August 03, 2020

75 Hard: Week 2 Recap


Today is Day 15 of 75 Hard. (Here is the post with the details of 75 Hard.) When I started this challenge, I really didn't believe I'd get past a few days, let alone this far. At first, I planned not to write about it on my blog "just in case" I quit. When I gave it some thought, however, I realized it would give me a way out--if I wanted to quit, I could quit and nobody would ever know. That would make it easy!

By posting about it publicly, I kept myself from quitting several times over the past couple of weeks. Overall, it's certainly do-able and the moments where I feel like quitting don't last very long. Yesterday on the way home from from the U.P. is a good example--after waking up early to walk 45 minutes before packing the car and then spending 11 hours on the road, the LAST thing I wanted to do was walk another 45 minutes. I wanted to go home and eat dinner and watch TV and go to bed early.

During the ride, I kept thinking about how really thought I may quit the challenge because of how badly I didn't want to do my second workout. When I had the idea to have Jerry drop me off 45 minutes from home, I felt like that was the perfect solution. I still didn't want to do it... but afterward, I was so glad that I didn't call it quits.

Anyway, here is a look at my Week 2 of 75 Hard...

Drink one gallon of water every day.

This was a little tougher to do this week because I was away from home Thursday through Sunday. Jeanie's cabin has running water, but because they have a tank that has to be refilled, we had to conserve water as much as possible. I brought five gallons of water with me to drink, but I didn't want to have to be using the bathroom (and therefore flushing the toilet) all the time!

My body is used to drinking a lot of water, and I found that from the two 45-minute workouts daily, along with just being active in general, I actually didn't have to pee all that much. A gallon a day--done!


Take a progress photo every day.

I've been doing this faithfully as well. At home, I just take a full-body selfie in the mirror right before my first workout. Jeanie's cabin doesn't have a full-length mirror, so I had her or Jerry take a photo of me each day. And as silly as it looked, I posed the same way that I would if I was holding the phone up in front of the mirror, haha. I want all of my pictures to have me posed the same way.

Today, I looked at my Day 1 picture versus today's (a two-week span) and I was really surprised at how much of a difference I see already! I will share the photos eventually, but I want to wait a little longer. Maybe I'll do Day 25, Day 50, and Day 75 (assuming I make it!). The pictures are not at all flattering (the point of them is to see changes in my body, not to look pretty for the camera, haha).


Diet of choice + no alcohol.

As I mentioned, I am doing intermittent fasting. I wrote a lot about that in my Week 1 Recap. This week was a little more challenging at first. Being up north, I had to adjust my "usual" eating window to a later time. The first day we were there, I think we ate dinner at 9:00 pm or something--and I usually eat at 4:00! We ate dinner on the later side the next couple of days as well, but it wasn't as tough to wait like it was on the first day.

As far as no alcohol, it was a little hard to sit around the fire at night and not have a beer--campfires and beer seem to go hand-in-hand during the summer--but I had two 0.0% Heinekens on Saturday night after dinner, and that was satisfying.


Read 10 pages of a non-fiction/self-improvement-type book.

I finished reading The Gifts of Imperfection (again, I wrote about that last week). The second half of the book didn't speak to me as much as the first half did, but I still really liked it. It was a nice refresher from the last time I read it.

Yesterday, I started reading 'Can't Hurt Me' by David Goggins (Amazon affiliate link). I had read some of it before, and I LOVED it, but I got caught up in something else (likely a Netflix show or something) and stopped reading it. I started it from the beginning yesterday, and I'm excited to read the whole thing. It's so good!

I love that he hates the word "motivation". I've always hated that word because motivation is only temporary. I wrote a post called The Difference Between Motivation and Determination that explains my thoughts on it.

Here is a video that shows his "motivating" story in a (very small) nutshell:




Work out 45 minutes twice a day (at least one must be outdoors).

Yes! I did this, and it was NOT easy. Being up north on vacation made this a tough one for me this week. Getting in the first workout isn't so bad. I've kind of enjoyed it, actually! But when it comes time for the second one, I really have to push myself to just do it. It was no different while I was up north. However, it wasn't so bad once I started my walk.

I like listening to podcasts or audiobooks while I walk. It's kind of funny--when running, I couldn't pay attention to an audiobook to save my soul. When I walk, though, I really enjoy listening to them.

Here is what my second week's workouts looked like (all were outdoors except for Thursday morning when I had to fit it in before we left for Jeanie's):


My morning walk is usually a little slower because I like to take Joey with me. You'll notice that yesterday's walk (the one I was really dreading after coming home from up north) is the fastest one of the week. That's because I wanted to get home so badly! (Not that it mattered... 45 minutes is 45 minutes, regardless of my speed). I actually had to walk back and forth a couple of times in front of my house to reach 45.



I'm happy with how the week went! I really wasn't sure I'd be able to stick to it while on vacation. Even though we were only gone for four days, I am pretty proud of myself for doing it. This week is going to be uneventful, so hopefully it'll go well :)

5 comments:

  1. I didn't listen to the video, but I have always hated it when people say motivation is what is needed. If I waited on motivation, I would never do i! I really believe that discipline is what it comes down to. Some things I hate doing, but I have to discipline myself to do it. It is not easy but it is the only way I can do it.

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  2. Hey there, I am so glad you brought up the hard 75 challenge. I am a day behind you and finding it easy in a really hard way if that makes sense.

    I really enjoyed his pod cast on the challenge and went on to listen to a few other episodes.. just want to let you know that while I found the 75 hard pod cast intense and thought provoking, some of his other beliefs are a bit on the “conspiracy side” and might be off putting for a lot of people (episode 45 where he alleges Fauci created COVID and sent it to China to have it come back and destroy the us economy)

    I have enjoyed reading your blog for many years and just wanted to let you know so if you don’t want to be associated with some of his other philosophies you can separate yourself.

    No need to publish this comment just wanted to give you a heads upa

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  3. I have talked about your post on motivation vs determination so many times, even using it in a topic for my school. It really resonated with me the first time I read it, and I still search for it often on your blog so I can reference it. :-)

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  4. The fact that you’re still this early into it and went on vacation would have made a lot of people quit, but not you. Congrats my friend.

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  5. I'm behind on blogs so I'm still catching up, but so proud of you for sticking with it!

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I used to publish ALL comments (even the mean ones) but I recently chose not to publish those. I always welcome constructive comments/criticism, but there is no need for unnecessary rudeness/hate. But please--I love reading what you have to say! (This comment form is super finicky, so I apologize if you're unable to comment)

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