Get fundraising support, join our Facebook group and explore our downloadable resources.
The easiest way to fundraise is to set up a JustGiving page. Share your page with friends and family, so they can donate easily.
You can also earn your rewards of a tote bag by raising £150 and your very own Dechox medal at £200.
Join the conversation with participants taking part up and down the country. Share tips, updates on your progress and support your peers throughout the challenge.
track your progress throughout May
everything you need to get started for your challenge
share your social media badges with your JustGiving page to stand out
All about the Dechox Challenge
When does the challenge run?
Between the 1 and 31 of May you’ll start the challenge with thousands of other Dechoxers.
How do I fundraise?
We would encourage you to set up a JustGiving page to get started with your fundraising. All the donations made to your JustGiving page will be sent to us automatically, and your page will close automatically a few weeks after the challenge ends.
You can share your progress on social media and in your groups chats for friends, family and colleagues to see. We will also send you plenty of fundraising tips and support throughout the challenge to help you raise as much as possible!
How do I earn fundraising rewards?
To earn your fundraising rewards, you just need to fundraise using a JustGiving page. Or you can make a one-off donation. Raise £150 for a Dechox tote bag and £200 for an exclusive Dechox medal.
Can I do the challenge outside May?
We encourage May for community support, but you can start earlier or later if this suits you better.
Can I collect cash donations?
Of course! You can either pay any cash donations onto your fundraising page, or you collect donations on a sponsorship form. Once you've finished collecting your donations, you can find full details of how to pay your donations into us here.
How do I track my progress?
Track your progress using your Calendar, you’ll have been sent a printed version with your welcome pack. But you can also find it digitally from our Dechox Hub.
You can download a version here.
Can I connect with other participants?
Of course, join our Facebook group and be part of our supportive online community.
What are the health benefits of giving up chocolate for a month?
Dechox is a fun way for people to raise money for BHF, and it is not a health-centred campaign. However, if chocolate is a daily go-to for you, Dechox may help you break the habit and be more mindful of emotional or habitual eating. Giving up chocolate for a month may also be a stepping stone to longer-term healthy changes to your diet as a whole.
Too much chocolate of any type can contribute to weight gain - a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Around 66 percent of adults in the UK are overweight or living with obesity. Dechox is the perfect opportunity to take a ‘time out’ from chocolate but it's also a great chance to enjoy other foods. Only a third of all adults are consuming the recommended 5-a-day portions of fruit and vegetables. We have put together some tasty and nutritious treat ideas. All of these will provide you with fewer calories, and less saturated fat and sugar than an average chocolate bar.
Giving up chocolate for a month will:
Excess consumption of “free” sugars can lead to tooth decay and contribute to a higher calorie intake which can lead to weight gain. Having excess weight is a risk factor for heart and circulatory disease.
Any sugars added to food or drinks. These include sugars in chocolate, biscuits, flavoured yoghurts, breakfast cereals and fizzy drinks. These sugars may be added at home, or by a chef or the food manufacturer.
Sugars in honey, syrups (such as maple, agave and golden), nectars (such as blossom), and unsweetened fruit juices, vegetable juices and smoothies. The sugars in these foods occur naturally but still count as free sugars.
Government guidelines recommend free sugars should not make up more than 5% of the energy (calories) you get from food and drink each day. This is equivalent to no more than 30g of free sugars a day (7 sugar cubes/teaspoons) for adults.
Most people consume about 45g of “free” sugars a day — 50% above the recommended limit. The biggest contributors are sugary drinks, sweetened cereals, confectionery, table sugar, and fruit juice.
To put into perspective:
You can see how quickly the teaspoons tot up!
Are there other health or wellbeing benefits of Dechox?
Is dark chocolate good for you?
Dark chocolate contains plant chemicals called flavanols that give it its slightly bitter taste, and its potential health benefits such a helping to lower blood pressure and making blood vessels more flexible. However, all chocolate – even those with a very high-cocoa content – also comes with lots of saturated fat, sugar and calories, which won’t do your cholesterol levels (or your waistline) any good. See our webpage on dark chocolate.
There are also plenty of other healthy foods such as plums, blackberries and apples that contain flavanols and don’t come with the unhealthy extras.
Can I take part if I have diabetes?
Having diabetes doesn’t mean you have to cut sugar out of your diet completely. And, for some people who use insulin to control their diabetes, sugary drinks or glucose tablets are essential to treat a hypo, when your blood glucose levels get too low.
Most of us are eating too much sugar which can lead to weight gain. Being overweight can make it difficult to control your diabetes and increase your risk of serious health problems such as heart disease and stroke in the future.
