New year, new, healthier you? Now that 2023 is here, you may feel pressure to uplevel your health and wellness routines, and wondering where to start. Luckily for us, wellness maven and entrepreneur Ayesha Curry has a solution to help jumpstart your health routine for the new year. The two-time New York Times bestselling author and chef are partnering with MyFitnessPal, a comprehensive nutrition and fitness tracking app that helps members reach their unique health goals, to kick off 2023 with an invitation to join their free two-week Jumpstart Your Health Challenge.
“The start of a new year marks an opportunity to reset and establish intentions for the next 12 months. Many people make resolutions about their health. Whether it’s about weight, nutrition, or fitness, MyFitnessPal recognizes that everyone’s wellness goals are different, and we have the tools to help navigate every journey,” explains Tricia Han, CEO of MyFitnessPal. “The Jumpstart, Your Health Challenge, shares tips and advice over two weeks – small adjustments that can add to big change.”
Curry is pitching in on the challenge by lending her tips, tricks, and recipes to help members build healthy habits and achieve their personal health goals. Along with insights from nutrition and fitness experts and the best advice from the more than 200 million MyFitnessPal members, Curry shares how small, daily changes can translate to significant, meaningful health transformations – whether your goal is to lose weight, gain weight, build muscle or change your eating habits.
“Over the years and as a busy mom of three, I’ve always looked to MyFitnessPal as a partner on my wellness journey to track my meals, fitness, and hydration goals. I’m so excited to partner with MyFitnessPal on the Jumpstart Your Health Challenge to share some tips and recipes that have worked for me,” shares Curry. “I’ve committed to the 14-day challenge to gain more lean muscle and eat plant-based protein. I hope everyone will take a beat in the new year to prioritize self-care – no matter their goals – and join me in this free challenge.”
Curry is no stranger to the MyFitnessPal app, as she’s been using it for years, making the partnership feel organic. “What I love about this particular activation we’re doing because it’s an easy plan. We’re starting the 14-day JumpstartYourHealth challenge on January 2. What’s so great about it is taking small steps to make big changes. With the new year coming along, we often create these big lofty goals for ourselves and almost always fail. This challenge eases you into transforming your health and wellness,” she says to ESSENCE.
From fitness to food, MyFitnessPal has collected the best tips and habits that have proven successful for many members. It is sharing that knowledge with anyone ready to kick-start their wellness journey in the new year. With the app, you can log your meals and hydration and meal prep, which removes the stress of creating consistent nutritional meals.
The meal-prep tips and recipes include a few from Curry, like her tropical post-workout smoothie, naked turkey and smashed avocado burger or grilled chicken with mango corn salsa. “With the recipes incorporated, some of our favorites developed by the MyFitnessPal team and me. We focused on recipes that truly work and are easy to make; I put my spin on them to make them flavorful. At times health and wellness tend to be so granola, making it overwhelming to be consistent with your journey. But with this, everything’s so delicious,” she says.
One of her favorite easy and go-to meal prep meals takes less than 15 minutes to prepare. “I love anything in a lettuce cup. I’ll do Asian-style chicken lettuce cups or ground turkey; I’ll take what would typically go in a taco, put it in a lettuce cup, and put all the fixings on there. And I love that you can do that in big batches and keep it in the fridge for the week,” she reveals.
Don’t worry; Curry plans to be more intentional about her health outside of food this year, inspiring us to do the same. “We’re calling it a challenge, but it’s simply just implementing ways to be conscious of your health and wellness for 14 days. We’ll you’ll be able to track your hydration on the app, you’ll be able to track your fitness and your steps, you’ll be able to track you know your weight, whatever that is to you like whether you’re trying to gain lose or maintain you’ll be able to access this database of recipes and workouts. And so as long as you’re doing something every day, that’s the challenge in and of itself. The challenge is approachable and easy and will not overwhelm you or leave you depressed because you didn’t accomplish everything the challenge set out to do. We’ve made it very, very simple,” she says.
Curry had struggled with feeling like she hasn’t been achieving her goals too due to being too hard herself because of extremely high expectations, “What I realized was when I was hard on myself, I was accomplishing almost nothing, like from all aspects of my health and wellness, I was just in this constant state of feeling defeated. And so I’ve taken on more of the 80/20 life. Enjoying my life, but being mindful and conscious about what I’m putting into my body, but not skip out on the celebratory moments because I’m so rigid about my health and wellness,” she says.
She continued, “And so for me, the app does make it easy to track that. And often, what you find is when you’re tracking what you’re putting into your body, like when you’re physically writing it down or typing it into your iPhone or computer, you start to see what you’re putting in your body. You realize that you become more mindful by logging what you’re doing. You want to put better things into your body.”
When asked why should people prioritize their health for January 2023? She responded, “Your health is your wealth. If your body isn’t in shape, you won’t be able to do everything you want. You can’t pour from an empty cup.”
For self-care, Curry’s favorite practice is meditation and prayer and she plans to take that ritual into 2023. “I love taking a moment to go within to find a quiet space. Whether it’s like five minutes or 15 minutes, just having that time every day to just reflect and have a moment of gratitude. I also love a good bath when I can take one and find solace and silence. Although sometimes it results in my kids running in and out and driving me insane, I try to make it happen. Food is also my life. What I eat and how I eat is a form of self-care, and I love putting good food into my body. I love to make a meal feel meaningful and worthwhile,” she says.
For more information on MyFitnessPal, visit www.myfitnesspal.com or download via App Store and Google Play.
