Larbi’s approach to maintenance used to be “cure over prevention” but his 75 Hard journey taught him otherwise. It makes sense; if you’re working this hard day in, day out, you need to look after yourself. And treat yourself. “Baths with Epsom salts was also super, super useful,” he says.
As for diet, there is no hard and fast rule, but it makes sense to cut out junk food and sugary snacks. Larbi made changes as he went depending on his daily schedule, while still keeping everything healthy.
How to stay motivated
Setting aside the thought of having to start over again should you slip up, Larbi says the key to surviving is taking it day by day.
“At the beginning, I thought that by the time I’ve done a month I’m going to be exhausted, but I was surprised by just how much I was capable of,” he says. “You don't know how strong you are until you give yourself no other option. The more I did, the better I felt. And because it’s quite intense and because I had so much going on with work, I was only thinking about completing today, not that I had X many days left.”
Depending on how you look at it, there’s also a nice reward waiting for you at the end of each day, which is when Larbi chose to get his reading in.
“I am an avid reader anyway,” he says. “75 Hard does specify non-fiction, so I read: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, It's Not That Radical by Mikaela Loach; and The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read by Philippa Perry, which is really good.”
Keeping it up long-term
As anyone who’s ever put themselves through a fitness transformation knows, keeping it up once the initial push is done is the tricky bit. Larbi did spend days 76-80 mainlining junk food but eventually cut himself off, saying he “didn’t want to get used to it again.” A few months on, his diet remains “much healthier” if not quite as strict as it was during the programme.
He’s mostly sticking to his newfound fitness schedule: more sessions a week, but of less volume. Plus plentiful mobility and cardio. “If I’m having a busy week I might go back to my previous way of doing two or three heavier sessions, but generally I prefer doing half an hour every day,” he says.
The biggest change has been to his mental state. “Working out for me now feels just as emotional as it does physical,” he says. “You never feel worse for working out.”
Larbi points out that 75 Hard worked for him because of his flexible schedule. It might not fit with yours. But that’s no reason not to set your own goals.
“If you do any one thing for you for 75 days in a row, it'll make a big difference to your life,” he says. “It doesn't have to be something as intense as this, just sticking to something you told yourself you were going to do for two and a half months, whatever that thing is, will have a huge impact.”
