How To Eat Your Way To A High-Energy Workday
© iStock
The majority of eating advice centres on losing weight. Instead, let's look at how changing what you eat can help fend off mid-day energy slumps and blah feelings from your
Most people are aware, in some sense, of how what they eat impacts how they feel. Hardly a kid escapes childhood without learning what binging on post-Christmas candy cane feels like, and we've all experienced the post-holiday meal call to hibernation. But regular food affects our body and energy throughout the day, even within a few hours. Here are a few examples of how eating impacts your energy levels, and what you can do to get more out of your daily fuel.
Structure Your Daily Diet Like a Pyramid
A significant number of people eat lightly (if at all) in the morning, heavier in the afternoon, and top the day off with a hearty dinner (and dessert). The problem with this method is that it deprives you of food when you need it most, and loads it on when you need
Eat Protein Early On
Just inverting the order of things will go a long way towards helping your workday energy reserves, but it's not enough. In addition to increasing your early morning calorie intake and decreasing your evening calorie intake, you need to incorporate protein. Nearly all cases of mid-morning blahs, afternoon space-outs and general exhaustion at work — ruling out that you stayed up all night with friends, or a sick child — can be attributed to low blood sugar. If you grab a cup of coffee and a bagel at 7.30am on your way to work, caffeine and carbohydrates offer a powerful but short-lived energy boost. It's almost a guarantee that by 10.30am you'll either be spacing out at your desk or heading down the hall to raid the vending machine for a quick and equally carbohydrate-laden pick-me-up.
This isn't to say that carbohydrates are bad; you need them to live and for basic brain functioning. A diet comprised mainly of carbohydrates, however, is a recipe for a constant cycle of blood sugar highs, lows and the accompanying feelings of exhaustion that go with them. If carbohydrates are the kindling of your metabolism, protein is the
- Scramble, fry, poach, hard boil or otherwise eat eggs. The protein content is high and it's a good source of fat and vitamin A.
- Buy a container of protein
power and mix a protein shake to accompany your regular breakfast. High-protein breakfast shakes are extremely popular, and a basic Google search turns up more breakfast shake recipes than you could drink if you had a shake every day of your life. - Skip the cereal or switch to high-protein breakfast cereals like those offered by Kashi.
- Try peanut butter, sweetened with a little honey, instead of jam on your toast.
- Yoghurt is a great source of protein. Try getting plain/unsweetened yoghurt and adding in fresh fruit. The fruit-at-the-bottom kind is packed with sugar.
Eat Low
Both for breakfast and the subsequent snacks and
Eat frequently
If you're eating once in the morning right after you wake up, then in the middle of the
Stop Dehydrating Yourself
Dehydration isn't a binary situation — you are either extremely well hydrated or clawing along a dry lake bed in Nevada, wondering why you wandered away from the tour group three days ago. The minor signs of dehydration include lethargy, headaches, muscle pain and a general sense of confusion. Fortunately, staying well hydrated is as simple as developing the habit of regularly drinking water. The
Fortunately, picking up the water habit is easy. Buy a water container (if you can't find one at your local shopping centre that fits your personality and water volume needs, you're not looking hard enough), and keep it filled on your desk. The difference between drinking a litre of water every day (in addition to my normal coffee and drinking at meals) was simply putting a decanter on my desk and keeping it filled. If the water was there, I'd pour a glass and drink it while reading over my work. If it wasn't there, I didn't drink it. If you enjoy tracking things, check out our guide to graphing your life and use the techniques within to chart your water consumption. Alternatively, you could set a timer on your computer or wear a watch that beeps every hour to remind you to drink up.
One of the added benefits of increasing your water consumption is that you'll inadvertently be cutting out less healthy fluids. You likely won't have enough room to drink three containers worth of water and a couple Cokes too, so the less healthy drinks fall by the wayside.
Keep Track of Your Energy Levels
Tracking your energy levels is key to figuring out what works for you. Keep a simple log of the food you eat and the energy levels you have during the day. Pretty soon, patterns will start to emerge, like "Ate big breakfast of eggs, toast and protein shake: haven't felt hungry or tired all morning", "Skipped breakfast, had doughnut and coffee with Tim in the break room. Thinking about napping in the conference room before lunch", and so on.
Although we're primarily concerned with energy and not with weight loss, most of our favourite weight management tools feature logging tools and personal metrics. The best match for our purposes is definitely FitDay. At
For another interesting way to keep track of your energy over the course of the week, check out how to use Excel to "energy map" your days.
Smooth your blood sugar with big helpings of protein and complex carbohydrates, cut the sugary snacks out and increase your water consumption, and you'll be well on your way to keeping your head off your desk and ending the day bright-eyed.
For more ideas on staying energised during the day, beyond hacking your diet, check out our top 10 ways to stay energised.
Pictures: 50 foods to look and feel better than ever