It's over, it's over, it's over!
My 75Hard experience is over and I want to go deep into it with you, because to be honest, it's confirmed everything I talk about when it comes to running a good firm. Really I took the same principles I share here and applied it to my health and whoa did it work.
In 75 days I...
And otherwise went from a FitBit health score (wtf is that?I don't really know) of poor-fair and brought it up to average-good!
Why now?
On the one hand, I thought I had diabetes (I don't) but I was having tingling in my arms and legs. Turns out it was a B12 issue, and when I tell you that EVERYONE should get a B12 shot, I mean it. I felt like Captain America for about 3 days afterwards AND the tingling went away.
On the other hand, I finally ran out of excuses. My business(es) are successful and don't need me 60 hours a week - shit they probably don't need me 25 hours a week.
My kid is in school and a great kid and other than him REFUSING to go to sleep on time, is a blast to hang out with.
I'm not on the road for over a year, driving 10-15 hours a week and eating whatever I can microwave in a hotel room.
The list goes on, but at the end of the day...99% of the time, a reason you can't to do something you KNOW you should do is just you rationalizing an excuse. At least it was for me for 5-7 years.
What is 75 Hard?
It's a crazy program designed by Andy Frisella that is REALLY about self discipline and willpower more than actually about weight loss.
You need to do the following - EVERY DAY for 75 days (or you have to start over)
1) 2 - 45 minute workouts (1 must be outside)
2) Follow a diet that requires no cheat meals or alcohol
3) Drink a gallon of water
4) Read 10 pages of non-fiction
5) Take a progress photo
I wish I had taken side photos, but at least I can SHOW you this change
Why 75Hard?
Because everyone else was doing it. Seriously, someone I know started the SAME day as me without us ever speaking about it. A bunch of lawyers have done it.
Because it sounds cool. I didn't JUST lose some weight, I did 75HARD!!!!
Because I needed the shock to my system after being 60 pounds overweight for many years, I needed to go big or go home.
Because I figured it was so freaking nuts that EVEN if I failed after 10-15 days I would be THAT much better off.
Because I have the BEST wife and law firm team that agreed to support me (they did 75 medium or at least committed to some better eating habits)
How does 75Hard = Law Firm Growth
I'm glad you asked!
Step 1 should ALWAYS be to have a plan. Whether that's a goal, a vision, whatever you call it, you NEED a plan.
You don't get in the car not knowing where you are trying to drive to, because then you have no idea if you're closer or not.
So 75Hard became my plan.
Then I need to outline HOW to do it. This is where I talk about moving your goals down into habits. And this laid out some CLEAR ones because it was things I had to do EVERY DAY.
1) 2 - 45 minute workouts (1 must be outside)
I live in Florida. It is USUALLY hot. Like the surface of Alderraan after the Death Star hot. So if I needed to be outside for 45 minutes, that meant doing it in the morning. This was also what I THOUGHT would be the hardest part (more on that later).
There were a few days where it was raining in the morning, I worked out inside most of those times.
There were a few days where it was 50 degrees in the morning, again MOST of those days I stayed inside in the morning. But I did 1 workout before 9am almost every day.
One day I stupidly booked myself at the dentist at 8am, so I sucked it up and got up at 5:30 to make sure I got one workout in first.
If I walked, I tried to break 3 miles in 45 minutes. If I ran I had a few different routes that would get me 3-4 miles.
If I didn't want to walk/run I played disc golf (usually that would be long enough to be 2 workouts), some days I did Taekwondo with my son, or a few days I just went to a theme park (ORLANDO!!!!) and walked around for 45 minutes or more non-stop.
On days I lifted weights (3 times per week) I would do a warm up, lift and do a cool down to get to 45 minutes.
Most of the time I would either be walking with my family, or listening to an audiobook.
2) Follow a diet that requires no cheat meals or alcohol
Maybe I SHOULD have realized this was going to be the harder one. And honestly, it wasn't hard on the day to day, it was the culmination of going 75 days without:
Here is where my next major lesson comes in - think about what will work best for YOU.
I have done a LOT of diets in my lifetime. The one that worked the best for me was always the Slow Carb Diet from Tim Ferris' 4 hour body. The problem with that one was that it would give me monster headaches all the time.
So another few times I tried Weight Watchers and then my problem was I would hack the variety. If 2 Oreos were 3 points, but 3 were 5 points, it was "better" to eat 2 on more days than 3 on 1 day...and so after a while my weight loss would stop because I would figure out how to eat dessert every day and work in 8 chicken wings instead of 12, or whatever it was. And I didn't want to point stuff out while I was still doing networking lunches…
I needed something where I could eat fewer THINGS, but more of them.
