75 Soft vs 75 Medium: Which Challenge Should You Pick?

You already know both challenges exist. Maybe you finished a round of 75 Soft and want something with more bite. Maybe a stricter program burned you out and 75 Medium looks like a saner middle ground.

Either way, you’re here to pick one. This guide lays out every rule side by side, then walks you through which challenge fits your real life.

Both are 75-day programs. Both ask for daily exercise, hydration, reading, and better eating. The gap is in the details: alcohol, diet rigidity, water math, and whether mindfulness is built in.

75 Soft vs 75 Medium at a glance

75 Soft is the gentler, more flexible challenge. 75 Medium adds structure and a few extra requirements without going to the extreme of two daily workouts.

Here’s the full rule comparison, line by line:

Rule	75 Soft	75 Medium
Daily workout	One ~45-min session, rest day allowed	One 45-min session, no rest day
Outdoor workout	Not required	At least one per week
Diet	Follow a diet, room for special occasions	90/10 diet
Alcohol	Allowed on social occasions	Not allowed
Water	Around 6 to 8 cups	Half your body weight in ounces
Reading	10 pages, any book	10 pages of nonfiction
Meditation	Not required	10 minutes daily
Progress photo	Optional	Day 1 and day 75 only
Miss a day	No restart penalty	More accountability, no strict restart

The shared DNA is obvious. What the decision really comes down to is a handful of rules that change how the challenge feels day to day. We’ll get into those below.

What is the 75 Soft challenge?

75 Soft is the relaxed sibling of the 75-day challenge family. It was designed as a realistic alternative for people who wanted structure without the all-or-nothing intensity.

The rules are short:

Do one workout of about 45 minutes, with a rest day allowed when you need it.
Follow a diet of your choosing, with leeway for special occasions and the occasional social drink.
Drink water consistently, usually framed as around 6 to 8 cups a day.
Read 10 pages of any book. Fiction counts.

A progress photo is optional. Some versions add a few minutes of daily meditation, but it isn’t part of the core rules.

The defining feature is forgiveness. Miss a day and you simply continue. There’s no restart from Day 1. The whole program is built so you can keep living your normal life: a birthday dinner, a glass of wine, a busy week. None of that ends your challenge.

That makes 75 Soft a strong fit for beginners and for anyone who has struggled with rigid, restart-on-miss programs in the past.

What is the 75 Medium challenge?

75 Medium grew out of TikTok as a deliberate middle ground between two existing programs: 75 Soft on the easy end and 75 Hard (the mental-toughness program created by Andy Frisella) on the strict end. People wanted more than 75 Soft asked for, but not the punishing double-workout schedule of the harder version.

The 75 Medium rules, for 75 consecutive days:

Do one 45-minute workout every day, plus at least one outdoor workout each week.
Follow a 90/10 diet, meaning roughly 90 percent whole, nutritious food and 10 percent flexibility.
Drink half your body weight in ounces of water. A 160-pound person would aim for 80 ounces.
No alcohol for the full 75 days.
Read 10 pages of nonfiction each day. Some versions frame this as 10 minutes of personal-development reading or listening.
Meditate for 10 minutes daily. A few versions list 5 minutes of meditation or prayer instead.
Take a progress photo on day 1 and again on day 75.

That photo rule trips people up. 75 Medium does not ask for daily photos. You take two photos total, a start and an end frame, which is a notable contrast with the daily-photo habit of stricter programs.

The meditation requirement is the other detail people miss. Ten minutes of daily mindfulness is baked into 75 Medium, and it’s a real factor when you decide between the two.

Key differences that actually matter

Most of the table above is small print. A few rules genuinely change which challenge you should pick.

Alcohol

This is the biggest lifestyle gap. 75 Soft lets you drink on social occasions, so a wedding or a friend’s birthday doesn’t derail anything. 75 Medium says no alcohol for the full 75 days. The 90/10 diet leaves a little grace room, but the rule as written is a dry challenge. If your calendar has events you don’t want to navigate sober, that matters.

Diet flexibility

75 Soft asks you to follow a diet with built-in room for real life. 75 Medium formalizes that into a 90/10 split: 90 percent clean, 10 percent flexible. The 90/10 framing is more concrete, which some people find motivating and others find stressful. Neither is a starvation plan, but 75 Medium is tighter.

Water targets

75 Soft uses a simple, modest target of roughly 6 to 8 cups. 75 Medium scales the goal to your body: half your body weight in ounces. For a larger person that’s a meaningfully higher number. It’s still well below the gallon-a-day demand of the strictest programs, so it stays reasonable for most healthy adults.

Meditation

75 Medium includes 10 minutes of daily meditation. 75 Soft does not. If you want mindfulness built into your challenge without assembling it yourself, that points clearly to 75 Medium.

