The Rules: Every Task in a 75-Day Challenge

Quick answer: A 75-day challenge is five daily tasks held for 75 days straight: two workouts, a water target, a diet with no cheat meals and no alcohol, ten pages of reading, and a progress photo. The day ends at midnight. Miss any task and the strict version sends you back to Day 1.

Rules only work when they are written down before you need them. Every argument you will have with yourself during a 75-day run is an argument about definitions: what counts as a workout, what counts as outdoors, what counts as a cheat. Settle them now, while you are not tired.

This page sets out the standard tasks, the gray areas, and the boundary that decides whether a day counts.

The five tasks

The best known version of this format is 75 Hard, published by Andy Frisella. Its rules, as published on the program's own site and summarized by Cleveland Clinic, are these:

75 Hard is a registered trademark of its owner. Unbroken is an independent app, not affiliated with that program or endorsed by it. We describe the rules because they are the reference point almost everyone starts from — and because most people who quit never read them properly.

For each task line by line, including the ones people get wrong, read the 75 Hard rules explained task by task.

Training: two sessions, one outdoors

Two 45 minute sessions a day is a large load. MedlinePlus puts standard adult activity at 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity a week plus strength work on two or more days. Two 45-minute sessions a day is roughly four times the lower figure, every day, with no rest days.

That has consequences you should plan for rather than discover:

• Make one session easy. A brisk walk is a workout. If both sessions are hard every day for eleven weeks, something gives — usually a joint.
• The outdoor session is the one that breaks people. Rain, dark, cold, travel. Decide now what you will do in each case, and buy the jacket before Day 1.
• The clock is part of the rule. Forty-three minutes is not forty-five. If you use the timer honestly on day 3, you will still be using it honestly on day 60.

Cleveland Clinic flags the injury risk directly: two daily sessions may overtax beginners, and inadequate rest can lead to overuse injuries. If you have been inactive, scale the intensity down and keep the duration. Time is the discipline; intensity is optional.

Water: know the number and the limit

The strict target is a US gallon — 128 fluid ounces, about 3.8 liters.

Put that next to the reference figure. MedlinePlus gives the Dietary Reference Intake for water as 91 to 125 fluid ounces (2.7 to 3.7 liters) a day for adults, and that figure covers all your water, including what comes from food and other drinks. A gallon of plain drinking water on top of meals is above that range for most adults.

For most healthy people spreading a gallon across a full day, that is manageable. Drinking large volumes quickly is a different matter, and there is a real medical ceiling on how fast you should drink. We cover it, with sources, in drinking a gallon of water a day. Read the safety section before you commit to the number.

Diet: your plan, no exceptions

The rule does not name a diet. You choose one — the requirement is that you follow it with no cheat meals and no alcohol.

The trap is vagueness. "Eating healthy" is not a plan; it is a mood. Write the plan down before Day 1 with enough specificity that a stranger could audit your day and say whether you followed it. If your rule cannot be broken, it cannot be kept either.

Two gray areas to settle in advance:

• Alcohol. The strict rule is none. Not a glass at a wedding. If you want an exception, write it into your own rules before you start, not on the night.
• Sauces, snacks, and "small" deviations. Decide what your plan permits now. The point of the challenge is not nutritional perfection; it is doing what you said you would do.

Reading: ten pages, non-fiction

Ten pages of a non-fiction, personal development book. Cleveland Clinic's summary notes the strict version requires a physical book rather than an audiobook.

It takes fifteen minutes. It is also the task most often forgotten at 11:40pm, because it is the only one with no physical consequence for skipping it. Move it to the morning and the problem disappears.

The photo: proof, not vanity

One picture a day, same place, same light. The purpose is a record you cannot argue with — the day-to-day change is invisible, and the 75-day change is not.

One caution worth taking seriously: a daily photo can feed body-image problems rather than motivation. Cleveland Clinic raises exactly this risk. If daily photos are bad for you, take them and do not look at them until the end, or replace the task with a different daily proof.

The boundary: midnight

Every task above depends on one rule: the day ends at midnight, done or not done.

No editing yesterday. No making it up tomorrow. No "I did the workout at 12:30am so it counts for both days". A day that can be repaired the next morning is not a day. This is the rule that turns a list of habits into a pact.

Unbroken enforces it the same way: the day seals at midnight, your witnesses see what you logged, and days you banked go into the Record, which nothing resets — not even a failed run.

The restart rule

In the strict version, missing any task on any day means starting over at Day 1. Not the task. The run.

This is the rule people argue about, and it is the rule doing most of the work. It removes negotiation. There is no partial credit to aim for, so there is nothing to shave. Cleveland Clinic notes the other side of it plainly: the all-or-nothing structure creates real pressure, and the program is inflexible about illness, injury, and life.

You have three honest options, and you should pick one before Day 1:

1. Strict. Any miss restarts the run. Hardest, cleanest, most brittle.
2. Soft. A defined allowance — one missed day, or a task swap when traveling. Written in advance, with a limit.
3. Custom. Your own restart rule, written down before Day 1 and not editable during the run.

What does not work is deciding on the night of the miss. That is not a rule, it is a mood, and it is why the third attempt fails the same way as the first.

If it has already happened to you, read what the restart rule really means.

Keep the rules where you can see them

Write your rules once, in one place, and stop renegotiating them. The 75 Hard tracker holds the five tasks and the day count so the record, not your memory, decides whether the day counted.

Rules are cheap on Day 1. Their whole value is on Day 40.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does walking count as a workout?

In the strict version, yes — a 45-minute brisk walk is a workout, and using one session for walking is how most finishers survive eleven weeks without a rest day. What does not count is 45 minutes of general movement across the day. It is one continuous 45-minute session.

What counts as outdoors?

Outside, in the open air, whatever the weather. A garage, a gym with the door open, and a covered treadmill do not count in the strict version. Cold and rain are the point of the rule, not an exception to it.

Does an audiobook count as the reading task?

Not in the strict version. Cleveland Clinic's summary of the rules specifies a physical, non-fiction book rather than an audiobook. If you write your own rules, you can allow audiobooks — but decide before Day 1, not on a night you are behind.

What happens if I miss one task on one day?

In the strict version the whole run restarts at Day 1. In a softer or custom version, whatever restart rule you wrote before you started applies. The rule you use must be the one that existed before the miss.

Can I change the rules mid-challenge?

No — that is the one change that empties the run of meaning. If the rules are genuinely wrong for you, stop the run, rewrite them, and start again at Day 1 with the new set. A run whose rules move is not a record of anything.