I Completed 75 Hard: My Experience and Learnings

June 29 - September 13, 2024 - the most challenging but rewarding 77 days

Hi friends, welcome back! It’s been a while since I’ve done a long form blog post like this and in general, used my website as an outlet for expressing my thoughts. Over the past two years, I turned to Instagram to document my life but there truly is beauty in writing a post with more content and depth, so thanks for being here :)

75 Hard was the most mentally draining yet disciplining challenge I’ve ever done and this post details everything from what the challenge is, why I decided to pursue it, and most importantly, lessons learned and the plan going forward. (p.s. pictures from the journey are at the bottom of the post!)

I’d started to hear about this 75 Hard Challenge all the way back in March 2024, it started popping up on my Reddit feed and at first, it looked like a weight loss challenge to me. There’s all these rules you have to follow for 75 days straight, and if you mess up, you have to start back from day 1. In my opinion, I thought I already lived a healthy life - I exercised often, ate decently well, loved to read and stay hydrated. But the problem was that I wasn’t disciplined - I would only be consistent when I felt motivated. I wrote a whole post on why we can’t rely on motivation here, so oftentimes, I would go stretches in my life where I chalked my inconsistencies up to “busyness”. (Spoiler alert: through 75 Hard, I affirmed to myself that I can truly make time for things in my life that are important, even when busy with life and work)

Rules

So here are the rules:

2 45-minute workouts (one has to be outside)
10 pages of non-fiction reading
No alcohol or drugs
1 gallon of water (roughly 3.8L)
Diet of choice (I chose no sugar added)
Daily progress picture

My thoughts on the rules:

Workouts: My second 45-minute workout was almost always an outdoor walk and on days when I was extra tired or on my period, both workouts were walks
Alcohol/drugs: I haven’t drank for 6+ years so that wasn’t an issue for me
Water: The rules explicitly say that the water has to be unflavored, but I’m a tea lover so I drank my water with tea bags occasionally (spearmint, green)
Diet: I chose no sugar added (on top of being primarily whole foods plant based) which meant no processed sweets, but I still ate fruits

With my modifications and interpretations of the rules, I guess you can argue that I didn’t really complete the challenge but honestly, life doesn’t have to be so black and white and in my mind, I’m so proud that I was able to even do this much.

Why Factors

As I mentioned, I thought that I already lived a pretty healthy life but I wanted to partake in the challenge for the mental discipline aspect. Could I really do all of this for 75 straight with no breaks? That’s what I wanted to see. Could I push myself do complete these tasks even when busy at work, on my period or traveling? I wanted to build the mental discipline as well as prove to myself that if I truly want to get something done, I can set my mind to it.

Other reasons included the fact that I had just gotten back to San Francisco after six weeks of traveling - I got married, we went to Hawaii for our mini-moon, then NYC for my husband’s work, then back to Toronto for friend’s wedding - and the lack of consistent movement and eating well had me feeling sluggish and bigger. This was a chance to reset and get back into a routine - and since the first half of the year had been so busy, I finally had 75 days of semi-predictable life in SF to focus on this challenge. (Also TMI but my engagement and wedding rings were feeling tight and I thought to myself, “Woah, this really isn’t a good feeling, I just got married”, lol).

Lastly, I was excited to have a defined time period in which I would give up added sugars. I have a big sweet tooth, but after reading Ultra Processed People and learning more about sugar, I realized how addicted we are to sugar, and I wanted to detox from that as well.

Tracking & keeping spirits up!

I officially commenced 75 Hard on June 29, 2024 and prior to starting, I had read stories about people forgetting to complete a task and thus, having to start from the beginning. I knew that I wasn’t going to have a consecutive 75 day stretch for the rest of the year, so this was my one chance to do it, and to do it right.

I’m super grateful that my husband was also partaking in the challenge, and that kept us accountable. We needed a new calendar anyways so we got this one where we had space to put stickers every day once we completed the task. I loved stickers as a kid (okay fine, even now as an adult) so my inner child was giddy with joy every day when I stuck my stickers on. Gamifying small things like this in life make it that much more fun and make it likely that you’ll stick to it. When I was traveling, I tracked the daily tasks on the Habit app to keep me on track and ensure I didn’t forget anything (this app is amazing for all tracking in general)!

I tried to keep the tasks in as much of a routine as possible. In the morning before starting work, I would take my progress picture as I woke up, start sipping on some water, get my 10 pages done, and do my first 45-minute workout. Lunchtimes or evenings were reserved for my second 45-minute workout (usually a walk).

