Day 3: Create your own mini-challenge

You know how you’ve always wanted to attempt one thing or another, but in the back of your mind you didn’t think you’d be able to follow through on it, and that would end up making you feel worse than if you never even tried in the first place?

This week let yourself try that one thing without any expectations. Set a beginning and an end date and simply see what happens, judgement free! It could be one day long, three, five or all seven days. It’s entirely up to you.

Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

• Try intermittent fasting for 12 hours. That means you don’t eat for 12 hours – but most of that time you’re sleeping! You can close the kitchen at 8 pm and not open it again until 10 am the following morning.

• Go sugar-free! This one requires a bit of detective work because sugar is sneaky and it’s found in a lot of things you’d otherwise think void of the sweet stuff. This is a great way to learn about ingredients and what’s really hiding in a lot of your pantry staples!

• Avoid chips or cheap snacks. If you have to snack, try sticking with the things Mother Nature made in their truest form. Meaning no veggies sticks even though they have “veggie” in their name! Try snacking only on fruit, veggies, olives, pickles, or other things you enjoy that don’t come in a bag, or package.

• Close the kitchen at 7:30 pm. After dinner is one of the trickiest times of the day when it comes to snacking. For some reason, you may feel that a little sweet treat is in order which sometimes turns into one too many treats! But if your kitchen is closed, you can’t get back in and the treats are left on the shelf where they can’t entice you!

Try avoiding the kitchen altogether after dinner and see how many times the urge to walk in there rise up. You may end up realizing that you’re snacking more than you think!

Let these ideas spark some experiments you can try this week.