30 Day Health Challenge Ideas: The Nutrition Edition

A 30 day challenge is a great way to bring bigger changes to your life, with one small step at a time. We can use these challenges to create new habits, quit bad habits, develop a new mindset, have new hobbies, and also take significant steps towards a healthy way of life.

For example, you can start taking steps toward losing weight, eating a healthier diet, or try new exercises with a well-chosen health challenge. Luckily, many 30 day health challenge ideas exist, so we don’t have to spend so much time brainstrming. We can just go through the best health challenge ideas, and pick one that we like and fits our health goals. It doesn’t have to be complicated and can range from a social media detox, to starting a morning routine or self-care challenge.

Last time, we have dove deep into 30 day fitness challenge ideas, now it’s time to learn more about 30 day nutrition challenges. Keep reading if you would like to challenge yourself with better health via nutrition!

Related read: 30 Day Challenge Ideas for Building Good Habits

What is a 30 day nutrition challenge?

Most health challenges focus on fitness and/or nutrition. Therefore, these challenges can be divided into two main groups: fitness challenges and nutrition challenges. While fitness challenges are about being active and regular exercises, nutrition challenges address everything in connection with nutrition: different kinds of diets, eating habits, hydration, and dietary supplements. A nutrition challenge can help you to get back on track and have a balanced diet that can also serve as a god foundation for leading a more active and healthy lifestyle.

The best 30 day nutrition challenge ideas

There are so many amazing 30 day health challenge ideas that you may find it hard to decide on which one to try first. I will try to make this decision easier for you by bringing you my favorite 30 day nutrition challenges. You can get great results with all challenges on this list, so it’s worth trying them.

Related read: 5 Mistakes People Make When Starting a 30 Day Challenge

30 day clean eating challenge

The first nutrition challenge idea is the 30 day clean eating challenge. If you have never heard about the concept of clean eating before, or you are not sure about what it means, it’s a diet pattern where you are committed to consuming fresh and whole foods. Basically, the foods you eat should be as close as possible to their natural state.

A good way to test if a food is acceptable in terms of clean eating is to think about if your ancestors would recognize it as food or not. If the answer is no, you should not consume it when you are eating clean. Another simple way is to pay attention to your labels. If there is more than a few ingredients and you don’t recognize the names, then it’s simply best not to eat.

During a 30 day clean eating challenge, you can eat everything that passes the above-mentioned clean eating test. Therefore, you can consume every food that is natural, whole, and real. For example, vegetables and fruits are allowed, but you should avoid processed foods, added sugar, refined grains, and hydrogenated oils. When doing this challenge, you can decide on how strict you want to be about the foods and food groups that you should eliminate. (The key is to feel empowered rather than restricted- or the challenge will backfire!) In most cases, there are 3 different levels, and you are free to choose which one fits your lifestyle the best.

Benefits of clean eating: During the challenge, you will most likely gain more energy and lose some weight. Also, it may be beneficial for your skin appearance, and it can help you to build healthy eating habits.

Related read: Tips for Eating a Plant Based Diet

30 day no sugar challenge

The next idea for a 30 day health challenge idea is the famous 30 day no sugar challenge. Most likely, you have heard about this challenge before. The overconsumption of sugar causes many health issues (for example, chronic fatigue, mood swings, weight gain, brain fog, etc.) amongst people, so this challenge attempts to solve the problem of high sugar intake. An average American consumes more than 17 teaspoons of added sugar a day, which is much more than the recommended sugar intake (about 6 teaspoons).

The main concept of a no sugar challenge is quite simple: don’t consume added sugar for 30 days. This year, I shared my experience with this challenge, so if you are interested in trying the no sugar challenge, check out how I managed to accomplish the challenge. I will admit that the first few times I attempted this challenge, I technically “failed.” But I learned a lot each time about how to do it better the next time 😉

Benefits of giving up eating sugar: When you quit eating sugar, you may experience many health benefits, such as an increase in energy, better weight management, enhanced mood, better focus, and reduced inflammation. Plus, you’ll feel in better control of your food choices instead of always having crazy cravings.

