I have started this post a few times in the past week, and it was never quite right. I kept stopping, because I knew I had not yet earned this post.
Lessons I learned from completing 75 Hard.
You see, when I began writing, I had not yet completed the program. I was still a few days out.
To be honest, the lessons learned haven’t changed. But that’s not the point. I hadn’t yet earned the ability to say that I had learned anything from completing it.
So, I would start writing, but never finish the post. Deep down, I knew it had to wait.
And now, as of waking up this morning, the wait is over. I have completed 75 Hard.
It is one of the best things I’ve done in my life.
Lesson 1: Plan ahead
There are a lot of things to do through 75 Hard, all of them in addition to day-to-day life. Family, work, life – none of these things go away throughout the program. You have to figure out how to get your workouts done. Your reading done.
Your gallon of water done. If you don’t plan on starting early, your evening could be rough.
If you don’t plan ahead enough, you may end up doing pushups in your driveway after putting the kids to bed…during a thunderstorm (Day 49).
Lesson 2: Routine is your friend
Andy Frisella says that one of the most common reasons people fail 75 Hard is the progress picture, because they lose sight of (and ignore) the small details which brought them early success.
Pretty much every day, after my morning workout before the house woke up, I made the progress picture a part of my routine of getting dressed in the morning – set up the phone, take a picture, move picture to secure folder, continue getting dressed. It took all of 10 seconds each day, but I never missed it because it was part of my routine.
Lesson 3: There will be easy days, but the hard days are more important
75 days isn’t very long – two and a half months – but it’s also a long time. Part of me can’t believe it’s already over, but another part of me can’t believe how long it has been. To be honest, I set myself up the best I could for success. There weren’t too many “hard” days where I was struggling to complete my tasks.
But there were some days. There were a few days that I chalked it up that “this is the day I fail.” Because some things hadn’t gone according to plan early in the day, so it was nearly 3:00p and I had nothing checked off yet.
I am so grateful to have a supportive wife who encouraged me that there was no reason that I had to fail. I just had to be creative to get it all done. And I did. Throw the kids around the pool and tread water for a while – one workout done. Sure, the day went a bit later than anticipated or desired, but I got it all done.
We had to put down our old man cat, Carter. As we were driving home from the vet, so sad because of what we had just done, I told Abbie that when we got home I had to change my clothes and go for a walk, because I sure as shit was not going to compound an already bad day by failing at 75 Hard. Even though, a whisky would have been really nice that night.
I wasn’t going to do it. If I failed, it wasn’t going to be because I gave in and said, “OK, Failure – I’m all yours!” No! That walk sucked. It was possibly the worst workout I had in the entire 75 days, but I got out there and got it done, regardless of how bad I felt emotionally.
But I would have been crushed if I had given in to failure.
I made it through.
Late in the program I got sick. I had about the worst cold I’ve had in recent memory. Each day I told myself, “If I fail, so be it. But it won’t be today. Tomorrow I may fail, but I will not get beat today, no matter how bad I feel.”
I felt like shit. But I could still go outside, get some fresh air, and go for a 45-minute walk around the neighborhood.
Getting through those hard days, whether from poor planning, sickness, or sadness because of Carter, were so important to my overall success. Those days were drivers for the days I just didn’t want to do it.
Besides, if every day was easy, what would it matter?
Lesson 4: You can do more than you even realize
I stepped on the scale on July 5th and weighed 217 pounds.
September 17th, and I was 178. I lost 39 pounds. I am healthier and stronger than I have been in my life. I feel better than I have ever felt. I haven’t taken Tums in months. I don’t need Breathe Right strips anymore.
All of that, in 75 days. I look and feel like a different person.
On my birthday, back in June, I looked at myself in the mirror and hated what I saw. I looked and felt like a fat, lazy sack of shit. I hated what I saw. I hated how I felt.
And that’s ok. It was true.
I wasn’t doing anything at that time to better myself. I wasn’t taking proper care of myself for me, for my wife, or my kids.
I decided then that I needed a challenge for myself. I decided that by my next birthday (June 17, 2022), I would do 100,000 pushups.
I was doing pushups pretty regularly during early 2020, but hadn’t done many in the better part of a year. I figured that it would require an average of 274 pushups per day over the course of a year. I wasn’t there yet, but that was definitely a manageable number. I am not yet on pace, but have been increasing my daily average.
Yesterday, spread over multiple small sets throughout, I did 1,005 pushups. Over one thousand pushups in one day! That may not be much for some people, but that is the most I have ever done in a day in my life.
When you put in the time, the effort, the work, it is amazing what you can accomplish.
Today, September 18th (as I write this), we went to a restaurant by our camper for lunch. I ordered a burger, with the bun, which I haven’t done in the past 75 days. The diet I chose was essentially low-carb with intermittent fasting (largely what is prescribed in Dr. Jason Fung’s book, The Obesity Code). The highest carb things I had were occasional rice in a Chipotle bowl and some infrequent grapes or blueberries. I went 75 days with zero cheats. Zero alcohol. Zero candy, cookies, ice cream, treats.
None.
And I didn’t feel like I was really missing that much.
After eating the Cheddar Bacon BBQ burger with fries today – I still feel like I wasn’t missing that much. Even the fries left me feeling a little…meh.
In any previous endeavor to “eat better,” after a week or so of “eating well,” I would act like I had earned something. Earned some treat or cheat, if you will. I had never gone 75 days.
