If you read my last post, you’ll know that I’ve been thinking about doing the “75HARD” social media challenge for a while, but have been put off by the creator’s sketchy opinions and general persona (that’s basically the gist of the previous post, no need to read it now)
I went on to Instagram earlier this week to look for hairstyle inspiration as I have a hairdressers appointment this afternoon (thinking ultra short pixie but we’ll see what happens later) and the suggested content / search page was wall to wall fitness influencers trying to sell me — a perimenopausal woman — products and packages that would help me manage my hormones and regain lost fitness etc. They were using FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) techniques to achieve their sales: basically making out that perimenopausal women are all training wrong, that we’re working too hard, cortisol spikes are working against us, we should be doing ~gentle~ workouts in zone 2 only, definitely no HIIT and definitely not working out more than a few times a week.
This pissed me off. I’m not a delicate little flower that needs wrapping in cotton wool lest I accidentally work a little too hard. My “belly fat” (why do all the videos talk about belly fat?!) isn’t because I spiked my cortisol when I did a hyrox class last week. My poor sleep isn’t caused by running hill sprints or accidentally training twice on the same day (someone has to walk the dog).
When I woke at 3 (again) this morning I was — irrationally, perhaps — really bloody angry at these types of videos targeting women who are tired, confused, and dealing with massive hormonal changes (and fucking insomnia) that we don’t talk anywhere near enough about.
So I decided fuck it, I’m going to do 75HARD. I’m going to do it prove to myself and shitty FUD fitness influencers that we can do hard things. We can train at our limits and get up and do it again tomorrow and we won’t die. Yes, we’ll be tired for a while. Yes, our bodies will take time to adapt and overcome, but we’re not suddenly going to gain 10lbs fat and destroy ourselves doing it.
My diet is already decent from an “avoiding junk, eat enough protein” point of view, so I’m committing to eating my ‘5 a day’. No booze, lots of water, 2 workouts, 1 progress pic, read 10 pages. Doesn’t sound so hard?
Today is day 1. Let’s go.
I’ve been thinking about doing the 75HARD challenge. If you’re not familiar with 75HARD, it’s a fitness challenge that first did the rounds years ago and has had a bit of a resurgence this year. The rules stipulate that every day, you must: This isn’t a new thing, I’ve considered it several times, and even… read full entry »
I am just over a week out from Newport marathon. It should be the ”finisher”, to round off one of my 40 before forty goals. It’s a compromise on “Run a marathon in every major UK city” (because it turns out many major UK cities don’t have marathons) in which I decided I would run… read full entry »
Alright, simmer down, I know I’m not really a “CEO” because I don’t have a board of directors or a c-suite or anything like that, but “day in the life of an autistic freelance web developer turned LTD company managing director” as a title was just ridiculous. Work with me here guys. I’m writing this… read full entry »
I was umming and ahhing about writing a 2024 review lookback style post. I didn’t want it to end up a rehash of all the shitty bits, which these things inevitably end up being, but at the same time there’s no denying that some of the things that happened in 2024 had Consequences. Fundamentally, the… read full entry »
I recently entered the Shropshire Shufflers’ Severn Bridges 10k in Shrewsbury (after a little bit of a kerfuffle where it wouldn’t accept my affiliated club name) and ran with Gaz to celebrate his birthday. Never expected Gaz to choose a 10k to as a birthday celebration and yet here we are; I like to think… read full entry »
I have to confess that I’ve never been much interested in watching sports. Odd perhaps, for someone who participates and competes in three separate disciplines, but – aside from catching the odd snippet of a big Euros game or highlights of the Olympics shared on social media – watching other people ‘play’ has just never… read full entry »
Last week I successfully climbed Scafell Pike, England’s highest peak, as part of item 3 on my 40 things before I’m forty challenge. I’ve been fascinated with the idea of climbing mountains since I saw a talk by Ed Viesturs (first American to climb all 14 of the “eight-thousander” mountains, and the 5th person to… read full entry »
I travelled to Turin, Italy for WordCamp Europe 2024 with Gaz last month. This was the first time we’d spent any meaningful amount of time together since our separation – not counting hourly taekwon-do lessons – and so I thought was going to be interesting. Turns out it was fairly uneventful, insomuch that it was… read full entry »
Got “recognised” by two different people on reddit yesterday as “that blogger” and god, if it hasn’t made me miss the olden days of blogging. Write any old crap that comes to mind, publish, receive immediate feedback and support from peers and friends. Do it all again a few days later. I’m not sure at… read full entry »
