If you're not familiar, 75 Hard is a mental toughness program created by Frisella, that he says can also come with physical changes. In the midst of quarantine, it seemed as though the 75 Hard Challenge took over my social media. Especially on TikTok, I saw video after video of users giving this mental toughness challenge a shot.
I was immediately intrigued and looked up what the challenge was all about. The 75 Hard Challenge was created by fitness guru Andy Frisella. He wanted to make a challenge that would show people what effect 75 days straight of discipline could have on yourself. Before starting, I outlined some goals that I had and wanted to work towards. A big challenge I have is clean eating…I love food, specifically food that is not good for you.
I am not big into fast food, but I do love decadent foods…ice cream, cookies, cake, brownies, chocolate; and I do enjoy having a drink with my friends. The working out was never really going to be a super hard part of this challenge because I have been consistently working out for the last 5 or 6 years, but my diet has served to my detriment. I was very eager on fixing this and hoped that my health, physical appearance, and overall how I felt would be improved simply by adjusting my diet and cutting out all snacks and alcohol.
I also wanted my dietary changes to be sustainable so that it would be easy to maintain after this challenge. A big problem I've witnessed with myself and others, is committing to a "diet" that is hard to keep up in the long run which results in the person not being able to stick to it. I'm not interested in a "2 week washboard abs diet plan"…I want something that would keep me healthy for the next 20 years and that I can do without much thinking.
Caroline Apovian, MD, codirector of the Center for Weight Management and Wellness at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a Harvard Medical School faculty member agrees. She says the most outrageous of the 75 hard challenge rules is drinking a gallon of water a day. "I am not sure most people need to drink that much water," she says. This cost on the mental health of social media users may have put money in Frisella's pocket. In a 2017 interview with Forbes, Frisella explained how his social media strategy helped his supplement company earn $100 million in sales.
Plenty of people have created their own testimonials about the program on social media, sharing that they got in shape, improved their physical and mental health thanks to 75 Hard. Drink 1 gallon of water, 45 minute indoor workout, 45 minute outdoor workout, follow a meal plan, no alcohol, 10 pages of self development reading, take a progress picture. 75 Medium is not affiliated in any way with Andy Frisella's 75 Hard Challenge.
It's a little less strict, hence the "medium", and I'm thinking it will help me create habits that are easier to stick with post challenge. You still have to follow 5 tasks every single day for 75 days. Below I'm going to share the program rules and what I'm going to do to complete the tasks each day. The #75HARD Challenge is the newest diet and exercise trend all over the Internet. The challenge lasts 75 days of following clearly set rules about your diet, workouts, and personal development.
There are no cheat days allowed, and if participants do break even 1 rule, they start back at day one. On the surface, this may seem like more of a physical fitness challenge, but Frisella strictly rejects this idea. While it's true that switching to these habits will most likely have a physical effect on your body, this challenge was crafted purely to test mental toughness. The point is to prove to yourself that you will stick to the guidelines no matter what — absolutely no excuses or modifications. The catch is that if you don't completely abide by these guidelines even just for one day or have one slip up, you have to start over.
I've learned much about myself since taking a leap of faith over 2 years ago. A few days ago while listening the the MFCEO Project, I came across an episode titled 75hard — a 75 day tactical guide to winning the war with yourself. I encourage everyone to listen to this podcast because I believe we're all fighting some kind of war within ourself.
"I've spent more than 20 years figuring out how to master mental toughness and I'm putting everything I've learned into a program I call 75HARD," he writes in the episode notes. We did the 75 HARD™ challenge by Andy Frisella and it's finally time to share our results and review. If you haven't heard of the 75 HARD™ program yet, it's a mental toughness challenge that helps you build discipline, build healthy habits, and show yourself what you're made of.
I'm not a big fan of 20 day workout programs because they never produce any sustainable results! It's a mental toughness challenge where you follow 6 basic habits for 75 days straight, without missing a single day. If you skip a day, you restart from Day 1. 75 Strong was inspired by following the frequently shared 75 day hard challenge rules for 75 days and annotating what worked as well as what could be done better. The end product was this – a 75 day program for holistic, lifelong strength built by ingraining positive habits.
Doug Sklar, a certified personal trainer and founder of PhilanthroFIT in New York City, is also wary of the program. "Exercising incorrectly—poor form, inappropriate intensity, not accounting for rest days—over an extended period of time can be harmful." The daily progress pictures, however motivating, could hide more sinister results, explains Medlin.
"That level of self-surveillance is really harmful to people and leads to disordered eating and eating disorders. The daily progress pictures, as motivating as they are, could hide more dismal results, Medlin explains. "This level of self-monitoring is really harmful to people and leads to eating disorders and eating disorders.
If you've been following the blog you know I completed 75 Hard in 2020 and saw some amazing results. I'll be the first to tell you that I've completely fallen off track since completing that challenge. I loved 75 Hard but at the end of the day I was very excited to get some time back on my schedule after working out twice a day for 75 days.
I found it pretty hard to keep up with everything 75 Hard threw at me once I was finished. I'll also be honest with the fact that starting a new job and going to school part-time is a little stressful so I haven't been taking care of myself the way I know I should. With that said, I'm going to give another challenge a start.
I started with an extreme diet, NOT EATING SWEETS, CARBOHYDRATES during the week, this radical change led me to binge eating because it generated a very bad anxiety. My perspective of this is that, when you feel free in any aspect of your life you can make any decision, without pressure, without being radical, but evaluating all scenarios. Now, my life is healthy but including all kind of foods that I have always liked and have given me peace`s mental. Many studies have indicated that health and wellness are often tied to where we live and what is a part of our environment. The 75 day hard challenge can easily play into the lie that all aspects of our lives are controllable, and just need more discipline.
