To kick myself out of despair and indiscipline, I decided to do a modified version of the popular TikTok self improvement challenge, 75 Hard.
If you’re unfamiliar, every day for seventy-five days you have to commit to
exercising for at least 45 minutes twice a day, one of which must be outdoors
sticking to a diet
drinking 1 gallon (3.78541 litres) of water
reading ten pages of a nonfiction, personal development-focused book
taking a progress picture
Also, if you don’t complete any of these or skip even one day, you have to start the whole 75 days over from scratch.
Pretty brutal, but I’ve seen so many people get incredible results from completing this (although I’ve also seen many more fail at completing, hence the rise of more flexible variants like 75 Soft in which you can just keep going if you mess up)
My version isn’t as strict, yet feels like it is.
First rather than doing 75 days, I’ve opted for a neat 100.
100 Hard
Here are my rules, and what I’m hoping to accomplish every day:
Walk 20,000 steps
Stick to my diet
Fast intermittently
Drink 3 litres of water
Sleep at least 7 hours at night
Lift weights morning and night
Write 600 words of the novel I’m trying to write
Write in my journal
Write a weekly check in blog post here on my blog
Read 4 pages of a novel (I’ve chosen Chimamanda’s Dream Count for this)
Take a progress photo
No coffee
No ordering food on UberEats or DoorDash
No social media except my blog
The Diet
The diet I’ll be following is heavy on fibre and protein.
What doesn’t get measured, doesn't get managed, so as much as possible I’m trying to eat food out of containers where the amounts are pre-measured and the nutrients and calories in them are known, so I can track how much I’m getting easily.
I’ve broken the week into three types of days: Eating days, OMAD (one meal a day) days, and Fasting days.
Wednesdays and Sundays are Eating days.
I can eat whatever I want between 6am and 9pm, but ideally I shall eat three high protein meals from my meal service.
Tuesdays and Fridays are OMAD days
I can eat only my breakfast starter and a salad between 3pm and 6pm.
Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays are Fasting days.
I can’t eat anything at all.
The Fast
This works out to four intermittent fasting periods for me every week.
42 hour fast from 9pm Sunday to 3pm Tuesday
12 hour fast from 6pm Tuesday to 6am Wednesday
42 hour fast from 9pm Wednesday to 3pm Friday
36 hour fast from 6pm Friday to 6am Sunday
The Rest
This seems like a lot, but I’ve done a less intense version of this before, or at least i’ve done the full fast before while maintaining a 10,000 step average.
This time I’ll be attempting it with 20,000 a day, even on the days when I’m fasting.
I don’t anticipate this to be the hardest part though.
Walking and other exercise is unpleasant but very easy. You just have to do the same thing over and over again.
For my the hardest part I anticipate will be motivating myself to get other things done in the time between workouts.
This has always been my problem. I have some sort of mental block where I can’t bring myself to do anything, and that’s what I’m hoping to overcome by mid July when the hundred days are done.
I started yesterday with a fast and 20k steps, so today is Day 2.
My weekly checkins on this will come every Sunday.
Wish me luck!!!
💛,
Lotanna
Wishing you all the very best. I've done it twice (without any drastic results) but I can say 75 Hard is a mental game changer. I also like 100 instead of 75. Will be here cheering you on.
Wow! This is the discipline I want to have with fasting and food however for some weird reason since the pandemic I lost it and it never came back.
I am typing this sitting waiting for my takeout at 6:52pm lol. I need to do better..