Related read: 10 Simple Healthy Food Alternatives

30 day fiber-up challenge

The 30 day fiber-up challenge is great because it focuses on increasing fiber intake. And as we know, this nutrient has tons of benefits on our health. Throughout this challenge, every day you should do something to consume more fiber.

If you need help with how to fiber up, check out this fiber-up checklist. All you need to do is to go through this list and accomplish 7 tasks out of the 10 each week. An added bonus of this challenge is that you’ll probably get more produce in your diet this way too!

Benefits of a high-fiber diet: By increasing your fiber intake, you can normalize your bowel movements, lower cholesterol levels, improve blood sugar levels, achieve a healthy weight and in the long term, you can even prevent various chronic diseases.

Related read: How to Get More Green Leafy Vegetables in Your Diet

30 day eat more superfoods challenge

Nowadays, superfoods are very popular. Not only because they contain various nutrients and bring you many health benefits, but at the same time they are also super delicious and low in calories. Therefore, doing a 30 day eat more superfoods challenge sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it?

This challenge is very simple, you should just consume more superfoods during the 30 days. If you are wondering, here are a few of the most common superfoods:

• berries,
• sweet potatoes,
• oats,
• eggs,
• nuts,
• seeds,
• salmon,
• dark leafy greens,
• avocado,
• green tea,
• garlic,
• olive oil,
• ginger.

There are also tons of superfoods you can find in powder form to add to smoothies, oatmeal, pancakes, and more! These include options like wheatgrass, spirulina, chlorella, turmeric, mushrooms, barley, moringa, and more.

Benefits of eating more superfoods: Superfoods are rich in minerals, antioxidants, and vitamins. Eating more superfoods can help you to improve your health and prevent diseases. You can realize an increase in your energy levels, weight loss, and it can promote your heart health as well.

Related read: Monthly Meal Planning Ideas: How to Create a Monthly Meal Planner

30 day no junk food challenge

The next idea from the many 30 day health challenge ideas is a 30 day no junk food challenge. I think this is the challenge that all of us need. Most people consume a lot of processed and pre-packaged junk foods that can be very harmful to our health. This challenge is about cutting out all these unhealthy foods from our diet for 30 days (hopefully for even more as it becomes a habit).

Let’s see what you should avoid during the no junk food challenge:

• Products containing white flour or added sugar (for example, cookies, donuts, pizza, bread, chocolate, candy, etc.)
• Beverages that contain sugar or artificial sweeteners (sodas, fruit juice, alcohol, etc.)
• Processed animal products (bacon, salami, milk, cheese, fast food)
• Fried foods (chips, deep-fried foods, fries, most fast foods).

Except for the above-mentioned products, you can eat everything. The best is if you cook for yourself at home because that way you can be sure that your meal contains natural ingredients.

Benefits of a no junk food diet: When you quit eating junk food, you will feel much better in your body. Possibly, you may lose some weight because by eliminating junk food you will reduce your caloric intake. If you start to eat more nutrient-dense foods instead of junk food, you can improve your nutrition and boost your immune system. Also, as fast food contains a huge amount of saturated fat, by cutting these out from your diet you can reduce the risks of many diseases.

The Most Important Part is Getting Started

There’s not right or wrong way to start a 30 day challenge. Often, the smaller and easier it is to get started, the better it is for long term results. You can add, take away, and swap anything that you see fit. No matter what you choose, meal planning can also help when you’re trying to adjust (plus, it can help you save money).

Although 30 day health challenges are not a lifelong commitment, they can help you to develop new healthy habits that can be beneficial for your health. And who knows, maybe you will stick to your new habits and continue doing them even after the challenge is finished (the ideal!).

I hope you liked the above-mentioned 30 day health challenge ideas, and you are motivated enough now to start a nutrition challenge. We do challenges like these each month in my free FB group here.

Which 30 day challenge ideas would you like to try?