And none of those previous attempts had worked for me in any significant way.
When you have that last drink, that last shitty food that is so damn yummy – all of the things that you do that don’t actually make you better – you feel like there is no way you could go 75 days without. But you can. In a way, it’s not that long. On the other hand, you’ll come to learn how little you actually like that stuff. The further removed you are from it all, the easier it becomes.
David Goggins talks about his self-developed “40% rule,” saying that most people approach only 40% of their potential, leaving so much more on the table. Without being negative and shitting all over the work that I did, I can absolutely see that there were times I could have pushed harder. There were times I could have done more. Times I chose to walk instead of run. I may have left some on the table, but at the same time, I always pushed myself enough that I would be able to come back for more.
Given the goals I had at the start I am proud of the progress I made. In seeing the difference between the start and the finish, I can only imagine how much improvement I will make when I do this again at some point, only that time, I’ll be starting from a better, stronger, healthier spot.
In the end, doing 75 Hard is one of the best things I’ve ever done. I’ve developed some very good habits which I will continue, even if I am not religiously following the program as I have been. As Jocko says, “Unmitigated daily discipline. In all things. It is the ONLY way.” I may shift around some of the things I am focusing on, but taking care of myself physically, both through diet and exercise will remain a top priority. I am not yet where I want to be, but I am directionally correct. What I know for sure is that I absolutely do not want to go back to what I was.
Bonus lesson: It’s not worth going back to what was before
I started writing yesterday and am picking up again (now, September 19th – 75 Hard + 2). I essentially had a “cheat” weekend. With the weekend in the books, I can say it’s just not worth it (the “cheat" weekend). I had a burger and fries yesterday, gourmet mac and cheese w/ mashed potatoes at Whiskey Inferno last night, as well as a few drinks. I had a beer and piece of pizza this afternoon at a birthday party, as well as a caramel vanilla ice cream cone and a cookie. All told, I didn’t go too far off the rails, but was definitely off program.
And it’s not worth it. I definitely don’t feel as good as I did the previous 75 days. I can see how easy it would be to fall right back into my old habits, and quickly end up in my old jeans, and my old shirts (none of which fit me anymore). I don’t want that.
If nothing else, it was a good reminder that I wasn’t missing much. A good reminder that it’s not worth doing the things I was doing before. There is a mindset aspect to this as well. So often, we think about all of the things we are “sacrificing.” I was sacrificing the enjoyment of an ice cream sandwich. Instead, I try to look at these decisions not as sacrifices, but as investments. I am not actually sacrificing an ice cream sandwich; I am investing in my health and well-being. Today is easily the worst I have felt (based on diet and exercise) than I have felt in the past 11 weeks. Sure, I felt worse when I was a bit under the weather, but that’s different.
So, my alarm is set for early tomorrow morning to get up and work out. I don’t know yet if I’ll be fully on program, but I will absolutely continue many of the habits I have developed over the past 11 weeks. My life is changed, forever. I am not going to settle for the progress I made. This is only the start. I am thrilled about the weight that I lost and the strength that I gained, but I have more to lose, I can become stronger.
I am a different person than I was 11 weeks ago; at least I think I am. I look like a different person. I feel like a different person. I have put in a lot of work. There is still so much to do. I would like to think that I am a better husband and father for this – that I am closer to being the man my wife and daughters deserve, rather than the fat, lazy, tired lump that I’ve been for so long.
Getting up and doing pushups, burpees, sit ups, flutter kicks, and whatever other stuff I will impose on myself tomorrow morning may not be for everyone, but for me it’s far better than the alternative.
It’s not easy. But every day it gets easier. That also means that every day requires more vigilance. It is easy to fall back into old habits. Those old habits are comfortable in the moment. But once the taste of the ice cream is gone, the pizza is gone, the beer is gone – it’s not comfortable. At best, I feel just – meh. Most nights through 75 Hard, aside from some muscle soreness if I had a particularly strenuous workout, I felt great. Tonight, I feel like tomorrow morning is going to suck because of my weekend decisions, but tomorrow night will feel a hell of a lot better because of it.
The final things I will share are my first and last progress pictures. It’s easy to hate the guy on the left – the guy who was doing nothing significant to take care of himself. The guy who would see the red on the BMI calculation and think, “Seriously, this counts as obese?” But as much as I want to hate him, to ask, “What the fuck were you doing all the time?!?” that dude had some fortitude. I don’t see that guy in the mirror anymore. But he did. And he looked in the mirror and said, “I don’t like what I see. AND, I need to do something about it.” That guy was tougher than he looks. I throw a weight vest on now and go for a walk around the neighborhood, still weighing less than he did. I don’t know how he did it. All the time. No wonder he was always tired. It would be like me carrying Danica around all day, every day.
I’m embarrassed by the picture on the left. I let that happen. I did that to myself.
But that guy made a choice. And I am so grateful for it. And I need to continue to earn it, every day. To continue to better myself. To get in even better shape. To continue putting in the work to make myself a better husband and father, a generally better person.
I’m sorry I kinda rambled through this, particularly in the last part. I just have so many thoughts after this. This process was so impactful for me, not just physically, but mentally – which is the point. It’s not a physical challenge, it is a mental toughness program – a program, not a mere challenge. It’s tough to put into words. The personal transformation transcends the physical, which was substantial. I can’t wait to see where it takes me next.
