I SUCCEEDED

a 75 Soft success story

Once upon a time, I heard about 75 Hard. I scoffed and scorned and tried to dissuade others from doing it and was completely off-board. Then I heard about 75 Soft, and over several months, moved from slightly interested into passionately on-board! I gathered a telegram group of support, and started the challenge on January 8. Had I not skipped/failed any days, I would have been done on March 24! But I ended up not being able to count 15 days scattered throughout my 75. (The Soft challenge allows mistakes without making you start back over at Day 1.)

So! Did 75 Soft transform my life?! Extremist that I am, I expected it to. Towards the end of the challenge, I went through a low; feeling like I was still the same stodgy person I always had been; not the self-disciplined gazelle I predicted to morph into during my 75 days of diligence! But when I stepped back and looked over my life realistically, I realized that I had indeed transformed! Instead of being a person who ate cake for breakfast, pudding at half-past snack-o’clock, and ice cream after supper, I became a girl who intentionally ingested only one dessert per day. (Some of you know that I still struggle a bit with portion size boundaries, but you gotta start somewhere!) The Sugary Mountain of All the Desserts I Didn’t Eat looms like a large trophy in my mind. I’m not planning to stick so rigidly to all the challenge goals going forward, but eating one (or none) sweet per day is the healthy lifestyle change I’m striving for. I didn’t loose any weight overall. This challenge isn’t proposed to be a weight-loss plan though. Its main objective is to create healthy habits and patterns of positive self-discipline.

Did doing 75 Soft transform my health?! Yes and No! Drinking 3 liters of water per day never felt right for me. I did not “get used to it” like people said I would. Adding electrolytes made it more doable, but I never loved the waterlogged feeling. (Neither did I love having to get up during the night to pee, which I never had to do before this challenge.) That being said, I do think more water was good for my skin and joints. More water meant less Diet Coke which was good for my gut. Coming out of this, I plan to drink more than I used to, but less than 3 L. Exercising for 45 minutes per day was super favorable for me! My legs feel leaner and stronger and a certain part of my anatomy is less soft. I pedaled so many hours on my little indoor pedaler that I burnt out its inner bearing! I also started back on the C25K program during my 75 days and am now able to run a 5k again without feeling like I’m dying!

Did 75 Soft give me self-discipline? Yes(ish.) Knowing that I could simply skip a day if I was feeling lazy or missed one aspect or was mistakenly given a Wendy’s frosty that I hadn’t ordered, made this challenge much less of a life-changing experience than 75 Hard would have been. Nevertheless, I learned the hard way that it’s much better to plan ahead and knock out the goals earlier in the day to avoid standing over the kitchen sink at bedtime scarfing down a salted tomato before scrambling to pedal the rest of my minutes while simultaneously slurping herbal tea and reading 10 pages. Like my teacher Mrs. Peaster would have said, “75 Soft was good for my constitution!”

Do I recommend 75 Soft? ABSOLUTELY! Eating better, exercising more, and reading a real book is always a good thing! To end this saga, I must say that I plan to lace up my running shoes, walk along with my water bottle with a figurative fruit in one hand and a vegetable in the other to read my book for awhile on the fallen log by the side of the road before running home to eat my one sweet and live the rest of my days happily and healthfully ever after.

photo credit Pinterest