Written by Maeve

75 Hard is a mental toughness challenge that first gained a lot of attention on TikTok. This challenge has the following rules: follow a structured diet, complete two 45-minute workouts (one outside, rain or shine), drink a gallon of water, read 10 pages of any non-fiction, educational book, and take a progress picture. Each of these tasks must be completed everyday for 75 days. If someone misses a day, they have to start the 75 days over again. 

This challenge is, in one word, intense. There is a great deal of structure and little room for common human error. So, after this challenge gained popularity, a challenge called 75 Soft was created to account for those that do not have time for two 45 minute workouts. This challenge has similar, yet more realistic goals: eat well and only drink on social occasions, drink 3 liters of water per day, exercise for 45 minutes every day with 1 active recovery day per week, read 10 pages of any book, no progress picture required. 

Both of these challenges are ways to level up your fitness journey by creating new routines and developing healthy habits. However, the challenge individuals chose will greatly affect their outcome. For example, I am a moderately healthy person, who goes to the gym 3 times a week, but struggles with consistency. If I chose to do the 75 Hard, I will be burnt out and exhausted, as that is a drastic shift between my current routine. 

These challenges should not serve as law but as blueprints for the lifestyle individuals yearn to have. Jumping from couch potato to completing the 75 hard is not impossible, but requires a slow and gradual change to create a sustainable lifestyle. 

This is where another problem arises with intense fitness challenges: sustainability. The level of intensity that the 75 Hard challenge possesses is not sustainable for the average person. Fitness and lifestyle changes must be able to be sustained in the long run in order to create life long results. It does not matter if someone drops a few pounds now if they gain back double the weight after completing the challenge. 

What most people tend to forget about mental wellbeing and physical fitness is that we will live in our bodies for our entire lives. When we decide to change our lives or challenge ourselves to new things, we must not think just of ourselves now, but ourselves years down the line. 

For your own reference: 

75 HARD: The Rules | Andy Frisella, 75 Soft Challenge: How Do You Do It (& Should You?) – The Balanced Nutritionist

Obsession.

Taylor Swift is quite possibly the biggest icon of the modern age. She creates lyrical masterpieces that represent a variety of emotions, situations, and circumstances of life. These first several sentences show my own personal opinions on Taylor Swift, as I am a Swiftie and have been since a very young age. However, one thing I do not like about the community is the idolization of her, and of other human beings. 

People often forget that their favorite author, actor, or musician is just a person. A huge part of modern day pop culture relies on the idolization of these people. However, I do not think that we as people were made to idolize other human beings that we do not even know. 

Swifties in particular idolize Taylor Swift. They do not hear any criticism about her and take her own personal life as their own. This is not normal. These celebrities did not sign on to be criticized or praised for anything other than their works. The infatuation of celebrities often stems from one of two things: lack of sufficiency in our own lives or a sense of entitlement.

The most common reason for obsession with celebrities is a lack of fulfillment in our own lives. Obsessing with an artist is much easier than dealing with our own personal issues. It also provides an escape from these issues. As we know that we will never know these people, it is a non complicated way to avoid our personal lives. These artists often write music that provides an escape from reality, so it is easy for individuals to obsess over an artist’s personal life as a way to escape from reality even further. 

The other reason we obsess over artists is rooted in a sense of entitlement. The belief that we are allowed to know every detail of someone’s personal life and comment on it is pure entitlement. The only reason that people are not called out on this entitlement is that these celebrities are out of reach. They are not personally affected by one person’s actions. This lack of affect on a celebrity does not, however, mean that the obsession individual’s have is not a violation of personal privacy. 

I will admit, I used to be obsessed with Taylor Swift. I was up in arms about her relationships and would decipher who each song is about. Then, I realized that it was disrespectful of me to boil her down to her personal life. Artists may take inspiration from their personal lives to create, but these situations are not what create value in their work. It is a work’s beauty as a piece separate from the creation of it that makes it beautiful. We need to start treating it as such.