So you want to do a 30-day challenge, detox, juice cleanse, get chiseled abs in 30 days, or lose a dress size in three weeks. Of course you do because that is all that is being talked about right now and your friend Karen lost 25 pounds doing a 30 day diet challenge. I get it, who wouldn’t want those fast results!
But, yes of course I have a but. What isn’t being talked about is how these “overnight” diet challenges, quick fixes and any results that come with it are pretty short-lived. After years of enduring my own health journey and now coaching others there is a pretty predictable challenge cycle that I see come and go way too many times.
- Initial excitement – Karen lost 25 pounds in 30 days! I can do it too!
- Period of overly restrictive eating – you spend 30 days eating carrot sticks and celery.
- Results! – look at my new bod, damn I’m sexy.
- Return to normal eating – you see those results slip away and regain your weight and then some.
It’s not fun seeing so many people go through this cycle and as much as I would love to just drill into you and put an end to these quick fixes, that wouldn’t do you much good either. So instead, I am going to work with you to turn these diet trends into long-term success!
- Let’s celebrate! So you want to do a 30 day challenge. That is better than doing nothing so I applaud you for that! This shows that you are willing to make a change and you are most likely pretty excited to make better food choices.
- Why are you doing this challenge? No, why are you really doing this challenge? Discovering a deeper purpose for why you are doing the challenge will help you be successful not only during the challenge, but after too. To get to your “why” here are a few questions to ask yourself:
- How have diet challenges worked for you in the past?
- What do you hope to get out of this challenge?
- Why is that important to you?
- And why is that important to you?
- Time to plan! You will most likely be making a lot of changes in a short amount of time. Most of these changes won’t be sustainable once the challenge is over. Most people don’t do a detox expecting to drink only celery juice for the rest of their lives. Instead, look for healthy habits that complement and overlap with the challenge you’re doing. Basically, you want to bridge the gap between he challenge and the rest of your life. Let’s say you are doing Whole30. A way to create sustainable habits and bridge the gap would be to practice packing your lunch and healthy snack every morning. Hopefully, by the end of the challenge these habits are so ingrained in you that it become second nature and you continue them post challenge.
- Oops, I fell off track… Your excitement for this challenge got you to day 10, but then Sally invited you out for happy hour and you couldn’t decline because it is her birthday. Well, 3 glasses of wine later you find yourself at the bottom of a McDonald’s bag. Instead of beating yourself up for “failing” your challenge, give yourself some grace, be honest with yourself and get to the root cause of why you fell off track. Maybe at that time you were a bit stressed, felt deprived of your favorite foods or felt that you deserved a night off. Use your slip up as a learning opportunity. Maybe only eliminating foods you love isn’t the best approach. Look for your roadblocks of what is holding you back from successfully completing the challenge and come up with solutions.
- Learn from your results. You completed the challenge and it’s likely you have some positive results. Maybe you lost some weight, feel more energize, have less brain fog, stopped craving sweets, or are sleeping better. You can’t fathom keeping up with all of those habits for the rest of your life so instead you go back to the way you were eating. But did you know, it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing thing. You do not have to practice all those habits you learned during the challenge. Pick out the ones that worked for you practice and maintain those.
So you want to do a 30 day challenge… I fully support you and want you to get the most out of your challenge and better yet, learn from it and how you can sustain a healthy way of living for the rest of your life. There are positives that come from challenges as long as you go into it with clear expectations, a plan and have strategies in place for when the challenge is over.