The Healthy Habits Challenge

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With summer already upon us, many people are looking to get outside and enjoy the good weather. If you are aiming to lose weight over the summer, this is the perfect time to start building momentum with small, sustainable changes.

Our weight loss medications work best when they’re paired with supportive habits – balanced nutrition, regular movement, good sleep, and stress management. But getting started can be daunting. That’s why we aren’t asking our readers to join the gym and immediately sign up for a 5k marathon! Rather, we want to help you build healthy habits in a realistic way.

What’s the most important aspect of losing weight and staying healthy? Is it the latest supplement trend that claims to burn fat while you sleep? Maybe it’s ensuring you don’t eat solid foods on nights of a full moon? Is it grapefruit? Kale? I remember something about chia seeds…

No, of course not. The real key to healthy and maintainable weight management is a lot less glamorous – it’s consistency.

Habit Forming

Think of all the habits you already have. When you pick up food from the shop, you probably know most of what you’ll pick up before you enter the store. I even walk the exact same path every time I walk into my local supermarket.

Habits like these aren’t the result of one decision. They are formed over time, with repetition, and become second nature. Research shows that it can take up to 66 days to form a habit, but the truth is it will vary from person to person.

But you can form positive habits through repetition and consistency. That’s why we have created the Healthy Habit Challenge.

This challenge is designed to get you moving and to help create these good habits, and to establish a health mindset. Over the course of 8 weeks, we will get started with movement techniques and build upon them to get us moving and active.

And I do mean we – I will also be taking part in this challenge! As a Content Writer, I have a very sedentary job, and a brush with Long Covid means I have definitely not been as active since the pandemic. When this idea was presented to the team, I leapt at the chance to have some accountability in my exercise routine.

So, let’s see what awaits us!

Healthy Habits – Laying foundation challenge

The following challenge is designed to set the core of your healthy mindset. In an ideal world, we would hit the gym for an hour 5 days a week. But, life tends to get in the way! 

Often, when people get the motivation to make change, they give it everything they have. Then, they either burn out quickly or hit a speedbump and everything stops with a promise to pick it up again later (I belong to that second group more often than I would like to admit!).

This challenge aims to build up slowly, making it easier to get started and stick to it. The first few weeks are relatively simple – things you can slide into even a busy daily schedule, with minimal effort.

By the time you complete the 8 weeks, you’ll find it easier to make time for these tasks, and we should start to feel the benefit from them. No matter the level you step your healthy habits up to, you will have built a strong foundation, keeping the engine warm when life gets in the way!

So let’s start nice and steady, and build the foundation of our healthy habits.

Note that each of these weeks build upon the next – even by Week 8, you will still be doing some of the items from Week 1! Only replace an item if the amount changes. Otherwise, add each new week to your new arsenal of tricks.

The Challenge

WEEK 1-2: FOUNDATION

Pillar	Habit
Sleep	Minimum 7 hours, every night
Hydration	1 glass of water before each meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
Mental health	3-5 min box breathing (4 sec in, 4 sec hold, 4 sec out, 4 sec hold)
Nutrition	Mindful Eating: eat slowly, no phone/screen during meals
Movement	10 min daily walk (ideally brisk)
Strength	30 air squats – anytime, any way (1×30, 2×15, 5×6 etc) that works for you

This week is the simplest, and focuses more on your overall wellbeing than getting active. You might even find you already do some of these things! A good night’s sleep, staying hydrated and paying more attention to your own mental health are all the building blocks of a better you.

Air squats (quick form tips): keep your chest up, push hips back as if sitting into a chair, and keep your knees tracking in line with your toes. Go only as low as feels comfortable, and stop if you feel sharp pain.

WEEK 3-4: BUILDING

Pillar	Habit
Sleep	7+ hours, every night + consistent wake time (±30 min), 7 days a week
Hydration	Water before meals + 2 more glasses across the day (aim 6-8 total)
Mental health	Box breathing + 2 min journaling (like a gratitude note)
Nutrition	Eat slowly, no screens + protein first on the plate
Movement	Walk extended to 15-20 min daily
Strength	30 air squats + 20 incline push-ups (wall, counter or even stairs)

Over these two weeks, we will be building upon what you have started, adding in some extra work.

