My 75Hard Challenge Experience (2024)

#75Hard — Journey of my 75Hard challenge!!

It all started at a bar while drinking beers with my friends. One of my friends mentioned the 75 Hard challenge and described all the rules of it. This is a mental toughness challenge where you are supposed to follow the rules below for 75 consecutive days. This is a program introduced by a podcaster, author, and entrepreneur — Andy Frisella

1. Two workouts a day, 45 minutes each and at least one of them must be outdoors.
2. Choose a healthy diet and stick to it. No cheat day. No alcohol.
3. Drink 1 Gallon of water each day
4. Read a non-fiction book. At least 10 pages every day.
5. Take a progress pic of your body daily.

At the beer table, we took this challenge as routine gossip. Thought of it as too tough and practically impossible to complete. We even criticized some of the rules saying how those are not healthy practices and what science says blah blah blah. Especially the way we were living our daily routines, it was impossible to even think about 75 days with these routines, especially without beers. The next thing to be thought of as impossible was exercising twice a day. Other than a few exceptional days when the stars are aligned, we were hardly working out.

We moved on. However, one day I was thinking about the lethargic modern lifestyle we were practicing and how a sense of purpose or goal was missing within myself. Then I thought of taking up this challenge and proposed the same to my friends. The idea resonated and after reading & researching this, 4 of us started our 75hard journey. Today is the last day of the challenge and I could have never imagined in my dreams that we could have come such a long way.

• Healthy Diet!!! All the rules were very clear except the healthy diet one. It was open for everyone to decide their own diet plan, as long as, it is a healthy one and there is no cheat day. I have been experimenting with diets for a long time and am a big fan of intermittent fasting (IF) which I have been practicing for years now. I used to try my best to follow intermittent fasting (16 hours fast and 8 hours eating window) for 5 days a week leaving weekends for all the binging. My control over certain cravings was so poor that I used to fail my IF just for the sake of one cup of tea which used to feel heavenly in the morning. Most of the time accompanied by biscuits or rusks :).
  I heard Andy on his podcast telling you not to tweak any rules or not to make this program easy on you otherwise it will defeat the purpose. So, I chose my diet rules which will be challenging for myself — No alcohol, No added sugar, No fried or junk food and overall calorie deficit to trigger the fat loss. Though I am obsessed with IF diet, I did not commit to it for my 75hard challenge because of the 2 workout a day routine. But practically after the initial week, I tried IF again and ended up following it throughout the program.
  I gave up all unhealthy snacks I used to enjoy with or without my meal (mostly namkeens). I replaced it with salads. My lunch was routine roti, Curries, and salads but for the evening, I started making my own high protein salad with sprouts/Paneer/Eggs and lots of veggies. For 75 days I have not consumed anything that has added sugar or is fried. So no tea, no sweets, no fried food or namkeens, no food items with added sugars, no junk or fast food. I stacked up some healthy food items like muesli with no added sugar, dry fruits, dry seeds etc so that I have healthy options as backup. It is just shocking to see how I was able to live without any of these extremely addictive food items (even my tea in the morning or post lunch) without even craving them. This proves that it is all about your mindset. Just because we were passionately pursuing this challenge in our mind as well, I was able to live without these things without even craving them.
  This ended up doing some crazy stuff like not eating/drinking anything but water at my son’s birthday party as the menu had all the food items, I had banned for myself. Another one is, drinking buttermilk when my friends are toasting with beers :)
• Exercise!! The 45 minutes workouts needed to be separate and not consecutive. As one of them was supposed to be outdoors, I was obviously thinking about running or cycling. But then I thought, why not take this opportunity to do something that I was thinking of doing for the last 10 years but never acted upon it — learn to swim with proper technique. Our society has a nice well-maintained swimming pool and since we moved here 10 years back, I have not used it even 10 times. It was something that just stayed in the back of my mind all the time but never got converted into action.
  I decided I will do swimming & running in the morning. I also had purchased a gym membership in my office complex 4 months ago and hardly used it. So that’s it — my workout plan was to do swimming / walking / running / trekking in the morning and working out in the gym in the evening. Many times, when It was getting difficult to manage, I made sure that I am at least completing my 45 minute walk to make sure I am compliant with the challenge.
• Book Reading!! I had this habit of buying books but never reading them. I checked my cupboard and found like 15 non-fiction books which I had bought but had not read. In 75 days, I was able to finish 3 books. ‘Productivity Superhero’ by Dan Cula, ‘Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell and ‘How to stop worrying and start living’ by Dale Carnegie. Initially I was reading before going to bed, but I soon figured out it was a bad idea. It was consuming the family time and at times when I was occupied in the evening, book reading would have been at risk. So I moved it to early morning. My morning routine was to get up asap, mostly by 5:30 to 6, make my black coffee and read a book. I must confess though it might be a bit embarrassing that the time you spend sitting on the commode need not be totally wasted. It can be used for book reading as well :)
  Moving this task to early morning did the trick. I made sure I did not miss any day and even on days when I was travelling, I carried the book with me, ensuring I finished my 10 pages, at least.
• Drinking a gallon of Water!!! This was something I felt quite easy. I had this habit of drinking lots of water when I woke up. Hence, by the time I hit the swimming pool, my 1 liter would have been done. I bought a 2.2. liter water jar and kept it at my desk. I used to fill it whenever I reached the office and it used to be finished by afternoon. Rest I was drinking in the remaining time without much planning for it.
• Progress Pic!!! Yes, it does sound like a meaningless and easy task to take out your shirt and click a pic. But that exactly goes wrong. We think this is a very small task and we tend to take it for granted. Later in the program I realized, I missed clicking the pic on the 48th day. Just one day :(. Guilty. Lesson learnt was, don’t overlook tasks which might look small or less important. If something is very effortless, just do it twice.

