My Journey of #75hard

When you sprain your ankle just before crossing the finish line. That's a little bit how the end of #75hard felt for me. If you follow me on IG, you may have seen my journey of the 75 hard challenge over the last 2.5ish months.

If you didn't, #75hard is a mental challenge that I committed to to push myself and strengthen my dedication muscle.

Rules of 75 Hard:

1. Exercise twice each day for 45 minutes - one of these workouts must be outdoors

2. Drink a gallon of water a day

3. Pick a diet or eating plan and stick to it with absolutely NO CHEAT MEALS and NO ALCOHOL

4. Read a minimum of 10 pages every day of self development or business book. Stick to real life material that works on your mindset and can give you skills.

5. Take one progress photo each day

My personal commitments:

1. Just moving my body with intention- indoors and outdoors (workouts can vary)

2. Gallon of water- I also counted seltzers and 0 calorie natural flavored waters

3. My diet was no processed gluten- aka bread, pastas, cookies etc.

4. Alcohol is zero tolerance, can't have it. My go-to alternatives were NA beer from Athletic Brewing, liquor from Ritual, and NA wine from FRE Wines (made an EXCELLENT sangria with this!)

I committed to starting the program on January 18th, 2021. It started off fantastic, I was excited, motivated, feeling like I could conquer the world. Then the polar vortex cold snap happened, and we had about 3 weeks of -10 degree temps...super fun when committing to daily outdoor workouts. But I still pushed through, 4:45 am alarms and a lot of layers, we were rocking this challenge. Some days my indoor workouts were HIIT, others were Yoga, others were cycling.

I listened to my body and completed what I thought would be best for me.

Were all days easy? NO.

I went on vacation in Florida, stayed committed and enjoying NA margaritas.

We went out to eat throughout the challenge, a LOT. I skipped the bread basket, passed on the pizza, and had NA after dinner drinks.

Some days I was on my porch doing my outdoor workout at 11pm while the rest of the family slept.

I was going to finish, NO DOUBT.

THEN, with one week left, I woke up last Sunday, and realized that I missed my outdoor workout the day prior.

Literally 6 days to go, and I missed.

The part that was the most disappointing was that it was unintentional. That day before I was pounding my water, drinking non-alcoholic old fashioneds, I read my 10 pages before bed...not thinking that anything was amis.

Until the next day when I was about to go for my walk and thought wait, when was my outdoor workout yesterday??

UGH. Gut Punch.

Technically on 75 hard if you miss ANY of the daily tasks, you fail the challenge.

You can't just "make it up" the next day.

So, since I missed my outdoor workout on Saturday, I technically failed.

BUT like to think of it as completing #68hard instead 😉 .

It did feel like a sucker punch though. Like I was running a marathon, and fell and sprained my ankle with the finish line in striking distance.

Yes, I was literally one week shy of crushing the goal I set out to accomplish, but did I really fail?

In the “rules of the challenge” perspective yes, I did. But the way I like to see it, this is a great example of shooting for the moon and landing among the stars! 🌝🌙💫✨

Is that what you call it when you miss a task with just 1 week left of #75hard ? 🤭

I focused on the good, of what I DID achieve.

6120 minutes of workouts🚴‍🏋️‍♀️

8704 ounces of water💧

700+ pages of development📚

68 days alcohol free🙅🏼‍♀️🍷

More than anything-- COMMITMENT and DEDICATION even when I didn't have motivation. There's a big difference in those.

I could go on and on, but now that I’m post-challenge, I’ve spent some time reflecting & I’m finding that I set myself up for success long-term more than anything.

I’ve made this something that isn’t just attainable, but actually pretty sustainable.

How many of us have been on that roller coaster before🎢?

Whether it’s weight loss, building habits, breaking habits... you do something for a certain amount of time and then you stop and end up right where you started?

What I’m proud of from this challenge even if I did fall short by one week, are the habits I’ve created, and not having that roller coaster effect now that it’s done.

I learned to love getting outside for those workouts every day even if it’s “just” a walk, no matter the weather. I learned to love moving my body indoors too, but not always ending up with an injury like I’ve done in the past from pushing too hard. I’ve seen my skin get better, my headaches gone, and energy increase by drinking that gallon of water a day.

Was I disappointed?

Sure, of course.

But I leaned into that, failed forward and focused on what I loved, learned and accomplished instead of living in that disappointed feeling too long🤙.

I debated sharing pics because it was a mental challenge I set out to achieve, but the physical changes were inevitable.