I traveled to Europe twice this year for work and think I have it mostly sorted. The first time I was in the middle of a 75 hard challenge so in addition to a bunch of other things, I had to work out twice a day for 45 minutes, one of them being outside.
Here’s how I do it:
Friday/Saturday I stay up til 10/11 and get up around 4/5. Sunday I get up at like 3 so I’m super tired. The first trip I did a 5 mile run at 3:15 am then a 1 hour weight lift session at 8 am so I’d be extra tired. I book a 4:30 pm flight so when I arrive in EU, it’s around 7 am. Since I’m super tired, I take a few sleeping pills (within reason lol) right before I board my flight. I then sleep for 6-7 hours on the plane and arrive around 7 am. Wake up, go straight to work and settle into the new time schedule. It’s worked flawlessly both times.
On the way back I do the opposite. Fly out around 11 am in EU, stay awake the whole flight, land around 3 pm, fight it and stay awake til around 8 pm, and fall right back into the new routine!
Nice work!!!
One of my cousin's is doing a "75 hard" right now looked interesting...not sure I'm ready for that yet!!
How did you like it?
Oh that’s a good question. I was already pretty disciplined so some parts were really easy for me compared to some other people, while other parts were hard:
1. Two 45 minute workouts per day - I was already working out 8-9x per week, so adding in a few more wasn’t too bad. Particularly because a brisk 45 minute outdoor walk could be used. My wife and I did several of those a week and it was nice (we did some before, and do even more now). We also ride our bikes a lot as well. I was running a ton, so some of my “45 minute workouts” were actually 10-12 mile runs that took significantly longer.
2. Drinking 1 gallon of pure water per day was hard and excessive. It has to be 100% water. So considering I also drink 2 protein shakes/day, a pre workout shake, and usually a cup of coffee, this was just too much fluid. Whatever, is what it is.
3. Not drinking alcohol - this was pretty hard. It was blistering hot here so we were inside quite a bit in the evenings, and often a bit bored. I was drinking more than I should have been. I wasn’t an alcoholic, but having a couple drinks most nights was just too much, particularly when they were 8% beers, old fashions, or margaritas. We started the challenge April 17th, and I actually haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since! Will be 8 months in a few days. I’m not saying I’ll quit forever, but undecided how I’d reintroduce it, and want firm boundaries I can set and stick to one time (i.e. only drinking on vacation, never more than 2 drinks/day, or similar). I had a pretty bad injury last year, and alcohol was involved (torn hamstring). Fitness is my life, and that should have been more of an eye opener than it was.
4. Sticking to a diet - pretty easy. I’ve gone through countless strict diets in my life. Not really “diets” per se, but structured ways of healthy eating. I didn’t intend to lose more than maybe 3-4 lbs, so basically we just cut out all “junk” food, sweets, fried food, etc. We could still go out to eat as long as it was healthy.
5. Reading 10 pages a day - This was pretty hard sometimes, just because of how busy I sometimes was. Doing this whole challenge while I was in Europe was insanely hard. It was towards the beginning so the diet and alcohol part were hard. Working 11 hour days and having to work out before & after work, plus reading, was hard.
6. Taking a daily progress picture - I would joke that I would probably have the least change of anyone that ever did the competition since I was eating healthy before and exercising so much. I was pleasantly surprised in the differences from Day 1- 75. I probably went from like 7-8% BF down to like 4%-5%. When you are down at that range, a few percent makes a pretty solid difference. My biggest concern of failing the challenge was forgetting to take the pic!
Every day we’d create a note in our phones, with a checklist, and make sure we completed everything before the end of the day. That helps us immensely. My concern wasn’t failing due to discipline, but failing due to forgetting to do something.
The challenge as a whole is cool. Once New Years hits, my wife and I intend to do it again, at least the working out (we’ll alow both to be indoors) and diet portion. We’ll modify a few other things because we have no real desire to feel like “hey we completed 75 hard!” Been there, so things like drinking the gallon of water and taking the daily pic are really overkill. I’m 6 weeks out from my hip surgery and absolutely killing it fitness-wise, so I’ll be really ready to turn things up a notch after the new year. I’ve always loved just running and biking, but haven’t done too many races. This year/next year I hope to really turn the races up a notch between gravel bike races, MTB races, and hopefully an ultra.