This is harmful to marginalized communities & people who have struggled with unhealthy behaviors in the past. You don't have to go 75 days without alcohol, work out twice a day, or drink a gallon of water a day to learn you're capable of a lot more than you think you are. You just have to realize that you have no idea how much you can handle if you've never tested your limits. When you learn to push past the uncomfortable limits that guide your life, you learn how moldable your limits actually are.
What I thought I couldn't tolerate before, has become menial to me now. I never would have opted to be sober on a first date or read every single day before this. I probably won't choose to continue reading every single day without fail or going on sober first dates, but that's not the point. The point is that I know I can go to dinner without feeling the social pressure to get a drink or make excuses for why I can't find the time to finish a book. I have the ability to make choices, when before, those choices felt more like givens.
The challenge has gotten a lot of heat for some good reasons. It can be seen as a form of dieting given that the challenge requires people to pick a diet and stick to it. It also can be seen as excessive in terms of exercise, and a gallon of water may be more than the recommended amount that a person needs in a given day. Phase 3 adds in a random act of kindness and talking to a stranger in addition to the tasks from 75 Hard and Phase 1. These two tasks are good habits to have and things I've been trying to work into my daily routine. Having a conversation with a stranger will help you get out of your shell.
For some of us, this is pretty easy and could potentially result in us expanding our network. The trick here is that it has to be in person – no social media. Now with COVID-19 on the rise again, this is a little more challenging because it's not like you can easily strike up a conversation in the grocery store or after church. At least not up here where I live – we're encouraged to do our shopping and move along.
The cold shower is the one item in the entire program that I know I'll struggle with. I've taken cold showers unintentionally and have not enjoyed them. I remember taking one during a retreat when I was in college. It was during the winter which made it worse. I made it through it and started sweating when I came out and dried off.
A tip for this is to work your way up to it while you're doing 75 hard. So as you complete your shower, turn the hot water off and start trying to do 30 seconds, then a minute, then two minutes, etc… until you get up to five minutes. As mentioned in my review of 75 Hard, I had been working on my own 30-day challenge when I first learned of 75 Hard.
So I added these elements into my existing program. At first, I found the water to be the toughest part, and it took me a week and a half to work my way up to drinking a gallon day. I used to have a 1-liter water bottle that I fill up three times each day, then up to 800 ML on my 4th filling . Now I'm testing out a one-gallon bottle which so far, has worked out nicely. My tip on the water is to pace yourself throughout the day and try to drink all your water before you drink anything else.
I'll often start my day off with a cup of tea (which doesn't count towards the gallon) on cold days, and those are the days I have the most problems with completing that task. On those nights, I find myself completing the last 1800 ML within two hours of going to bed. I don't recommend taking in so much water late at night as your body will want to rid itself of some of it, which will cause you to wake up at night. The fitness challenge 75 Hard is taking over social media, but is it safe to do? Experts share their thoughts on the 75 Hard challenge rules and whether they would recommend trying the program.
Frisella isn't a dietician or licensed clinical therapist, and he recommends consulting a "trainer or a consultant" about the food program you choose. But, he says, you can't have a single cheat meal, and you can't have any alcohol. Sklar points out that programs like this are "targeted towards beginners," and 90 minutes of exercise can be a lot for those who don't really work out much or at all. "Even though it's presented as a mental toughness program, the accompanying pictures are mostly testimonial style 'transformation' photos," Sklar says. "As a result, this presents as a fitness program. While there are benefits to mental strength training, there are safer and highly effective ways to create lifestyle change that is sustainable."
The big caveat of this whole challenge is that it must be for 75 consecutive days. If I was to stumble on day 74, then I go back zero and have to start again. To be honest, I've never been a fan of 12-week fitness challenges because they're not sustainable long term — and this is no different. In saying that, the reason I want to have a crack at this is because I know the sort of mental toughness I'm going to develop if I can get through this. When I thought of doing the entire challenge for 75 Days I wanted to quit before it started. I had the same issue with setting specific goals.
It can be overwhelming so the most important lesson I've learned is to show up every day. One moment at a time and when it feels impossible I break it down to one step at a time. ♥️ 🙌🏼Thankful for my support system who have shown nothing but love and care. Once you've faced the 75 Hard Challenge, you'll need to follow a strict set of rules for 75 days set by Frisella .
You need to track your progress every day, exercise twice a day, and avoid alcohol and certain food groups. Last week I had a really bad week in real estate. I am not one of those people who have bad days. I'm happy and positive and to get slammed with a whole bad week was a tough experience. I decided I needed mental toughness and the next morning I started 75 Hard. The rest of the rules vary depending on who you ask.
Many versions of the challenge ask participants to take a 5-minute cold shower every day, or to read 10 pages of a non-fiction book, or even to perform a random act of kindness. One rule that is always present, however, is that participants must take progress photos every day. Each "day" lasts until you go to sleep.
If you don't complete everything on the list of rules you have to start your 75 day hard challenge over from day #1. My husband and I started on a Sunday so we could set ourselves to succeed the first day, and from there we told each other that giving up wasn't an option. "If you are looking for a new fitness program, this is not it. This challenge can transform your life…starting from the inside", says Andy Frisella, creator of 75 HARD and founder of 1st Phorm. According to Andy, while this challenge may produce amazing physical results, it's more of a mental toughness challenge.
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