I recently decided to challenge myself to make a substantial change to my diet. Whilst I ate well all week, except for my Saturday ‘high carb’ day (most people call it cheat day) I’d noticed a lot of the food I was eating was processed.  

After doing some research and taking into account how processed foods can affect ADHD symptoms I wanted to set myself a challenge of eating as few processed foods for a whole month. I set myself this challenge even though I knew I was going on a mini break that same month, as I wanted it to be authentic and be tested in real-life situations. I do this for short periods every so often, so I really wanted to see how a whole month would be. So how did it go?

Well, there was a small number of spontaneous slip-ups (life happens eh?) and I did relax a little whilst I was in Lisbon, although I was far better than I would usually be on holiday, I couldn’t resist the Nata’s completely! But on the whole, I am glad I did it, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well I did.

I don’t feel there were any new learnings, but it reinforced what I already knew; I feel so much better mentally, physically and spiritually whenever I do this.

It was very much momentum-based, and it got easier over time.  Once my cravings subsided, I found my mind was calmer and I could focus better, which could be due to my blood sugar being more stable. This was a welcome benefit, as I know I can sometimes be hard work and act quite frantic when I have over-indulged. 

Now the challenge has come to an end, I’ve adopted eating less processed food as my default, but at the same time allowing for a bit more movement. Each year, it’s encouraging to see my lifestyle becoming better than the previous year. This has a lot to do with having a growth mindset, knowing that you can always improve on something is freeing. 

I like processed foods, who doesn’t? That’s how they are designed but I’m a big believer that you can evolve your pallet to the point where you are having just as much fun eating “healthy” vs being on autopilot mode of eating because of boredom, or to change your emotional state, or just circumstantially because you haven’t thought ahead.

If you’ve never tried something like this I strongly recommend you give it a go and I’d love to help you. Get in touch with me for a chat today