The most useful thing about 75 Soft is the rule it drops. 75 Hard sends you back to Day 1 for a single slip, and 75 Soft lets you carry on. That choice matches the best real-world study of how habits form, which found that missing one day made no material difference to building a new habit 2. This guide gives the rules, the comparison with 75 Hard and 75 Medium, and a way to check with real numbers whether your 75 days changed anything.
The 75 Soft rules, and how they vary
75 Soft began on TikTok as a gentler answer to 75 Hard, so the rules spread by video rather than from one owner. The version shared most often has four daily tasks:
- Eat well, and drink alcohol only on social occasions.
- Exercise for 45 minutes, with one day a week set aside for active recovery (a walk, stretching, easy yoga).
- Drink 3 litres of water.
- Read 10 pages of a book.
The common variations are about alcohol, reading and extra habits. Some versions allow one drink a week instead of social occasions only. Some require non-fiction, while most accept any book. Some people add a sleep target, a no-phone hour before bed or a daily walk outside. None of these versions is the correct one, because no one owns the rules. The practical step is to choose your four or five rules on Day 0, write them down with the exact wording ("no more than two drinks, only at events with other people"), and judge yourself against that list for 75 days.
75 Soft vs 75 Hard (and 75 Medium)
75 Hard came from entrepreneur Andy Frisella's podcast in 2019. Its rules are fixed and strict, and failing any task restarts the count at Day 1. 75 Medium is a middle variant that circulates in several forms, so its column shows the typical version.
| Rule | 75 Hard | 75 Medium (typical) | 75 Soft (common version) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Workouts | Two 45-minute workouts a day, one outdoors | One 45-minute workout a day | One 45-minute workout a day, one active-recovery day a week |
| Diet | Follow a set diet, no cheat meals | Follow a diet you choose, occasional flexibility | Eat well, no fixed plan |
| Alcohol | None | Usually none or very limited | Social occasions only (or one drink a week) |
| Water | A gallon (about 3.8 L) | 3 L to a gallon | 3 L |
| Reading | 10 pages of non-fiction | 10 pages, usually non-fiction | 10 pages of any book |
| Progress photo | Every day | Often weekly | Not required |
| Missed day | Restart at Day 1 | Varies; most carry on | Carry on |
The difference that matters most is the last row. 75 Hard treats the 75 days as a streak, and a streak is all or nothing: a sick child, a late flight or a forgotten water bottle on Day 61 wipes out two months. 75 Soft treats the 75 days as a practice period, which fits Lally's finding that habits form gradually even with an occasional miss 2.
What counts as a workout?
On 75 Soft, a workout is 45 minutes of deliberate movement. Brisk walking counts in almost every version, as do cycling, swimming, lifting, a sport, a dance class or a hard yoga session. Household chores and the steps you take anyway at work usually do not, because the point is time you set aside to move.
The 45-minute rule fits US activity guidelines well. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity, plus muscle-strengthening work on 2 or more days 1. Six 45-minute sessions add up to 270 minutes, which sits inside that range. To cover the strength part, make at least two of the six sessions resistance work: weights, bands or bodyweight circuits.
Most of the 270 minutes can be easy. A good split for a beginner is four sessions you could talk through (walking, easy cycling) and two harder ones. If you have been inactive for years, start with 15 to 20 minutes and add 5 minutes a week toward 45. The heart-rate-zones calculator turns your age and resting pulse into numbers, so "easy" and "hard" mean something on a watch.
CalculatorHeart rate zones calculatorFind your Zone 2 (talk-through pace) and your harder zones before you plan the six sessions.Work it out Keep the active-recovery day as a planned easy day of walking or stretching. Muscles adapt between sessions, and beginners who train hard six days a week with no easy day are more likely to end up sore or injured.
Eating well, drinking less, and the water rule
Make "eat well" concrete
75 Soft gives no calorie target, so "eat well" means whatever you decide on Day 0. Three rules that are easy to check each night: protein at every meal, mostly whole foods (things that look like where they came from), and vegetables or fruit at two meals or more. If weight loss is one of your goals, a rough <a href="/calculators/tdee">maintenance calorie number</a> helps you see whether your portions match the goal, and the <a href="/calculators/protein">protein calculator</a> gives a daily gram target split across your meals. Some versions allow an occasional planned treat meal; if yours does, write down how often.
