Have you ever tried a 30 day challenge in hopes of improving your health? In any monthly challenge it’s important to set yourself up for success, add variety, follow through and maintain new habits. Remember that while others may set the guidelines, you set the rules! So why not use that to your advantage to get the most you can out of the challenge?
At the beginning of October, we released our first Eat for Health tracker. The aim was to provide a resource to help you get started eating in a way that supports your health, regardless of what your baseline is.
Find your way around:
Getting started: setting yourself up for success
The first week can be en exciting time for starting something new. You know your marching orders and it’s only a matter of execution at that point.
For me, the first step was preparing my grocery list to reflect what was on my tracker. I saw the list of healthy foods that I wanted to eat and made a budget for the weekly spend. I was willing to spend an extra $15/week to make it happen. Ultimately, thinking about food as medicine helped me to shift my priorities. If I invest this small amount into my health each week, maybe I can be in better shape overall and avoid some unnecessary medical expenses in the future.
In order to complete my daily habit tracker, other habits needed to change too. It meant spending more time in the kitchen to make my green filled smoothie and making an extra trip to the Farmer’s market mid-week so that I stayed stocked up on smoothie greens.
Note: When you first start a new program it’s helpful to be clear about your why. The next time you embark upon a self-improvement challenge, try writing out your why on day 1. Such as: “To have more energy for spending time with my family”. Whenever you are in need of motivation to keep going, you can re-visit your why.
Also, don’t worry if your not get everything in right away! My first week wasn’t perfect. I noticed that it was easy for me to check off most habits while I was working from home. Although, days in the office were more challenging. I learned I needed to pack more snacks and build in water breaks into my day.
Adding variety to habits: keeping it interesting
One of the points of feedback that we received during the mid-week check in was about wanting variety. A check list is great to highlight the main components you are aiming for. However, it is up to you to look at the same list from different angles.
For instance, while we recommend smoothies as a way to increase your green consumption, you can also steam your greens as a side dish. In addition, daily healthy fats can come in all different kinds of foods: one day you could have sourdough bread and avocado as a mid-day snack, and the next you could have dates and peanut butter for desert.
We were able to rethink our habit list by having our greens and healthy fats in the form of Eat loaf and Mac & “cheese”. To make these recipes we included 2 bunches of collard greens, mushrooms, red bell pepper, beans, cashews, and nutritional yeast.
Note: When it comes to tracking habits you are in charge! If the point system is 0 or 1, why not give yourself half a point for making it part of the way there. We may provide you guidelines, but ultimately you set the rules!
I found it helpful to use half points for habits that required a lot more effort. While it was easy to have a daily smoothie, drinking 6 glasses of water a day was a challenge. Giving myself a half point when I was close, but not quite all the way there motivated me to keep working on the habit.
Following through: sticking it out
After a few weeks in hopefully your starting to hit your stride. You are used to using the tracker, and checking off more and more things on your list. You may think “Wow, that was an easy habit to start” for some habits, while others may be more challenging.
For those ones that are easy, you may not need to track them in the future. These are your easy wins that can keep you going. However, don’t be discouraged if some of the items on your checklist are hard to accomplish. This is totally normal, in fact:
“On average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behavior becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact.”
James Clear, Atomic Habits
Each day is a new opportunity to work towards contributing to your own health. Why not try a new dish? This one is a simple grain bowl, topped with steamed sweet potatoes and kale, and fresh raw veggies, with a cashew cream sauce. Check out the basics: Buddha bowl
Note: While it’s encouraging to hit a streak. Remember that any progress is good progress. Even just by printing out a habit tracker you are saying that you want to put more time into self-care. This is a great time to look back on your original why for motivation to keep going.
It’s not over, till it’s over. Even if you miss a day, or score lower than you’d like on the tracker, give it another try. Acknowledge why you think that happened (too busy, forgot your tracker, etc) and start fresh tomorrow. If you are consistently getting 4 or more on the tracker, then your off to a great start! Consider doubling down and continuing for a second month to try to pick up those other habits.
Maintaining new habits: moving past the challenge
Just because a specific challenge is coming to an end, have you thought about what habits you’d like to maintain? Even though it may be for a short period of time, why not keep the momentum going? Make your own checklist and take the parts that you thought were most helpful. Or even print out a new sheet and give the same list of habits another go around.
Time for Reflection:
The end of a challenge is a great time to look back on how far you have come.
- What did you notice is already a habit?
- What isn’t quite a habit yet, but you would like it to be?
- Are there any new habits that you started thinking about and would like to add?
- How did you feel doing the challenge overall?
- What was one big thing you got out of the challenge?
For me, doing the tracker made me more mindful about my choices throughout the day. I noticed that if I tracked what I was eating then I was able to adjust and make sure I had the most number of habits completed for the day.
Purchase your “Eat for Health” habit tracker!
Make the challenge work for you
When starting any new challenge, try to set yourself up for success. Take the time to make sure that you have all the tools, in this case foods, that you need. Don’t be afraid to add variety and look at the habits in a different light. Although, if you like that something is consistent and doesn’t require a lot of thought, feel free to keep doing the same thing. We like the fact that our breakfast is a no brainier and that our smoothies always have the same list of ingredients. Either way, remember that the guidelines are set, but you make the rules. If your having trouble sticking with it, look back on your why to get that motivation you need. However, once the challenge is over the habit formation doesn’t need to stop there. Pick what you found useful and stick with it, do a second month, or even create your own checklist. The possibilities are endless!
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