She has also had 16 wellness books published by major publishers including the bestselling Easy GI Diet, The Macro Method, Quit Alcohol (For a Month) and Eat 5. Her books have sold over one million copies.
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Whether you’re trying to get fitter, stronger, or eat a little bit healthier, trying a healthy challenge is a great way to make some gains toward your goals. Why not pick one of the following to try this month?
Because they have a limited time frame, challenges can be a great way to try out a healthy habit – you only have to stick to the change for 30 days, after all. But, by then, not only might you have seen changes that might motivate you to carry on, but it can take as little as 28 days to form a new habit, that your 30-day project could see you making a change that can stick around for life.
Here are some ideas to get you started. Don’t do them all – just pick one to focus on!
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1. The ‘Just Say No’ Challenge
What to Do
Every day for a month, say no to at least one thing that might prevent you from reaching you reach your goals. It might be saying no to chips with your burger, to a takeaway when you have plenty of fresh food in the fridge, or to a night out when you have BootCamp in the morning.
What Can It Help?
It’s a good way to ease into making new healthy habits rather than trying to quit everything at once. It might seem small, but not only will not doing something help increase your chances of success with your goal, every time you say no, it builds your self-belief that you can achieve your ultimate aim.
Even the smallest change can have a big effect in making it easier for you to face obstacles and stay focused. And, think of it this way – if you said no to getting the bus once a day, and took a 20-minute walk to work instead, you’ll walk around an extra 33km this month – that’s almost a marathon.
Get some ideas on what to say no to in our longer post on The One No Challenge.
2. The Meat-Free Monday Challenge
What to Do
On Mondays of each week, eat no meat—or, if you want to go a little further, avoid all animal products entirely.
What Can It Help?
You might not think that simply changing things one day a week would make a big difference, but you’d be surprised.
According to meat-free experts, eating solely vegetarian dishes one day a week could reduce your saturated fat intake by 15%. Plus, if you focus on getting more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and healthy meat-free proteins like beans or lentils on your meat-free days, you’ll also increase variety in your diet, which increases the variety of nutrients, polyphenols and antioxidants you take in.
Related Read: 20 Salads With Lentils That You’ll Love
3. The Tower Challenge
What To Do
Set a target to climb enough sets of stairs this month to scale some of the world’s tallest buildings.
If you want to cover the Sydney Habour Bridge Pylon that has just 200 steps
Monument Tower in London has 311
New York’s Empire State Building has 1576
Auckland’s Sky Tower has 1103
Taipei 101 has 2046
And then there’s the big one, The Burj al Khalifa in Dubai, which has 2909
You can decide to do one a day, or rack up one of the bigger challenges throughout the month.
What Can It Help?
Climbing stairs not only increases cardiovascular fitness but also strengthens all the muscles in your legs. Plus, even climbing just 50 stairs a day has been shown to decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease, and just three minutes of stairclimbing in the one to two hours after a meal reduces risk of diabetes.
Oh, and coming downstairs also has health benefits, so you don’t have to take all of those steps upwards.
4. The Get Chucked Challenge
What to Do
In this clutter-clearing challenge, you start the first day by throwing away (or donating) one thing you don’t need. On day two, you remove two things, and on day three, you do three—you see where this is going, right? By day 30, you’re getting rid of thirty items.
What Can It Help?
You might be wondering what this has to do with being healthier. Well, not only will you clear some space (which you might be able to use to put down a yoga mat or something), but removing clutter has been shown to help reduce stress and help with sleep.
You’re also more likely to make healthy eating choices in a less cluttered environment (no, really, they studied it at the University of Minnesota) – plus, clutter can easily collect dust and mould, which aren’t good for your health.
For the best mental health boost, start with an area, cupboard, or even a drawer in your house that you know stresses you out whenever you look at it (or can’t find something in it). Clear that, then move to the next area.
5. The Quiet Mind Challenge
What To Do
Sit for five minutes a day, stilling your mind and letting your thoughts just pass through.
What Can It Help?
The experts in our guide to how long to meditate told us that even just five minutes of sitting quietly can help reduce stress.