Other things I did to stay on track and help the challenge run as smoothly as possible:

Workouts: I planned my week of workouts on the Sunday before the week started to ensure that I had all the classes stacked in my Peloton app, or booked on Classpass
Workout clothes: I set these out the night before so I wouldn’t dillydally in the morning
Water: 1 gallon of water is no joke, so I filled up the kettle the night before so I could start drinking as soon as I woke up
Diet: We made a meal plan with ideas and grocery lists to avoid last minute DoorDashing

Thoughts & observations during the 75 days

1. 75 hard took up all my time

If you’re like me and sleep at least 8 hours and work at least 8 hours (sometimes more in busy periods) - trying to accomplish everything in 75 Hard is a challenge. I was constantly thinking about my water intake and making sure I had enough during the day so I wasn’t chugging right before I went to sleep. This also meant that I wasn’t really sleeping in, because then I would be behind on my water (lol, what a life).

Having the mental capacity for two 45-minute workouts, and forcing myself to get that post-dinner walk in when sometimes all I wanted to do was veg out on the couch or go to sleep early. It was really difficult to balance the daily requirements with my work schedule during busy periods and some days, I felt like all I did was work + 75 Hard, with no time for myself. I found that it was difficult to spend quality time with my husband, or be consistent with my journalling routine, simply because there wasn’t time.

2. Fatigue

With the minimum 90 minutes of daily workouts, I felt tired more often. It was a lot to handle. Even on the days where I would just do two walks, San Francisco is so hilly that it was basically like a mini hike. Again, combined with the mental load from life and work, the daily requirements felt crushing. At this point, you might be asking “well, why didn’t you just quit then?” - Since I knew the end date, I was much more disciplined to just keep going. When my motivation was waning, I was able to fall back on my discipline.

In the first few weeks of 75 Hard, my fatigue could have also been attributed to the fact that I stopped having added sugars so maybe I was also going through some withdrawal-type symptoms.

3. Menstrual cycle

With my diet choice, I was excited to see the effects on my period. I know that sugars and caffeine can affect PMS and I did notice that I had less mood swings and in general, PMS-type symptoms (Meet agreed on this too). Day 1 of my period is usually very painful but this time around, I was completely fine within 3-4 hours and 1 Tylenol which was quite interesting. I also noticed that I had much more energy leading up to my period and during my period as well, normally the luteal and menstrual phases have me feeling very tired.

4. Face

I naturally have a pretty round face, but I noticed extra puffiness and redness on my cheeks before starting the challenge (definitely due to all the factors I mentioned: poor diet, lack of movement). With cutting out sugar, flushing my body with water, and consistent movement, I noticed that my face definitely became a bit more lean on the sides. The inflammation on my cheeks also went down, and my face has a more even tone to it now.

At the beginning of the challenge, I did notice that I got small whiteheads and deep set acne than normal - usually my skin is pretty clear except when I get close to my period. I’m not exactly sure why my skin broke out - maybe it was a purge after quitting processed sugars or due to the increased perceived stress from the challenge? I’m looking forward to seeing how my acne evens out after completing the challenge and moving to something more sustainable.

5. Diet

Initially, even though I had cut out added sugars, I wasn’t seeing any fluctuations in my weight because I was still eating a lot. It was almost as if I was trying to fill that void of sweets with eating a ton more calories. In the latter half of 75 Hard, I started focusing on portion control and higher protein intake, which led me to see the body recomposition goals I was looking for.

Through these 75 days, I learnt how many items have added sugars sneakily added to them and it definitely made me more vigilant in reading labels at the grocery store before buying.

6. Travelling

June 29 - September 13, 2024 was as good of a consecutive stretch of time as I was going to get, but that still included two trips.

NYC: I went to NYC for 4 days for a work trip, and I was determined to stay strong with my challenge. I made sure to book a workout class every day through Classpass to get my first 45-minute workout in, and during our free time in the afternoon, I would get my walk in. I definitely found it tough because teammates would be going to grab boba or other desserts in our free block, and I would usually decline and go for a walk by myself instead. I felt like I missed out on some team bonding, but I didn’t beat myself up about it.
LA: We went to LA for Labour Day and I knew this would be really tough on 75 Hard - we were going to Disneyland and Porto’s, and I really wanted to try some of the sweets there. I kept up with all other 75 Hard rules except the diet for two days because I had Dole whip at Disney (10/10 worth it on a 35C day), and some pastries from Porto’s.

So yes, I broke 75 Hard for two days, but I wasn’t going to start again so I just tacked on two more days and finished on September 13 instead of the 11th - still a win in my books!

