In this short instructional video, Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow, introduces Day 24 of the 30‑Day Healthy Habits Challenge. She explains the habit of planning tomorrow’s 10‑minute movement session and a single healthy meal (or a meal within the next three days) to reduce decision fatigue and improve nutrition. Cheryl outlines practical steps: decide when to do the movement, choose a meal that contains at least 30 g of protein, and consider adding a new produce item to increase food variety and support the gut microbiome. She emphasizes keeping the meal simple, using a recipe or ingredient list ahead of time, and notes that research links and optional journal prompts are provided in the program tracker/email. The overall message is that a small amount of forward planning can make daily health choices easier and more varied.
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Hey everyone. I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow, and welcome to day 24 of the 30 Days Healthy Habits Challenge. So today is one that I am particularly fond of, and I think it's fun. Some people will not think this is a fun habit to have, but that is to plan tomorrow's movement and one healthy meal. So ideal, ideally we're going to plan one healthy meal for tomorrow. Uh, but I will say that if you have a particularly challenging work schedule or, this is something that you don't do on a regular basis. You can really plan for that healthy meal just sometime in the next 3 days. But the idea is to plan ahead to figure out what it is, how you're gonna make it, what ingredients you need for it, if you need to find a recipe, all that kind of good stuff. And you know, everybody's definition of a healthy meal will vary slightly, obviously, depend on, depending on your goals and depending on, you know, what, what that looks like for you. There's, you know, there's all kinds of different dietary practices that anybody might be following. So I'm not prescribing a specific one. Of course, you know, I'm gonna say that I would challenge you to, for whatever it is, to have at least 30 grams of protein in it. And this one healthy meal, you can plan and chat and do it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever that means for you. It's gonna be, you know, if you're not used to cooking, I don't want you to plan like a big elaborate thing unless that sounds fun to you, then yes, you could do something like that. But it would mean just a nourishing, healthy meal. It doesn't have to be necessarily anything fancy or anything that requires a lot cooking. It just has to have a plan. So planning reduces friction, reduces decision fatigue later. It might be decision in the moment that you have to make, but once that is done and once you've already planned for it and gotten the ingredients, you already know what you're having for dinner tomorrow. So that should make everything really easy through— throughout that next day, not having to worry about that one part of your day that's already decided. And then it also, in the literature, the, uh, research for today, it says that it supports food variety, which is really also Great for your diet, great for your gut microbiome. People that plan meals tend to include more different ingredients rather than if you just, if you don't do much planning, you just might grab whatever's available, grab what you typically tend to buy anyway. And so it gets, you know, can get pretty repetitive. So this planning ahead to try a new recipe or to make something slightly different can also just introduce variety into your meals as well. And then as far as picking your Movement. That can be whatever you've stuck with for the whole challenge for your 10 minutes, but you're gonna plan like when in the day you're gonna do it, what time, what's gonna work for you tomorrow. So this, this idea of this habit is just the idea of planning ahead just helps make everything run more smoothly. And it can be, again, the minimum. It doesn't have to be a ton of cooking. Just make it a healthy nourishing meal, whatever that means to you. I will challenge you, like I said, get your 30 grams of protein in that meal and maybe a piece of produce that you don't typically pick out. Maybe try something different. Maybe just go to the grocery store and be like, hmm, this looks interesting. I'll try making this. And then look up a recipe that goes along with that ingredient that you happen to find in the produce aisle. So hopefully that gives you some ideas about how to approach this one. Again, optional journal prompt for you. The links to the research are in your tracker and in the email that you'll receive for the day. And that is it. I will see you again tomorrow.
