75 Hard Challenge
A transformative toughness program
Why this challenge?
Andy Frisella is an entrepreneur who I first learned about from a podcast I came across during my morning walk. The program was considered a toughness program that consisted of 5 pillars that an individual must do for 75 consecutive days.
Intrigued by the idea, I decided to try it out for myself. I have always been a fan of 30 day challenges, but never one for 75 days. After doing research, I found an overwhelming number of happy individuals who enjoyed the outcomes of the program.
I was just coming back from vacation and there were around 80 days between my next vacation and I wanted to fill that time with a challenge that was tough — to make the anticipation of the vacation even more exciting!
The Challenge
The 5 things that you must do in the program are:
- Follow a diet (must be a plan that focuses on physical improvement)
- Complete two 45 minute workouts (one of them HAS to be outdoors)
- Take a progress picture
- Drink 1 gallon of Water
- Read 10 pages of a self development book
Before you Begin
There is no pre-requisites for this challenge. However, it will take some careful planning in order to ensure you get the most of it.
The Diet
The diet for me was a caloric deficit. There are many diets out there such as intermittent fasting, paleo diet, keto diet, etc. I decided to do a caloric deficit as my goal was to lose some weight and being in a caloric deficit will allow me to achieve that goal. I also felt that a caloric deficit and tracking my caloric intake would be beneficial in reducing my snacking habit.
The workouts
Going into the challenge, this felt the most daunting. I had to find a way to squeeze in 2 workouts. Luckily, I did the challenge in the summer so doing an outdoor workout did not seem too difficult to do in the mornings. I structured my day to do the outdoor workout in the morning which consisted of a walk, run, or playing a sport! The indoor workout was lifting weights and followed a Push/Pull/Legs/Shoulders routine.
Picture
This sounds the easiest and the least time consuming. But it teaches you discipline to do the same thing everyday in almost the same way. I decided to do it first thing in the morning to remind myself of the program.
The Gallon
To effectively track my water intake, I purchased a gallon jug online that I would fill up every evening to make sure that I can drink water first thing the next day and complete the full gallon by evening.
Read
The planning for this portion of the task was having books that were on my list to read already that I could look forward to. I decided to have 3 books prepared and purchased ahead of the challenge.
The three books I decided to read were:
- Think Like A Monk — by Jay Shetty
- Zero to One — Peter Thiel
- Metahuman — Deepak Chopra
I picked these three books intentionally to grow in these areas as I was doing a transformative challenge. These books focused on spiritual development, business, and career — all of which I wanted to learn more about.
Moving Forward
After completing the challenge, I found myself to be in an excellent mind space. I was extremely happy of completing the challenge without any hiccups the first time around.
When it rained (even though it was summer) I still went out and biked or ran. I actually did not go into the challenge thinking I would be biking but I found it extremely enjoyable and decided to do it for almost half of the days in the challenge!
The diet was difficult to maintain. Also, the no drugs and alcohol when I was being invited to many events or having people over was also a challenge the first few weeks. However, after a while I got so into the challenge and wanting to complete it that I did not think twice about needing external substances to feel something. The challenge was making me feel something I never felt before already!
Reading the three books aforementioned were amazing. I loved what I learned in each. I am glad the books I chose were ones that I could see myself actually reading. This was probably the most difficult part as I am a slow reader and getting to 10 pages took quite a good amount of time.
Drinking the gallon was the easiest part of the challenge for me. It also helped me with my diet as the more I drank, the less hungry I felt.
Moving forward, I think I would try this challenge again in the winter to test how I handle the outdoor workouts! It has been 2 months since I did the challenge, and I have stopped reading or drinking the gallon of water. I think doing this challenge twice will allow me to get the best understanding of what it means to be a 75 hard completer.
The next time I do this challenge, I will also try a more stricter diet plan just to see what effects it may have on me.
I highly recommend the challenge to anyone as it definitely made me feel good at the end of it. Not just from the results I was seeing, but from the mental clarity and confidence it gave me from getting the tasks done each day. It is not called a transformative mental toughness program for now reason!
