A failed 75 Hard Experience - and how I'm better for it

We lasted 15 days. But even though we spectacularly failed the challenge, I think what stuck afterward made it all worthwhile.

A failed 75 Hard Experience - and how I'm better for it
Photo by Samuel Girven / Unsplash

Falling prey to the fresh start effect, Ricky (my fiancé) and I started the 75 Hard program on Jan 2nd. Every day for 75 days we were to follow these rules:

  1. Follow a diet. No cheat meals and no alcohol.
  2. Drink a gallon of water.
  3. Read 10 pages of a nonfiction book.
  4. Do two 45-minute workouts every day. One must be outside.
  5. Take a progress picture

If we missed any of these tasks on any day we were to start over from day one. But that wasn’t going to happen to us. We were determined to see it through. We had the optimism and motivation of a brand new year.

We lasted 15 days. But even though we spectacularly failed the challenge, I think what stuck afterward made it all worthwhile.


Diet: For the diet part of the challenge, we chose to follow the Mediterranean diet, which has lots of research behind it and is constantly lauded as one of the healthiest diets to follow. Ricky and I already ate healthy-ish, but there was room for improvement. We stopped drinking alcohol, started cooking with olive oil more, and ate fewer sweets. Post-challenge, we are mostly sticking to this Mediterranean lifestyle, haven’t had any fast food, and are continuing the no alcohol streak for as long as possible.

Water: We bought 64oz jugs and started carrying them everywhere. Two of those added up to one gallon. This part of the challenge was probably the most annoying. We had to use the restroom multiple times every hour, which wasn’t practical. Sometimes I was assisting in surgery and had to hold it for long periods. I thought 1 gallon was excessive and more than I and many people need in a day. Post-challenge, I still carry the jug with me but I’m only drinking one per day. And this is more water than I was drinking before.

Read: For the nonfiction book part of the challenge, I chose The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win by Jeff Haden. Because it’s less than 750 pages, the book I was going to read after it is Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty. One of my favorite parts of the challenge is that while getting ready for bed, Ricky and I would read our books rather than watch TikToks. Reading before bed is a habit I intend to carry on starting with these two books.

Workouts: While I was completing this challenge, I was on a general surgery rotation. I would wake up at 4:30 am, work out at the gym, go through my day with the surgeon, then take Colton (our dog) for a 45-minute walk whenever I got home. Colton LOVED this part of the challenge. I wasn’t a massive fan of going on walks at 7 and 8 pm. Before the challenge, one of my biggest struggles with exercise was doing it consistently. I made so many excuses. I made myself believe that I was too busy or that I had too much going on with school. Well after 15 consecutive days of doing 2 workouts, I knew I had the time to do one moving forward. I also started seeing results (#Gains), which was super motivating. Post-challenge, I continue to exercise for at least 45 minutes every day. I now have a streak I don’t want to break and am more consistent than ever.

Progress pictures: Surprisingly, this is the part of the challenge that almost made me start over multiple times. I don’t usually take many pictures and I would forget I had to do this every day; only to remember when I was already tucked in bed and going to sleep. I fixed this by setting recurring reminders on my phone. Post-challenge, I’m going to continue taking progress pictures once a week or once every two weeks since I’m continuing my fitness journey and have those pictures from the beginning of the year as a baseline.

Reflections

This wall served as a visual representation of our progress through the challenge. 

In the end, even though I didn’t see this challenge through to completion, I feel like I’m in a much better place after attempting it. I’m consistently exercising, eating better, drinking more water, and reading before bed. Undertaking this challenge served as a reset to my mindset and habits and I’m grateful for it. We shot far, shocked the system, and where we ended up is better than where we were before and I’m okay with that. This doesn’t mean that I won’t try to complete the program again in the future. I like the pieces it is made up of. I like that it's focused on process rather than results and it could be tailored to wherever someone is health-wise.

The creator of 75 Hard, Andy Frisella, markets it as a mental toughness program. If you want to read more about it and see if it's for you, you can check it out here.