I would like to thank everyone for joining me on this 28 day challenge starting tomorrow.

Each evening before the next day of the challenge you’ll receive a new challenge email. If you have any questions or queries just pop them at the bottom of this blog post and I’ll answer them for you.

As the 28 days moves along you’ll find more things are added in to your daily regime to help you detox and become healthier and hopefully happier.

Day One (Monday): 

1.  Cut out gluten. It is believed that as many as 1 in 3 of us could be gluten intolerant.  This causes bloating, IBS, tummy upsets, fatigue, weight gain, leaky gut, malabsorption and even things like depression.  Even if you’re not gluten intolerant you should limit the amount of gluten you eat as it’s hard for us to digest.

Opt for gluten free oats, smoothies and gluten free oat cakes or rice crackers for breakfast.

Swap rice pasta (Dove’s brand is the most like pasta and can be purchased from most supermarkets) for normal pasta.

Try having rice crackers, gluten free crackers (both oat and other brands available from supermarkets etc), toasted gluten free breads (most gluten free bread is not that great unless toasted), free-from pasta dishes or bean or rice salads instead of sandwiches.

Make your own soups, sauces and gravies where possible as most of the shop bought ones have hidden gluten in them. You can buy free-from versions but it’s just as easy and cheaper to make large batches of these yourself.  You’ll find most fresh tomato and basil soups will be gluten free and often fresh beans soups also if you would like a easy meal option.

2. Cut out processed sugars 

We all know that processed sugars found in most processed foods are harmful to us, but substituting these for sweeteners (found in most diet foods and drinks) doesn’t really help us either.  Although these have less calories in them the sweeteners replicate sugar in our system and our body deals with and stores it in the same way.  Substitute sugars for honey instead, our body not only deals with this as the natural product it is but it is incredibly healthy for us.

3. Meditate

Daily meditation helps with insomnia, stress, anxiety, depression, busy brains, weight loss, hormonal issues and many more health issues.  If you haven’t already then download a 3-5 min meditation from You Tube or another similar site and start doing this daily.  If you haven’t meditated before then a guided meditation is the best place to start.  Of course if you want to meditate for longer then please do, but try to get into a pattern of meditating at the same time every day to make sure this happens.

4. Water 

Dust off that water bottle (preferably a tin/metal one, or at the very least a BPA free one) and fill it up every morning and take it with you everywhere you go. Your aim at the moment is to drink at least 1 litre of fresh (preferably filtered) water a day. Drinks with caffeine in do not count for the purposes of this challenge.  Drinking plenty of water flushes us through and helps detoxification and weight loss.

5. Planking

Planking is an easy way to help strengthen your inner core.

For the whole of the first week it is advisable to do 10 seconds of planking a day.  In the image below to will see what planking is and how to do it. Just remember to keep your bum down when your doing it for optimum effectiveness.

6. De-clutter

This is another way of helping de-clutter your mind, with the benefit of clearing your home and giving you a little exercise.

Pick one drawer or cupboard to clean out today – just the one! =0)

When cleaning out the drawer or cupboard try to recycle, reuse or donate as much of it as possible to reduce what goes into landfill.

So that’s all my suggestions for you today.  

Let me know how you get on below and look out for the Day Two email tomorrow.  Good Luck!