Next week, August 1st 2023, I will be starting the 75 Hard challenge program. My intentions will be to main a daily journal to explore and share my various insights, feedback and overall reflection of the process.
I’ve done numerous challenges in the last year and have done multiple 45Sprint challenges which I feel has helped me prepare for 75 hard.
Rules of the 75 hard program
As the book mentions you don’t TRY 75 hard you simply do it. There are 5 simple rules that you must do every single day for 75 days. Below are the rules:
- Follow a diet
- You can use any diet of your choice but it needs to be a structured plan to help with your goals (lose weight, gain muscle, build endurance etc.)
- NO Alcohol or cheat meals
- Complete 2 Workouts
- Complete 2 45-Minute Workouts. One of these workouts has to be outdoors
- Take a progress picture every day
- You don’t have to post it online but take a daily picture so you can reflect on your progress
- Drink 1 gallon of water
- 128 ounces of water daily
- Read 10 pages of a book
- Non fiction book
- Something educational or self improvement that can help you improve your mindset
The key with these five simple rules of the 75 hard program is you must do them every day upon waking up before going to bed. There’s no time limit for each task but you have to do them. If you fail at even one of these task then you have to start over at day one.
Although each task may seem easy this is truly a challenge because you have to do these every day. You’re building discipline for yourself. By following these rules you have the potential to improve areas in your life that you’ve never thought possible.
Yes you may lose weight, gain muscle but in my opinion the greatest benefit is on the mental side of things.
How I’m preparing for each task of 75 hard
- Follow a diet
- I will be following a diet from Nick Bare’s “break the switch” nutrition plan. I will also be logging all the food I eat with the Lose It app to make sure I stay within my limits.
- No alcohol – I’m done a few 45 day sprints where I cut out alcohol so this also shouldn’t be that big of an issue. Plus I’ve minimized my drinking in the last year. I just don’t get the same pleasure with it as I once use to. When I do drink I want it to be for something worth celebrating not just because I want to drink on a Friday night.
- No cheat meals – Not going to lie this will be tough for me. If you know me, you know I love my chips and the snack after dinner. I’ve done a few sprints where I cut out chips and the first few weeks is always tough but I like how I feel and do see the weight I lose when I do it.
- Complete 2 workouts
- For the outside workout I will be following my marathon regimen that I’ve already started a few weeks back. The plan is to run the long beach full marathon on October 15th, which is a day after finishing up 75 hard. I did have to take the last two weeks off from running because of a calf strain so hopefully I’ll be all set to do next week when I start 75 hard. This will be my first marathon but in the last year I ran 3 half marathons and knew it was time to stretch myself for another goal. I’m running this marathon to say I’ve done it vs running it to beat a time. Maybe for my next marathon?!!?
- For the second workout, I will incorporate lifting weight and mobility/yoga. I love going to the gym and do not want to remove weight lifting while training for a marathon. I’ll be using Nick Bare’s hybrid athlete 1.0 training to incorporate the weight lifting portion of the workouts.
- The rules for workouts is it has to be at least 3 hours apart so more than likely I will run early in the morning and left during lunch/afternoon. During the days I have long runs the second workout will be mobility so I will be doing that at night.
- Take a progress picture
- I will do this first thing in the morning after brushing my teeth so I don’t forget. Plus it’s good to take the progress picture at the same time each day to measure true progress.
- 1 Gallon of water
- I bought a one gallon jug on amazon that has little milestones on the bottle to make sure you’re on track to drink a gallon in a day. The gallon of water can’t be mixed with anything it just has to be plain water.
- Read 10 pages
- I already read daily so this shouldn’t be too much of an issue for myself but I will read prior to running or hitting the gym in the morning just in case.
As I mentioned before, I already do some of these things just not on a consistent basis. I’ve made going to the gym as a consistent thing for myself. I’ve considered it my “ME” time in the morning. Now we just have to layer another workout in my day. Tracking will be huge for me to keep up the progress during 75 hard. I plan on using the 75 hard app and also a google spreadsheet to track my workouts. I’m a data nerd so I like to see how I’m performing.
The goal is to document every single day through this blog and also take videos/clips as I go through my task. I noticed there’s a lot of blogs talking about 75 hard but when you read it the person didn’t actually go through the challenge. They wrote the article based on other people’s opinions and based on what “experts” perceive. I wanted to have this daily journal so I can look back. I also want people to use this as a potential resource when/if they go through the 75 hard challenge.
Please follow along. I look forward to the challenge. I’ll be posting on the daily reels on instagram and will have my write on this blog.