I tried Andy Frisella’s 75 Hard and this is how it changed my life

And these are the things I recommend, you know before you even try…

So the 75 hard challenge has been circulating the Internet for a little while now. You may even have seen some influencers post about it or even casual friends in one of your Facebook groups or Instagram feeds. Before we go into the challenge, here's a little bit about Andy. Andy Frisella is an entrepreneur author podcast owner. He is the founder of several successful ventures, including first Form International Alpine Sports Products and Frisella Incline Enterprises also is also known for his popular podcast, the most CEO Project, which you can assume what M.F. stands for, but he's pretty hardcore.

That's just he's a no B.S. in your face type of personality. And in this podcast, he shares insights and experiences on business, personal development. And in addition to his entrepreneur pursuits, Frisella is a sought after speaker and author of the bestselling book The MFCEO project Mastering the Art of Business. Now that you know more about Andy and why his challenge probably got people's attention, let's go over the rules.

There are six rules to the challenge, and starting with rule number one, which I pull all of these directly from somebody's final outcome. So you can check it out if you want. I'll put a link below so you can reference it starting with rule number one. If you skip a day, you must start over no matter what your day looks like that.

First of all, a 75 hard challenge is that if you miss a single task, even on a small level, you're supposed to. For example, one of the rules drink a gallon of water every day. If you drink point nine, you to start over. And it's meant this first rule is meant to challenge you. It's meant to put you in an uncomfortable situation where it's inconvenient, it's extremely inconvenient.

A lot of these rules are and you'll see that. And it's meant to build some fortitude, built some consistency in your life, and also cause you to sacrifice some other things in order to make room for these tasks, for these rules, so to speak. So the whole point of this is to make you feel uncomfortable. And that's the first rule that right out the gate you miss anything.

You start over. And it also, I think in some way makes you want to stick with it, because if you make it like halfway through, you're not going to want this. You're going to be pretty. You're going to probably try to stick to it no matter what happens. So that's probably another reason behind the strictness of it is if you could just continue on, then you can make one excuse after another and then next thing you know it, you're changing the entire program to 75 soft.

So roll over to pick a diet and follow it. Without cheating or alcohol. And one thing I like about this is it's a diet that you plan on sticking to. You could be vegan, you could be carnivore, whatever your diet type is, you just need to stick to it and not have cheat meals and buy cheat meals, meaning like a Big Mac combo meal would probably fall under a cheat meal for everybody unless you're doing like the McDonald's diet.

If that is your diet, I suppose that technically should count. So if you're like me and you're on a lean bulk, then anything that's high in fat sugar like an ice cream, technically it would be a cheat meal unless I am following a calories in, calories out type of diet. So like an 80/20, then I wouldn't even consider like ice cream a cheat meal.

I would just factor that in if I'm a flexible dieter, then that technically falls in line. However, the other part is no alcohol, no beer, no liquor, none of that. So if you're going to drink or you going to be among friends, then probably I think you could get away with is like a Heineken double zero. So that's another aspect of the rules as far as eating and drinking.

The next step is the drinking of a gallon of water every day. And on their website they go through a list of benefits of being properly hydrated and how it has an impact on your performance, your digestion, circulation, skin and all kinds of other health aspects. And so this is one of the reasons why Frisella made it one of his rules is to consume a full gallon, 3.7 liters of water daily. And I'll talk to you about why this for me was the deal breaker.

Rule number four, complete two 45 minute workouts and throughout the 75 hard challenge, you're expected to do two - 45 minute workouts every single day. And the caveat is one has to be outdoors, the other one could be indoors or it can also be outdoors. And the outdoor workout, it doesn't matter what the weather's like.

One exception that is need is don't put your life at jeopardy. So don't go running or deer outside. Work out. If there's like a life threatening storm happening, you know, so that there's a little bit of leeway there. But outside of that, it's freezing. If it's cold, like just don't hurt yourself, but you got to do your workout outdoors.

And when I dug a little bit deeper, I went down the reddit rabbit hole. It turns out that you need to put a three hour buffer between workouts because I tried to piggyback two workouts. And I'll talk more about that. But that's another little detail that isn't quite visible when you first look at the rules. But if you dig deeper, you'll see that.

Rule number five is to read a ten pages of a nonfictional book daily and the reason behind it is it's meant to help stimulate parts of your brain that helps build self-discipline, helps create positivity.

When you learn and read about what other people do that have improved their lives, you tend to feel like you're not alone in the journey.

Number six, take daily progress photos and it's pretty cool. In the app. There's a place to upload it and you have like a calendar where you can go in and daily add the photo.

Not only will each picture show your physical transformation, but each progress picture will provide tangible evidence of your journey. It's going to be pretty cool when you see all of the change that you go through. So I like that aspect taking daily photos. So now that you know the rules, I'll go over each one and how they affected me.

Rule number one starting over if you skip a day, I successfully completed 12 days without having to start over. Jerry Seinfeld is very similar to the don't break the chain approach that Jerry had, Seinfeld had, I should say, when he gives advice to comedians and it's to not break the chain. Although Seinfeld encourages you just just to, like, make the chain longer next time.