So, you can take part if you are diabetic. Eating fewer sugary foods less won’t do you any harm and taking part in Dechox may help to kick-start healthier eating habits as well as help raise money for BHF to enable it to continue funding more lifesaving heart research.
How can I beat cravings?
Have a Dechox friendly fridge.
It’s simple – if you don’t have chocolate in the house, you won’t be able to eat it! Skip the aisles in the supermarket ladened with your favourite sweet treats and don’t get drawn in by checkouts with chocolate on display. Instead, check out the deals down the fruit and veg aisle and load the fridge with ready-to-eat colourful fruit and vegetables.
If you feel your willpower waning when it comes to grabbing a chocolate bar, chances are you’re thirsty rather than hungry. Make a beeline for some water instead and take your mind off those cravings.
As much as we’d love a bar of Fruit and Nut or a Chocolate Orange, snacking on fruit is a guilt-free alternative when our chocolate cravings are at an all-time high. Whether it’s a handful of dried fruit, natural yoghurt with chopped banana or something from your fruit bowl at home, you’ll be getting fibre and nutrients as well as your sweet fix.
When it comes to overeating on foods high in saturated fat and sugar, people are most likely to find themselves lacking in self-control between meals. Eat regularly and fill up on a healthy, hearty breakfast, and have plenty of chocolate-free snacks at the ready.
If you find yourself succumbing to temptation, go for a walk – even if it’s just to the printer at work and back. By thinking about something else, it can help you forget those pesky cravings.
Healthy snack swaps?
Does chocolate increase ‘feel good’ hormones?
Sugary foods like chocolate can lift your mood because it triggers a quick boost of the feel-good brain chemical serotonin. This, in part, may explain the cravings some people have for sugary foods when they’re feeling stressed or down. But serotonin's effects are short-lived and regularly eating too much sugar – can harm your mood and health in the long run.
Chocolate also feels comforting because of its taste and texture — the smooth, melting feel on your tongue can be soothing. This can make chocolate feel like something you “need,” especially when you associate it with comfort or reward. It’s not a physical addiction; it’s more about the emotional connection and the temporary lift it gives.
Side effects and what to expect
Is the lack of chocolate leaving you feeling moody, irritable, shaky and fatigued? Experiencing headaches or other withdrawal symptoms is not uncommon, but it is unlikely unless you were eating a lot of chocolate. Withdrawal from the good mood endorphins released by eating chocolate may make you more prone to stress and stress headaches. Try taking active mood breaks; going for a walk, talking to someone, listen to music, start a new hobby, have healthy snacks to hand and drink plenty of water.
Temporary cravings or irritability in the first few days are normal and usually pass quickly. Then you may benefit from fewer sugar spikes and dips, and more stable energy levels
Why chocolate and not all sugar?
You don’t have to cut sugar out of your diet completely. Sugar is found naturally in fruit, vegetables and dairy foods and most of us in the UK are not getting the recommended five portions of fruit and veg a day. It’s the free sugar that we need to cut down on. Dechox is designed to be a sponsored challenge for people to give up something they love while raising funds for our life-saving research.
We have chosen chocolate as it’s a food that people find difficult to resist and it’s likely that giving it up will feel like a challenge. Dechox focuses on a food many people find hard to resist; the aim is to cut back on free sugars rather than the sugars naturally present in fruit and dairy.
How can doing Dechox with your partner, or the whole family, help you stay on track for the BHF Dechox challenge?
Is cutting back ok vs cutting out?
If you’re finding going ‘cold turkey’ really hard, cutting back on chocolate instead of cutting it out entirely is still a commendable achievement. Every step towards a goal, no matter how small, is progress worth celebrating. If going completely chocolate-free is causing significant discomfort, scaling back to a more manageable level can be a healthier and more sustainable approach to the challenge. Ultimately, it's about finding a balance that works for you.
Hoping to use Dechox to lose some weight?
If you’re using Dechox as a platform to help you to lose weight it is important to watch that you don’t replace your chocolate with other high energy (calorie) alternatives. To lose weight, your energy intake from foods and drinks must be less than the energy you expend being physically active. So, you should replace chocolate snacks with fruits, vegetable sticks, low-fat yoghurts or other foods with lower energy (calorie) content. If you are looking for straightforward information about weight loss, visit our Managing your weight web page.
I’ve got a question, who do I talk to?
Email us heretohelp@bhf.org.uk or join the Facebook group – it’s full of other participants taking on the challenge.