My 75Hard Journey
I completed 75Hard (primer š), and these are the results:
- I read 11 books in 10.5 weeks and reinvigorated a passion for all things information protection and contemporary technology
- I became an advocate of getting up very early: 4 am-5 am kinda early
- I lost 41 lbs and 15% body fat.
- I now fully appreciate the differences between discipline and motivation.
This blog is more than flexing the weight loss; there are easier ways to shed some timber, IMHO. I write this to show people that focus, determination and discipline trump fleeting motivation and grandiose aspirations. Essentiallyā¦
Hard work beats talent when talent fails to show up.
As I progressed through the challenge, I received plenty of positivity across social media. Being told that your dedication to a goal has inspired others to make profound changes in their lives feels kinda good. I wanted to write about the things that went well, the tips I adopted and the challenges I experienced. Thatās all included below. Enjoy!
Strawberry-blonde pop royalty Ronan Keating once said life is a rollercoaster, you just gotta ride it
. A rather apathetic, laissez-fare assertion inferring thereās little we can do about our direction on this planet. We board our figurative fairground ride and see what happens. Chips are dealt, run with it.
As I type this, Iām not sure that a) Ronan even wrote said song, nor b) did he pour much existential evaluation into the meaning behind the ditty or the parallels a 41-year-old CSO would draw 20 years later, but my point ā yes I have one ā is that life is what you make of it, and difficult things generally bring the greatest reward. 75Hard certainly falls into the categories of difficult
and rewarding
!
Why 75 Hard?
Professionally, I am very much in the camp of failing to plan is planning to fail
ā meticulously (read āannoyinglyā, āobsessivelyā) organised and recently described as a metronome of reliability
by a colleague I hold in high regard. Surely, therefore, those principles apply in all facets of life? Wrong.
Itās all too easy to reinforce thought patterns and habits negatively. I had every excuse going. Do any of these sound familiar? š
- I have a budget report to present
- ..or an audit committee to prepare for
- This vuln might affect us, I need to research things
- I have three kids, they need shit doing
- I am an executive security person ā people donāt understand how hard it is for us to find time for exercise
- Iām injured
- I have the school run to do
- Itās 8pm and Iāve been hard at it all day. I deserve some downtime
The above are all excuses. They are pretty weak ones too. In reality ā I didnāt want to change. I didnāt want to prioritise my personal health and happiness over more nebulous, societally-accepted definitions of success.
For me, 75Hard was a reset. An opportunity to prioritise me ā physically and mentally. Everyone thinks 75Hard is about losing as much weight as possible. Bollocks. Itās a mindset shift focused on personal discipline and separating the immediate from the long-term. The tactical from the strategic. You must separate motivation from discipline because motivation is finite and sporadic. Iām motivated to run outside if Iāve watched Rocky that afternoon. Iām motivated to jump on the WattBike after seeing a Chris Hoy Olympic montage, but motivation isnāt going to get you through two workouts a day for the best part of three months ā discipline is. Discipline became my friend. Iād decided that this challenge was important to me, more important than the immediate gratification or dopamine hit from junk food or wasting an hour on the sofa watching banal TV.
Embarking on 11 weeks of rigorous training and personal development should be something you go into knowing itās going to be tough. Unequivocally, youāre going to have days when you donāt want to get up early, you donāt want to run 10km, you donāt want to eat chicken and cauliflower rice (again), but you do it because you want to complete your challenge. Thatās discipline, and I passionately believe that discipline can be developed and retained!
To make these sacrifices, you need a why
. Everyone knows, rationally, that exercise and strict diets mean youāll feel better, but people enjoy the pub, pizza and lounging around on the sofa with the dog. If youāre going to do this, you need to appreciate that the juice is worth the squeeze.
Watching Tik-Tok videos on 75Hard and deciding to do 75Hard is probably a model destined to fail. Your why
needs to become your raison dāetre for the duration of the challenge. Going into Christmas overweight wasnāt somewhere I wanted to be. A lot of my why was to so my kids that the best results are congruent with the effort applied. 11 weeks of basically adopting the training programme and nutrition of a professional athlete.
What is 75Hard?
Let me start with what 75Hard isnāt: For everyone. Iāve read a tonne of rhetoric online saying itās unsustainable, too difficult, can cause injury, etc. Moderation works for some: eat less, train more frequently. Broder, more nebulous guardrails that work for a lot of people. I needed something more difficult and prescriptive.
75Hard requires (per day):
- 45 mins x 2 of training (one session must be outside)
- Drinking a gallon of water
- Read 10 pages of a non-fiction book
- Not drinking alcohol
- No cheat meals/sticking to a diet
- Taking a progress photo
How I tackled each of these Requirementsš
75Hard allows the participant a tonne of flexibility in how they want to diet, exercise and read. The following worked for me, but Iām someone with a history of playing sports, getting up early and being rather competitive.
Train (45 mins) Twice a Day
From my limited research (read ānoneā), training twice daily puts many people off 75Hard. I feel unnecessarily in a lot of cases. Training, in a 75hard context is about movement. Getting off the sofa and getting active for 1.5 hours (cumulative) per day. Thatās it.
