6 Ways Nutrition Can Fuel Your Productivity 🥗
Nutrition is EASILY one of the most overwhelming aspects of health & wellness for most of us. Get clarity with these six small shifts to optimize your focus and energy.
Thanks to diet culture, many of us — particularly women — do not eat enough to properly fuel ourselves for a day of productivity. Ooooh, it’s a helluva drug…but I’ve found that understanding the very basic and tangible ways that nutrition fuels my ability to get sh*t done has not only helped increase my energy — it’s helped me continue pushing back against diet culture to truly be at my healthiest.
Before we dive in, let’s look at a few signs that you aren’t fueling yourself for a day of productivity:
Moody, sleepy, foggy! Eating meals that aren’t nutrient-dense and balanced can cause mood swings and unreliable amounts of energy.
You’re cold! Struggling to regulate your body temperature can be a sign that you aren’t eating enough.
Distracted by thoughts of food. If you find yourself checking the clock and counting down until lunch…that’s a sign that you are perhaps not eating enough or not getting the right balance of nutrients in each meal to sustain you.
Slow reaction time. Both nutrition and hydration play a vital role in a quick, responsive brain that can comprehend information quickly.
Now, let’s dive the heck in and talk about some simple ways you can use nutrition to fuel yourself throughout the day.
1. BE CONSISTENT WITH HYDRATION
Oh, you didn’t think I was gonna put hydration at the top of this list? Do you even know me?
It’s at the very top for an important reason: our hunger and fullness cues are regulated by two hormones in our brain. Ghrelin stimulates hunger, while leptin helps us recognize fullness.
Dehydration can mess with your body’s ability to accurately decipher different hormones. That means if you aren’t drinkin’ water — it’s hard to tell when you’re hungry or full — making it difficult to know what, when, or how much to eat.
So if you want to improve your eating habits, and great place to start is with hydration! Plus, drinking a bit more water is generally a pretty simple, accessible, and affordable habit to start.
I’m promise you don’t need to chug 100+ oz or start lugging around one of those giant mugs. I’m asking you to focus on realistic and consistent hydration, which I consider this to have two parts:
Make water accessible throughout the day. This probably means getting a cup/bottle you like and keeping it with you as much as possible.
Know the signs of thirst and take a sip whenever you feel them. You are watching for signs of moodiness, sleepiness, brain fog, fatigue, and frustration. As soon as you feel any of those — take a sip!
2. START YOUR DAY WITH PROTEIN
Ensuring your first meal contains at least 20-30 grams of protein can be a great way to supercharge your productivity.
It will fill you with a satiating meal, decreasing the chances that you spend the morning distracted by thoughts of food. It will also stabilize your blood sugar, which can help you make more intentional food choices throughout the rest of the day.
3. FOCUS ON BALANCED MEALS
Remember the food pyramid? Cool, now please forget it.
For most of us, the education we received about nutrition was more about the nutrients we needed overall, and less about how to structure each meal and snack so that they contain a balance of the micro and macronutrients our body needs to keep functioning at it’s best allllllll day.
One of my favorite resources on nutrition is the book Gentle Nutrition by Rachael Hartley, RD. Within the book, she describes a concept called “The gang’s all here” which was originally created by Kylie Mitchell.
It identifies five components we should try to get in most of our meals. If you make all 5, you can enthusiastically delcare “The gang’s all here!”. Cute, right?
We won’t implode if a meal doesn’t contain all five, of course! But we’ll likely notice we feel our best when a meal does, particularly when it comes to our energy and ability to focus.
The five components are carbohydrates (energy), protein (muscle and strength), fats (focus), produce (vitamins, minerals, + volume), and pleasure (satiety).
Building a balanced meal or snack to fuel productivity could look something like this:
You can play with the proportions of each of those five categories — but the general guideline remains the same: try to ensure that each meal or snack you have throughout the day has a combo of carbohydrates, protein, fat, produce, and pleasure.
5. DON’T FEAR CARBS
Since they’re busy telling you all the reasons you need to cut out carbs, diet culture conveniently fails to mention that carbs are our brain’s preferred energy source.
While removing carbs might result in some initial (and most often temporary) weight loss, it is likely also causing you to feel foggy, unfocused, and low on energy.
6. EAT ENOUGH + CONSISTENTLY
I still remember *exactly* where I was when I found out that 1200 calories is the caloric allotment for a toddler. Seems weird knowing that this is also the amount diet culture frequently suggests for full-grown adults!
Try to release the idea of calories altogether, if you can. Although they can be a helpful element of nutrition for some, plenty of research shows that they can be wildly inaccurate and tell you very little about a food’s nutritional value. Focusing on calories often leads to restriction, which can cause us to choose foods that are less nutrient-dense or filling. Instead, focus on meals that are satiating, satisfying, and energizing.
And snacks aren’t just for kids! Getting food into your body every 2 to 4 hours can be a great way to maintain a reliable level of energy and focus all day, and avoiding “hanger” altogether can help you tap into your body’s natural cues and chose balanced, nutrient-dense foods at mealtime.
Take Action
Now that you’ve *consumed* this information and know a bit more about how food can fuel your energy and productivity let’s work on putting it into action.
First, on a scale of 1-10 how would you say you are currently doing with prioritizing these 6 aspects of nutrition consistently (1 being terrible and 10 being awesome)?
What is ONE SMALL SHIFT you could make this week to move toward a more balanced intake? Here are some examples:
Adding protein to your breakfast 2 days.
Bringing some balanced snacks to keep at work.
Adding at least one plant to each meal.
Getting a water cup to keep with you.
💬 Feel free to comment below with the small shift you’re hoping to make! Also happy to answer questions if you’ve got any.