It’s Day 6 of the Mykidstime 21 Day Health & Fitness Challenge! If you missed yesterday’s video, catch up with Day 5 here.
Our health and wellbeing expert, Fiona O’Donnell, explains what’s involved for Day 6 in the video below. We want you to tell us during the challenge how you are getting on so tag us on social using #mkt21days and we’ll give you some encouragement!
Mykidstime 21 Day Health & Fitness Challenge: Day 6 – Journalling Hunger
Today is a self-care challenge. I’ve been guilty before of doing these 21 day challenges and just having exclusively strength or nutrition content, but if we’re looking to make long-lasting change then we’ve got to be really clear on exactly what it is in the background that’s allowing us to make these changes.
There is no point in actively doing something for 21 days and then completely giving up on it afterwards. If you shift your mindset on one or two small things over the course of this challenge, then you’re more likely to keep up the behaviours that you engaged in.
Today I want to talk about hunger, because I don’t know about you, but I certainly am guilty of going through the day sometimes forgetting about lunch, skipping breakfast in the morning because it’s really busy, or just grabbing something quickly.
In my advanced program, we journal our food – but not in the way you would think. We don’t look for numbers, we don’t look for how many grams of protein or how many almonds you’ve added to your muesli in the morning. We look to ask three very specific questions:
- Why are we eating the foods we’re eating or why have we made that choice? Was it because we were rushing, was it because we were looking for something delicious or satisfying, was it because we were super hungry?
- Were we full?
- Were we satisfied?
I want to look at the ‘why’ for a second. Think of yourself when you were in school – you had breakfast before you left for school, you had a small morning break, you had a regular lunchtime meal, and then usually you would come home and maybe have dinner after school or a little bit afterwards. You had designated break times.
Now as adults, we often don’t get to have those frequent meals. If we’re busy in the mornings we’re inclined to grab something quick like a slice of toast, or if we’re running to do school pickups or trying to get something done we’re inclined to just grab and go. I want you to start thinking about WHY you’re making the choices you’re making.
If it’s a case of ‘I’m on my lunch break and I’m running to the local cafe to grab a sandwich already wrapped and ready to go and a cup of coffee’, well you’re doing that because you know it’s quick, easy and convenient. So when you’re planning food over the next couple of days, you know that your requirements on that day are to have a quick, easy, convenient lunch. You can make that at home yourself, you don’t have to be taking what you can get from a local café. You may be happy to do that, and that’s fine, but what we’re trying to ascertain at the moment is are you actually meeting your needs?
Are you being reactive in your food choices? ‘I’m really hungry now, I have to pick something fast’ or ‘I’m just going to grab that doughnut with sugar and it’s going to raise my blood sugars for a little while just to get me through the afternoon’ or are you being proactive and saying ‘I always get hungry at 3pm so I’m going to bring something with me to eat’. That something might be a bar of chocolate and that might satisfy you that might be enough to keep you tied it over until your next meal comes around, but getting clear on WHY we’re making the choices we’re making allows us to make optimised choices for ourselves.
This is a question for you to reflect on this evening and this is your challenge for today – why are you choosing the foods you’re choosing? Is it because you’re hungry? Is it because you’re needing a little bit of comfort in the evening and you’re just looking for something nice at the end of a busy day?
Reflecting on these can be a real eye-opener when it comes to serving your own needs.
If you have any questions throughout the Challenge, email Fiona or send her a message on Instagram, Facebook and use hashtag #mkt21days to let us know how you are getting on with the Challenge!
About the Author: Fiona O'Donnell
