Member-only story
75 Hard: A Discipline Challenge or a Recipe for Burnout?sub
A Bite-Size Read for Your Health and Waistline
The start of a new year often comes with a surge of resolutions, ambitions, and plans for self-improvement. One approach that saw quite a bit of traction last year was a program/approach called 75 Hard. You probably saw it mentioned in headlines or on social media; either way, it bears a revisit at the start of 2025. As always, I have some nuanced thoughts to share.
75 Hard is a program detailed in a book by Andy Frisella, which carries the subtitle “A Tactical Guide to Winning the War with Yourself.” The program’s framework is straightforward yet demanding: follow a diet (any structured eating plan aimed at physical improvement), complete two 45-minute workouts daily (one of which must be outdoors), drink a gallon of water, read 10 pages of a book (audio books don’t count), and take a daily progress photo. These tasks must be completed every day for 75 days without deviation. If you miss a single task, you reset to day one. Frisella claims that the program’s rigidity is essential, asserting that modifying it undermines its purpose, and a lack of discipline is “the root of every problem in your life.”
As a health coach, I can see why there’s an appeal for this kind of program. Its structure offers clarity and eliminates ambiguity, which can…
