If my body were a temple, the bricks would be glued together with Cheez Whiz.

Okay, so sometimes I eat radishes and kale in between almost never-ending portions of hamburgers and leftover Chinese food.

But the leftovers run out from time to time. Hence, I rely on the radishes.

My idea of a balanced diet is a large Coke in each hand. But that changed when my sister told me about the 75 Hard Challenge.

The rules are simple enough. You have to do two 45-minute workouts a day, eat healthy, drink a gallon of water, and read 10 pages of a non-fiction book per day.

And you have to do it for 75 consecutive days. Easy, right?

If you fail to complete any of these tasks, you have to start from Day 1 again.

Clearly, this was a challenge designed for me. With my superior physical and mental skills, I was sure I’d have no problem breezing through it.

Day 1 was so horrible, I immediately gave up on the challenge. Well, it wasn’t so much me as parts of me.

In the middle of my second 45-minute workout, my arms asked my brain, “Why are we doing this?” and dropped me to the floor in the middle of my push-ups.

My brain was fully committed to continuing. It was my arms that refused to listen.

“We can’t go on if you keep fueling us with radishes and kale,” they complained.

Well, it wasn’t so much my arms complaining. It was my mouth. But I promise you my brain was fully committed.

Facing a bodily mutiny, I decided to take a break from the 75 Hard Challenge. After all, you need to take rests between sets.

My usual workout routine is 30 minutes of exercise followed by a five-year hiatus.

So I hit pause on the challenge and hit play on the remote control. The very first advertisement I saw on TV was for Zumba classes.

Zumba is a fitness routine that incorporates Latin-inspired dance. After incorporating a sixth of a chocolate cake, I decided I might as well try some salsa.

The dance, not the condiment.

So I went to a Zumba class that was held in my local elementary school’s cafeteria. I appreciated the irony.

The tables were all moved to the side to make space for the class in the middle.

In my very first Zumba move, I did a high kick right into a table. Imagine stubbing your toe, but 527 times harder.

If my body were a temple, I definitely chipped a brick. I fell over and writhed on the floor to the tune of a martial-sounding tango.

At least the instructor complimented me on my sense of rhythm. I guess I was thrashing around to the beat.

I wish I could say that at least I read 10 pages of a book that day, but it was not to be.

I lifted a heavy biography of Winston Churchill off my bookshelf and dropped it on my foot, the same foot that I had hit into the cafeteria table earlier.

Churchill may have been a great leader, but he never did a 75 Hard Challenge. With my arms, mouth, and foot hurting, I decided enough was enough.

Instead of reading 10 pages, I read the nutrition label on a pack of Oreos 10 times. Then I ate one sleeve of cookies. Okay, two sleeves.

Tomorrow, I’ll try the salsa again. The condiment, not the dance. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

Copyright 2025 Alexandra Paskhaver, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she’s never quite; figured; it; out. For more information, check out her website at https://apaskhaver.github.io.