What is 75 Soft? A sustainable take on the viral 75 Hard challenge

If you’ve spent any time on TikTok over the last five years, you’ll probably have seen the 75 Hard Challenge. This viral program created by Andy Frisella focuses on what he describes as ‘mental toughness’, with twice-daily workouts and a rigid diet designed to see body transformation over 75 days.

While it’s found ardent followers, many find the challenge ultimately unsustainable, leading people to either lose their new habits in the weeks after finishing or not finish at all. In response to this, Irish fitness influencer Stephen Gallagher created the 75 Soft Challenge, a more sustainable alternative with a focus on creating healthy habits that actually last.

But what is the 75 Soft fitness challenge? And if it’s less extreme, can it still help you on your weight loss journey, whether you're looking to trim off a few kilos or hit loftier goals like losing half your body weight?

What is the 75 Soft challenge?

Created as an unofficial response to the 75 Hard Challenge, the 75 Soft Challenge is a flexible, holistic fitness program focused on building healthy habits over 75 days.

Incorporating both diet and exercise routines alongside tips for meditation and reading recommendations, the 75 Soft Challenge is less focused on extreme lifestyle changes and instead on helping you to establish a lasting healthy routine, build mental strength, and create sustainable habits.

What are the rules of 75 Soft?

The rules of the 75 Soft Challenge are simple:

1. Be mindful of your food choices 90% of the time, but you're still able to go down the pub with your mates. No hard meal plans, just eating more nutritious foods.
2. Workout four times a week for 30 minutes to build strength and a healthy fitness routine, but embrace your active recovery time too.
3. Take progress pictures on Day 1 and Day 75 so you can see how far you’ve come.
4. Drink two to three litres of water per day, depending on your body weight.  
5. Meditate for at least five minutes per day to build mental strength and reduce stress.
6. Read a book or listen to a personal development podcast for at least ten minutes per day [1].

Note, there are variations to 75 Soft, so be aware that you might find some slight tweaks to these rules if you're reading other sources.

Why 75 Soft is a more realistic alternative to 75 Hard

Look at it this way. Viral challenges like these are often all bark and no bite. In 75 Soft's case, it's a less harsh version of 75 Hard. It doesn't make you weak to take this one instead. It's about taking on a challenge that's sustainable long after the initial 75-day period.

Let's be honest, extreme lifestyle challenges like 75 Hard can get you the results, but they can be difficult habits to maintain long-term, unless you're a genetic freak like David Goggins. This can give you the feeling of going backwards, hindering your motivation and sense of achievement. After all, how many blokes do you know who want to give up all social occasions in the name of "mental fortitude"?

The simplicity of 75 Soft is that it’s a well-rounded challenge that lets you be kind to yourself as you move forward on your weight-loss and healthy-living journey. Yes, it's about becoming the best version of yourself, but it also lets you drink alcohol with your mates and have a real social life as part of your daily routine.

Allows for flexibility and recovery

One of the biggest benefits of this less intense version of the challenge is that it allows you flexibility in both the type of exercise you do and the specific diet you might follow, and it also allows time for rest and recovery.

While the 75 Hard Challenge demands twice-daily vigorous workouts, 75 Soft not only lets you set your days and the type of exercise you might do, but it also gives you the time and space for active rest days, which are vital to helping your body to heal, your energy stores to refuel, and for your body to repair.

After all, don’t forget that regular exercise creates tiny tears in the muscles, and it’s in the healing of those tears that your muscles grow bigger and stronger. That part of the process doesn’t happen during the exercise itself, but rather during periods of rest, making those three days off a week time for your body to grow stronger through active recovery [2]. Hit it too hard down the gym without recovery, and you're asking for an injury. That's not weakness, but sports medicine talking.

Promotes sustainable lifestyle habits

While the more extreme, vigorous workouts dictated by self-professed ‘tough’ challenges like the 75 Hard Challenge might work for some, they won’t work for everyone. The intensity of the exercise and restrictiveness of the diet, as well as the ‘all or nothing’ approach, which allows for no cheat meals or alcohol, even for special occasions, means there’s little room for flexibility.

The 75 Soft Challenge comes with some recipe recommendations or workout suggestions, but ultimately, the rules allow you to determine what works for you. Maybe your half-hour workout is in the pool, or maybe it’s at a HIIT class, and maybe healthy eating for you looks like smoothies in the summer and oats and honey in the winter.

Being guided while still holding the power to make this popular challenge work with your lifestyle, instead of against it, makes for a sustainable approach that will keep you going long after the 75 days of the challenge.

Supports mental health, not just mental toughness

By incorporating meditation, reading, and self-improvement guides, the 75 Soft Challenge is about more than just weight loss, too. It’s about creating a healthy routine that supports your emotional and mental health as much as it does your physical health.

The focus of other challenges on mental toughness can fail to account for the fact that we might have issues we have to tackle, rather than papering over the cracks with relentless strength training. Mental strength comes not from grit, but from knowing oneself and knowing what we need, and when we need it.

Who should try 75 Soft — and who might want to skip it

While 75 Soft is a gentler alternative to many weight-loss trends, every new exercise routine should be commenced only after a conversation with your healthcare provider. This particular one might seem straightforward given the lower levels of activity, but if you’re jumping straight in, the type of exercise you’re doing and the amount of water you’re drinking can have serious implications, particularly if you have any underlying conditions.

The best way to start any new habit, particularly when it comes to health and wellness, is by getting in touch with your GP.

Can 75 Soft help you lose weight?

It could, but while the benefits of 75 Soft’s flexibility far outweigh the drawbacks, that flexibility does make it hard to definitively say if it will help you lose weight.

Your lifestyle before starting the challenge, the exercise you choose to do, and what you eat and drink will all shape the results you see from this particular fitness challenge, but that doesn’t mean it is not worth doing.

The recommendations of exercising four days a week, drinking water, and sticking to healthy eating most of the time are all supported by experts, meaning that regardless of whether or not you lose weight, you are building healthier habits.

But of course, if you're following the first four rules four days a week and going on a bender the other three days, you won't get very far.

Is there a 75 Medium challenge for building healthy habits?

If 75 Hard is too much and 75 Soft isn't challenging enough, there's the 75 Medium Challenge.

The rules state that for the 75 Medium Challenge, you must:

• Drink between two and three litres of water a day.
• Work out for 45 minutes every day.
• Stick to the recommended diet 90% of the time and save drinking for after the 75-day challenge is over.
• Read or listen to something inspirational or focused on self-improvement for ten minutes every day.
• Meditate or pray for five to ten minutes per day.
• Take one progress photo every day of the challenge.

Ultimately, the main differences are working out daily and for longer, being more vigilant about your diet, and taking daily pictures.

Other flexible ways to lose weight through a healthy routine

There’s no one way to lose weight, but most medical professionals agree that there really is only one way to do it sustainably: establish a routine that lasts a lifetime by making small, healthy changes to your eating and exercise habits [4].

The 75 Soft Challenge is a great way to get you started on building those habits, but you don’t necessarily need to follow all those rules. You can start smaller with just walking more and getting rid of the soft drinks in your fridge, or go a little bigger by signing up for a future marathon with a friend.

Equipping yourself with the tools to maintain habits, though, is key to flexibility. If you know you’re not going to be able to cook for a week because you're busy with work, meal prepping in advance can stop you from loading up your local takeaway website.

You'll also find plenty of medically-backed options available, including counselling, working with a personal trainer, or even signing up for Pilot's Weight Reset Program. What matters is that your path is adapted to your needs, and the best way to deal with that is getting in touch with your GP and sharing your plans with them.

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