Alcohol on 75 Soft
75 Soft allows alcohol on social occasions; 75 Hard allows none. In the US, a standard drink is roughly 12 oz of 5% beer, 5 oz of 12% wine or 1.5 oz of 40% spirits, and a large restaurant glass of wine is often closer to two. The Global Burden of Disease study concluded that the level of drinking that minimised overall health loss was zero standard drinks a week 4, so cutting back is one of the 75 Soft rules most likely to show up in blood work. Triglycerides and GGT, a liver enzyme, are among the markers that most often change when someone drinks less, which makes them the first two to check at Day 75.
Is 3 litres of water too much?
For most healthy adults, 3 litres of water a day is fine. The National Academies set adequate total water intake at about 3.7 L a day for men and 2.7 L for women, with roughly 20% usually coming from food 5. That leaves about 3 L from drinks for men and about 2.2 L for women. So the 75 Soft water rule matches the men's figure and runs above the women's, and the 75 Hard gallon (about 3.8 L) is more than either. Drink more on hot days and on long-workout days, and spread it across the day.
CalculatorWater intake calculatorA daily water figure for your body size, activity and climate, to set beside the 3 L rule.Work it out Does 75 Soft work? What the evidence supports
No study has tested 75 Soft as a package. The individual pieces have been studied, though, and most of them hold up well.
| Claim | Verdict | What the research found |
|---|---|---|
| Daily exercise improves fitness and health | Strong | 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate activity is the US guideline target; 75 Soft's 270 minutes fits it 1 |
| 75 days is a sensible length for a habit | Good | New daily behaviours took a median of 66 days to become automatic in 96 volunteers, with a modelled range of 18 to 254 days 2 |
| Missing a day is not fatal | Good | One missed opportunity did not materially affect habit formation 2 |
| Tracking every day helps | Strong | Across 138 studies, monitoring progress helped people reach goals (d = 0.40), more so when progress was written down or shared 3 |
| Planning for hard days helps | Strong | If-then plans had a medium-to-large effect on reaching goals across 94 studies (d = 0.65) 7 |
| Drinking less improves health | Strong in population data | The level of drinking that minimised health loss was zero 4; untested inside 75 Soft |
| 75 Soft beats 75 Hard | Anecdotal | No head-to-head study exists |
The 66-day median is the best evidence for the 75-day length. It means a typical person is near the point where the habit runs on its own by Day 75, while a slower starter may need longer. The same study tested the question that splits 75 Soft from 75 Hard:
Missing one opportunity to perform the behaviour did not materially affect the habit formation process.Lally P et al., European Journal of Social Psychology, 2010 2
What if I miss a day?
On 75 Soft, you carry on the next day. There is no restart rule, and the habit research above says a single miss does not undo the work. The bigger risk is the second and third miss, because a run of skipped days is how a slip quietly turns into stopping.
- Track a weekly score out of 28 (four rules, seven days) instead of a streak. 24 or more is a strong week.
- Set a bad-day minimum: a 20-minute walk counts as the workout when the 45 minutes cannot happen.
- Write if-then plans for the days you know will be hard: "If I'm travelling, then I walk 45 minutes from the hotel before breakfast." Plans in this form reliably help people follow through 7.
- Never miss twice in a row. One miss is a blip; a pattern is a signal to change a rule that does not fit your life.
Your 75 days, week by week
| Weeks | Focus | Check each night |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | Write your rules, set baseline numbers (weight, resting pulse, a walk time, a Day 0 blood test if you have one) | Did I do the four rules? Score out of 4 |
| 3 to 5 | Build volume: lengthen easy sessions, add the second strength day | Weekly score out of 28; how my legs and sleep feel |
| 6 to 8 | The slump: travel, social drinking, schedule changes. Use your if-then plans | Any two-day gaps? Which rule slips first? |
| 9 to 11 (to Day 75) | Notice what now runs without effort; plan which rules you keep after Day 75; book the retest with a full easy week before it | Which rules feel automatic? Score out of 28 |
A daily 75 Soft tracker
- 45 minutes of movement (or active recovery on the recovery day)
- Meals that match my written food rules
- No alcohol unless it is a social occasion on my list
- Water target reached, spread across the day
- 10 pages read
Measure it: a Day 0 and Day 75 blood test
Feeling better at Day 75 is real, but it is a weak test of whether your body changed, because energy and mood also move with sleep, season and the novelty of a new routine. If you already have blood work from around Day 0, or get routine labs through your doctor, a second set near Day 75 shows what the habits did. These four markers have a realistic chance of moving in 75 days.
