The importance of proper nutrition cannot be emphasized enough. Our body’s health is directly related to what we put into it. You’ve heard it before…eat like crap, feel like crap. Truer words have never been spoken.
A couple weeks ago I sent a newsletter to my inner circle peeps about my experiencing a pretty significant dip in energy lately. Not too long ago I would pop out of bed in the morning, now I’m temped to hit snooze. My once 20 minute cat naps have been going much longer and even if I sleep for just 20 minutes I’m in a fog for a while after I wake up. My energy at work is much lower, too. I don’t have the enthusiasm I usually do for my clients or classes. No Bueno all around. So I did a little investigation. I looked at my sleep habits, water intake, food intake, then activity, rest and stress levels.
Sleep: I get at least 7 hours per night of good sleep
Hydration: I always have my water with me and really stay on top of it
Food: I have a serious lack of veggies in my daily diet and I am not eating anything post-workout. Not great for overall health or recovery from exercise.
Activity: I’m active, yes, but I’ve always been active and I’m very good at resting when I need it 🙂
Stress: A little higher than I’d like but it’s slowly making its way back down to normal
So now I have the info I need. All signs point to my nutrition being the major player in my energy dip. At most I’m getting a couple serving of spinach in my smoothie…that’s it. It’s better than nothing, but I know I can do better. So! What I’m going to do is a few nutrition swaps. Absolutely no rules or restriction, no diet, no counting calories/carbs/macros. Just simple swaps to hopefully lead to an increase in energy!
Nutrition Swaps
From Rice/Sandwich Thins to Sweet Potato/Potato
I’ve been eating rice every day, sometimes twice a day. Not a problem by any means but I want to see what happens when I replace it with something a little more natural. I LOVE potatoes so this should be a piece of cake plus I’ll get an extra serving of veggies this way.
Double whammy!
From Weekday Wine to Water/Tea
This wine habit started out innocent enough. I would have a glass or two of wine a couple times each week. Then it turned into a nightly thing. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that but I want to see how I feel by taking out wine during the week. I know I feel crappy when I’m dehydrated- which is why I’m so crazy about my water intake- so I think water and tea will be a good substitute here to keep me feeling on my A game when I have 6am clients.
From Cheap Chocolate to the Good Stuff
I’ve been snacking on some Hershey’s Kiss Truffles and M&Ms lately and they’re really yummy but I know they’re much more processed than the organic stuff I get at Trader Joe’s. I’m not sure how big of a role this plays but I’m going to give it a shot! This girls gotta have her post-lunch candy!
Increase Veggies- duh.
Veggies are hard for me. I don’t really love them unless they’re cooked perfectly and I really don’t enjoy cooking even a little bit so this is a tough battle to win 😉 However, I know that I don’t want to keep feeling lousy so the trade-off is spending some time in the kitchen AND eating some raw veggies that I really like.
Workout Recovery
To take care of this problem, I’m going to make it a point to have protein after each workout, most likely a quick protein shake. I exercise at least 5 times per week so I need to help my body recover as efficiently as possible. A diet lacking in protein is not helping my cause, so protein shakes it is!
I’m not going to tackle all of these changes at once- that’s a fast track to overwhelming myself and wanting to throw in the towel. I’m going to start with the one that’s most important for me (veggies!) and do the best I can with the others. No biggie if I have some wine or bread as long as I’m getting my veggies in. Once I feel more comfortable increasing my veg intake, I’ll probably move on to weekday wine…I’ll let you know when that happens and I’ll ask for your prayers 😉
I’m also still going to have pizza and candy and other treats. I’m not telling myself ‘no’ to anything because I know that backfires every single time. My options are still wiiiiide open, I’m just going to clean up some stuff the majority of the time.
Now here’s where you come in 😉 If you feel like you want to Spring Clean your diet a bit, I want to know how you’re going to do it! What’s just one change you can make to your nutrition now to increase your energy or quality of life? I want as many of you as I can to get in on my Spring Cleaning Crew! I’ll check in with you each week to see how your own Spring Cleaning is going and I’ll let you know how I’m doing, too. This will involve some “days in the life” emails, some super simple recipes and any shifts I feel in my energy levels as well as updates on other members from the group!
Your goal can be anything from more energy to weight loss to accountability to just joining a fun and supportive community of people interested in a healthier lifestyle!
We’re going to kick this off next Monday, April 4, since we all like to start new things on Mondays 🙂 Click here to join –> http://bit.ly/1LVvzX7 and let’s get the ball rolling! Spring is here and Summer is right around the corner. Let’s head into the warmer weather with ramped up energy and motivation!
I’ll be using #springcleanmydiet over on Facebook and Instagram so be sure to follow along and use it, too!