How To Make Lent Easy
This year Lent falls between 6th March – 18th April, 40 days in which many of us will decide to give up our favourite food or drink.
A new habit takes time to become accustomed to, so going without your something over Lent that you perhaps over indulge in regularly will enable you to become used to having it less frequently, enabling you to savour it on the occasions that you do have it once Lent is over.
What will you be giving up?
- Coffee – Replace this with caffeine free fruit teas. There are so many to choose from now that it’s impossible to get bored.
- Mindless office snacking – Engaging mindfulness with office snacking may make you realise how much of a frequent habit it has become. Birthday cake and biscuits seem to be a staple part of daily office life. This may enable you to take note and not revert back to heavy snacking throughout the workday once Lent is over. Be sure to head to work with plenty of healthy snacks to hand such as oatcakes and vegetable crudités with hummus!
- Chocolate – Chocolate is often linked to emotional eating. Research has shown that approximately 75% of us are emotional eaters – that’s a lot of chocolate! When you get that chocolate craving, write down how you are feeling, and soon you may be able to recognize what situations and emotions make you crave something sweet and you will be able to tackle this head-on. Once lent is over, it may be worth swapping to good quality dark chocolate, with at least 70% cocoa. Put yourself back in charge, change your habit to having one square of dark chocolate each day, and truly savour it.
- Alcohol – This one is a toughie, but going cold turkey when it comes to booze will do you the world of good.
Perhaps your food or drink of choice isn’t listed above, but the same rules apply throughout. In order to soften the hardest of cravings, plan ahead, and replace your food or drink with a healthy alternative.