7. Reading

I’m a big reader so the 10 pages requirement wasn’t a big deal for me. I often found myself reading more than this, but on the days I was busy or traveling, I was just doing the minimum. I read many fiction books during this time, but here are the non-fiction ones I got through. I loved all of these except the last one

Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal
Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday
Ultra Processed People by Chris van Tulleken
The Magic Pill by Johann Hari (listened to the audiobook while on my walks - very insightful)
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
The 12 Week Year by Brian P Morgan
Slow Productivity by Cal Newport
48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene - do not recommend this one

8. Low points (sickness & loss)

Throughout the 75 days (or is it 77 now?), I lost one of my first cousins as well as supported my mom through the loss of one of her closest friends. I haven’t experienced loss too much in my life before this, so it was jarring to have two losses in this period of time. I wasn’t super close to either of these individuals but the loss of losing a blood relative and the grief of coming to terms with the mortality of people in my parent’s generation made me feel really down. Sometimes, I have the tendency to self-sabotage and I know a previous version of me would’ve used an event like this to comfort eat and not get any movement in. However, feeling the wind on my face on my walks and going through the motions of 75 Hard helped keep me from spiraling.

After my NYC trip, I came down with a horrible bug with symptoms of fever, chills, body fatigue, headaches, ear pain and a horrible cough. I was more than half way through 75 Hard at this point and I really didn’t want to quit so I took it very easy with a slow 45-minute indoor bike ride, and a slow-paced 45-minute walk. It took me an entire week to recover which is much longer than normal, and I can’t be sure if it was due to a more lethal bug, or the fact that I was still doing 90 minutes of exercise per day.

9. Weight loss

Like I mentioned at the start of this post, I thought this was a weight loss challenge so I was kind of expecting those results for myself. But as the challenge went on, I realized that it’s so much more than that. 75 Hard is about building the muscle of discipline, it’s about proving to yourself that you can do hard things, even on the days you don’t feel like it. Staying true to your North Star on those hard days is when it matters most - it’s easy to check all the boxes on a day you’re feeling great or on the weekend when you don’t have work, but 75 Hard pushed me to reconsider my “priorities”.

So no, I didn’t see dramatic changes on the scale but to caveat, I was already at a healthy weight for my height before commencing this challenge. I did see body recomposition changes, and I know I gained way more muscle. This body is one that I’m going to have with me for life so I’m taking it slow and building sustainable - excited for what the future holds.

10. Completion

I’m putting together this post on September 13 (i.e. my last day), and I can’t believe that I did it. Sure, if you’re a hard core ruler follower, you can argue that I didn’t complete it properly, etc etc, but in my books, this is a win. I can’t believe I did at least 90 minutes of workouts every day since June 29th - that’s crazy to me. I feel happy that this challenge is over because it was tiring, and this last week, I couldn’t wait to be done. Drinking a gallon of water is a lot, 45 minutes of continuous exercise is a lot, but I did it and that’s all that matters. I did it throughout sickness, navigating loss, my period, and dealing with life’s ups and downs.

What’s next? & Concluding thoughts

I started pestering my husband about what we would do next well before we finished 75 Hard because I wanted to roll into some kind of routine to keep up the good habits. Throughout this challenge, we realized that these are things you should be doing everyday - you should be reading to learn something new, you should be moving your body, you should be hydrating, you should be mindful of what you eat.

Time’s going to pass whether you want it to or not, and when I look back at these 77 days, I know I used those days well compared to what my baseline routine was before. We’re all living on borrowed time and we truly don’t know when our time is going to be up - dealing with the passings I mentioned above really reinforced that. If I do get the privilege of living a long life, I want to be in the best shape possible and I know that nurturing my mind and body starting now is the only way.

For what we’re going to be sticking to going forward, we referenced the 75 Soft rules and added our own tweaks to them to make it something we can truly do every day and not feel burnt out.

Rules:

2 30-minute workouts (one has to be outside)
10 pages of non-fiction reading
No alcohol or drugs (I’m not really considering this one because I don’t do these but putting it here for consistency!)
3L of water
Diet of choice (this is still TBD for me, but I’m leaning towards only one sweet a day)
Weekly progress picture
10 minutes of meditation (my reasoning here is that if the workouts are going from 90-minutes to 60-minutes, I must have time for 10 minutes of meditation in there somewhere)

If you somehow made it this far, I appreciate you. I’ll be posting updates on my journey on Instagram so if you want to join along on the challenge or see what I’m up to, it’ll be on there (@roamingreina). If you’re thinking about perhaps undertaking this challenge as well, I highly recommend it. I think it puts what’s important in life into perspective.

Sending you lots of love and light,

-Reina xo