Accountability and missed days

75 Soft has no restart penalty at all. 75 Medium expects more consistency and accountability, but it still isn’t a strict restart-on-miss program. Neither sends you back to Day 1 the way a harder challenge would. The difference is tone: 75 Soft is openly forgiving, while 75 Medium expects you to hold the line.

One honest note before you commit. Rigid 75-day programs have drawn caution from health experts, who have linked very strict versions to disordered eating, exercise overuse, and body-image strain. Both 75 Soft and 75 Medium sit on the gentler side of that spectrum, but if a 75-day challenge ever starts to feel like punishment rather than progress, that’s a signal to scale back or talk to a professional.

Which challenge should you choose?

Run yourself through these reader types and see which one sounds like you.

You drink socially and don’t want to give that up. Pick 75 Soft. The social-occasion allowance is the whole point, and a dry 75 Medium would feel like a constant negotiation.

You’re a beginner building a fitness habit from scratch. Pick 75 Soft. The rest day, the modest water target, and the no-penalty structure all make it easier to finish, and a finished challenge beats an abandoned one.

You’re returning after a failed 75 Hard attempt. Consider 75 Medium. It keeps real structure, so it won’t feel like a step backward, but it removes the double workouts and daily-photo pressure that likely caused the burnout.

You want mindfulness built in. Pick 75 Medium. The 10-minute daily meditation is part of the program, so you get the mental side without bolting it on.

You want maximum flexibility and the freedom to live your normal life. Pick 75 Soft. It’s the most forgiving option on every axis that matters.

You finished 75 Soft and want a real next step. Pick 75 Medium. It’s the natural progression: more discipline, an outdoor workout, a tighter diet, but still sane.

It helps to know what the habit science actually says. Research from University College London found that automatic habits take about 66 days to form on average, with a wide range across individuals. A 2024 systematic review of 20 studies and more than 2,600 participants put the typical window for health habits at two to five months. A 75-day challenge sits right inside that evidence-backed range.

So consistency over 75 days matters far more than which version you pick. The old “21 days to a habit” line is a myth traced back to a 1960 self-help book, not real data. Choose the challenge you can actually finish, then keep going.

How to track 75 Soft or 75 Medium with Reset75

Keeping four to seven daily tasks in your head for 75 straight days is how people quietly fall off. A dedicated tracker removes the guesswork.

Reset75 can run either challenge. 75 Soft is a built-in template, so you tap once and start: workout, follow diet, drink water, read, progress photo, weigh-in. There’s nothing to configure.

75 Medium is one custom challenge away. Build it from the task library: a 45-minute workout, a water counter, a follow-diet checkbox, a 10-page reading task, a 10-minute meditate-or-breathwork task, and a progress photo. Set the length to 75 days and choose your strictness.

That strictness toggle is the useful part. Forgiving mode matches the spirit of 75 Soft and 75 Medium, letting you continue after a missed day. Strict mode is there if you decide you need restart pressure to stay honest. Daily logging, streak tracking, a statistics dashboard, and a progress-photo timelapse all work the same either way.

Still weighing your options? Compare the best 75-day challenge apps, browse more challenge guides on the blog, or download Reset75 and start whichever challenge you picked today.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between 75 Soft and 75 Medium?

75 Soft is the more flexible program: a rest day is allowed, alcohol is fine on special occasions, and progress photos are optional. 75 Medium adds more structure: no alcohol, a 90/10 diet, a weekly outdoor workout, daily meditation, and progress photos on day 1 and day 75.

Is 75 Soft or 75 Medium easier?

75 Soft is generally easier and more forgiving. 75 Medium sits between 75 Soft and 75 Hard in difficulty, so it asks for more discipline without going to the extreme of two daily workouts.

Can you drink alcohol on 75 Medium?

75 Medium’s rules say no alcohol, though the 90/10 diet leaves limited grace room. 75 Soft explicitly allows social drinking on special occasions.

Do you take daily progress photos on 75 Medium?

No. 75 Medium asks for a photo on day 1 and day 75 only, unlike daily-photo programs. 75 Soft treats the progress photo as optional.

How much water do you drink on 75 Soft vs 75 Medium?

75 Soft suggests around 6 to 8 cups daily. 75 Medium calls for half your body weight in ounces, so the target scales with your size.

Does 75 Medium include meditation?

Yes, 10 minutes of daily meditation is part of 75 Medium. 75 Soft does not require it, though some versions add a short mindfulness step.

What happens if you miss a day on 75 Soft or 75 Medium?

75 Soft has no restart penalty. 75 Medium expects more accountability but is still far less punishing than a strict restart-on-miss program.

Which 75-day challenge is best for beginners?

75 Soft is the most beginner-friendly. 75 Medium is a good next step, or a softer landing for someone who found a stricter program unsustainable.

Frequently Asked Questions