Day One

 

I want to do 75 hard. 

I’m a sucker for bro culture and 75 hard is very bro culture. 

I’ve been talking about it and mapping out how I would do it since January. 

I didn’t want to start it as a New Year’s resolution for a couple of reasons, the biggest being the outdoor workout requirement 

Here’s 75 hard

Every day for 75 days  you must do 2x 45 minute work outs (one of which outside), drink a gallon of water, read 10 pages of a (physical) self improvement book (nonfiction), stick to a diet (no cheating and no alcohol, and take a daily selfie to track your progress. 

There are a number of difficulties here, the most extreme of which is that if you fail to check off these items daily you must start over. 

It’s supposed to be a mental discipline challenge and I can see that to some extent. 

Obviously a lot of people approach it as a weight loss challenge. 

There’s a number of doctors who recommend against it due to its inflexibility and problematic applicability for those with disordered eating and other problems.

The challenges I see myself facing are my age, my feet, and my migraines. Also that amount of water will always make me sick. 

I don’t drink enough. 

Pretty much I don’t notice that I’m thirsty until things are dire. 

I tracked my water consumption for a few weeks just to see where I’m at, and I’m usually doing about 5 or 6 cups of water a day (40-48 oz). A gallon of water is 128 oz. 

I did a hydration calculator and it came up with something close to 85.5 oz recommended. 

So for sure I need to drink more, and with two 45 minute workouts I will need more than that, but nowhere near a gallon. 

I planned to start on Thursday because that’s when the sun will be up by 6. I plan to do couch to 5k running in the morning but I need to get the kids up and fed and dive us all off to school and work. My son must be in his first class by 7:30 so I don’t have a ton of early morning flexibility. 

Thursday will be cold and rainy and the 2nd day of my period. 

My periods almost always come with migraines. 

I have medication that works a lot of the time, if I can take it right at onset, otherwise I’m screwed. 

If I start it a few hours in then it usually won’t work. 

Sometimes even if I take it in time it won’t work but absolutely if I don’t take it I’m screwed. 

Screwed means instead of one very bad day of not being able to drive or eat or turn my head sometimes with brutal vomiting, I get 3 or 4 days. 

Clearly this is incompatible with an uninterrupted 75 days of anything. 

So I will need to be some combination of careful and lucky to make this work. 

Or 

I need to be ok with just not doing 75 hard. 

There are other challenges, there’s 75 soft and medium, both easier and kinder versions. There is also what I will probably do. I will probably just do as close as I can and get the benefits I can and be happy with that. 

True 75 hard people will scorn this as mentally weak no doubt, but I will do what I can. 

This blog is my 75 something. 

I woke up this morning as the sun was coming up. 

It’s Saturday so I still have some time before my official Thursday start. 

But today was beautiful and I am not on my period and even though it was a busy day, I didn’t have to get to school or work so I had a good chance to test things out.  

I went on a long walk, along the trails I’m hoping to run. 

We are so lucky to live in the woods in the foothills of the Appalachians. 

Also spring is wonderful. 

The first part was great. 

Then when I got home I did lots of normal weekend stuff. I made a big breakfast for the family, went to some shops, took the kids out to a cool Pakistani food hall for lunch, got dressed up and went to see my mom sing in The Music Man, took her out to celebrate, and drank so much water. 

I started to get a headache. 

I went home and took an Advil and took a nap. 

When I got up I pryed myself off the couch and did 45 minutes of Pilates and yoga. 

This is not the gym bro ideal, all this gentle stuff, but if it’s going to be sustainable it where I need to start. 

By bed time I was at 80oz of water. 

I’m sloshing but ok. 

I played Minecraft with the family and went up to bed to read 10 pages of The Food Lab for a new blogging project. 

Good book.