Eat Healthier Joyfully: The Daily Challenges

This is a collection of all the daily challenges posted on the forum for the Eat Healthier Joyfully course.

If you’re doing the course now, you can use this collection to pick a challenge:

  1. Share the first healthy eating change you want to make, and why. Why are you excited about this?
  2. Share some of your obstacles to eating healthier. What do you struggle with?
  3. What are you biggest food temptations?
  4. What is your deeper motivation for eating healthier (as discussed in Lesson 2)?
  5. Meditate for three minutes, visualizing yourself as a healthy eater who has made the changes you’re trying to make. This can begin the process of seeing yourself in a new, healthy way.
  6. Eat a meal without reading or watching anything, just paying attention to the food. Meditate on the flavors and textures of the food.
  7. Find one healthy food that you enjoy (for example, a peach or berries) and eat one bite of it very slowly. Savor it in your mouth. See how long you can meditate on this one bite, holding it in your mouth, keeping your attention on the sensations of it.
  8. Try this meditation … find a tempting food and sit there without eating it. Notice your urge, stay with that feeling, investigate the urge with curiosity.
  9. Go a full day eating every meal mindfully, without reading or watching anything, just paying full attention to the food.
  10. Try cooking a new healthy recipe! Cook it mindfully and be grateful for each moment you get to cook.
  11. Go one day without sugar. (If you’re on the sugar-free challenge, try one day without animal foods.) What is it like to give up things you’re used to eating? Is there resistance? Stay with the feeling of resistance.
  12. Try eating with your non-dominant hand today (your left hand if you’re right-handed) … use this as an opportunity to see the act of eating, and the meals you’re eating, from completely fresh eyes.
  13. Before every meal today, pause … reflect on how you feel. Stay with your feelings for a minute. See if you’re actually hungry, or if some other emotion is driving your eating.
  14. Mindfully experiment with eating something you would usually judge as “not liking”. Before eating, notice any judgments, resistance, and aversions (e.g. not wanting to eat it). Then get really curious around smell, taste, texture, temperature, and sensations in the body.
  15. Before every meal today, give thanks to every person who brought this food to you, from the farmers to truck drivers to food preparers and everyone else involved.
  16. Evaluate your diet today in terms of nutrient density … whole foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, beans and whole grains are high in nutrient density, while processed foods containing added sugar, white flour, and most things in boxes and in the frozen section (other than frozen fruits and veggies of course) are not nutrient dense. How would you evaluate your eating in the past day with this in mind?
  17. See if you can meditate on an emotional food trigger that you have, such as stress or boredom. When the trigger comes up, stay with the emotion instead of going to food or distraction. Just pause and stay with the feeling in your body for a few minutes.
  18. Try eating a food that you normally feel guilty eating … but eat just a few bites, and see if you can savor them, without guilt! Develop a new healthy relationship with this food, seeing it as not “bad” but rather something to be savored in small doses, like a visit from your in-laws. ;)
  19. For one meal today, put your fork or spoon down after every bite … pause, taste the food, and pause for a few moments after you swallow before picking up your utensil.
  20. Try chewing 30 times for every bite, for one meal today.
  21. Notice your urge to clean your plate today. Consider packing your leftovers to go, or leaving a few bites on your plate.
  22. Try eating a big salad today, with lots of greens and other colored veggies, and maybe nuts and fruit and beans if you like. Savor it with gusto!
  23. Notice your fullness levels and actual hunger feelings all day today.
  24. As you eat today, see the food as nothing more than fuel for your body and brain. Are you getting enough, too much fuel? Does it contain all the nutrients you need?
  25. If you get a sweet craving today, eat a fruit and savor it with joy. If you get a craving for a salty snack, eat some nuts and savor them as well.
  26. Try chewing 30 times for every bite, for everything you eat today.
  27. If you drink alcohol, see if you can drink a little less today, sipping and savoring it slowly. If you don’t drink alcohol, try the same challenge for some other drink that you have (morning coffee, or a mocha frappucino drink, soda, etc.).
  28. Try eating every meal today without reading, talking or watching anything, just sitting in silence.
  29. With every bite today, say, “May this bite nourish me, and may I be happy.”
  30. As you eat today, pay attention to your breath and body, just as you would in meditation. Return to the breath and body when your mind wanders.
  31. With every bite today, say something you’re grateful for.