More and more “X-day challenges” appear, most of which will set out rules and challenges that participants must follow. The 75 Hard is one of those challenging shows that became popular. Participants will follow the five rules of the challenge for 75 days, which is quite a long time. What does the 75 Hard diet include? What effect does it have on your health? Should you follow 75 Hard diet plan ideas? Read our shares below for the best overview!
What Is The 75 Hard Challenge?
The 75 Hard challenge is a diet program in which you must follow the rules to build mental toughness. It can be said that it closely resembles the common “X-day challenges”.
75 Hard was created and developed by Andy Frisella, who is the CEO of 1st Phorm International. He is not only a businessman but also an influential speaker in many media.
Frisella created 75 challenges in 2019 and it became widely available by the end of 2020. You will have to follow its rules for 75 days when doing this challenging program. For example:
- Follow a diet
- Workout twice a day, 45 minutes each time
- Read 10 pages of non-fiction every day
- Drink a gallon of water a day
- Take photos of daily progress
This challenge will be very interesting for some people who want to change their lifestyle or love discipline. This diet idea has a lot of appeal, but it’s not for everyone. Read the following shares to understand this program well before you decide to implement it.
Explain 5 Rules of The 75 Hard Program
The 75 Hard has 5 rules that you must follow for 75 days. The harsh part of it is that you’ll have to start from scratch if you don’t follow one of the rules. Let’s see how the 5 rules of this challenge are shown below!
Eating according to a diet
According to the founder of this challenge, you can do any diet that works for you. Frisella, who created this challenge, is not a nutritionist or a personal trainer. Therefore, he cannot advise on exactly how you should diet.
You should visit your doctor or dietitian to get their advice. Choose a suitable diet under the supervision of a doctor and expert.
However, no matter what diet you are on, be honest. There are no cheat meals and no alcohol of any kind.
We can share with you some reliable and successful diet plan ideas. You can choose one of the diets that work for you to follow with a 75 hard diet plan.
Kpop diet plan
Kpop diet plan is a famous diet widely popularized by Korean Idols. Their diets are usually limited in calories and fat intake each day. Successfully following this diet you will be able to lose weight quickly, maintain weight and have a beautiful body like Korean Idols.
This diet is loved by many people and successfully implemented. You can learn more and consult your doctor to combine it with the 75 hard diet plan.
Salad diet plan
Salad diet plan is a diet that many people love. It not only contains many salads with a unique recipe, delicious taste, but also can help you lose weight extremely effectively. In salads are mainly raw foods from vegetables, fruits and some healthy meats.
Therefore, salads contain a lot of fiber and water to help you feel full for a long time and support effective weight loss. In addition, salads contain many essential nutrients, support the digestive system and promote our overall health.
Thrive diet plan
In addition to the two famous diets above, the Thrive diet plan is also a wise choice. This diet is suitable for vegans who want to follow a 75 hard diet plan. The Thrive diet does not strictly limit the amount of calories you take in. Instead, it asks you to strictly follow some healthy rules.
With this diet, you can comfortably eat vegan food but still lose weight and gain more knowledge.
Practice twice a day, 45 minutes each time
This challenge requires you to have a consistent training regimen. Practicing twice a day for a total of 90 minutes will create a habit for you. However, daily practice for such a long time is challenging to complete. If you skip a session, you will have to start over.
Exercises will be of your choice, such as yoga, walking, stretching or jumping rope. As long as the activity gets your body moving and healthy. You do not need to choose exercises that are too strenuous or consume a lot of energy.
Drink a gallon of water a day
Staying hydrated is good practice, but a gallon of water a day is a challenge for many people. Many surveys indicate that a 200-pound person consumes only 128 ounces of water per day. So this is also a rule that is difficult to follow.
Read 10 pages of non-fiction
Reading is a good habit, and you can learn more things and experiences in life through reading. If you want to change your thoughts and reading habits, this is the right challenge.
Take photos of your progress every day
You need to take a photo every day to see the change in yourself clearly. It also has a stimulating effect that makes you have a higher will to fight in continuing 75 hard.
Although the daily tasks are within your power, you can complete them well every day. However, doing it is not a small challenge in the long run. Completing these rules in 75 days will form healthy habits for you. But sometimes it doesn’t really suit some people. Feel it for yourself and evaluate more.
Benefits of the 75 hard Program?
There are many benefits mentioned by people who have done 75 hard. Theoretically, there are quite a few benefits listed as weight loss and physical and mental improvement.