Incline push-ups (how to): choose a sturdy surface (wall, counter, or stair rail). Place your hands on the surface, step your feet back, keep your body in a straight line, then bend your elbows slowly and press back up. Use an incline that feels challenging but doable.

A gratitude note is pretty simple – write down one thing you are thankful for from the day. It can be anything, from a friendly interaction, a good event at work, even just pleasant weather! The point is to remind yourself that, while the stress of life can get you down, there are positing things to look forward to.

WEEK 5-6: STRENGTHENING

Pillar	Habit
Sleep	7+ hours, consistent wake time + wind-down routine (screens off 30-60 min before bed)
Hydration	8 glasses daily, spread across the day
Mental health	Box breathing + journaling + 5 min mindfulness or body scan (this can even be a cup of tea in silence)
Nutrition	Protein/veg first + for main meal  ½ veg, ¼ protein, ¼ carb
Movement	Walk extended to 20-25 min, add stairs or an incline where possible
Strength	40 air squats + 20 push-ups + 20 lunges or glute bridges

At weeks 5 and 6, we start to get to the real work. We start not just getting you moving, but strengthening the muscles we have been working with earlier steps. This will give you a strong baseline to build from going forward, and also provide a good workout! Just remember – consistency is more important than quantity, even at this stage!

Lunges / glute bridges (choose what suits you):

• Lunges: step forward, lower with control, keep front knee roughly above the ankle, push back to standing. Hold onto a chair or wall if balance is tricky.
• Glute bridges: lie on your back with knees bent, feet flat. Squeeze glutes and lift hips, pause briefly, then lower slowly.

A “body scan” is simple – close your eyes and see what changes you notice. You may feel yourself getting more relaxed as you sit; your breathing becoming steadier and deeper, your heart rate slowing, even tension leaving your muscles. The goal isn’t to “force” relaxation, but to practice awareness.

Keep track of these as you progress – more exercise often means your resting heart rate will become slower, and while the first few weeks of a new exercise may cause some pain and stiffness in newly-mobile muscles and joints, over time these will feel lighter and looser.

WEEK 7-8: LOCKING IN HEALTHY HABITS

Pillar	Habit
Sleep	Full wind-down routine + dark, cool room and wake time daily
Hydration	8 glasses daily + swap 1 sugary (or sweetner) or caffeinated drink for water
Mental health	Breathing + mindfulness + weekly reflection (what worked, what didn’t)
Nutrition	Ensure you are getting your 5 a day + pause to half way through meals for a few sips of water and check hunger/fullness for a few seconds.
Movement	30 min daily walk, or split into two shorter sessions
Strength	Full bodyweight circuit 2-3x/week: squats, push-ups, lunges, glute bridges and plank – hold or do as many as you can for 3 sets each

And in the last two weeks, we push even further beyond! By this point, you have picked up a lot of extra mobility and a tolerance for exercise. Now, we tackle not only increased physical activity, but start to drill down into some other habits.

While we won’t ask you to completely give up caffeine, replacing a caffeinated drink with water can have some benefits. Aside from helping you stay hydrated, too much caffeine across the day can make it harder to sleep, and can interrupt your body’s other signals.

Your weekly reflection is an addition that can help collate your thoughts from across the week – read over your daily journals and see what you managed to achieve, and what you didn’t. Take note of what felt particularly hard, and what felt like a breeze. 

These can form your goals for the weeks beyond these challenges – find the points you enjoyed and try them again, and find the sticking points to see if you can improve.

We would love to hear how you got on with this challenge: please get in touch with us on Facebook or Instagram, or email us at [email protected] with the subject “Healthy Habits Challenge”!

If you have completed this challenge and want to take the next steps, stay tuned for our next post!

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