#75Hard: The First Two Weeks

I have made it through the first two weeks of #75Hard. If you are not sure what I am talking about check out this post about my 75Hard journey.

Let’s look at all the mandates of the challenge and see how each one is going rather than me babbling on with no where to go. I will do that later in the post.

Just to add a little side note about this post. By the time I actually completed

Workouts:

As mentioned in the previous post, everyday there needs to be 2 workouts, one outside, spaced 3 hours apart and one must be done outside. With this current heat wave, trust me when I say the outdoors have been a struggle. Heart condition, swelling, all that fun stuff really likes to come out and play in the humid heat. Anyway, that is neither here nor there. It’s been rough, but going out at night has definitely helped.

This part of the challenge has not been terribly difficult, other than the aforementioned heat issues. I was already basically doing two a days and one was usually outside. I tweaked the timing and voila, it worked out. Not including my teaching or training other individuals in my workouts is perfect. I decided rather than try to do the 3 hour spacing from my teaching or leading classes, I would time it to be three hours from my first workout. Which logically makes sense but part of me thought maybe I was cheating the experience of 75 Hard by doing so, but there is literally not enough hours in the day to make that happen.

On days where I am not weight training, because those muscles still need a rest day, my friends, challenge or no, I did an hour of yoga for one and I did about 45 minutes of heavy bag training. Yesterday I double walked and did an ab class for 30 minutes.

The ab workout has been a bit of an issue for me somehow. I keep forgetting to add it in and end up doing ten minutes of abs work before bed. At least I am getting it in, but I would like it to flow more naturally. By the end of my lifting sessions, I am exhausted and forget. Going to have to push the abs a little more. Only because I like doing abs. I have several compound movements that work my abs anyway, so there is not a “need” for me to focus on my abs training, but I do find that it helps my back and strengthens my control when doing my martial arts training.

Diet:

I have not cheated, there has been no alcohol, no chocolate (other than protein powder), no pastries, cakes or cookies, etc. Granted I was following this before, but still let’s enjoy the moment of success. I have kept my calories under 1650, actually closer to 1500. I did start to split my meals up. I am now doing 5 meals every day to avoid some stomach/digesting issues I have been dealing with. (Not related to this challenge, but the challenge made it clearer.)

Water:

4 Liters every day, at least for the last ten days. What have I noticed? I pee a lot. Like a lot a lot. I have had to pause my walks to take care of things. I thought I had the timing down but looks like no!

I find myself chugging down one litre of water at a time. I am pretty sure this kind of goes against the idea behind the water, like it should be drank consistently throughout the day. This is working for me and I am keeping it going.

Reading:

I actually forgot how much I enjoy reading before bed. I struggled with focusing solely on the reading. I “need” background noise. My heart ticking is very annoying to listen to. I don’t think I have discussed my mechanical valve here yet, we will. Anyway, constant ticking noise in my head. I made an effort and have successfully read without adding in background noise, like a podcast or music. Ten pages is a great number, a few days I read more. It’s been wonderful. I managed to complete my first book and am now looking for a second one. I am sure there are a few on my shelf however I am thinking I will check out my local bookstore to see what they may have.

Daily Progress Picture

I have taken an image every day. Usually at the gym, a few times I completely forgot and had to do it from home (very bad lighting and not a large mirror). I don’t think I will be posting these until the end of the challenge. I think it will be far more dramatic in a before and after style of progress picture. I may change my mind, we’ll see.


Some Thoughts So Far

I managed to gain weight the first week. How? Who the f*ck knows? I am thinking it was the increased water intake combined with humidity. It was actually a significant number like over 2 kg over the course of a day. It has since evaporated or whatever, and weight loss has since continued. I cannot possibly explain to you have frustrating that was. Rationally, I understand fluctuations are normal and increased water intake, humidity, and cardiac patient usually equals weight gain from water retention. But when the scale goes up, all attempts at rational thought tend to fly out the window. I even had moments of “should I decrease my calories even more?” I did not because that would be a first class ticket to coocoo town. I don’t like visiting there.

Speaking of calories, I am actually thinking mine are too low. But because of that weight gain, I cannot tell what the trend is. So I am going to continue watching. Ideally, I want to only be dropping body fat and not start eating into my muscle mass. I have far less room to play with lower calories than I did when I started this journey. In looking at my calculated TDEE, (not completely accurate, by the way, you have to do your own experimenting to really get proper insight) I should be consuming something like 750 calories more than I am currently eating. Since TDEE calculators are not super accurate I am not going to change just yet. I will be watching the scale to see, I would like to avoid losing more than 1 kg a week.

So let’s take a moment to get a little personal… The constipation is a real issue. I don’t understand it. I am drinking tons of water, getting lots of fibre and still things are not on track. They are stuck in the track. I am at a loss in what to do here. I have changed my eating so that I am eating more frequently.

I have not been doing any IG story check-ins, cause I am a bad person. This week I will start. I don’t really want to load up my feed with just 75Hard stuff, and this seems like a great opportunity to learn how to use stories. Yes, I am an old lady. I don’t know how social media works.


Summaries from the Last Two Weeks

I know these are not too exciting at the moment, working on my excitement skills as we speak.

See you in the next one.

Nic