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 »

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 »

(Update 2019-08-07: this article is now available in Brazilian Portuguese: 10 dicas para um site WordPress mais rápido) — Website speed is a huge factor in your search engine (specifically Google) ranking: As part of that effort, today we’re including a new signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed. Site speed reflects how quickly… read full entry »

Last week I had a conversation with Gaz’s colleagues about my budget Monday shops, off the back of a one-off trip to Tesco for a single meal which Gaz did at a cost of over £40. Forty pounds for one meal! This is in comparison to my weekly shop, which I’m quite pleased to have… read full entry »

I’ve been trying to justify buying a new laptop for nearly 2 years. Despite it being the only thing that allows me to earn an income, I have been stuck in this “the old one still works” mindset: even though it’s slower, heavier, and has approximately 6 minutes battery life these days. Given the Acer’s… read full entry »

As I mentioned earlier this month, I recently followed some bloggers on twitter with the goal of inspiring me to blog more. It’s kinda worked: I have a lot of ideas floating about my head at the minute. Whether they’ll making it into an actual blog post is another matter, but step 1 complete. Winning! However,… read full entry »

I followed a bunch of bloggers on twitter today. My grand plan is to follow, be inspired by their energy and regular posting, and thus start posting regularly again. Hahahahaha. Realistically, however, I’ve already noticed a worrying trend amongst these ~cool~ bloggers: they’re all young twenty-somethings with no kids, no mortgage and very few of… 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 been moaning on twitter about hitting a bit of a ‘blogging wall’ after 3 weeks of doing pretty well on my Septemblog challenge. In doing so, it occurred to me how lucky I am that — minor ‘every day’ life niggles aside — the only thing I can think of to moan about… read full entry »