Have you heard of the 75-Day Hard Challenge?
Now that it’s summer, you may be seeing an influx of diet content and fitness challenges on your ‘For You’ page. Every year, social media becomes obsessed with the concept of getting “summer-body ready.” As the temperatures rise and trips abroad get closer, more and more people feel pressured to embark on a summer weight-loss journey.
While fitness fads have always been prevalent over the summer months, there’s one particular trend that may be causing participants more harm than good.
If you’ve been active on social media lately, then you may have come across the 75-Day Hard Challenge, which is prevalent on sites like TikTok and Instagram. The challenge revolves around participants following a series of strict rules for 75 days, but Steven McQuillan, the lead writer at Compare.Bet, has issued an urgent warning about why the challenge may not be as beneficial as you think.
What is the 75-Day Hard Challenge?
Over the years, thousands of people have participated in the 75-Day Hard Challenge, posting their transformations across social media. Often referred to as ‘75 Hard’, the challenge aims to promote physical activity and healthy eating.
As the weather starts to heat up, searches for fitness challenges are on the rise. Over the past 30 days, searches for “75-Day Hard” and 75-Day Hard Challenge have increased by a staggering 477%, peaking in the early days of July. Searches for “75-Day Hard Rules” and “75-Day Hard Diet” have also been on the rise in recent weeks.
According to data from Google Trends, online searches for “75 Days from Today” have also soared by 104% in the past 30 days, hinting that people may be feeling pressure from social media to embark on a fitness trend over the summer.
Participants of the challenge are obliged to follow a series of strict rules for 75 continuous days. If a participant slips up, they must restart the challenge from day one. While the challenge’s severity may deter many, others believe that participating in the fitness trend daily is the quickest way to form positive habits.
The 75-Day Hard Challenge revolves around following the five rules, which include:
#1 Follow a strict diet
The diet itself is up to the participant’s choice, but it must revolve around the goal of physical improvement. No “cheat meals” or alcohol are allowed throughout the duration of the challenge.
#2 Complete two 45-minute workouts a day
The challenge specifies that one of these workouts must be completed outdoors.
#3 Drink one gallon of water a day
While most professionals recommend drinking around 1.2 liters of water daily, the challenge instructs that participants must drink almost four liters daily.
#4 Take a progress picture every day
In compliance with the challenge’s goal of physical transformation, participants must take a picture of themselves daily throughout the challenge. Many participants choose to upload these progress pictures on social media, particularly on TikTok.
#5 Read at least ten pages of a book every day
To boost mental well-being, the challenge specifies that participants must read at least ten pages of a book daily. While the book is up to the participant’s choosing, the challenge specifies that audiobooks are not included.
What are the dangers of the challenge?
While the challenge focuses on implementing positive habits into your daily routine, it’s likely that the trend is causing participants more harm than good.
The 75-Day Hard Challenge’s strict rules aim to promote discipline, but this can enable an “all-or-nothing” mindset. If participants fail to complete all aspects of the challenge in one day, then they are obliged to restart the trend from day one, invoking feelings of guilt and self-criticism. These negative emotions can result in low moods, self-isolation, and heightened anxiety levels.
As social media users typically share their progress and transformation photos online while completing the 75-Day Hard Challenge, participants will likely end up comparing their fitness journeys with others. This consistent feeling of self-comparison can take a significant toll on your mental well-being and may create an unhealthy hyper-focus on appearance and body image, which can heighten feelings of dysmorphia.
While healthy eating is an essential component of mental wellness, following a strict diet has many downsides, particularly the risk of forming an unhealthy relationship with food. This 75-Day Hard Challenge promotes calorie counting, which may sometimes lead to undesirable outcomes, particularly for younger participants.
The 75-Day Hard Challenge also places an obsessive pressure on completing two workouts per day, which fails to consider other commitments like work and childcare. While completing daily exercise can have a positive impact on both your physical and mental well-being, the obligation to complete two 45-minute workouts in one day is often unrealistic.
As the 75-Day Hard Challenge mainly revolves around excessive levels of physical activity, this creates a negative mindset around working out. Participants may feel as though they have to exercise out of obligation, rather than for enjoyment, and may not have enough time to rest and recover.
With the 75-Day Hard Challenge being promoted across social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, many of the participants will be younger. Following strict rules around exercise and food can pose risks to younger audiences’ well-being.
