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.

Forgive the click-baity title for just a minute and hear me out. I responded to Molly Forbes‘ tweet earlier today (which admittedly lacked context, so I was making a massive assumption on its intent)… https://twitter.com/mollyjforbes/status/1107661795261665283 …with the words “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person who likes instagram.” Admittedly, my response was actually borne… read full entry »

In my last post about our recent house move I expressed frustration about a series of relatively minor but annoying problems that we’d had so far. The two main issues were the lack of hot water, and a mystery leak. Shortly after posting I started pulling out wood cladding in the downstairs bathroom (part of… read full entry »

(This post doesn’t have an image attached to it because the search for “thinspiration” to demonstrate what I am getting at turned up some fucking horrific images and I don’t want to contribute to that.) Despite being a late adopter to Instagram (as per usual; I only downloaded snapchat this week) it is easily my… read full entry »

Gaz is away til late tonight so I have 3 options: Catch up on some more work, which I need to do. Catch up on some housework, which I should do. Have a bath and go to bed with a bottle of wine and a book, which I want to do. Unfortunately after today the… read full entry »

I was flicking through a thread on mumsnet last week — procrastination in action — about people who take lots of selfies. The consensus of opinion was that people who take a lot of selfies are vain, insecure and lacking self-esteem. Mumsnet’s AIBU, apparently the last bastion of social etiquette and good manners, thinks that… read full entry »

I’ve just come off the phone to my current mortgage provider. I rang up to see how much I’d likely be able to borrow if I wanted to purchase a larger house using equity in this house as a deposit. I was hoping that because of my regular overpayments to my mortgage as part of… read full entry »

We’re on day 3 of the new year and I’m yet to write any of my typical end of year posts for 2015: what I did for christmas, my review of the previous year, my goals for the next. It’s not that there’s nothing to say. I mean, 2015 saw me complete the remortgage on… read full entry »

As you may have figured out from my sporadic blogging of late, I’ve been a wee bit busy. Cramming in ALL THE WORK before Christmas so that I can have a proper holiday; trying to get kids in the right place at the right time for nativities and dinners and parties and this, that and… read full entry »

Would it be controversial of me to suggest that failing to teach your children to cook is neglecting a hugely important of parenting? That is, missing out a huge part of a range of life skills that should be imparted upon your kids. As I lovingly prepared a homemade lasagne earlier (by which I mean… read full entry »