Learnings from 75 Hard experience

1. It is all about the mindset. I knew this as this is how I was able to quit my smoking habit for good — by changing my mindset. It has been 10 months since I smoked. But I was not implementing the same in other areas of life where I wanted to change a few habits. From someone who could not resist a cup of tea in the morning to someone who has not taken any for 75 days without craving — it must be something with the mindset and not about willpower. Will power come into play when you crave something and still make sure you don’t do it. However, not craving it takes a certain mindset change. I got this learning from a YouTube video which is life changing — ‘How to Trick Your Brain to Like Doing Hard Things — Atomic Habits by James Clear’ — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7w5r5PfBKo (5.00 to 6.49). That was the secret of how I was able to ditch my smoking habit too :)
2. The same video mentioned above also talks about ruthless elimination of your TODOs. There are always going to be a limited number of things you will be able to get done hence don’t keep thinking about doing many. Similar thought is also behind the 4-burner theory. “Originally from David Sedaris, the theory is that there are four major burners in our lives — our family, our friends, our work, and our health. To be successful, the theory says you can only have three of the four burners on at one time. In order to be very successful, you can only have two of the four burners on.”
   So I kind of reduced the flame on a few burners like work — I used to be in the office by 8–8:30 am to get an hour of head start, to get few things done before my day officially starts. I moved that extra hour to evening and started reaching the office by 9–9:30 am after my morning routine which now had book reading and outdoor workout sessions. Another one was Friends — With a strict diet and workout routine, the interactions with friends and beer time also reduced naturally.
3. How to make sure you stick to your challenge — This recalls me of a TED talk by Mark Adams — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2paoNvG5Nmo which says you will do insane things if we get into a contract with someone. Self-promises dont work but contracts with the outside world do. The 75hard challenge acted as a contract and to make sure I stick to it, I did some publicity with my friends and acquaintances that I am doing a 75 hard program. I rarely talk about my goals or boast about my achievements but this time I did. This made sure I stick to it as failing it or giving up had a consequence now.
4. The swimming experience was amazing learning. It taught me that if we trust the process and be patient, the results will follow. As I had 75 days to swim every morning, I was in no rush, and I spent enough time in each drill. For the initial 40+ days I was doing drills with breathing, kicking with kickboard and legs practices. Now I am at least able to swim with relatively much better technique and have developed a passion for swimming too. So believe in methodological learning and consistent efforts, we can achieve anything. I think swimming might be one of the very few skills which I learnt with the proper training approach. Most of the other things I am good at are learnt without proper training for it. Any task that looks impossible or huge is possible, if we do it with a consistent, patient, and methodological approach. It applies to any area in life like sports, education, job, even spirituality.
5. Quitting Alcohol was surprisingly a very productive and enjoyable move. I think we can have an equally enjoyable life and good times without alcohol too. In fact, the dependency on alcohol as part of any outing or get together kind of makes things revolve around alcohol without letting us focus on other things. I was not missing on much as if at all there was a party, I was still joining it without breaking my diet or rules. I was making toast with any healthy drink available like buttermilk :). In fact, I enjoyed the conversations even more once the alcohol started taking its effect on others. :)
   I also realized that, before this program, alcohol was taking a toll on my energy levels and causing me fatigued. Now without alcohol, my sleep was better, and my evenings were more pleasant rather than being high and then feeling lethargic. I also went through Dr. Andrew Huberman’s 2-hour long podcast and several TED talks about sobriety which tells us the same conclusion. Like it or not, alcohol is bad even if you think you are doing it in moderation and medically permissible limits. Recommended podcast — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpI
6. Discipline was another important factor of the 75hard challenge. The 2 workouts a day were very challenging, especially looking at the busy schedule. But I am very happy to see how I was able to make sure that I was not missing the second workout in the evening, no matter what. Sometimes I was exhausted, very late in the office or just not in the right mental state to do this second workout. Still, I was able to make sure that I did it. I think this is a case of will power :). I am the same guy who, before 75 days, would have chosen not to work out every single time when I was thinking about doing it. Does not matter if it would have been morning or evening, I was always choosing not to workout. In the morning I would rather choose to go to the office early and in the evening, I would rather choose to hang out with friends/family or watch some OTT stuff. Starting from there and becoming someone who has done 150 workout sessions in 75 days is some experience. This taught me that even for difficult things, if you don’t keep an option, you will do it. Exercise (or anything you want to do regularly) needs to be an implicit part of your routine where you don’t have a second thought about doing it. Just like having your meals or brushing in the morning etc. It is all an implicit part of your routine and we do it without thinking whether to do it or not. If there is no choice or dilemma in your mind, you will end up doing it.
7. Importance of morning routine. I have always been an early morning guy. The peaceful early morning time feels like meditation to me provided my mind is not blogged with something stressful. The only way I was able to stick to my book reading was I did that in the morning as first thing. This is further endorsem*nt of 5 am club theory. Always make sure you have an early morning routine and design it in a way that you do your most important tasks early in the morning. The tasks should be more about your self-development and long-term goals rather than something related to your daily routine.
8. Ignore the noise and follow your heart. As a result of a healthy routine and workouts, my weight started dropping very fast. Over the course of 50 days itself, I was down by 8–10 kg. I started getting all kinds of comments from people around me.
   Few were just amazed with the transformation or the tough routine I was following. They were showering all kinds of compliments which was honestly very encouraging for me.
   However, some were concerned with my health as I was getting shredded. They felt like I was getting weak, and some said that I looked like a sick person.
   Some people were a bit philosophical in suggesting we should enjoy everything and not restrict ourselves from all the pleasures I had given up. ‘Life is short’ kind of stuff.
   I took it all very positively. But I had to make sure that I remain realistic and conscious about the way I process these comments. I made sure I don’t get carried away by the appreciation and don’t get demotivated with the otherwise comments. I did not disregard any of the comments, but judged things based on how I was feeling about my progress. I was feeling energetic, rejuvenated and I had complete faith in the routine I had designed for myself. Looking healthy by carrying kilos of fat was not something I wanted to feel good about. I would rather look skinny but feel-good inside. Muscles are something very hard to gain and it takes time. Trust the process and let things happen at its own pace.
9. Food habits are super important. As far as weight loss is concerned, I think the biggest impact was made by ditching grains in the evening and relying on healthy salad. Second was the intermittent fasting routine and then it was the 2 workouts I had to do every day. Apart from these, the most important move was quitting alcohol. Alcohol itself has a lot of calories and the binging with alcohol makes it worse. Also, more than the main meals, what kills our diet is the miscellaneous stuff we keep putting in our mouth between or after the meals.

