I can not believe it! Seriously, I am in shock! What is so shocking is the fact that I have actually successfully completed two weeks of the 75 hard challenge! I know, you would have thought that I would have been confident in my ability when I started it, but I have failed so many times that I was a bit skeptical. But I am 2 weeks down and my confidence in myself grows each and every day!
Week two was not without it's own brand of difficulties! It was a week where I was hurting. It was a week where I was quite concerned that my body was not going to allow me to finish. It was a week of perseverance. But, instead of describing my week in a few words, let me just share it!
Day 8
Sunday marked the first day of week two of the 75 Hard challenge, officially Day 8! I started the day off right with heading into the family room and completing a 45 minute indoor workout. For this workout I chose to follow one of the Biggest Loser Workout DVD's that I had in my collection from years ago. I know the controversy over that show, but seriously, the workouts are pretty solid! (Amazon link for the DVD Here.)
It was after this early morning workout that I had my first inkling of a problem. I took a load of laundry to the basement and my knees were hurting (of late this is normal) on the way back up the steps my knee just gave out. This hasn't happened in quite a few years. Luckily I caught myself and when I sat down and rested, the pain subsided. However, I was concerned!
I didn't let my knee derail me though. I counted my calories. I read my book. I did what I needed to do and later that afternoon I headed out with Jason and the dog in tow and we completed a nice long walk!
Day 9
My memory must be rather short because I didn't take my knee into consideration when I chose my indoor workout. In my infinite un-wisdom, I chose a step aerobic workout! In my defense it was listed as 'basic' but when the instructor was introducing it she gave the disclaimer that while it was basic it was FAST. She was right. But I completed it anyway! My legs were toast afterward!
For my outdoor workout I decided to take a nice long walk! I was out over an hour! The sky was a brilliant blue and I actually had to unzip my coat AND my hoodie because the weather wasn't frigid cold! (Although that could be relative considering it was in the single digits less than a week earlier!)
Day 10
This is the day that the pain was real. I knew it as soon as I got out of bed. My calves. My Shins. My oh my, I ached! It was 5AM and I was so tempted to not do that indoor workout at my normal time and instead wait until later in the day. But I did that once in the first week and it was just something I dreaded all day long and that day I did it at the final hour. I didn't want a repeat of that! So I choose a lighter workout. I stayed away from the step aerobic workouts and I also chose something that had fewer squats and lunges. For the outdoor workout I walked the dog and played with the dog in the yard. I luckily didn't feel TERRIBLE, but my legs certainly didn't feel good!
Day 11
My legs were still feeling quite icky, but I didn't let it stop me. While Jason was in the shower at 5AM I was stomping and gyrating around in the family room to get my indoor workout done. For my outdoor workout I worked in the yard. We had a slight ice rink appear. It was about 5 in diameter. Apparently a slight dip in the ground accumulated the melting snow. It would melt during the day and freeze solid at night.....It was treacherous and I didn't want myself or Jason to slip NOR do I want Zoey to get hurt (seriously, no vet bills please!) I vowed to try to take care of the issue. (temporarily at least) So, my outdoor exercise was after the sun warmed it enough to melt it and I went out and bailed the water from that pond. I would fill a 5 gallon of bucket of water (using a shovel or a dust pan one scoop at a time) and then I carted the bucket to the field to dump it.....over and over. I estimate that I bailed about 75-100 gallons of water (I stopped counting/lost count of how many buckets I filled at around 13 or 14). But it worked! The yard is still muddy but I don't have an ice rink anymore! I am calling it an outdoor workout because I was moving the whole time and my heart rate while not super high was elevated. The thing to note about this outdoor workout is that it was SUPER windy!
The first picture shows the ice rink...it doesn't look big but it had more water than I expected. The second picture is when I was done bailing!
I was craving a grilled cheese for lunch on this day. I pulled everything out to make it and luckily stopped myself before I started preparing it. I actually stopped so that I could look at my calories. I was able to fiddle with my calories.....it required me to forego the second piece of cheese on my sandwich, and I had to count my grapes carefully, but I was able to adjust a few things (a few less grapes, a smaller serving at dinner, etc) to work it into my food budget. I was super proud of myself!
This was the day of my official weigh in! I lost 5.5 pounds! It felt good to post a great weigh in! I won't go into details about it because I wrote about it in a previous post. (You can read about it here.)
Day 12
My legs were still feeling it this day, but I could see a bit of improvement. I nailed my morning workout and I had felt so good physically and mentally after being productive outside work from the day before that I decided to again combine my outdoor exercise with some yard work again. Zoey and I took a 15 minute walk and then I decided to clean up some large tree branches that had come down the previous day in the wind storm. They were big enough that when Jason came home and saw them moved he was like "how did you move them yourself". We were super lucky that these branches didn't do damage to the house. They were literally laying against the house in some places! We also had a lot of smaller limbs down in the yard so I went around gathering them.
The interesting thing to note from this outdoor workout was the fact that I had gone out with hair that was still damp from my shower. This alone is not abnormal. I frequently do this, and I just make sure that my hoodie is pulled up over my head and all is well. But with dragging this branches I got hot! So without thinking my hood got pushed off of my head. A bit later I went to push my hair back behind my ears and met with a unique situation. My hair was HARD! Yes hard! It only took me a few seconds of confusion before I realized that my hair had frozen!!!!