If you find it hard to sit for that long, try a guided meditation in an app like Headspace, or check out our meditation tools post for some other ways to still a busy mind.
6. The Hydration Challenge
What to Do
Drink at least one litre of water a day and get another litre or two from other foods or drinks—and yes, even coffee counts. It’s a myth that coffee dehydrates you if you’re used to it.
What Can It Help?
Good hydration can help your body work efficiently. It can help reduce fatigue, stop snack cravings and improve your skin.
Don’t fall into the trap of consuming excess calories or sweetener-filled drinks. Keep things natural and lower in calories—choose mostly water, herbal teas, or regular tea and coffee with a splash of milk.
Find some more tips on how to stay on plan in our longer post on the hydration challenge.
7. The Simple Salad Challenge
What to Do
Simply start or accompany one of your meals each day with an extra bowl of salad.
Benefits
This quickly increases levels of essential nutrients. In a Louisiana State University study, people eating even just one serving of salad daily were more likely to reach healthy nutritional intakes for vital nutrients like vitamin C, folic acid, vitamin E and more.
For an extra boost, try adding at least five different-coloured vegetables in your salad—say spinach, beetroot, red onion, tomato, and sweetcorn, or carrot, cabbage, red pepper, green beans, and baby corn. Or, try adding some fruit.
If you find salads boring, our guide on ways to make your salad more interesting will help you stick to the challenge more easily.
8. The Sally Challenge
What To Do
The Sally Challenge is a workout that involves performing a set of movements to the Moby song Flowers (the lyrics of which are ‘Bring Sally up, Bring Sally down’).
When Moby says up, you go up – when Moby says down, you come down and hold it.
You can do it with lunges, squats, press-ups, and tricep dips—basically any move that involves moving up and down.
What Can It Help?
If you have muscle to build this is the challenge to do it!
It’s quick, easy, and you can do it anywhere, you don’t need to be in the gym.
9. The ‘Gum Boost’ Challenge
What to Do
It couldn’t be easier—buy a few packets of floss or some interdental brushes and place one next to the sink, one next to your bed, and one next to the table where you watch TV (or doom scroll).
Now, every day this month, use one of them once daily! You don’t have to floss your teeth before or after you brush to start improving your gum health, you can do it any time, anywhere. The important thing is that you do it.
What Can It Help?
Not only will you prolong the life of your teeth and ward off bad breath, but good gum health is also linked to a lower risk of heart disease and even some cancers.
And here’s a really surprising fact – it’s now believed that unhealthy levels of gum bacteria can even be linked to issues like depression and anxiety.
10. The ‘No Make-Up After 9’ Challenge
What to Do
Don’t worry—you don’t have to give up your lippy completely. You just have to make a conscious effort to remove your makeup every night before bed for a month.
What Can It Help?
It can help reduce the incidence of clogged pores and the risk of minor breakouts. Moreover, removing your mascara has major benefits for your eye health (check out this article, and you’ll never sleep in your makeup again).
11. The No-Booze Challenge
What to Do
This one does what it says on the tin – for one month, not a drop of alcohol shall pass your lips!
What Can It Help?
Within four weeks of avoiding alcohol, your liver health improves, insulin sensitivity improves, and blood pressure can decrease. You’ll also likely see a positive effect on your sleep and concentration, your skin will look clearer (you might even look younger), and you could lose weight. Plus, you’ll save some cash!
12. The 30 Plant Foods Challenge
What to Do
You have to eat 30 different plant foods a week for the month.
That doesn’t just mean fruit and vegetables but includes anything from a plant, like whole grains, beans, herbs, spices, and even wine. The key point, though, is that it has to be 30 different foods—not just 30 portions.
What Can It Help
People who do this have been shown to have the greatest levels of diversity in their gut bacteria, and that has numerous health benefits beyond improving digestive function. Get more tips on how to make the challenge work – and download our free checklist and tracking sheets in our longer post on the 30-Plants Challenge.
Related Read: 22 Vegetables You Probably Haven’t Tried
Each of these challenges can help your health in different ways, so which one will you try this month? Don’t forget to save this on Pinterest so, once you’ve succeeded at one challenge, you can try the others.
