Kimberlee K.

If you can believe it, there are less than 70 days left in 2023.

I always get a dual sense of panic and excitement about the end of a year. It feels like crunch time to get everything accomplished and time to start planning and setting goals for next year.

But recently, I’ve seen a surge of content that invites people to start the work now rather than later. To set habits and start working towards goals now so you’re already motivated and making progress by the time January 1^st comes around.

I’ll admit, I’m guilty of abiding by the motivation brought on by a new year. I’ve set goals and started new workout plans and laid out schedules that I hope to stick to. I don’t quite lean into the new year, new me mindset, but I believe in the magic of a fresh start.

A week or two ago, I saw a lot of people on social media starting the 75 Hard program, which has standards for diet, exercise, water intake, and daily habits, in the hopes of a total body transformation over the course of 3 ½ months.

Then I saw this video, where a girl broke down her own version of the program, which she is calling “75 Healthier.”

Though it seems obvious, hearing her make adjustments reminded me that we all have permission to do the same.

I understand why these programs are designed with strict rules, they want you to commit, and they want you to see results, but I am someone who struggles with such rigidity and can easily spiral into shame if I fall off course. So it was refreshing to be reminded that I can do it my own way.

If you want to see results, you need to challenge yourself, but there is no reason to make stress and shame the driving forces behind it. It should be fun, it should be motivating, it should have the potential to carry you past the finish line.

So I have personalized my own version of the 75 Healthier Plan.

The 75 Kim, if you will. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

1) Drink 80 ounces of water per day.

I liked this one from the video. I am writing this blog with a Stanley cup in reach, so I can work harder to fill it up more than once in day.

2) Set boundaries on social media for 8:00am – 8:00pm.

I am guilty of occasionally scrolling before I get out of bed, and I am especially guilty of scrolling too late at night, so I think these boundaries can help me break those habits and disconnect.

3) Write for one hour per day

Oftentimes if things are really slow at work, I’ll squeeze in some writing time. But I can too easily treat that as my only writing time, so when things get busy, I’ll go days or weeks without writing anything. So this is to keep me consistent, because I always feel better when I’m actively writing.

4) Take 6,000 steps per day.

To be honest, I’ve gotten way too wrapped up in my steps in the past. I get that it’s important to move, but aside from the physical praise given to me by my FitBit, I don’t notice a difference between getting 5,000 steps and 10,000 steps. I do notice when I’ve gotten two or three thousand. I feel stiff and sore, I feel tired but not in a satisfying way. When I’ve moved around a lot and taken a workout class, I’ll usually hit around six or seven thousand and I feel good. So I’m making six my baseline, anything over that is just a bonus.  

5) Do five workouts per week with two being outside

A lot of the exercise I normally do (jazzercise classes, yoga, going to the gym, etc.) is inside, but on the weekends I’ll often go on a walk or a hike. I want to up that outside quota to two (weather permitting) and I want to do some kind of workout five times a week.

6) Stop snoozing my alarm

I have made immense progress on this in the last few months, but I’m still putting it on here because I want to irradicate it completely. I recently set my alarm for 15 minutes earlier in an attempt to have more time to adjust to the day, rather than race through a routine and head to work. So this goal is to help me keep doing that because it always makes me feel better.  

7) Do my devotional first thing in the morning

This ties into the last one because when I wake up with my alarm, I have time to do my devotional before continuing on with my morning routine, and this always puts me in a good headspace for the day.

8) Stretch after work

A few years ago, I started going to the chiropractor and she gave me a few stretches for my back that I consistently lose motivation to do, even though they help. When I’m at work, I often hunch over my keyboard for most of the day, so I want to make it more of a priority to stretch out my body when I get home.

9) Take pictures of moments I feel good

This ties into one of my goals for this year, but it is also my own spin on the typical ask of diet and workout programs for you to take daily/weekly pictures of yourself in the mirror. That would neither be healthy or productive for me, so I want to focus more on taking those seemingly innocuous pictures of my feet on the Stairmaster at the gym, or the flower I saw at golden hour on my walk, or the recipe I’m really proud of cooking on my own. Moments when I feel good in my body, happy with what I’m doing, and/or proud of a hard workout. I don’t want to be entirely focused on what my body looks like, I just want to feel good in it, so my hope is that the pictures act more as a documentation of the time I’m taking for myself and the effort I’m putting in to make each day a good one.  

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Whether you’re doing 75 Hard, 75 Healthier, 75 Kim or your own version of something else entirely, I wish you well on these next 70 days and beyond. Don’t be afraid to do something challenging, and don’t forget to give yourself grace.