#75MyWay: My Version of #75Hard
That point when you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired when you cannot rationalize any longer why you’re not where you want to be, why you don’t chase your dreams anymore. You’re content, even grateful for where you are, however, there’s something deep down brewing inside making you think, “Is this really it? Is this all there is?”
Age is a contributing factor. One day I was in my 30s, the next in my mid-50s. What a rude awakening! For me, I’ve been home from Rwanda for over four years, and I am still figuring out my “what next.” Ok, throw in 18 months of COVID and a trip back to college (virtually) to get my degree and one mega bizarrely Stepford Wivesish job experience in Vegas in 2020, and finally nearing the end of 2021 things are settling. I am grateful for a ranch in the middle of nowhere. I guess COVID turned isolation and wide-open spaces into a uniquely perfect gift. I no longer pine for my prior social life in Las Vegas. Dare I say, Wyoming is growing on me? Or better yet, we’ve created a space over the last four years where super interesting people come to us.
What’s not working is me….literally and figuratively. Yesterday, driving to Steamboat I had an epiphany. Why do they always take so freaking long? I’m running out of time here! Without going into the whole TMI story, being a more “mature” woman, past the childbearing years, menopause has hit me like a derailed freight train. I’m a mess. I spontaneously combust on an average of 20–30 times per day. When I came back to the US I immediately gained 10 pounds. Yes, I know my weight is still within a healthy range, but I don’t feel healthy. I eat healthily, however, snacking is one of my favorite pastimes. COVID and stress turned every other night wine/special occasion wine into every night wine. I can’t sleep for more than an hour at a time anymore. Yes…so the epiphany. I need to get my shit together and I’m finally at that point…sick and tired of being sick and tired.
So, I looked at my calendar on my phone while Jock was shopping for wood at the local wood mill. I didn’t say my life in Wyoming was exciting…. I’m going to Las Vegas for Christmas in exactly 75 days from today. My goal is to lose 10 pounds and a myriad of other things. I googled “how to lose 10 pounds in 75 days.” Yes, I actually do know what I need to do but over researching and procrastination are additional bad habits I’ve accumulated the past few years. Good Lord, when you google anything with weight loss and 75 you are bombarded by the #75Hard and #75HardChallenge (over 1 million posts with these hashtags on Instagram). Who is the sadistic monster who started this? Don’t get me wrong, bravo to all the badasses who completed this, I will not be one of them.
Here’s the premise
Strictly follow this for 75 days. If you miss anything on any part, you must start over.
Pick a diet and follow it (keto, vegan, whatever is the latest fad diet)
Do two 60 minute workouts per day, one outside. (Obviously, you don’t do this in Wyoming in the winter)
Drink a gallon of water a day (this would not help with the sleep thing)
Read 10 pages daily — Yes, that one I’ve got!
No alcohol — Yes, I figured this was going to be a rule.
And maybe something else, but you lost me at 75 days straight…
Oh yeah, the worst. Take a picture of yourself every day and post it. First off, I’m not Daryl Hannah’s twin sister from the 80s anymore. I do not want to see myself in a post each day nor does anyone else. I will take a picture now and one in 75 days for my eyes only.
As I noted earlier, BRAVO to the people who complete this challenge. You rock. But let’s be realistic and empathetic for a second….most people are not you. Even me, driven, focused, motivated…I have no desire to do this. Could someone grab me a Chardonnay?
The challenge with anything like this and diets and crazy workout schedules unless you’re training for the Olympics rarely lasts long term because the bar is so high that when you achieve it that’s it. It’s not a lifestyle one can easily maintain. We all have life. Shit happens and sometimes you can’t get in a workout. Sometimes you do not have access to great food. Sometimes family is sick, work is overwhelming and all-consuming for a minute. You make concessions but you do not derail the 30, 45, or even 7 days you have into the plan. You earned those days. After two or three stops and starts, I would be converting to bottles instead of glasses of Chardonnay.
But like everything, take the good, leave the bad and make it you. The premise is good. Sometimes we need a firm kick in the ass to create lifelong change. So, I am embracing the #75Hard with a twist, #75MyWay, based on my desire to get healthier, stop having so many anxiety attacks, sleep and extinguish the intermittent Dixie Fire flaming within me every hour!
#75MyWay
- No alcohol….this needed to be done anyway. Sometimes we all need a dry October, or November or December or sometimes forever. Whatever is best for you.
- Eating healthy. I eat healthy anyway. I never eat processed food, or fast food and I eat very little meat. I just eat too much. The American portion sizes nailed me after coming back from Rwanda.
- Drink eight 8 ounce glasses of water and earlier in the day the better so again, I can work on that sleeping thing!
- 10,000 steps a day and anything else, ride, yoga, split wood, dig up the lawn to put in grates for our grass before the ground melts. This is doable as this is what I already do so maybe just step up the intensity.
- Take a picture…maybe, getting on the scale was enough intensity for one day.
- Read 10 pages…on my nightstand now is a book about Rwanda, Expensive Poverty, and Halfway Home about the effects of incarceration. Reading is not an issue but this is actually my favorite piece of the #75Hard. We all need to read more so we can have more intelligent conversations!
The last item I’m adding to the list is to write every day for 75 days. You might get a short diddy about life on the ranch, observations about #75MyWay as the days go by, or my ever weird observations about life. I haven’t written consistently in years. I kept a blog for 8 years in Rwanda and then I moved home, and the funk set in. I’m dragging my now fat, slightly buzzed, sleep-deprived, ass out and the best way I know how to do that is to write. Some of you have been kind to ask if I’m going to write about my experience reconnecting with Bona last month. Yes, I will. I need to write the easy things first, or just write anything first and then I know the big stories will come and be told.
Welcome to Day 1 of the #75MyWay journey….I’m really hungry!
