, I’ve tried things for a little while and didn’t stick to them in the long term. Think about every New Year’s resolution that was busted by the second weekend in January.
My wife agreed to do this challenge with me so that made the decision to start much easier. When your partner in crime is going to give up doing crime with you, it is a hell of a lot easier than watching her be bad while you’re trying to be good. Thank you for letting me convince you this was a great idea.
There’s a convenient stretch between Labor Day and Thanksgiving that we could fit in the challenge. We decided to begin the Tuesday after Labor Day which takes us through the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We are going to face a couple of social events during this timeline that will prove to be challenging. We have a family wedding in September, Carrie’s birthday in October, and a couple of Halloween parties.
At first, I was drawn to the idea of how much weight I could lose doing this. I really want to knock down some LBS not only for appearance reasons but also to feel better. Getting old sucks. The truth is, losing weight was not enough of a reason to do this. This is why I think it took me a while to get motivated enough to pull the trigger. My “WHY” wasn’t big enough.
The real reason I decided to do this challenge is that I’m simply got tired of being comfortable.
Yeah, poor me.
In all seriousness, I’ve worked really hard to get to where I’m at and found myself becoming a little lazier than I’m used to. My desire to conquer subsided and it needs to be reignited. I can find all kinds of excuses and blame (quarantine, summer, etc.) but the truth is that I’ve simply not felt fulfilled lately. I’ve been getting everything that I need to get done accomplished but all of that comes much easier and requires less effort. The challenge is not there. The excitement of overcoming adversity seemed to be missing.
Will this challenge fix everything? No, it will not.
I believe it will help me reset and focus on something so very simple each and every day for a consecutive 75-days…
I believe this reset will give me the clarity I’ve been looking for…
I believe that accomplishing this challenge will help me understand my true focus and give me the confidence to annihilate whatever next goal I choose to tackle.
I believe I will look back and be very happy that I completed this challenge…
Even if all I’m left with is that last belief, I’ll be happy.
My Progress So Far
There’s not a ton of change I can see after just 3 days of doing this but I know there will be change along the way. This is the motivator that keeps me going.
My plan is to check in here every once in a while to let you know how it’s going. It won’t be daily but hopefully a couple of times per week.
Before I bolt, I wanted to air out what I’ve found to be the most challenging so far. In no particular order, here it goes:
- Drinking all that damn water. I love coffee. I like iced tea. I enjoy an occasional Diet Mountain Dew. I hate drinking water. It’s so boring and all I’ve been doing this past couple of days is pissing every 15 minutes.
- Doing an outdoor workout. Sure, it’s challenging to find time for one 45-minute workout. Two’s even more difficult but doing one outside is the hardest part since my prime time to squeeze in workouts is early in the morning or late at night.
- Planning out my day so that I don’t get too far behind on my 75 Hard checklist. I have to knock out one of the workouts in the morning before I go to work. If I don’t, I’m going to be scrambling the rest of the day to find the time to get them in.
- Meal prep hasn’t been too bad but I can see getting very bored with the food I’ve been eating. It is going to require me to get creative in the short-term or I will go insane.
If anyone has some awesome healthy recipes they can share, please do. I’m only watching the calories I eat and consuming non-processed foods. Anything that uses the Instapot is preferred.
Later!