So I rotated 2 breakfasts (a bagel thing with cheese cream and salmon) or a Kodiak Cake Pancake - I can tell you both of these things were 5 points on weight watchers though.
Then I figured if I ate MORE frequently it would be easier to eat less/make better choices. So I ate 2 snacks a day (when I remembered). Those would either be a piece of fruit, a low fat cheese stick, a 100 calorie almond pack, or protein powder if I lifted.
So that left lunch and dinner - here I went with 1 carb max and to make it easier, I allowed myself a Publix Sub (if you live in an are that doesn't have Pub Subs I am sorry for you). So then I took the carbs in half a sub and had that as my Slow Carb/Adkins buffer.
So if I didn't do a sub or sandwich I could do that amount of carbs somewhere else.
The other meal was 100% veggies and meat. And I would have a salad every night about 10 minutes before dinner.
Nothing could have added cheese, nothing could be fried, meats were pretty lean.
If the cravings REALLY came, I had sugar free popsicles for dessert.
And I did this every day for 75 days.
3) Drink a gallon of water
Lesson 3 - make things stupid simple
I have a 32 ounce cup and a 64 ounce cup. I would fill both up in the morning first thing and then I needed to drink all of them and another 32 oz. This was WAY easier for me (and easier to remember) than 16 servings of 8 oz or whatever it would be otherwise. Both had a top and I could take them anywhere.
In retrospect, most wait staff didn't find it weird when I brought my own jug (and sometimes they were nice enough to fill it ALL the way up during a meal).
Jim Hacking gave me the best advice - drink the water EARLY. So if I wasn't 75% of the way done by lunch, I would rush to get to that. 50% before and 50% after lunch caused me to get up a bunch during the night.
4) Read 10 pages of non-fiction
This wasn't a problem for me. I've read 100 books in the last 15 months. I would suggest reading early. So I am usually the first one up, if I didn't eat and go straight for a walk, I would eat and then read.
I also set a reminder on my phone for 8pm every night to check that I was done with everything (most of the time I was...sometimes it sucked and I wasn't...walking in the dark while chugging 32 oz of water wasn't fun, but I had enough of a streak going to get me through it).
5) Take a progress photo
For this one I had Alexa remind me during my morning routine to take progress photos and keep me on track. This has a lot to do with using automations to keep you and your law firm on track for continuous growth.
I write about this a TON here, Automation and what to automate, so I will not hammer this point too much again.
What Else?
The final lesson comes from my favorite quote of all time
Aristotle once said, "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." Okay so it was Mike Tyson...it's still great.
So where did I get punched in the mouth?
Sitting still for more than 1 hour - this was TOUGH with all the water. So I started setting buffer time in my meetings so I had 5-10 minutes an hour to handle that and get back to focusing. Also, I've found that most people understand if you need to take a break, which if very kind.
The food - sometimes this was a GRIND. But a pub sub helped, also Walmart sells this roasted chicken that I liked enough to buy about 10 times during the 75 days. Add a little hot sauce/teriyaki/bbq/etc and it's great and ready and there.
Sometimes just having food already prepped and ready to go made it that much easier. The less I had to look into the abyss of my fridge thinking "what do I have to eat?" and the more it was "I have 3 different meals ready to go that are diet appropriate which one hits the spot?" the easier it was.
The workouts - a good book or a GREAT family made these a LOT easier.
And again...even if I messed up on day 5 or 25 or 74...I knew I would be THAT much better.
Where do I go from Here?
From a health standpoint, my plan is to keep the same diet 80% of the time (so basically one cheat day and one cheat meal a week). For exercise I plan to do 6 cardio workouts a week, plus lifting 3 times and discgolf at least once. And I'll keep carrying my 64 oz water cup and seeing how that goes.
But from a business standpoint, 75 days are HARD effort can get you amazingly far. So whether it's Traction's Rocks a Quarter, or the 12 Week Year, or how I set up my 4DX weekly promises I am going to start setting them higher and forcing myself to be open to doing more.
There's no BHAG too audacious when you have the right people pulling for it. I hope you'll believe me on that and I doubly hope you have the right team to accomplish it.
Just wait until you see what we have coming over the next 75 days! If you need help with your business or if you need support on your weight loss journey - PLEASE reach out. Seriously, reply to this email, I read them all and I WILL get back to you.
Until then, may you not piss off John Wick - seriously people are STILL dumb enough to do this. Next week I am going to go deep on the battle between Sales AND Marketing...dah dah daaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Until Next Friday
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Okay, so this all sounds good, but you’re wondering how to start making these changes. The first important step was visiting this web page, so congrats! You’re already on the right track. The next crucial step is booking a consulting appointment with me so we can come up with a plan and replicate the results of so many others before you.
You can book an appointment here. See you soon!
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