Get ready to take over the winter by improving your energy with some healthy meal choices that will increase focus, help you beat fatigue, and boost productivity.
If you’re like me have been eating nothing but high sugar foods, you may feel rather groggy and unable to concentrate. When you eat foods with low nutrient content that do to not keep you full, those hunger pangs can be very distracting. Although sugary foods and drinks are thought to provide more energy, those foods are detrimental to your energy levels and focus throughout that day.
Try incorporating these healthier foods for give you a long-lasting energy to support you while you work on your New Year Resolutions.
For Breakfast try oatmeal with blueberries. The oats are a low-calorie way to sustain energy longer than high calorie breakfast pastries. The blueberries contain fiber which helps help keep you full.
When the mid-morning hunger pang hits, reach for a glass of hot or cold green tea and a half cup of fruit, nut, and seed mix. Green tea has a moderate amount of caffeine that won’t give you headaches and further disrupt your concentration. As for the trail mix, try to avoid adding chocolate. Stick to dried fruit to add a little sweetness in addition to heathy fat from the nuts and seeds.
At lunch, enjoying a spinach salad topped with beets and 1 sliced egg will give you omega-3 fatty acids and potassium to improve brain function by helping parts of the brain communicate more quickly.
As an afternoon snack, have a small serving of dark chocolate with a high cocoa (NOT high sugar) content. High quality dark chocolate has a small amount of caffeine to increase alertness as well as magnesium which leads to the release of endorphins and serotonin to improve your mood.
For dinner, try a small portion of whole wheat pasta with a filet of wild salmon. The whole grains will prepare you for the next day without feeling overly full and sluggish. Wild salmon provides another dose of healthy omega-3 fatty acids.
