Challenge Yourself: Why not try something new in the run up to Chinese New Year?
Yvonne Lui
The month of January is often sluggish, whether it is the cold weather that makes people want to hide away or the fact that we are firmly between holidays, holidays that involve heavy eating and a great deal of consumption with friends and family, we often crave a revamp and recharge of our batteries.
You do too? Well, why not consider challenging yourself to a few weeks of wellness? Join us in participating in a Vegan Food Week, a Week of Intermittent Fasting or a Switch Off Social Media Week this January. All of the detox options could truly make a difference to one’s body, mind and the larger environment that surrounds us.
Vegan Food Week
Eating only vegan food for a week could provide you with a balance of nutrients that a typical diet does not. Vegans often have lower body weights, lower blood pressure, and lower cholesterol eating more fiber, folate, vitamin C, vitamin E, potassium, and magnesium and less saturated fat. A week on a healthy vegan eating plan will provide a boost for the body and senses, with many doctors suggesting that a vegan diet is beneficial for the heart.
Furthermore, every piece of food we eat makes its own impact on the environment, however, the production of meat takes a huge toll on our planet. Breeding, raising, and slaughtering billions of animals for food every year requires massive amounts of natural resources, like fresh water and land, and generates huge waste and pollution. Simply put, our appetite for meat—and the factory farming system that feeds it—is unsustainable.
A vegan week here or there, or even participating in #MeatlessMondays would help reduce the rapid depletion of Earth’s resources, slow the threat of climate change, and help protect our planet for generations to come. You never know, you may enjoy the benefits so much that you keep going vegan!
Intermittent Fasting Week
Fasting again reduces resources depleted from the earth and it dramatically helps with focus, be it at home or in the office environment. Evidence is accumulating that eating in a 6-hour period and fasting for 18 hours can trigger a metabolic switch from glucose-based to ketone-based energy, with increased stress resistance, increased longevity, and a decreased incidence of diseases, including cancer and obesity!
There are two main types of fasting: short fasts and long fasts. The typical short fasts are the 16/8h fasting and or the 18/6h fasting in which there is, respectively, an 8-hour or a 6-hour eating window. These are also easier to start with. If you go for the OMAD option of “one meal a day” in which you only eat once a day, you need to carefully ensure your unique meal has the calories and nutrients needed in a healthy, balanced diet.
Please note that fasting of any kind is not recommended for people with eating disorders.
Switch off Social Media Week
A different kind of detox, “logging out” (and logging off) is beneficial to your mental health. In fact, numerous studies have shown a direct correlation between depression and excessive social media use.
Coming away from the screens for a week will help you sleep better (due to the lack of blue light before bedtime) and up your productivity as you gain back time. Time that you can put into doing real world activities.
Not only a freeing experience, coming off social media should bring anxiety levels down due to a reduction in cortisol production, leaving you calmer as well as attentive. Better posture, eye strain reduction and the ability to be more present, picking up on social cues, are other beneficial side-effects of putting the phone and social media aside.
However, you choose to challenge yourself, we are sending wishes of good luck and good health to you all.
