Healthy Lifestyle Changes – Week 5

Jan 28, 2013 by Renee +

Week 4 Update:

Last week, the challenge was to set a bedtime that would ideally give you at least 7 hours of sleep, shut down your screens one hour before bedtime and keep up with your prior weeks’ challenges.

So just to review you should now be:

Eliminating sugary drinks, limiting alcohol and drinking more water.
No snacking after dinner.
Eating a healthy breakfast that consists of just less than 1/3 of your ultimate daily calorie goal.
Have a set bedtime and an hour of non screen downtime before that time.

So…how did it go you ask?

ID 10086051 300x249 Healthy Lifestyle Changes Week 5

It was NOT a good week!

If I did a little bit of backsliding last week then this week was full on 100% total reverse. I pretty much did not do well in keeping up with any of the weekly challenge concepts. Bad breakfasts, too much coffee, not enough sleep – you name it. There was absolutely no way you could have done worse than me this week.

As I write this though I have finished a healthy breakfast and I’m about to pour myself some water. It is way too easy when you have a bad day (or week?) to just give up and say “Hey, well I already messed up so I may as well…” I am BAD at this. But I know I am bad at it – so maybe that is a good start.

Anyway, this week I am going to make another attempt at the week 4 challenge. But hopefully you did better than me so we’ll get you going on the next one.

Week 5 Challenge

Healthify Lunch!

Dinner is (for me at least) the most difficult meal to make healthier because the whole family is involved and you are trying to get everyone to eat the same thing. Lunch is a bit easier so let’s tackle that next. You are going to approach it the same way we did breakfast.

Set a calorie expectation just under a 1/3 of what your daily calorie goal is going to be. Check in with the breakfast post for info on how to set that goal.
Focus on lean proteins and complex carbs
Add lots of low calorie density foods! Learn more about LCD’s here

So that’s it. If you are ready to move on to your next change then this week work on adding a healthy lunch into the mix. When you combine a healthy breakfast, a healthy lunch, lots of low calorie density foods and plenty of water – all of those things are going to make dinner – the toughest meal – all that much easier to manage.

If you already eat a healthy lunch: Awesome! You are ahead of the game so just keep up with the prior challenges until next week. If (like me) you had trouble with the bedtime challenge – give it a another week. I know I am. I am seriously considering trying the Anti-Social app or the Freedom app to help with this so I’ll let you know how that goes too!

And – as a reminder: You can follow the challenges here and join us on Facebook if you want to do it with a group!

Images courtesy of photostock, Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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