Markers that can move in 75 days
HbA1c fits the 75-day window because about half of it reflects blood sugar in the most recent 30 days 8; the <a href="/compare/a1c-vs-fasting-glucose">comparison of A1C and fasting glucose</a> explains how the two differ. Diet and weight change can also shift <a href="/compare/apob-vs-ldl">ApoB</a>, and regular exercise with fat loss tends to lower hs-CRP, covered in the guide to <a href="/learn/inflammation-markers-explained">inflammation markers</a>. A single morning cortisol reading is a poor 75 Soft readout, because cortisol swings through the day and with stress on the morning of the draw.
The training trap before the Day 75 draw
The biggest trap is training right before the second test. In healthy men who did one session of heavy weightlifting, AST and ALT (two liver enzymes that muscle also releases), LDH (an enzyme found in most tissues) and <a href="/biomarkers/ck-total">creatine kinase</a> (CK, a muscle enzyme) all rose, and AST and ALT stayed raised for at least 7 days 6. GGT, the liver enzyme muscle does not release, stayed unchanged 6. In plain words: results that look like liver damage on paper, from a healthy liver. Someone who finishes 75 Soft with a hard leg day on Day 74 can see an ALT that looks like a liver problem when muscle is the likely source.
The <a href="/learn/how-to-prepare-for-a-blood-test">guide to preparing for a blood test</a> covers water, supplements and timing. If your Day 75 ALT or AST is flagged high, show your doctor both results and mention your training in the week before. A high CK alongside a high ALT or AST suggests muscle may be part of the picture, and a normal GGT fits a training cause, but neither rules out the liver. If ALT or AST is still high on a retest after a full easy week, is raised with no hard session beforehand, is more than about three times the upper limit, or comes with yellowing skin, dark urine or abdominal pain, take it to your doctor as a possible liver problem rather than putting it down to exercise. The <a href="/learn/liver-enzymes-explained">liver enzymes guide</a> covers what a high ALT means outside of training, including <a href="/conditions/fatty-liver">fatty liver</a>.
Compare the two results as a trend. The direction and size of the change matter more than whether one number crossed a flag, and the guide on <a href="/learn/trends-beat-single-readings">why a trend beats a single reading</a> explains how much change counts as real. Any result flagged outside the reference range, on Day 0 or Day 75, is worth going through with your doctor.
Free, no accountRead your blood testUpload your Day 0 and Day 75 results to read every line of both, free, and see what moved.Read my results
Who should pause or adapt it
- Starting from no exercise: begin with 15 to 20 minutes and add 5 minutes a week toward 45.
- Pregnancy: keep moving, but agree the exercise and water targets with your obstetric team.
- Heart, kidney or liver conditions, or a fluid restriction: check the exercise and water rules with your doctor first.
- A history of disordered eating: rigid food rules and daily tracking can pull you back; choose rules about movement, reading and sleep instead of food.
- Using the challenge to push through low mood: if your mood has been low for two weeks or more, talk to a doctor alongside any challenge. In the US, call or text 988 if you are in crisis.
For more on how exercise and diet show up on lab work, see the pages on <a href="/for/body-performance">body performance</a> and <a href="/for/weight-loss">weight loss</a>, and the <a href="/learn/how-to-read-your-lipid-panel">lipid panel guide</a>.
- 01The no-restart rule is the evidence-backed part
75 Hard resets to Day 1 after one slip. 75 Soft carries on, and the main study of habit formation found one missed day made no material difference, with a median of 66 days for a habit to become automatic.
Citations
- Piercy KL et al. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. JAMA 2018;320(19):2020-2028
- Lally P et al. How are habits formed: modelling habit formation in the real world. Eur J Soc Psychol 2010;40(6):998-1009
- Harkin B et al. Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychol Bull 2016;142(2):198-229
- GBD 2016 Alcohol Collaborators. Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2016. Lancet 2018;392:1015-1035
- Institute of Medicine. Dietary Reference Intakes for Water, Potassium, Sodium, Chloride, and Sulfate. National Academies Press, 2005
- Pettersson J et al. Muscular exercise can cause highly pathological liver function tests in healthy men. Br J Clin Pharmacol 2008;65(2):253-259
- Gollwitzer PM, Sheeran P. Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes. Adv Exp Soc Psychol 2006;38:69-119
- Tahara Y, Shima K. Kinetics of HbA1c, glycated albumin, and fructosamine and analysis of their weight functions against preceding plasma glucose level. Diabetes Care 1995;18(4):440-447
Educational context only, not medical advice or a diagnosis. Always discuss your results with a clinician.
