75 Hard rules: the 5 daily tasks and what counts for each

The 75 Hard rules are five tasks you do every day for 75 days in a row: two 45-minute workouts with one of them outdoors, a diet with no cheat meals and no alcohol, a gallon of water, 10 pages of a non-fiction book, and a progress photo. Miss any one of them on any day and you start again at day 1. That is the whole challenge. The hard part is the detail.

75 Hard was created by Andy Frisella. The rules below are the ones as they are usually stated, and they are the ones the tracker on this site checks. Where versions of the rules differ, this page says so instead of picking one and calling it the only version.

The 5 rules on one page

No rest days. No partial credit. A day counts only when all five are done.

What counts under each of the 75 Hard rules

The two workouts

Two sessions of at least 45 minutes each, and they have to be separate. One 90-minute session does not count as two. The rule does not name a sport or an intensity, so a gym session, a run, a bike ride, a swim, a yoga class or a long hike all fit.

Some versions of the rules add that the two workouts must be at least 3 hours apart. The common statement of the rules does not include it, and the tracker on this site does not require it. If you follow the 3-hour version, it shapes your whole day: a 6:30am session and a 6pm session work, a lunchtime session and a 2pm one do not.

Do walks count?

The rules ask for 45 minutes of working out and do not set an intensity, so a brisk walk is a common choice, often as the outdoor session. A slow stroll with stops to look at your phone is a much weaker case. Decide what counts before day 1 and write it down, because by week four you will want a generous answer and the person deciding will be tired.

The outdoor workout

One of the two sessions has to be outside. The rule as usually stated has no exception for rain, cold or dark, so the gear matters more than the plan. If you start in autumn and train after work, the outdoor session will be in the dark on many weekdays by the second month. Pick a lit route, buy a cheap rain jacket, and have a 45-minute walk you can do from your front door when nothing else is possible.

The diet

75 Hard does not tell you what to eat. It tells you to choose a diet, follow it every day, have no cheat meals and drink no alcohol. The diet can be a calorie target, a way of eating such as vegetarian, or a list of foods you cut out. What makes it work is that it is written down before day 1, in rules clear enough that you never have to argue with yourself about a biscuit.

A cheat meal, under that reading, is anything your own written rules do not allow. That is why a vague rule like "eat clean" causes restarts. It gives you nothing to check against.

The gallon of water

One US gallon is about 3.8 litres, or 128 oz. Plain water is the safe reading. Whether sparkling water, tea or water mixed with electrolyte powder counts is a question people answer differently, so settle it before you start.

For scale: a 2004 report from the U.S. National Academies found that women who appeared well hydrated took in about 2.7 litres of total water a day and men about 3.7 litres, counting every drink and the water in food, with about 20 percent of it coming from food. A gallon of plain water on top of meals is more than that for most people. Drinking a lot in a short time also carries a risk: Mayo Clinic lists drinking too much water as one cause of hyponatremia, a low level of sodium in the blood that can be serious.

So spread it out. A practical marker: half the gallon by lunchtime. Finishing 2 litres in the last three hours before bed means a bad night and a real risk, and it is the easiest way for the water rule to go wrong.

The reading, and whether audiobooks count

Ten pages of a non-fiction or self-improvement book. Audiobooks do not count, and neither does fiction. E-readers are fine, though the page count on an e-reader changes with the font size, so pick a setting and leave it. The rule does not care whether your 10 pages are a dense history book or a pocket paperback with wide margins. You will know which one you picked.

The progress photo

One photo a day. Same spot, same light, same time if you can manage it, or the 75 photos will not compare well at the end. The tracker on this site keeps the photo on your device and never uploads it.

What happens if you fail a day of 75 Hard?

You start again at day 1. This covers every rule, not only the big ones. Nine pages instead of ten is a missed day. One workout instead of two is a missed day. A forgotten photo on a day when you trained twice, drank the gallon and ate perfectly is still a missed day.

That is the cost of the challenge, and it grows as you go. A miss on day 8 costs a week. A miss on day 60 costs two months. The small rules are where this bites, because nothing reminds you of them: a hard workout is hard to forget, a photo is easy to forget.

The 75 Hard tracker follows the restart rule and you cannot switch it off. If yesterday is not complete, you can still fill in anything you did but forgot to log until the end of today. After that the run ends and the next attempt starts at day 1. Log what happened, not what you meant to do.

Is 75 Hard unhealthy?

It depends on the person. Each rule on its own is ordinary for many healthy adults. The load comes from the mix, every day, with no rest day, for 75 days.

Put the training in numbers. The CDC's guidance for adults is 150 minutes of moderate activity a week plus muscle-strengthening on at least 2 days. Two 45-minute workouts a day comes to 630 minutes a week, over four times that baseline, with no planned day off. For someone who already trains most days, that is a stretch. For someone starting from nothing, it is a big jump in one go.

• The water: a gallon is a lot for a smaller person, and it has to be spread across the day.
• The training: no rest days means small aches have no gap to settle in. Pick at least one of the two daily sessions to be easy.
• The diet: a strict food rule with a restart attached can be a bad fit for anyone with a history of disordered eating.
• Existing conditions: heart, kidney or blood pressure problems, pregnancy, or an injury change the answer completely.

Settle these before day 1

1. Write your diet down in rules a stranger could check.
2. Decide what counts as a workout, including whether a brisk walk does.
3. Choose whether you follow the 3-hour gap. Then keep to it.
4. Pick your first two books, so day 1 does not start with a search.
5. Plan the wet-weather outdoor session.
6. Mark your water bottle so you can see where you should be by lunch.

I cannot tell you how many people finish 75 Hard on the first attempt. There is no reliable count, and any figure you see quoted is a guess. What is certain is the arithmetic: the later the miss, the more it costs, so the rules worth over-preparing for are the small ones you might forget on a good day.