We will list the main benefits that this diet idea gives you:
- Stay hydrated: Busy work schedules can make you overlook the importance of drinking water. The rule of drinking one gallon of water a day will help you replenish the water regularly.
- Gain more knowledge: Gaining knowledge comes from reading 10 pages a day. It doesn’t matter what you read, as long as you understand a little, the amount of knowledge you have has increased. Reading books will also help you to relax and be better.
- Exercise a healthy body: Exercising for 90 minutes a day is sure to bring about great changes in your body. Your body will be healthy, toned, and better every day.
- Track your body’s changes: It’s hard to deny the importance of capturing the moments you’re going through. Taking pictures every day will help you notice changes in your body. From there, you can adjust the error to live more rationally and detect problems. If challenges help you improve your performance, you can see them clearly. It is a great source of motivation for you to continue taking on the challenge.
When you consistently do 75 hard properly, it can bring about many positive changes in your body. Healthy habits will be formed day by day and become more effective.
Drawbacks of the 75 hard program
Besides the advantages, the 75 Hard program also brings a lot of controversies. Its downside is not small but also has a significant influence. To get an overview, you should read the downsides of the 75 hard challenges we share below.
Extreme lifestyle change for a limited duration
Repeated daily actions always form habits. 75 days is not a short time; it can change your body for the better while making it difficult to form habits. However, it will be very difficult for you to create habits in 75 days when you have a lot of old habits.
It is not possible to practice 90 minutes a day. You have a lot to do in a day and not everyday you have time to exercise. But if you don’t practice enough, you will have to go back to the first days.
Maybe now you think it’s simple. It’s only really simple when done in 3 or 4 days. 75 days is a long time, and you can hardly accept it.
Lack of specificity
The problem here is that all the requirements and targets of 75 hard are set very general. It doesn’t go into any particular issue. Everything revolves around self-perception and bodily self-improvement requirements. There are no set goals or metrics. You don’t know if you’re doing this diet idea to lose weight, improve health, or strengthen your mind.
There is no clear goal for daily nutrition. Not all diets are up to this challenge, and some diets will include fasting days. Of course, you can’t fast and exercise for 90 minutes a day. That is really dangerous and unreasonable. However, the developer just says you can use any diet plan.
It can be said that this program is too vague to be implemented. There are no specific goals, no dietary requirements, and precise orientation for participants.
Activities are limited to specific areas of life
If you join this challenging program, it will cost you 2.5 to 3 hours per day. This period is not short when you have to perform many tasks during the day.
For example, you work 8 hours a day and spend 3 hours on the challenge. A 24-hour day has taken you 11 hours. What about sleeping time and spending time with family and personal activities? Is it reasonable to waste such time every day?
All activities or plans for the day will have limited time to dedicate to the habits you have to form in 75 days. Sometimes it’s better to reduce the execution time of the rules.
Instead of exercising for 90 minutes, we will reduce it to 45 minutes. Reading time can also be shortened. You will have more time for everything.
Lack of science-based programming and nutrition
In this challenging program, 75 Hard has combined fitness and nutrition with the desire to bring good results. However, it is not consistent with actual science.
According to the recommendations of experts, the time and intensity of exercise are different for different age groups. The Korean Journal of Family Medicine recommends that children should get one hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day.
The Centers for Disease Control recommends that adults do muscle-strengthening activities at least twice per week. A reasonable period of activity is 75 to 150 minutes per week. For patients with diabetes or blood pressure, the level of exercise will also be different.
From there, it can be seen that the rule of exercising twice a day, 45 minutes each time, is completely inappropriate. We cannot be sure that we are suitable for that intensity of exercise. Everyone’s physique is different. Excessive exercise will be counterproductive and harmful to health.
Next, this program’s claim to follow any diet is not appropriate. The diets mentioned here do not have official guidelines. Of course, each type of diet will have its own characteristics. It can be harmful to health when combined with 75 hard without careful research.
Such a general requirement and encouragement can bring many dangers to the implementer. It can be helpful for those fortunate enough to have the right diet while at the same time being the worst for those on the wrong diet.
Another counter-scientific claim is to use one gallon of water per day. That is equivalent to drinking 3.7 liters of water per day.
Experts have recommended that a person with worms a day should drink 2 liters of water. Women should drink a maximum of 2.2 liters, and in men, it is 3.0 liters. If you drink too much water, it will not bring any benefits and even harm the body.
One gallon of water (3.7 liters) is the excess amount of water required. Although we have to practice more and need more water, that number is impossible.
