The first six months of the year are already over and I have participated in a few challenges to help me lead a better life. Let me tell you what I have been up to, one challenge at a time.
Monthly challenges
The greatest thing I am experiencing this year in terms of my goals are the monthly challenges that my boyfriend and I are thinking of. Each challenge lasts exactly one month: We think that 30 days are enough to make a start to change habits but is also not too long if the challenge is not up your alley and you wish you could just quit after the first day. (And believe me, that happened to me in June). We have started with the first challenge in April and so far have done the following challenges:
April: Eating no added sugar
May: Working out every day
June: Cleaning every day
July: Triple C
April
The goal was to not eat any added sugar for a whole month. That meant to check all the food we had and get rid off the sugary things we had before the month started. I was nervous because I love sweets and have been eating them very, very regularly. The weekend before the months started, I bought some items like sugarfree mayo, sugarfree salad dressing and made sure we had enough snacks without sugar. And then the month started and on April, 1st a colleague from Norway gave me a huge chocolate bar with liquorice, which I love. But not eating it was actually much easier than I thought. I didn’t eat added sugar once for the whole month and I was so surprised by myself. In week two, Igot a little ill but from week 3 I noticed an increase in energy. I was surprised to find myself working out in the gym and thinking about doing a bike-tour because I had still so much energy. That was definitely a new experience for me.
What have I kept from the challenge?
My boyfriend and I still don’t buy a lot of sugary foods, although I must say that I have been slacking a lot in the last two weeks. I am a very emotional eater and tend to turn to sugar when I am not feeling well. I know that this will pass and I also know that eating less sugar makes me feel better.
May
The goal was to work out every day. For me, I decided that it meant at least 30 minutes and I have to sweat. And man, was it amazing. I went to the gym, cycled and went swimming. I was so motivated to work out and in combination with eating less sugar, it really gave me a good push in becoming the fittest version of myself. We had so much fun that we decided to just keep going also when the month was over and I am super proud to say that I worked out 44 days in a row. We tried different exercises, challenging ourselves even more and it is such a rewarding feeling to see the weights on the bar go up and feel that your body is getting stronger.
What have I kept from the challenge?
We are still working out a lot. On average, I would say 5-6 times per week which is amazing for me. The last weeks, I am having some problems with my hip and legs which lead to some kind of constant pain which then again leads to me not sleeping well so I have been taking it rather easy with the sports but my mindset made a good shift and I feel I am capable of so much more. So much even that we will spend a cycling holiday in September: We will cycle from the Netherlands to Belgium, France and then take the ferry to England where we will continue cycling. A year ago that would have been unbelievable for me. Now I am excited and cannot wait to do it.
June
And here we have the first challenge that we failed at miserably. The initial idea was to clean for 20 minutes every day. On day two, we felt like this is not ideal because I was travelling for a few days and did not really feel like cleaning at my parent’s or friend’s house just for the purpose of cleaning. We then decided to divide our home per week and made a list of things we wanted to clean in each room. Well, let me just say that we did barely anything. We realised that the challenges should be something we want to establish in our daily lives and cleaning every day was not something we feel adds a lot of value.
What have I kept from the challenge:
Nothing, because we didn’t succeed in it. Haha.
The current challenge
The current challenge is what we call the triple C and the C stands for Cardio. I have the challenge to cycle 300km, walk 30 km and row 40 km. It is a big challenge for me I am not feeling the best lately, but I know I will make it happen. My boyfriend has almost the same distances, but he has 80km running instead of 30 km walking. My hip starts hurting immediately for weeks when I “run” so I will walk and he runs.
What do you think of such monthly challenges? Have you ever participated in any kind of challenge?