75 Hard + Balance: Reflections on Completion

I completed the 75 Hard + Balance on March 16th and have taken some time to reflect on the challenge. In this blog I’ll cover the following (feel free to skip ahead to your interest!):

• A recap of why I wanted to complete the challenge in the first place

• The benefits of taking a balanced approach to the 75 hard

• What I think about the challenge overall: pros & cons

• Key learnings and takeaways

• What is staying in my routine and what is going

• How to know if the challenge could be a good fit for you

A quick recap of my previous post “Why I am doing the 75 Hard” which includes all the details of what the 75 Hard is, what I added to it, and why I wanted to do it. I wrote that blog in August 2023 when I had my first attempt at the challenge. I failed on day 8 because I didn’t finish my water. I remember it was about 7 pm and I had 2 litres (1/2 gallon) of water to drink and I thought “This isn’t the right time for me to do this challenge.” So I let it go.

Fast forward to January 2024, I had recently left my corporate career at PwC after 10 years to go full time into my coaching business, The Balanced Corporate, and I was craving routine. I was settling into my new life working for myself and I wanted to make good use of the time to create a schedule and routine that truly works for me. That being said, the 75 Hard for me wasn’t about weight loss or getting in shape or even really about eating healthy. I do all those things anyway. For me, it was all about consistency. This, I think, is the entire purpose of the challenge for anyone but often it gets overshadowed by pictures of people dropping weight and cleaning up their diet.

A recap of the 75 Hard and how I made mine balanced:

1) 2 workouts a day, one must be outside (often my second workout was a walk)

2) stick to a diet of your choice (for me: no refined grains or sugars and 100g of protein min)

3) 4L/ 1 Gallon of water per day (I did 2L)

4) Read 10 pages of a book that will enrich your life daily

5) No alcohol or cheat meals

6) Take a progress photo daily (I did not do this)

My additions:

8) Meditate daily

9) Breathwork daily

10) Take the stairs when reasonable (seems basic but I got into the habit of using the elevator in our apartment, its only 4 flights..!)

Heading into the start of the challenge I knew that the diet that had made me feel best in the past was one without refined grains (flour, breads, pastas etc) and refined sugars, which is also high in protein. So I went for that. Over the course of the 75 days the foods I ate changed slightly. For example, I started off eating lots more red meat than I ever had in my life (mainly kangaroo because its clean, lean and sustainable) and finished with a more diverse source of protein (i.e. more beans etc.).

I took a balanced approach to the 75 hard in that I wasn’t killing myself in the gym every day and my second workout was almost always a walk outside. Two reasons for this: 1) I am super focused on lowering my cortisol levels and balancing my hormones (something I spend a lot of time talking to clients about too!) and 2) more exercise is not something I personally need to add to my life- I love to exercise and don’t need a challenge to get me to do more of it. However, I did want to utilize the challenge to help me create a routine of doing the types of movement that make me feel good but don’t always prioritize (i.e. walking outside, especially after dinner). I also cut the water back to 2L (1/2 gallon) per day, often I got through 3 or even 4L but I didn’t want to force myself to drink more water, I think 2L is enough!

My thoughts on the challenge overall: it’s a great way to create consistency but you need to make it your own.

I think there are more pros than cons- if you listen to your body and make adjustments that work for you. Just like anything in life if you try to force something, it often won’t work. I do believe that there is a semi-toxic culture on social media surrounding the 75 hard but I didn’t get involved with any of that (the progress pics, the over-exaggerated meal prep, the intense workouts). I thought “Set your goals and stay in your lane” and that worked well for me.

Pros:

Getting to know your body better. This is so important, awareness is key! I don’t think you need to complete the 75 hard to really get intimate with your body but it definitely helps. As someone who knows her body pretty well now (it was NOT always this way!) I became even more in tune with it because how I was feeling and functioning became a primary focus. I noticed quite quickly that maybe the increase in consumption of red meat might not have been working for me. I continued to get better at listening to my body and changing my workouts as a result. Towards the end of the challenge I was doing a lot more yoga and pilates as a result.

Building a sustainable routine around reading. 10 pages a day is doable for anyone. Reading for 20 minutes before you go to bed or as a nice break during the work day is a great practice to build in. I read 3 books during the challenge and feel like I’ve gotten a good rhythm back. If you’re interested, here’s what I read:

1) “33 Laws of Business and Life” by Steven Bartlett, 10/10 recommend. Quick chapters, no fluff, practical, and easy to apply to your life. Great stories along the way to help the material land.

2) “The Everyday Hero Manifesto” by Robin Sharma, 8/10 recommend. I read “5 am Club” a few years ago which Robin also wrote so I wanted to read this one too. Look, it’s a long book! There are lots of great nuggets in there and lots of good stories to illustrate those learnings. There is no hiding from this book. As I was reading I often thought to myself that he leaves no room for excuses. “If you want what 95% of people don’t have, you have to be willing to do what 95% of people won’t do.” For me, this was quite helpful but I could see how for some this style could be quite confronting. Depends on what you are looking for. Worth noting that he has lots of amazing FREE resources on his website. Linked here.

