How to Start 75 Hard: The Complete Prep Checklist

Quick answer: Give yourself a week. Read the rules and write down what counts. Put both workouts in the calendar for all 75 days. Shop and cook for the first week. Buy the water bottle, the rain jacket, and the book. Pick the photo spot. Name one person who will watch. Then start.

Almost nobody fails 75 Hard on willpower. They fail on logistics — no food in the house on a late Tuesday, no plan for the outdoor workout in the rain, a reading task remembered at ten to midnight.

Preparation removes most of those failures before they happen. Work through this list in the week before Day 1.

75 Hard is a registered trademark of its owner. Unbroken is an independent app and is not affiliated with the program or endorsed by it. This is a practical guide to preparing for it, not an official one.

Seven days out: read the rules and write down what counts

Start by reading the actual rules rather than the version you half-remember from a video. The program's published rules ask for two 45-minute workouts a day with one outdoors, a gallon of water, ten pages of non-fiction, a daily progress photo, and a diet of your choice with no cheat meals and no alcohol. Cleveland Clinic's write-up sets out the same five rules and the restart condition. Our own breakdown is in the 75 Hard rules explained task by task.

Then do the part most people skip. Write down your definitions:

Does a 45-minute brisk walk count as a workout? (In the strict version, yes.)
What counts as outdoors for you — and what happens when it rains?
What exactly does your diet permit? Write it precisely enough that someone else could audit your day.
Does an audiobook count? (Not in the strict version.)
Where does the photo get taken and stored?

Every one of these will be argued at 10pm on a bad day. Deciding them now is the difference between a rule and a mood.

Decide the restart rule too. Strict means any miss sends you back to Day 1. If you want a softer version, define it now, in writing, with a limit. What you cannot do is invent an allowance on the night you need one.

Six days out: put it in the calendar

Open your calendar and block both workouts for all 75 days. Not "I will fit them in". Fixed slots, with names.

Then look at the whole eleven weeks and find the problems in advance:

Travel days. Flights, hotels, time zones.
Family events, weddings, birthdays — the alcohol rule and the second workout both bite here.
Work weeks with late finishes.
Any day where two 45-minute sessions and 15 minutes of reading genuinely do not fit.

Every one of those days needs a plan written now: an earlier alarm, a walk instead of a session, a hotel-room workout. The days you have not thought about are the days you lose.

Be honest about the load while you are looking at the calendar. MedlinePlus puts standard adult activity at 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity a week with strength work on two or more days. Two 45-minute sessions a day is roughly four times that, with no rest days. Cleveland Clinic notes the same risk: two daily workouts can overtax beginners, and inadequate rest can lead to overuse injuries. If you are coming from inactive, make one session an easy walk from the start, and check with a health care provider first.

Five days out: pick the diet and write the meals

The rule does not tell you what to eat. It tells you not to deviate. So choose something you can hold for eleven weeks, not something you can hold for eleven days.

Write a week of meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and what you eat when you get home late.
Decide your rule on drinks, sauces, snacks, and eating out. Write it down.
Plan the social occasions. Bring your own food, eat before, or order the same thing every time.

The diet rule is not broken by hunger. It is broken by an empty fridge and a takeaway menu.

Four days out: shop and cook

Shop for the first full week. Cook and portion what you can. Fill the freezer.

The aim is that on your worst evening in week one you can eat something compliant in five minutes without a decision. Decision-making is the resource you will run out of first.

Three days out: buy the kit

Not much of this is expensive, and every missing item is a potential failed day.

A water bottle whose volume you know. Refills you can count beat guessing.
A rain jacket and a head torch. The outdoor workout does not care about the weather or the dark, and cold rain at 6am is exactly when people quit.
Shoes that fit. Seventy-five days of daily walking will find every flaw in old shoes.
The book. Physical, non-fiction, in your hand before Day 1 — plus the next one, so you never lose a day to not having something to read.
Somewhere to log the day. Paper, spreadsheet, app. Anything except your memory.

Two days out: solve the water

The strict target is a US gallon, 128 fluid ounces, about 3.8 liters. Work out what that looks like in your bottle: four refills of a liter bottle, eight of a 500ml one. Then decide when each one lands — one before your first workout, one before lunch, one in the afternoon, one finished by early evening.

Two things worth knowing before you commit to that number. MedlinePlus gives the reference intake for water as 91 to 125 fluid ounces (2.7 to 3.7 liters) a day for adults, covering all sources including food. A gallon of plain water is above that for most adults. And drinking large volumes fast carries a genuine medical risk. Both are covered, with sources, in drinking a gallon of water a day. Read it before Day 1, not on Day 40.

Finishing your water by early evening also protects your sleep. A gallon drunk late is a night of broken sleep in week one.

One day out: set the photo and the witness

The photo. Pick the spot, the light, and the time. Same three every day. Take the Day 0 shot tonight so tomorrow's is not the first one.

The witness. A challenge nobody knows about is one you can quit silently. Tell one person what you are doing, when it ends, and what they should watch — your day count, not your feelings. This is the mechanic Unbroken is built on: you write the pact, your witnesses see the days you log, and the day seals at midnight whether or not you finished it.

Your alarm. Set it for the first workout. Get the training, the first liter, and the reading done before the day starts making demands.

Day 1

Do the tasks. Log them. Take the photo.

Do not celebrate, do not post about how transformed you feel, do not read about day 60. The only decision that matters tomorrow morning is the alarm.

The list in one place

Rules read and definitions written down
Restart rule chosen and written down
Both workouts blocked in the calendar for 75 days
Travel, events, and late nights planned around
Diet chosen, week of meals written
First week shopped and partly cooked
Water bottle, refill count, and daily timings
Rain jacket, head torch, shoes that fit
Book in hand, next book chosen
Photo spot, light, and time fixed
A place to log the day that is not your memory
One person told

What people forget

The second workout. Everyone plans the first one. The second is the one you do at 9pm in the rain.

Weather. Week one is often mild. Week six is not.

The reading. Fifteen minutes, no physical consequence, easiest to forget. Move it to the morning.

Rest. No rest days for eleven weeks is the hardest part of the program for a beginner. Alternate hard and easy sessions from the start, and take pain seriously rather than proving something.

The plan for a miss. Read what the restart rule really means before you need it, so a bad day does not become a bad week.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should I prepare before starting 75 Hard?

About a week. Long enough to read the rules, block the calendar, shop and cook, and buy the kit. Much longer than that and preparation becomes the way you avoid starting.

What should I buy before Day 1?

A water bottle you know the volume of, a rain jacket, a head torch for dark outdoor workouts, shoes that fit, and a physical non-fiction book plus the next one. Everything else is optional.

Do I need a gym membership for 75 Hard?

No. One session can be a brisk 45-minute walk, and the outdoor requirement means at least one session is outside anyway. Bodyweight training at home covers the other. A gym makes it easier in winter, not possible.

What if I know I have a wedding or holiday during the 75 days?

Plan it now. Decide which workouts happen and when, what you will eat, and what you will drink — the strict rules allow no alcohol and no cheat meals. If you know in advance the day cannot be completed, move your start date instead of starting a run you have already planned to break.

Is it safe to start 75 Hard if I am not currently exercising?

Talk to a health care provider first. MedlinePlus advises inactive people to start slowly and check what type and amount of activity is right for them, and Cleveland Clinic notes that two daily workouts can overtax beginners and lead to overuse injuries. Keeping the 45 minutes but dropping the intensity is the usual adaptation.