Tag Archives: 75Hard

comfort crisis book cover

2025 Reading in Review – First 75 Days

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At the beginning of 2025, I completed the 75 Hard Challenge, which required reading at least 10 pages of a non-fiction book each day. This wasn’t a challenge for me as sometimes I read my 10 pages (really a chapter or two) and then read a book for pleasure. And honestly, I read a fair amount of non-fiction so it was more about being intentional during the 75 days. I read a total of 16 books 7 of which were non-fiction. The books I read included:

  1. HWPO: Hard Work Pays Off: A Strength Training Book by Mat Fraer
  2. A Runner’s High: My Life in Motion by Dean Karnazes
  3. Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger
  4. The Heart is the Strongest Muscle by Tia Toomey
  5. Chasing Excellence: A Story About Building the World’s Fittest Athletes by Ben Bergeron
  6. Resilient: The Untold Story of CrossFit’s Greatest Comeback by Brooke Wells
  7. Adrift: Seventy Six Days Lost at Sea by Steven Callahan
  8. The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter (finished the day after 75 Hard ended)

I also started the year off reading Along Came a Spider. This is the first novel in James Patterson’s Alex Cross series. I don’t know how it took this long to learn about Alex Cross, but my sister recommended the show Cross on Amazon Prime and that got me hooked! I made it through the first 10 books of the soon to be 37 books in the series. They are relatively quick reads and I enjoy them even if they aren’t high literature!

Salvage the Bones is a book you’ve probably not heard of but I’d recommend. The story is set over 2 weeks as a hurricane approaches and the realities of coming of age in a high poverty area of Mississippi. A variety of twists and turns will leave you feeling all the different emotions.

Of the non-fiction books I read during 75 Hard I would highly recommend The Comfort Crisis.

75 Hard – Water

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1 gallon of water a day. That’s not too bad, right? For some reason I thought it was 64 ounces, not 129! When I got to 64 I was surprised at how easy it was. Then I looked at the app I was using and realized I wasn’t even half way yet! Oops!

It takes some focus to get to the gallon and a lot of time in the bathroom!  The main water bottle I used was 25 ounces. So a little more than 5 of them! I usually wake up and drink a 16 ounce glass of water. Then I’d drink another 16 ounces with an Amino mix (not counting towards water intake). I’d usually drink another 20 ounces during my workout. And then a 24 ounce protein shake after (not counting towards my water). So all of that before work meant I went to the bathroom a lot in the morning!!

I tried to at least finish a bottle of water during work and then the second shortly after work.  So that’d be about 86 ounces of the 129. And then just try to finish the rest. Obviously the earlier I finished the better so that I wouldn’t wake up and need to go in the middle of the night.  But that maybe happened a quarter to a third of the time. 

I pretty much eliminated any other liquids from my routine (morning tea, kombucha or sparkling water). Because honestly who had room for any more! The few times we went out I’d have a non-alcoholic drink but I also just drank water out. Those were sometimes hard to estimate a quantity on. So I drank extra just to be safe!  I would sometimes throw some LMNT into the water and counted that towards my gallon.

Besides the constant need to urinate I liked drinking that much water.

75 Hard – Read

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I love reading. Last year I read over 60 books. I always try to read a mixture of genres, authors, etc so I end up reading quite a bit of non-fiction books. So the idea of reading 10 pages daily of non-fiction wasn’t completely outlandish!

Though some days it would’ve been easier not to read. Or it would’ve been more enjoyable to spend my reading time caught up in a fictional world. I was able to get this part done relatively easily.

At the beginning of the challenge I would read my 10 pages and stop. At some point I realized that I could read more than that and actually needed to so that I could keep up with returning the books to the library on time! 

By the end of my 75 days I’ve finished 16 books total and finished my 17th on the 76th day. And 7 of those were non-fiction, finishing the 8th the day after. I’m also about half way through a big 700 page book too.

I’ll follow up with a list of my non-fiction books soon.

75 Hard – Daily Pic

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This was another relatively easy task to complete each day. The tracking app I used helped serve as a reminder in case I forgot. But I tried to take it in the morning before or after my shower. It was nice to mark it off early and be on the way to daily success!

I wrote on one of the first days that I wasn’t a fan of this task and didn’t really see the purpose in it. I’ve seen transformation pics from the 75 hard, but I had no desire to look at the pics daily.

Before writing this, I decided to look at Day 1 and Day 75. You can see some difference in my stomach area. But nothing too dramatic. I also recognize that for me most changes will be incremental since my lifestyle is fairly healthy to begin with.

Alot of challenges have you do a before and after and maybe a weekly. And for some people that’s motivating. Just not my thing!

75 Hard – No Alcohol

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One of the requirements for completing 75 Hard was not drinking any alcohol during the 75 days. For me this wasn’t really a problem. I maybe have a drink or two on the weekends or special occasions.

During January it was really easy as a lot of people celebrate Dry January. It felt a little more challenging after that. But realistically every place serves non-alcoholic drinks, even if it’s just water. Almost every place we went also served some type of non-alcoholic cocktail or beer too.

Sometimes I enjoyed one of those mock-style drinks, but I really stuck to water a lot since I needed to drink a gallon of it and any other liquid was just extra!