While older audiences tend to take what they see on social media with a pinch of salt, younger viewers are often more impressionable, which is why the 75-Day Hard Challenge can be harmful. Invoking habits of self-comparison and negative associations with body image is why it’s best for teens to steer clear of this challenge and look for healthier alternatives.
Warning signs parents should watch for
It’s important for parents to be aware if their teen is participating in any viral fitness challenges. Parents should maintain open communication when it comes to social media trends, particularly when it comes to diet and fitness fads. Keep an eye out for any signs of anxiety concerning missing workouts and excessive amounts of exercise.
It’s important to discuss the difference between healthy discipline and harmful perfectionism to avoid any feelings of self-deprivation. Parents should encourage teens to avoid taking social media content at face value and instead question the wider drawbacks surrounding fitness trend consumption.
Steven McQuillan, the lead writer at Compare.Bet, has commented:
“Ultimately, the 75 Hard challenge has good intentions when it comes to promoting healthy habits, but fitness trends are rarely sustainable in the long run. Instead of cramming strict dieting and excessive workouts into a short time span, it’s more important to work on building more realistic and achievable goals over a gradual period.
“Short-term fitness challenges often have the potential to place participants under too much pressure, which can then create an unhealthy relationship with dieting and regular physical activity. This is why it’s more important to take a more measured approach to healthy eating and fitness.
“75-Day Hard can be accused of setting the standards overly high so that participants feel a sense of constant pressure and anxiety. The challenge’s ‘no excuses’ mindset fails to account for realistic obligations and obstacles, such as illness, work, and childcare.
“While the challenge aims to hold participants accountable when it comes to implementing healthy habits, it’s more likely that participants will take the trend’s rules ‘too far.’ This feeling of consistently striving toward perfectionism can ultimately result in burnout, often leading people to lose track of their fitness journey entirely.
“Instead of feeling weighed down by unrealistic goals, remember to set your own fitness goals that work within your routine rather than following what social media deems to be ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Building sustainable habits gradually, without the all-or-nothing approach, will always lead to healthier long-term outcomes.”
(Mis) Information and Social Media
Social media has become a part of many people’s lives, for better or worse. They can provide entertainment and a variety of information ranging from home improvement to trending dances and world news. Some reports even suggest that younger people prefer using social media platforms rather than using traditional search engines when looking for answers, and this is not always a good thing.
Health information found on social media is no exception to misleading information. While you can find countless tags leading to information with millions of views, and it can be a good way to share health concerns and find others in similar situations, just because something has a lot of views does not mean that the information is credible or even safe.
When viewing health information on social media platforms, you are going to find more than a fair share of misinformation. Some of this may be relatively harmless, but others can be outright dangerous, like the Reddit and YouTube Tide Pod Challenge, and the TikTok challenge that encouraged people to drink borax with their morning coffee.
Unfortunately, TikTok is not the only social media platform with misinformation, and often, dangerous misinformation with no scientific backing can go viral and spread to Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms, while most people with common sense struggle to understand why someone would do so. TikTok trends most often don’t last very long; soon enough, something else will trend that is misleading nonsense, and the spotlight will turn in that direction. Now the 75-Day Hard Challenge has entered the questionable social media trending arena.
Takeaway
The 75-Day Hard Challenge, while marketed as a “mental toughness” program, has raised concerns among health experts and is considered potentially unsafe for several reasons, such as extreme exercise demands, restrictive dieting and no cheat meals, excessive water intake, having serious mental health implications, and the lack of professional guidance seen in most trends from certified fitness or nutrition professionals, meaning participants may not be making informed choices about their diet or exercise routine, increasing the risks mentioned above.
In conclusion, while the 75-Day Hard Challenge may seem appealing for its focus on discipline and mental toughness, its extreme requirements and lack of flexibility can pose significant risks to both physical and mental health. Consulting a healthcare professional, registered dietitian, or certified personal trainer is recommended before embarking on such a demanding program like the 75-Day Hard Challenge to ensure it aligns with individual needs and health goals.
This article was created at the WHN News Desk using information provided by Freya Keeping on behalf of the sports betting site CompareBet, a team of digital marketing experts with a focus on offering users around the world an unrivaled gambling comparison experience.
As with anything you read on the internet, this article on the 75-Day Hard Challenge should not be construed as medical advice; please talk to your doctor or primary care provider before changing your wellness routine. WHN neither agrees nor disagrees with any of the materials posted. This article on the 75-Day Hard Challenge is not intended to provide a medical diagnosis, recommendation, treatment, or endorsement. Additionally, it is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