Lack of flexibility
As mentioned above, the 75 hard challenge consists of rigid rules. If you skip any of the rules, you will have to go back to the first day.
However, there are always surprises in this life. If you have an unexpectedly important job that has to ignore a rule, all your previous work will disappear. Even if you’ve made it to the last day, you still have to go back to the first day.
If the first implementation of the plan is interrupted, the second round is also possible. If that cycle keeps repeating continuously, you will feel tired and forever unable to get out of 75 hard. It’s really haunting, isn’t it?
Andy Frisella is not an actual expert in anything related to health and fitness
Frisella is not a nutritionist or trainer from the information we have learned. He is a businessman, speaker, and works with nothing to do with health and fitness. So how to make sure that the diet idea he gives is completely correct?
His company is in the dietary supplement industry with millions of dollars in annual revenue. However, medical experts in the United States have warned and warned about this industry. It is completely unregulated, full of misinformation and promotional gimmicks.
75 hard is also conveniently posted on the company blog. There are no scientific studies or actual experiments with this diet. That means you should be careful with any products associated with this challenging program.
In short, when you hear the rules of 75 hard, you may be intrigued. But if you analyze it a little more closely, you will realize it is not as great as you think.
What do the experts say about the 75 hard diet plan ideas?
The 75 hard challenge is given arbitrarily, has no specific goals and does not care about the participant’s physicality. Even so, it is still possible to get some benefit from some healthy daily activities.
Because of the contradiction and anti-science, many psychologists and medical experts have expressed their opinions about this program. They concluded that this diet idea could have the desired effect if there were more flexible changes.
Dr. Muhammad Mujtaba, with 17 years of experience in the field of psychiatry, commented: “During everyday life, you have different activities to do. Not every person can manage the workout twice a day. It is normal to [get sick] and in such conditions you should avoid intense workouts”.
He added, “The 75 Hard program says that if you miss one rule, then you have to start it again. In terms of psychology, experts consider such programs a pressure on mental health.… Being a psychiatrist, my experience says that you can achieve your desired weight by following flexible programs that also consist of cheat days.”
Mental health and mental health expert Christie Hartman says, “I’ll come at this from a psychological standpoint. I admit I’m a sucker for anything self-improvement. As far as 75 Hard goes, I like that it encompasses a variety of physical challenges. However, there’s no expertise or research here, just a ‘this is what I did and it worked for me.’ That’s fine, but [it presents] many risks, physical and mental, especially for the young TikTok generation.”.
Hartman adds, “There are so many other ways to improve physical and mental toughness (and wellbeing) that are based on evidence: meditation, mindfulness, fitness programs, marathon training, boot camps, programs on leaving your comfort zone and facing fears, daily gratitude sessions… I’d prefer a program based on some research that encompassed as many mental aspects as physical.”.
Dr. Sabrina Romanoff of clinical psychology at Harvard thinks that challenges based on such restrictive habits put pressure on participants. Especially having to upload or take pictures every day can pose an unexpected risk.
She shared, “In clinical practice, I’ve observed how following an intensive diet and lifestyle program leads to rigid rules and obsessive thoughts that can lead to greater mental health concerns and disordered eating behaviors,”
She explained, “While aspects of this program may be designed to motivate, such as the daily photo component, it may lead to excessive fixation on appearance. Self-surveillance is a significant component of eating disorders and could trigger upward social comparison, as members are viewing often edited or unattainable images of their peers online.”
Should I try the 75 hard diet plan ideas?
If you have a lot of time and like high discipline, you can try the 75 Hard programs. It will help you improve and change your lifestyle to become more positive.
However, if you choose to follow this challenge, you must learn carefully about the right diet. Thorough research into nutrition or exercise programs is imperative. It will ensure you are safe during the execution of the challenge.
Don’t take pictures or body changes too seriously. Try to keep your mind as relaxed as possible.
One more important thing, the 75 Hard diet idea is not the right choice for everyone. Get expert advice before following this diet challenge.
Conclusion
Although there are some benefits that 75 hard brings to your life, we still have to look at the downside. Excessive rules make you feel constrained, sometimes suffocated, and affect your psyche.
In addition, restraint affects health because the rules are unsuitable for scientific research. You will have to research a lot of diets or exercise plans on your own to balance your life.
Trying out 75 hard diet plan ideas for a short period of time should not harm your health. If it feels right to you, you can try it out, even tweaking it to suit you better. We hope that our sharing helps you better understand this challenging program. Thanks for reading!
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