If you know anything about me, you know that I love a good fitness challenge. I’ve been doing monthly challenges with my friends of the ‘gram for more than a year now, picking an at-home workout challenge – like Prevention’s 30-Day Ab Challenge or Shape Magazine’s Push-Up Challenge for Seriously Sculpted Arms – and getting people to join me for it. I really love the social aspect and community accountability. There’s something about saying it out loud (“Yo! I’m going to do this every day for 30 days!”) that makes me feel more obligated to do it.
I’m diving into a new challenge, and I can easily say that this is going to be the most challenging one to date. It has been on my mind for a bit, so I finally decided to just bite the bullet and do it. 75 Hard. Yep. I said it out loud. I’m starting 75 Hard on Monday, February 28th. Pray for me.

To be quite honest, I don’t recall where I heard about 75 Hard for the first time. I don’t know if I heard it from an actual human or from a podcast, but when I first learned about it I thought, “That seems crazy impossible!” and also thought, “I wonder if I would actually be able to finish that.” In regular Kimberly fashion, I went to the internets to do some more research and dug up podcast episodes from its creator Andy Frisella, podcast episodes from people who had successfully completed the challenge, and… of course, the #75hard hashtag on Instagram with transformation photos of people. (Apparently it’s also a thing on TikTok, but the ‘gram is where I am.)
75Hard is not a fitness challenge or a weight loss challenge, but according to Andy, is a “mental toughness challenge.” As described on his blog, 75Hard “will show you how to 100x the following traits in your life… confidence, self-esteem, self-worth, self-belief, fortitude, grittiness, and discipline.” I mean… that all sounds cool. But what actually do you do? Take a seat, my friend. Let me spell out the 75-day challenge for you so you can decide if my drive to do this is impressive, or just plain crazy.
The Rules of 75 Hard
Each day, for 75 days consecutively, you have to complete five tasks. If you miss any of the five, you start over at day one.
1. Follow a Structured Diet – Now, what you do for your diet isn’t specified. You choose what diet you follow, whether that’s Keto or Whole 30 or something all together different, but you have to follow it to a T. Absolutely no cheat meals. And no alcohol.
For my diet, I’m sticking to calorie counting and watching my macros. I eat fairly clean already, but the cheat meals is where it will be tough. I don’t think I’ve gone more than two weeks without pizza or Mexican food or Crumbl Cookies! And although I’m not a daily drinker, a glass of wine or a cocktail every now and again is certainly something I enjoy, so that will be tough.
2. Two 45-Minute Workouts (and One Has to Be Outside) – Again, the actual workouts aren’t specified, so this is another area you can choose your own adventure. Weight lifting, running, and yoga, all are on the table. What is specific is that they can’t be back-to-back (so an hour and a half walk doesn’t count for the two workouts), and that one has to be outdoors.
I’ll be using my Peloton bike for a lot of my indoor exercise, and I think I’ll also take advantage of some of the other workouts on the Peloton app I can do at home, like the strength training and yoga classes. I also enjoy taking the occasional sculpt or tread class at Class Studios and also have taken a few super challenging classes at Solidcore. All that to say, I feel like I have lots of good options for one of the activities. The outdoor workout is a little more challenging. I plan to do some walking, running, and also outdoor cycling. The hubs got me a bike about a month ago, so that will definitely help change up the outdoor workouts a bit.
3. Drink a Gallon of Water – Admittedly, this one is going to be tough for me. I’m not great at drinking water throughout the day, so being consistent with a gallon will really take some effort. I’ve done a gallon water challenge in the past with some success, but it wasn’t a huge deal if I missed a day. With 75 Hard, missing a day isn’t an option. Or else you start over. And I’m not starting over!
To help with this, I bought two 1/2 gallon water jugs on Amazon. I had a giant gallon water bottle before, marked with time stamps so you don’t get behind. While it was effective, it was a bit of an eyesore and certainly not easy to carry around. I think the plan to have two 1/2 gallon containers will make transporting them a bit easier.
4. Read 10 Pages of a Non-Fiction Book – I’m a fairly regular reader, so this one won’t be terribly hard for me. I’ve been doing more fiction reading lately, so I’m actually excited to spend more time on the business and self-improvement books that I used to enjoy.
In preparation for the challenge, I’ve already picked out several books to read over the next 75 days. I just finished Andy Frisella’s 75 Hard book, and I’m starting day one with “Can’t Hurt Me” by David Goggins. I also plan to read “Think Like a Monk” by Jay Shetty, and “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle during the next 75 days, along with a few other books.
5. Take a Progress Picture – While this task is easy to do, it’s also easy to forget. From what I’ve read, it’s one area that gets people starting over at day one. Even if you do everything perfectly (follow your diet, get in your two workouts, drink your water, read your book) and you forget the daily progress photo, you start over at day one. No thank you.
I’ve already decided to take my progress picture first thing in the morning to get it over and done with.
But, why?
I know all of that sounds like a lot. And 75 days is a lot. So… why? Why am I willingly putting myself through this torture?
It sounds strange, but I really want to do this to prove to myself that I can.
I want to see what happens when I don’t quit for 75 days. When I don’t give up. When I don’t make an excuse for why I can’t do something.
I truly want to see what it means to be mentally tough. And to do something consistently over a long stretch of time, even when you don’t feel like it.
I mentioned that I love a good fitness challenge, and this one is going to be tough! But I feel like I’m as prepared as I can be, and I have put together an awesome support system and accountability group. (That’s another post for another day.)
Here we go! Day 1… let’s do it!
[…] officially finished eight days of the 75 Hard challenge. Even though I still have quite a way to go, I feel like I already have so much knowledge I can […]