It's only March, and we have already seen quite a few wellness trends come and go. One of the trends taking over social media is the new '75 Soft Challenge'. What exactly is this challenge?
What Is The "75 Soft Challenge"?
The 75 Soft Challenge is based on the 75 Hard Mental Toughness Program founded by speaker Andy Frisella. The '75 Hard' program involves a gruelling, unforgiving challenge involving five daily tasks with one rule: if you do not complete the five daily tasks every single day, you start back at Day One.
What Is The "75 Hard" Challenge?
The five daily tasks are:
If you are wondering whether it is a very easy and effective challenge, let us tell you the rules of 75 Hard: it immediately sets off alarm bells as it includes no rest days, no cheat days, and no allowance for an illness.
The worst part that comes with this trend is the consequence of going back to your normal shape after the challenge gets over.
The "75 Soft" Version
The "75 Soft" version is a slightly easier version of the "75 Hard" challenge. What it entails:
1. Eat well and only drink alcohol during social occasions
2. Drink 3 litres of water per day
3. Exercise 45 minutes per day, plus 1 active recovery day per week
4. 10 pages of any reading per day
5. No progress photos required
Benefits Of 75 Soft Challenge
The 75 Soft challenge offers some benefits. Following a good nutrition and workout program for 75 days should certainly give you some results regarding weight loss and fitness.
Drinking three litres of water a day will keep you hydrated, and a good amount of water intake helps bowel movements and digestion.
If you do the required 10 pages of reading per day, you will get into a good habit of reading and it will be a good distraction from your mobile phone.
Overall, each critical task has the potential to improve some aspect of your life, and it can give you some highly effective results.
Problems With The 75 Soft Challenge
Despite its catchy name, social media trendiness, and inclusion of beneficial daily tasks, the 75 Soft program has some serious downsides in terms of fitness, transformation, and self-improvement planning.
Here are some potential downsides.
1. Extreme lifestyle change for a short duration
The first problem of this challenge is they tend to be extreme lifestyle changes for a relatively short duration in the grand scheme of things. Although you will see the same results and only so much change in your body in the given time period, both mentally and physically.
The question is: What happens at the end of the 75 days?
Unless you have a sustainable framework for longer-term habit change, there is a good chance you will revert to old habits.
2. Lack of specificity
The program does not actually have a goal in mind for the nutrition, fitness, and self-improvement component. So, you are left having to figure out what workout to do, what nutrition plan to follow, and what books you should read.
There are also good chances that your individual goals may not be suited for this challenge and can hamper your other daily tasks.
An Expert Weighs In
NDTV spoke with health expert Tejveer Bagai, a professional fitness trainer and powerlifter, who told us about the drawbacks and advantages of the 75 Hard and 75 Soft challenges.
Fitness expert Tejveer Bagai says balance is key in trying out any new wellness trend
He says, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going. This is what the 75-day Hard challenge revolves around: pushing your mind and body to the limit—out of your comfort zone—helping you grow mentally and physically. This challenge puts the mind in a very constructive direction, showing the path of discipline and commitment to a goal. Keeping a strict diet without alcohol and cheat meals, doing two 45-minute workouts, one of which is outdoors, drinking 4 litres of water, reading 10 pages of nonfiction, and taking progress pics—these are the key factors that a person is focusing on daily to achieve this challenge. With a growing love for fitness and aesthetics, it's great to see people respecting their bodies with a mindset to treat the body like a temple."
Talking about the drawbacks, Tejveer says, "There are no drawbacks as such, but a few things to keep in mind are that a TikToker was hospitalised because of drinking excessive amounts of water during this challenge. Consuming excessive and abnormal amounts of water can lead to dilutional hyponatraemia. It leads to sodium deficiency and can be fatal. This can cause nausea, lethargy, headache, malaise, seizures, and coma."
Balance Is Essential
The key is striking a balance. Hence, the 75 Soft challenge might come in as a slightly better version of the 75 Hard challenge.
"It's important to strike a balance between discipline and enjoying life," says Tejveer.
"A bit of sugar or a cheat meal once in a while doesn't cause any harm as long as a person is regular with his or her fitness regime. Overdoing anything—for example, giving up on everything—can make life mundane and monotonous. Indulging in the things you like keeps you calm, gives you a good dopamine boost, and gives you a much-needed break from the strenuous diet and training," he says.
After all, rest is necessary too.
"Like they say, you can't drive your car in 5th gear all the time. It's important to slow down once in a while, sit back, and relax—let your batteries recharge and then get ready to fly again," says Tejveer.
75 Hard or 75 Soft, all of these programmes work towards the same goal: discipline. Have you tried any of the two challenges?
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