100EASY

There’s a relatively popular workout/diet/self-development program called “75HARD”:

This is the type of program that requires you to develop and use mental toughness. You have to be very intense doing it, and you have to maintain that level of intensity for at least 75 days — probably more because it’s likely you’ll fail at least once.

When I look at transformation pictures, I see that it obviously has results, and my theory is this: there’s a certain type of person that will see results from this precisely because it’s so difficult to maintain. Like, you can’t decide to do 75HARD on a whim, or just as a side thing, or to complement your existing workout routine. You actually have to go all in on it, it has to become the main thing you “do” for at least 75 days, and that’s what gets you results, the commitment.

I’ve spent the better part of my 20s in this “go mode”. My results have been sporadic. Really good when I get the results, but it’s not consistently easy to consistently get them! I have never done 75HARD itself, but I’ve done intense regimes that require commitment and willpower. Works really well when it works, but again, doesn’t work if it’s not the main thing you’re doing.

So I decided to do an experiment. What if I take 75HARD but reverse it? Enter 100EASY:

1. Two movement sessions per day:
   1. Practice: intentional work on a physical skill. Examples: dancing, martial arts, weightlifting, rock climbing.
   2. “Passive” movement: non-skill-building movement that raises the baseline of activity. Examples: taking a walk, doing physical labor, housecleaning.
2. Follow a plant-based diet with 90% success rate.
   • Allowed foods: minimally processed plants.
   • Alcohol in moderation.
   • Meat, highly processed foods - occasionally but rarely (10%).
3. No cannabis. No smoking in general.

Repeat for 100 days. If you fail at any point, go back 10 days.

It’s easy, it’s simple, it’s cheap, it fits my lifestyle perfectly. Will it bring me results? I don’t know, that’s the point of this experiment. I’m currently on day 13 and it’s been… easy!

Update day 15:

I’m adding another 90%-success-rate rule: Don’t eat before 10 AM and after 19 PM (ideally after 18 PM).

Update day 182:

I’m officially on day 29. I keep resetting back 10 days, the highest I’ve come to was 62 or something like that. The usual culprits are junk food (in excess of the allowed 10%) or missing a second workout.

The results? Nowhere to be found. The biggest metric that I wanted to impact was my weight. For the last year or two, I’ve been hovering around 96 kg, which is about 10 kg too much.

What’s really annoying is the fact that I was expecting that I’d see some results, even with -10 day setbacks and resets. Literally zero results. I’m at the same weight that I started out at. And the program isn’t even that easy, as evidenced by the fact that I’m on day 29 while in reality 182 days have passed.

I don’t know what my conclusion is. Scrapping the program isn’t really an option because what’s the alternative, an even worse diet? The absence of rules would only make things worse, I fear.

I guess I have to Try Harder. I tried to be clever and do something “sustainable” and “easy”, but a) there are no results and b) it wasn’t that easy.

I’m going to think about what my next steps are but explicit caloric restriction is probably the way to go. Here I am, back at counting calories. Sucks but it sucks even worse to carry an excess of 10 kg all the time.