My Program, My Plan

Why did I make it a point to make a post signifying day 75?

I admittedly got a spark watching so many 75 Hard participants on their journey through that program. Read quite a bit about the program itself, its founder Andy Frisella and his philosophies about fitness and life.

My assessment is that it is a solid concept, but leaves a lot up to the participant to determine. And while there is nothing inherently wrong with that, it seems as though the folks who got into the weeds at some point throughout the challenge struggled most often with loose daily routines and a lack of specificity.

Being able to dictate which diet and workout regimen you follow allows people of all fitness levels, dietary restrictions, belief systems, etc. to go with what works best for them. That's great - no problems there. But it is a double-edged sword, in the sense that the BYOB diet and workout approach inadvertently introduces a mindset that whatever you are doing will suffice, so long as the basic criteria are met.

It clearly has worked for thousands of people, and their testimonials were and continue to be inspiring. But ultimately, the deeper that I dug into Andy's podcast, the less I liked his opinions and the less I agreed with his philosophies. He seems like a very successful businessman, but he's not exactly not my cup of tea.

And besides - anything that resembles a cult usually turns me off, and I'll just leave that where it is.

So I still picked up reading nonfiction books on the regular again. Do at least 2 workouts, with one of them being outside. Follow a diet. Drink at least a gallon of water every single day. Don't miss on my diet and workouts, ever. 

I don't take daily progress pics, because that feels performative vs. practical. I do weigh daily, which has helped me better track how specific eating practices and activities affect my fat loss effort.

What I'm doing for my own life improvement movement absolutely has some parallels with Mr. Frisella's brainchild, and I give credit where credit is due for it providing data points for me to analyze and be inspired by. But 75 days - while a fine way to help someone kickstart healthy habit changes - feels like I've barely gotten underway, even taking into account that I'm down around 40 pounds total since starting this.