3) “I am Malala” by Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize winner, 10/10 recommend. Lots of details about the life of a young girl or woman in Pakistan which I really enjoyed because I learned a lot and it also helped me reflect on how privileged I am. Despite the fact that almost all the odds were against her, Malala showed extreme amounts of grit as she pushed through difficulties and fear. She is a seriously inspiring woman. I also loved that the book had photo inserts that included various photos to bring the book to life.

Support from others. All of my friends really got around my 75 hard. Once they knew I was committed they got curious and were eager to hear how things were going. This was helpful because they would often choose to eat foods I was eating when were out to dinner and cut back on alcohol at events. A prime example was on my 33rd birthday (Day 46) I hired a boat with 35 of my friends. Normally this would look like a very boozy day out on the harbor but instead, everyone leaned into a lovely day on the water filled with good conversation, healthy food, very limited booze, and lots of sunshine. We loved it!

Cons:

Restriction & rigidity. For 75 days it’s sustainable but not for a lifetime (obviously?). However, I do get the point. Staying consistent for 75 days does a lot for the stories we tell ourselves about what we can or can’t do. There is only one time (that I can recall) where the restriction really felt hard and that was after a 50km cycle with some girlfriends and then we went for coffees and croissants and I wasn’t able to have the croissant….devastating! I should note this was pretty early on.

Potential for overexercising. If you’re not taking a balanced approach to the 75 hard it could quite easily lead to overtraining which then leads to injury from overuse and skyrocketing cortisol levels. Disaster! This is why I recommend taking a balanced approach and really making the challenge your own.

Key Learnings and Takeaways

Controversial but 75 days is not that long. If it helps to set the rest of the year up for success- it’s worth it, right?

Accountability is key. Telling people made it easier to stay on track. The numbered Post-it notes really helped me too. Putting them up was a sign of my commitment and ripping them off became a fun little ritual, sometimes I did a crazy little dance and sometimes I had to pull 3 days off at once because I forgot.

There are healthy options at every single restaurant. Usually, the menu doesn’t even need to be modified but in case it does, the staff never seemed to mind.

I realized there were some things I was doing out of habit. Whether that’s food, drink, social, or anything. Being more conscious of how I was spending my time helped me reshape these stale habits into new habits that serve me better.

Consistency is key but can be boring. As I was creating my videos I couldn’t help but think “Gosh, they’re all the same! This must be so boring!” As it turns out, most people didn’t find the content boring, they actually found it helpful and realistic. The truth is most of us don’t have time to create a vastly different meal plan every day or even every week, we figure out what works for us and we stick mostly to it. The same goes for workouts.

What’s Staying in my Routine and What’s Going

Lots of people asked me at the end of the challenge “What are you going to eat!?” “Are you going to drink!?” “Will you take days off exercise!?” to be honest, I finished the challenge on 16th March and nothing changed until I flew to Melbourne to speak at a conference on the 21st. I didn’t do any exercise that day and I had a wine and the most delicious sourdough at dinner with James.

I say often to my friends and clients “Once you know what it’s like to feel good, it’s really obvious when you feel bad!” and this rings so true to me at this point in my life.

The only thing that I am not sticking with is the rigidity of the challenge as in, the requirement to do each of the things every day. If I am too tired or too busy I will skip a day but I will try not to skip more than one or two.

Alcohol for me, even though I do love the occasional glass of red, has fallen from my life over the last few years. I think it is now “officially out” for the time being and I will reassess how I feel in the future.

Walks are in! I won’t lie and say I’ve taken a walk every day since the challenge, I haven’t but I notice a difference in my mood when I go for a walk outside, particularly after dinner so I want to embed this into my routine.

I love to move my body twice a day, in different ways. Whether that’s a walk and a workout or a yoga class and a spin class. To me, it’s time well spent.

Could the Challenge be Right for You?

If you are looking for consistency in your routine and an opportunity to create better habits, then simply yes it most likely will be a good fit!

75 Days is a great number of days to strive for as habits are created after 66 days on average. Meaning in 75 days you can create real and lasting lifestyle changes.

However, timing is important. There will never be the perfect time to take this on. You’ll always have birthdays, events and holidays planned so that is not really what I am referring to when I say timing is important. I mean, is this the right time for you to take this on? Do you have the capacity? Do you really have the desire? If the answer is no and you want it to be yes, what changes can you make to help the timing be right for you? What type of support can you elicit from friends or colleagues? If the answer is truly NO, then there is no point in taking on a challenge that might just create unrealistic expectations and leave you feeling overwhelmed.

If you do decide to take it on, the most important thing to consider will be ‘What do you want to get out of it?’ Once you are clear on that, make it your own. Build the challenge around the habits you want to integrate to achieve your goal.

If you are doubting yourself or there is something about doing the challenge that feels hard or like you “can’t” do it. Ask yourself, “Do I just not want to?” If you don’t want to go 75 days without alcohol or make time for 2 workouts a day, you definitely don’t have to. Just try not to tell yourself you can’t, because you can do anything….if you want to.

I hope this was helpful and maybe demistyifes the 75 Hard you have been seeing on the internet!

I’ll be running a Free 30 day Balance challenge in July, stay tuned for that :)