I started 75 Soft 2 weeks ago.
But I was feeling off before starting, had picked up a mean cold from my child. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, sick the whole time, still trying to push through.
Then my body said a capital NO and I fell really sick, missed Thursday to Saturday. So I just said “Eff it!” A restart made more sense than trying to force things along. So Day 1. Again. For real this time.
It's mainly because I want to put some structure to my habits.
The food side of things is going well. Cutting out ultra-processed foods has clicked for me, and after about a year in, I'm not finding things unbearably hard.
But I noticed I was drifting everywhere else.
Like, okay, I've figured out what I'm eating, great, but I'm still scrolling when I should be sleeping and not drinking enough water and treating a walk like an optional bonus activity instead of something I just do. I wanted something that forces me to fix multiple things at once.
That's the whole point of 75 Soft for me.
I want fitness to be as automatic as eating. Right now it’s still a decision. I want it to stop being one.
Nobody wakes up and debates whether they're going to eat today. Even when you're fasting, you made a deliberate choice about it. You know what you're doing and why. I want that same energy around moving my body, where it's just a thing I do, not a thing I sometimes do when I feel motivated.
The original 75 Soft rules are:
Exercise 45 minutes a day (one active recovery day allowed per week)
Eat well. Pick a diet and drink alcohol only on social occasions
Drink 3 litres of water a day
Read 10 pages of a personal development book daily
Take Progress photos and measurements
I'm following those rules with a couple of tweaks that make sense for my own life.
Exercise 45 minutes a day. At this time, my exercise of choice is walking. I target 45 minutes but constantly go over an hour. We’ll see how that evolves as the days go on.
Food, real food, full stop. The official challenge just says "eat well." For me that means continuing what I've already been doing: no ultra-processed foods. I'm not giving it a diet name or a label. I eat real food. That's the rule.
Alcohol only at social occasions. This one doesn't stress me out. I've gone dry for months at a stretch without feeling deprived, so this isn't a white-knuckle rule for me.
3 litres of water a day, roughly. Gotta stay hydrated.
Reading. Fiction or non-fiction, either counts. The original challenge specifies non-fiction or personal development. I'm opening it up because the goal for me is getting off a screen and into a story or an idea. I used to read constantly, like genuinely couldn't put a book down, and somewhere in the last few years that turned into doom-scrolling. Any reading that replaces screen time counts toward my 10 pages.
I've been focused on the food side of this for a while and it's working.
But good food alone doesn't make a life, and I didn't start this journey just to swap out my groceries.
I want to actually feel different; physically, mentally, in how I spend my time. Pulling levers on movement, hydration, reading, and alcohol all at once is how I get there, not just optimizing one thing and letting everything else coast.
Great, actually.
The only part I struggled with so far is reading a physical book. So I modified things slightly for week 1. The goal became ‘start reading’, genuinely start. If I fall asleep before getting to the 10th page, it still counts. Hehe.
75 days. I'll check back in at the 30-day mark and tell you what has changed.
One thing that helped me actually commit to starting was building a tracker I could use without signing up for anything or downloading an app. It lives right on the DitchingUPFs website.
If you're doing this challenge too, or even just trying to get your habits together, it helps to see your streak build. You can use it here.
The way it works is simple. You open it on your phone, set your start date, and each day you tap to check off your five tasks.
The water tracker works in cups so you can log as you go through the day. Your progress saves automatically to your device, nobody else can see it, and there's no account, no email, nothing. Just open it and use it.
If you want it on your home screen like an app, open it in your browser, tap Share, and select "Add to Home Screen."
If you'd rather just print something and tick days off as you go, I got a printable for you instead. You can download it here.