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Started a new challenge this past Wednesday called 75 Medium. I’ve been complaining forever about the weight I’ve gained the last 5 years or so and I also decided that I needed a little more discipline in my life. 75 Medium is a program designed to help you create better habits that are focused around exercise, diet, and mindfulness.
My son did the 75 Hard challenge awhile back so he’s inspired me to do one also. I’m old though, lol, and I wasn’t sure if my work schedule would accommodate the requirements of the 75 Hard Challenge. I was almost definitely convinced that my foot doctor would not be a fan of me doing two 45-minute workouts a day either so I decided to go with the slightly watered-down version called 75 Medium.
75 Medium Rules
- Follow a diet 90% of the time for 75 days. No alcohol allowed.
You can follow any diet you choose. I picked intermittent fasting. I’m only eating between 12pm and 8pm.
2. Drink half your body weight in ounces of water daily.
I decided to round up to 96 ounces of water daily since that’s 3 of my water bottles that I carry around so it’s easy for me to track.
3. One 45-minute workout a day
4. Read or listen to 10 minutes of personal development a day
5. Progress picture on day one and day 75
6. 5 minutes of meditation or prayer daily.
Progress??
This is just day 3 for me. So far so good. I also decided along with this challenge that I would knock out one of my 50 Before 50 items of not drinking diet coke for a full week. Blew this one yesterday…lol. I had to order in some lunch for myself since we were short-handed in the office. Ordered a kids meal from the restaurant across the street and it came with a drink and I didn’t even think and automatically ordered a diet coke. Realized my mistake after drinking it unfortunately so I started over with that particular challenge today.
Some takeaways so far on this challenge:
Not drinking alcohol shouldn’t be too hard for me. I am an occasional social drinker, but I never feel compelled to drink, even if the people around me are.
Drinking water first thing in the morning has really helped me to not be crazy starved by my lunch break at 1pm. I can technically start eating at noon but I’ve not felt the need to snack then before I leave for lunch.
The hardest part for me has been not snacking at night! I’m not even hungry most of the time but I really want to snack on something.
My gym is open 24 hours so no excuse not to get the 45-minute workout in. 10 minutes of personal development reading is super easy for me. I took my day one progress picture. I may take one weekly. Think I might weigh in weekly also for my own motivation. Meditation is a work in progress. I am definitely easily distracted. Learning to meditate is also on my 50 before 50 checklist since I replaced Run a 5K with learning to meditate since my doctor assured me I should not be running any marathons.
Motivation
I’d like to sit here and say that I can be motivated just by the realization that I need to be healthier as I hurtle towards 50. I am not though. A good challenge is always motivation for me though. Whatever it takes, right?
Have you attempted any type of health challenge? How did it go? Any tips for me?