This one has no wiggle room. If you mess up, you start over and you start on day one. So if you make it two days straight, then break. There's no name for that. Another three days next time. It's just 75 days. Now, you could try the Jerry Seinfeld approach with this thing. Like if you make it seven days and next time you're going to try to go for eight days if you break and just keep building on that and I guess you could eventually finish 75 hard that way, but it might take you a few years.

Rule number two, to picking a meal without cheats or alcohol was pretty straightforward for me.

I was on a low fat, calorie deficit style diet. I was already working on cutting out my alcohol intake. I typically have a drink or two when I would go out for a guys night, which was fun. Family time with my dad and brother. We'd go to a steak house, watch a sports talk about fantasy football and this challenge cut that activity out, which kind of sucks because there's less family time.

But the outing really would have a negative impact on the following day as far as my workouts would go and my mental clarity. So there was definitely a win there and it just encouraged me and my family to find something else to do for fun, that's been kind of a challenge but we've all kind of got on that same bandwagon of improving our lives and getting healthier so that activity sacrifice was worth it.

Rule number three, drinking a gallon of water every day. This was the deal breaker for me. I was hydrating before this challenge and felt a little bit better with the increased water intake, but had to use the restroom too many times in the middle of the night and all throughout the day. This ruined my sleep because I had to get up multiple times.

Sometimes three times in the night. I mean, you can say I have a small bladder, but I think I have an average sized bladder. The mess up of my REM sleep was so disrupting and it's really hard to get back to sleep when that part is disrupted. So I also work out a lot out of a store style warehouse that doesn't have a restroom nearby.

So I would have to drive to a gas station a couple of times a day, which also had a negative impact on my productivity, even if I wasn't at the warehouse and I'm working in my office doing some edits, having to drink a gallon of water, the drinking part was a little bit of a chore, but really having to use the restroom a lot, I just couldn't do it.

And I heard that your bladder can improve. I guess it can adapt to your intake or you can take supplements to help, not have to go a lot. And that was it for me. I figured if I change my office setting or my situation, maybe after I'm done bulking and building more muscle, I will go back to 75 hard and attempt to do a gallon of water day or spread out the intake.

Because I was cramming last or the end of the day is probably is what affected my sleep is I would make sure I drank that gallon even it feels right before bedtime. So if I was to approach the differently with a gallon of water a day approach, I would start the morning with, you know, a full glass of water.

Then I would do my work out and drink a glass while I'm doing my workout and finish my workout and drink another glass, basically spread it out.

Rule number four, completing two - 45 minute workouts was fun and easy for me. I did find a specific detail, as I mentioned online, that yes, there has to be that three hour buffer.

So it was a little annoying that I couldn't use walking to the gym as part of my workout, so I had to adapt and it was a minor inconvenience, but I get it at the whole point of that is to create the habit of an early morning task and then maybe forcing you to create a break in between your work routines to like, do another workout or just kind of change up your schedule and not feel stuck to a desk.

It's going to be hard for a lot of people to pull that off. But I guess if you wake up earlier, you can tackle this approach first thing in the morning. Do your 45 minutes walk or a jog and then save your afternoon or night work out for later.

And then rule five was pretty easy, too. Reading ten pages of a nonfiction book, it was right up my alley.

I like to read, and sometimes I don't make time for it and use audiobooks, but I find myself sitting down reading these books and I would end up reading a lot more once the topic called me in. So this is pretty cool on it. It was also nice to take a break from looking at a screen or leaning on the crutch of an audio book while I'm driving.

Overall, this challenge was fun. Although I failed to reach the 75 days by a long shot, I pretty much kept all the other habits in play with the exception of drinking water, and I still do on occasion have a drink if I go to a nice restaurant or bar. But the habit has shrunk on a major scale and I can improve my reading habit and my workouts are now just daily workouts that last at least 90 minutes.

So in a sense, in essence, I crammed two workouts. I recommend this challenge for people who are really looking to set boundaries in their lives so they can truly benefit from good habits that are hard to instill if you don't already have them in place. Also, make sure you surround yourself with people who will support your goals because this challenge will put a wrench in a lot of the plans you have.

And if you have some plans that have been traditions, there will be some peer pressure into like sticking with you. Whatever it is that you would do if it's, you know, your fantasy football draft and you're drinking beer there and that sort of thing. So another strategy might be to pick the 75 day heart challenge in a season where, you know, you're not going to be tempted to drink or party or hang out with people that are going to pull you away from it, you know, cheat meals and stuff.

It's it's going to be a challenge. So you can definitely pull it off, but try to not give yourself more obstacles. And then lastly, make sure your bladder is ready, maybe warm up a month before with half a gallon or so. That way you're ready for the full amount. And I read that your water, like I mentioned before, can adapt to your food consumption.

So knowing all of these things now, I will probably give it another shot when I'm probably in my cut phase, which will be six months from now. And I have different life circumstances. I'm about to go to some weddings and travel for a screening. All of those things are just going to make it a lot more challenging and I'm not even chalking them up as excuses.

That's just, you know, the circumstance of my life right now. Well, I hope you're in a position where you can try this challenge. Check out more details by going to 75Hard.com or let me know if you've tried it failed or tried it and succeeded. And if you did any of those comment below, I'd like to read and see what strategies I can put into place next time I give this shot up.

Hope that helps.