Ah, here I sit having had a crazy last month. Eh... I'll even call it a crazy past two months. Between celebrating Baylor's national championship win, to graduating, to bouncing around for the past 5 weekends from vacation to vacation, I have had nothing but indulgences.
To be clear, this is NOT how I plan to live the rest of my life... having fun, celebrating, being quite the opposite of productive. Hence, it has come time to reestablish some form of routine, some form of repetition and structure that will help me get back on track of being healthy, working towards my goals, both professional and otherwise. Therefore, today I restarted the 75Hard.
The Challenge
As a refresher (or introduction to those who don't know) 75 Hard is a challenge started by podcast host Andy Frisella wherein participants agree to abide by 6 principal rules daily:
Follow a diet
One indoor workout (45 min), one outdoor workout (45 min)
Drink one gallon of water
Read 10 pages nonfiction
No alcohol
Take a progress picture
I spent last summer in Phoenix with some buddies who were also following the program, so the accountability was pretty nice. I followed the intermittent fasting diet and decided to add in cold showers as a stipulation to follow (read up on it - lots of benefits from cold showers, just check out Wim Hof).
This year, I'm essentially doing the same thing, but add two more criteria to follow. Instead of just an IF diet, I'll add in an additional dietary restriction: no added sugar. Also, I will write a weekly reflection (to be published here) that will help summarize my thoughts throughout my journey.
Goal
Last time around, I treated the whole challenge more as a mental challenge than anything else. Simply getting over the hump of no alcohol and having to workout 75 days straight was daunting, but I got through it. Plus, over the past year, I've actually noticed many of the habits I built up last summer had stuck with me, such as gallon of water daily, workout (almost) daily both indoor and outdoor, reading 10 pages, cold showers...
Therefore, in starting this 75 Hard adventure, I am looking principally to do one thing: get stronger. I have always struggled to add muscle and push larger weight, but I noticed my biggest strength increase of my life over the 75 days of this challenge last summer. So essentially, I'm looking to up my maxes in all major lifts: back squat, bench press, bent over row, and deadlifts. There is one issue I will have to look for, however, and that is gaining too much muscle mass in the legs. I have been blessed with the ability to quickly gain leg muscle, but unfortunately the trade off is I become unable to fit into any of my pants. Therefore, the combination of the strict diet and the intense lifts should allow me to become more efficient in my movements, allowing me to push more weight without necessarily adding an overabundance of muscle mass.
Where I'm At
Aside from being done with vacations and celebrations, I'm currently in final stage interviews at multiple jobs. Getting into this routine and having to squeeze these daily requirements into my schedule will be arduous at times, especially while first starting a new job, but I plan to stay on top of it. Now having completed Day 1, I can't wait to see what the next 74 hold.
Chat next week!
Good luck!
Good luck!