Iāll say something controversial here because itās fundamental to absolutely everything Iāve learned on this challenge:
Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day ā me
Earth-shattering, right? I was the worse proponent of lazy, pompous excuses for not training. Iād convinced myself I didnāt have time. What I meant is that fitness wasnāt important enough to do instead of other things perceived as necessary and important: emails, returning a phone call, attending meetings. In reality, a healthy body is the foundation for mental wellness and professional success. Thatās something I remind myself of now when I look at a jam-packed diary and wonder when Iām going to train. I remember that Iāll be a better Chief Security Officer, husband and dad if I find time to exercise everyday.
Also, training twice daily doesnāt need to be two ring sessions with Oleksandr Usyk. I found that a long dog walk and an intense run/cycle made the challenge doable.
A lot of my training, the walks mainly, was done at night, in the freezing cold. I reached a point where I almost enjoyed the discipline. Wrapping up warm and hitting the streets ā often with the dog ā served as strange punctuation on the day. I also discovered a love for tech books delivered through audiobooks. Whoād have thought that Microservices Security in Action would be digestable in audio form?
By getting up early every day, I was able to read but also to get shit done. The stuff you procrastinate with and generally waste time on throughout the dayā Admin, family paperwork, online shoppingā¦whatever. I front-loaded the day, allowing me time in the evenings to train.
Drink a Gallon of Water per Day
This was much more difficult than I expected. Not physically drinking the fluids but, well, you knowā¦natureās consequence of doing so. It became difficult to go anywhere too far away from a bathroom. I recommend drinking as much as you can as early as possible in the day.
I also advocate buying a receptacle capable of holding a gallon of water. Frequently refilling a bottle isnāt fun and is certainly inconvenient. I jumped online and bought a bottle like this š½
Read 10 pages of a non-fiction book
I love reading and writing. What 75Hard gave me was a reason to prioritise sitting down with a coffee and going back over the never-ending Kindle āread laterā library. I loved this part of the challenge, and I donāt plan on changing the format anytime soon.
Itās also the reading (primarily) that got me into the 4am club. Iām a proponent of the Daniel Pink Larks & Owls model of human behaviour and view myself as a lark. Iām underplaying Pinkās academic studies here, but suffice it to say that I perform analytical tasks and make better decisions in the mornings. Why, then, am I wasting hours lying in bed when I could be smashing the reading list?
So, at between 4am and 5am, Iād get up and quietly stagger to my office and read. I made the task infinitely easier by buying a coffee machine that ensured a fresh pot was brewed upon arrival. Probably a decent time to provide another Hodson tip
Do as many things as you can afford that will make the challenge more convenient
Have food prepared (more on that in a mo), snacks, etc. Anything that mitigates the āI cannot be botheredā mindset that plagues so many people.
I am a big tech reader. Iāve never lost my thirst for professional knowledge so the reading I focused on was exclusively cybersecurity and cloud-natve architecture. Other people select personal development, marketing, health & fitness topics. So long as itās non-fiction, you're good.
My list ā¬ļø
Google Cloud Platform for Architects: Design and manage powerful cloud solutions ā Iām going to be working a lot more closely with GCP next year (more on that in another blog š)
The Art of Software Security Testing: Identifying Software Security Flaws
Practical Cloud Security: A Guide for Secure Design and Deployment
Agile Application Security: Enabling Security in a Continuous Delivery Pipeline
Web Application Security: Exploitation and Countermeasures for Modern Web Applications
Container Security: Fundamental Technology Concepts that Protect Containerized Applications
Hands-On Security in DevOps: Ensure continuous security, deployment, and delivery with DevSecOps
CISO Desk Reference Guide Volume 2: A Practical Guide for CISOs
Sticking to a Diet
75Hard doesnāt prescribe a diet. The idea is that you create a plan and stick to it. I went with:
- No more than 1,800 net calories per day
- 158g of protein (minimum) per day
- Thatās it.
The beauty of ānet caloriesā is that they incentivise training. The more I trained ā well, the harder I trained ā the more I could eat. Getting 158g of protein isnāt the easiest, not when trying to keep the calories off. I found that extra lean mince and chicken meatballs became staples. I ensured I had a weekly shop hit the front door every Friday. Not shilling here, but I used Muscle Food. Not the cheapest, but certainly reliable with a decent selection of high protein options.
No alcohol or cheat meals
This one was simply non-negotiable. No booze. You're the driver if youāre going to a party or work event. Same with those weekend pizzas or sweets ā not happening. Itās 75 days, not 75 years. Discipline is key with this one.
Taking a progress photo
Iād read that many people had failed the challenge simply forgetting to take a photo. In some cases late into the challenge. I made weighing myself and taking a progress photo part of my early morning routine.
Whatās next
Iām still training every day but I am having a couple of weeks at a slower pace while we down tools for the festive period. January to mid Feb will see a return to twice daily training and calorie counting.