Reflecting on the Detox-Free Healthy Tea Challenge
This month, I hosted the Detox-Free Healthy Tea Challenge on Instagram as a way to encourage healthy habits in the new year. As January comes to a close, I wanted to reflect on how the challenge was for me personally.
My Resolutions
On January 1st, I shared my New Years Resolutions with my followers. They are to learn more about and start preparing matcha, to fix my sleep schedule, and to remove ableist terms from my vocabulary. So how did I do this first month?
My mom had ordered me matcha for Christmas, but it did not get to her until after the holiday. I didn’t see her again until this week, so I have yet to make my own matcha. I have started reading up about how to do so, though. Kimberley from Tea Is A Wish Your Heart Makes was so kind to share her first post of her Matcha Monday Masterclasses series with me, which is so informative a makes me really excited to whisk my own matcha very soon.
My sleep schedule is very much not fixed. I’m not sure if school starting again will make this better or worse, but we’ll see. As for ableist language, I’ve definitely gotten better. I’m mostly focusing on the word “crazy,” and while I definitely use it less than I used to, I still find myself slipping up occasionally.
Hydration Week
The first week of the Detox-Free Healthy Tea challenge was my favorite. Not only was I super motivated, but in my opinion the challenges for the week were pretty easy (I may have set it up that way on purpose). I definitely felt hydrated all week, which helped me feel good overall.
Over the weekend, I decided to incorporate Dry January with challenges to make a tea mocktail and drink an alcohol-inspired tea. I definitely had fun coming up with my own tea mocktail, but I learned something interesting. I’m not a big alcohol drinker—I only turned 21 a few months ago, never really drank before that and even now usually have only one drink a week max. But something about telling myself I couldn’t have alcohol made me crave it. I had a whole pack of White Claw in the house (classy, I know) and I couldn’t wait to open one up. This experience solidified for me the dangerous cycle that dieting and restricting caused. If not letting myself have something I don’t even care that much about like alcohol was hard, imagine what would happen if I didn’t let myself have something I love like chocolate or pasta! Just another reason why it’s better to make small, sustainable changes (like the ones in the challenge) instead of huge lifestyle overhauls.
Sleep and Mental Health Week
The second week of January focused on a combination of sleep and mental health. As I said earlier, I didn’t have much success in the sleep section. But I did have some good mental health days. I won’t talk too much about it here, since I wrote a whole post about how tea affect my mental health that week, but my favorite challenge was definitely the 10 minute mindful tea time. This is another thing that I hope to do more this year.
Exercise Week
I actually had a pretty good workout routine prior to this month, but for some reason I didn’t make any challenges that lined up with it. I don’t usually exercise on Wednesday’s, but I mad the challenge for that day to drink a tea that motivates you to get moving. Meanwhile, I usually do yoga on Tuesdays, but for some reason I put the tea and yoga challenge on Thursday. And I said to go for a walk on Fridays, when I absolutely never have time to go for a walk!
But this ended up being a good thing. Like I said, I already had a good workout routine. I didn’t need a challenge like the Detox-Free Healthy Tea’s to start exercising. Instead, I needed to learn how to be less rigid in my routine. So what that I switched the day I do Pilates and the day I do yoga. So what that I couldn’t go for a walk outside, I could get my steps in while I was volunteering. This was actually just the reminder I needed as my semester starts and my routine needs to change again.
Nutrition Week
As an RD to Be, nutrition week was the week I was most looking forward to—and then I got sick. I woke up Sunday morning with the worst stomach ache and could barely get out of bed all day. But the rest of the week turned out to be better. I learned that a tea I was not a huge fan of is significantly better with frozen mango instead of ice, and I finally drank a kombucha that had been in the fridge for a while. Overall, not the week I was hoping for, but a good one nonetheless.
Empties
The Detox-Free Healthy Tea challenge was not necessarily a sip-down challenge, so I didn’t save any of my empties. But I realized that I actually made it through quite a few teas. I’ll list them here with some brief thoughts:
Ivan Tea from Baikal Herbal Tea- Not my favorite flavor of tea, but the immune-boost can’t hurt
Serenity Tea from Baikal Herbal Tea- Again not my favorite flavor, but I definitely felt relaxed every time I drank it
Chaga Tea from Baikal Herbal Tea- I really did not like this tea the first time I tried it, but it is significantly better with milk and honey
Arctic Bliss from Sipping Streams- one of my favorite teas, and great for supporting the immune system
Peppermint Early Grey from Embrew Tea- definitely my favorite Earl Grey tea, love that the coffee-leaf tea supports coffee farmers in the off-season
Lavender and Mint sample from Rishi Tea- I made the (big) mistake of trying to make this a latte, but I think I would have enjoyed it plain
Butterfly Pea Flowers from Sipping Streams- so much fun to watch the color change, tastes great with honey
Mango Fruit Punch from DavidsTea- nice fruity iced tea, forgot I wanted to make a recipe with it
That’s it for this little look back on the Detox-Free Healthy Tea Challenge! I hope it inspired some of you to make some simple, healthy changes in your life this year. Let me know if I should do something like this again next year.
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NOTES:
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I am not yet a Registered Dietitian and am therefore not certified to give nutrition counseling. Please consult your doctor or other healthcare provider before following the advice in this article.