It’s Day 4 of the Mykidstime 21 Day Health & Fitness Challenge! If you missed yesterday’s video, catch up with Day 3 here.
Our health and wellbeing expert, Fiona O’Donnell, explains what’s involved for Day 4 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 4 – Veggies
Welcome back to the 21 day challenge and welcome to my greenhouse! I’ve got some cucumber I’m going to pick here now and some tomatoes in the background. I’m going to make a little bit of a salad for myself at lunch time with some feta cheese and something nice.
I aim every day to get as many veg as I can into my diet, because we know that fibre intake correlates positively with a reduction in risk factors for lots of different diseases. That means that essentially the more fibrous foods you eat, the healthier you’re likely to be and the less risk you are at developing certain diseases.
It’s always a great idea – no matter what your plans are, no matter what your goals are – to aim to have as many veggies as you can on any given day, and to keep variety of those vegetables high.
When I’m starting with some of the ladies in the programme, they will say “oh Fiona, I eat loads of veggies, I don’t need to introduce any more veggies to my day”, but invariably when we look more closely at their diets what we see is that they have a few berries with their breakfast, a slice of lettuce in a sandwich at lunchtime, and then maybe a bit of broccoli at dinner. We’re aiming to have at least five portions of veggies every day as part of our overall nutrition – just to maintain health, not to add any magical extra benefits.
What I’m going to ask you to do today is reflect a little bit on how much you’re actually eating in terms of your fruit and vegetable intake. When do you have it – do you have a piece of fruit with your breakfast, a salad at lunchtime or veggies at dinner time?
I’d love for you to reflect on the last two to three days and ask yourself whether you’re actually hitting your five a day target. If you’re not, your task for today is to add one extra portion of vegetables to your food each day for the rest of the week. In order for that to be a success for you, you’re going to have to sit down and plan. There’s a couple of elements that I would advise you plan on:
- How are you going to add those vegetables or fruit in?
- What meals are you going to add them to?
- What time are you going to have those snacks?
- How are you going to transport those snacks with you if you’re outside of home?
- If you’re the type of person who’s looking in the fridge saying ‘I don’t know if I have something’, can you freeze some berries and add to a smoothie? In your shopping, can you get an extra pack of frozen veg?
These are the small ways in which we can improve our fibre and vegetable intake.
How can you work at getting more vegetables into your diet? More vegetables = better nutrition, better gut health, and the added benefit of fat loss if you fill up on more vegetables. It really is a win-win.
Remember to begin your increased veggie intake slowly to prevent any bloating from the large increase in fibre. Lots of water is also the order of the day to help your gut process the fibre efficiently.
Let me know what steps you’re taking to increase your veggie intake today!
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