I went out to lunch with my in-laws. I tried to choose very carefully and I did not eat the potato chips that came with the meal. I felt good with my choices, however I still wasn't very hungry when it came time for dinner. Dinner was 'breakfast at dinner'. I lowered my food intake drastically...two slices of bacon, one egg and a slice of toast. I was satisfied and proud of my choices!
Day 13
There are two things to note about this day. This was the first day of the week that my legs were not screaming at me! YAY! It was also the day where I made two tactical errors!
I got my indoor workout done early.... 45 minutes of Zumba. I went out with the dog but I didn't stay out long in the morning and therefore my outdoor workout was not completed in the morning. I skedaddled inside to do my job hunt and then headed out to run some errands and do my grocery shopping.
The first tactical error was in that I left too late and I was in the middle of my errands and it was lunch and I was HUNGRY! I did really good. I WANTED high calories/high fat foods. And I even pulled into the parking lot of one restaurant...but I then decided to pick up a 6 inch turkey sub from Subway instead (280 calories). THAT was a victory. It was the drink that was the tactical error. I had originally planned on simply drinking from my water that I was carrying around with me. But when I made the decision to go to Subway I decided to get a drink. I had been to that Subway a few weeks prior and they had Vitamin Water 'on tap'. Delicious and even better is that I WILL count vitamin water toward my water consumption. I was all cocky while walking in thinking that "with the vitamin water I have the water consumption in the bag for today". I ordered the large drink and paid for my order and then went to fill up my cup. Only to find that they no longer had Vitamin Water. I literally stood there for a long second debating. Throw out the cup or go ahead and get a diet soda. I opted for the diet soda. But it was a tactical error because that meant that the rest of my errands I drank NO water from my cup.......and that is how I found myself getting home at 2PM having only about 16 ounces of water under my belt!
I am however proud to say that I was able to get my water done for the day! I kept drinking (WATER) steadily all afternoon and I finished my required water at about 7:30PM! Go me! But yeah, that goes to show me that I CAN drink a lot more water/liquid than I think I am capable of!
The second tactical error? Well, while I was out and about the rain rolled in! Yes, if I would have just done the outdoor exercise while I was with the dog it would have been damp but no rain! But no, in my infinite wisdom I decided to wait until after my errands and ended up having to go out in the rain in the afternoon. For my workout, I chose another outdoor yard activity. I took a hand saw up to the burn pit where I drug those trees (and where we had other stuff that we drug for 'processing' and burning) and I started to cut them down....by hand! Sure I could have taken up power equipment, but a hand saw is more exercise! My heart rate was elevated....so I'm counting it as exercise! I have a lot more wood to cut up and stack so I foresee more days with a hand saw!
Day 14
How has it been 2 weeks already???? I have found that I struggle more with keeping up my exercise on the weekend. Jason is home and our schedule is all over the place with no routine whatsoever. But, that is not a valid excuse! So I was there knocking out my indoor exercise at 7AM (I did wait until Jason was awake so that I didn't interrupt his sleep!) After a good 45 minutes of kickboxing, I cooled down and then headed to the shower. We had some banking to do in the morning and I swung by my brothers house to drop off birthday cards for my niece and nephew who were celebrating. I got to wish my nephew (18) happy birthday in person while I was there but had to text my niece (22) her greeting as she is finishing her last year of college and was not there. (Dang, they make me feel old!) In the afternoon we headed out to Ice Fest.....a yearly event in the town we live in. And I am counting that as my exercise as we didn't want to fight the crowded streets to find parking close to the downtown event and just parked quite a ways away and walked there, and then of course all the walking around at the event!
It was the day of forgetting things. I literally forgot to eat breakfast.....and just had a quick snack for lunch. See what happens when I get busy? I almost forgot to read out of my non-fiction book. I was steadily reading from my current fiction book and luckily remembered before it was too late.
So I had a strong finish to my second week of my 75 hard! Go me! It wasn't an easy week. But lets talk about what I learned and discovered this week!
* I was really hurting at the beginning of the week! The arthritis in my knees was bad and the aches and pains (calves and shins) were the pits. But I kept pushing. I didn't give up. I pushed through the pain and made it work and midway through the week I started to feel better!
*I am capable of drinking a whole lot more than I give myself credit for. I made that tactical error with my water consumption on day 13 but my motivation pushed me and I still managed all of my water on top of that large soda! (Which I drank half of in the store and then refilled and drank the whole thing throughout the rest of the day......a large sized to boot.) I wasn't sloshing or running to the bathroom constantly. It was actually easy!
*Last fall I finally came clean and talked about "the elephant in the room", which was the fact that I was struggling to walk anything over 5K steps without feeling quite a bit of pain for the rest of the day amongst some other issues (you can read about it here). It wasn't until I got home from the ice fest on Saturday, day 14 that I realized that I had walked a lot with absolutely no issue. On a week that started with a bunch of pain, I ended with a high note. I ended with the realization that I had been on my feet walking for hours and my legs didn't feel horrible while I was walking. My back didn't ache so much that I just wanted to lean on something and/or have the need to press my palms into my back. I didn't get home and sit on the couch while my legs throbbed in pain. I felt......absolutely fine after a day with a ton of steps and a ton of movement! After just two short weeks of 75 hard I can see a difference in my stamina!
As I write this I have officially begun week three. I am feeling pretty confident that I can actually do this! It blows my mind that I might actually complete 75 Hard! Two weeks down. It seems like it is going fast! But I know that I still have a long way to go! But I am ready and raring to go. Bring it on!
