Challenge Day 9! Add Color into your life!

It’s Day 9! How are you? Did you rise and shine this morning? Are you ready for your challenge today? In case you missed it, all you have to do to join the challenge is decide to do so and tell others about it. You can do that by commenting here, or even announcing that you are joining today’s challenge on your facebook or twitter status updates. We are asking you to announce so you can harness the power of intention, when you declare your intent, something shifts in your spirit and it becomes easier to live up to the declaration.

So today’s challenge is….

Body challenge: Add some color to your life!
Is your diet monochromatic? Varying shades of beige and brown? For example, bread in the morning, rice in the afternoon and pounded yam in the evening. Sure the accompanying sauces have some color, but really, they tend to be varying shades of red or orange, between stew and some palmoil based soup.
Today we want you to switch things up. Switch out some fruit for the bread in the morning, try a vibrant mango or yellow pineapple or some paw paw/papaya, have it with an egg white omelet and really give your breakfast some punch. Instead of rice, try some sweet potatoes and instead of fufu, try some eggplant, or maybe make a vegetable stir fry and serve with your favorite protein. You don’t have to substitute every thing all at once, but try it and you will see that not only will it help in weight maintenance or loss, because most of the white food is bad for you, but foods with rich colors are often chock full of antioxidants and nutrients, plus variety is the spice of life.

Mind challenge: Exercise your brain.
Going to work everyday is not enough to keep your brain as healthy and sharp as possible. Just like our bodies, our brains need challenges to keep it as healthy as possible and unfortunately watching reality tv or soap operas is not enough stimulation. It is believed that by exercising your brain you can create a reserve of synapses to draw from as you age, helping to stave off senility and age related dementia.
So today, pledge to exercise your brain. How do you do that? Try to learn something new as often as possible. Take a language class, or learn a new hobby, like learing how to paint or take photographs, enroll in a class, or even learn to play the piano, its never too late! Do games like crossword puzzles, sudoku or chess. Read as often as you can, but not just books that are in your comfort zone, try reading some serious literature.

Happy trails to you!