Overall results achieved with 75 days of routine.

1. Lost 10 kgs. I started with 79 and I was at 69 when finished.
2. I had done body composition at the beginning and on the 50th day. Surprisingly I had dropped 8 kg weight and only 0.4 kg of it was muscle loss. I lost 7.6 kg of fat. This is something difficult to achieve as with fat loss you end up losing muscle too. Based on the things I researched, I think this was achieved because of 3 things in my routine — 1) weightlifting ensured I am breaking muscles so that they can grow stronger 2) protein intake to support the weightlifting 3) most important one was intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting helps in retaining muscle.
3. The waistline dropped by 5 inches.
4. Read 3 books. Till 75 days back, I had not completed any book in my life. Not even the academics :)
5. I learnt swimming — this might open my way to triathlons if I pursue it further.
6. Gained confidence about taking big challenges and achieving the same.
7. Convinced that I can kick alcohol, sweets, tea with sugar and junk for good.
8. Feeling confident about giving up on any bad habit and building a good one. Things which were impossible to even think of were achieved effortlessly.
9. I learnt the lesson that I have to have my own path and stick to it. Not every time I am going to have company.
10. Blood tests showed that my lipid profile improved significantly. Total cholesterol, Triglycerides & LDL went down, and HDL went up marginally. Vitamin D deficiency got fixed. It went from 7.9 deficient to 37.6 sufficient level.
11. Fat loss and muscle building is not difficult. Insane fat loss can be achieved just by tweaking diet. Also, muscles can be built with well-directed efforts which includes the right workout and enough protein intake. I can see the difference in the mirror.

75 days ago, saying no to all the junk and unhealthy food was impossible. Imagining life without drinks was next to impossible. During the challenge we used to feel that, once it is over, we will eat this and drink that. But as it is over now, I have no temptation in starting all those unhealthy habits which felt impossible to live without before I had started the challenge. Life without sweets and junk food is certainly possible and I also see now how few people were able to ditch the drinking habit for good.

What’s good must be spread so I’ll be happy to answer any questions from anyone who is willing to take this challenge. Feel free to drop an email!!

Regards, Nilesh (nil.choudhary@gmail.com)