Nutrition for flagging
Throughout the day you may
notice that at certain times your energy levels have peaks and troughs. It can
be an eye opener to keep diary entries to when you are most energetic as it can
be from a stress response or diet or often a combination of the two.
Foods that tend to give us
temporary boosts of energy are caffeine and carbohydrates with no fat or
protein. The only problem with these is what goes up must come down. You may
find not long after having these items you have a bit of an energy crash that
can also affect your mood.
Why?
When glucose (sugar) is released
into your bloodstream it gives us a great feeling of get up and go, however, if
we don’t utilise sugar affectively ie by running off the sugar high, our body
panics that the sugar will do us damage and our little buddy insulin is
released. Insulin starts packing sugar from our blood into fat cells to store
it for later.
Our aim is to get our energy
levels stable and here are some tips on how to do this
- Cinnamon
– put it in and on everything, cinnamon helps to stabilise our blood sugar
levels and therefore stabilises our energy
- Eat
fat with every meal and snack, ie: full fat milk, oily fish, seeds, plant
oils. Fat keeps you fuller for longer and slows the release of sugar into
your blood rather than letting you have one big hit in one go. Fat does
not make you fat, it actually helps you lose it
- Opt
for fruit teas and keep hydrated. If you are going to have a tea or
coffee, just make sure you have it with full fat milk, or a slightly
interesting option that has grown in popularity.. coffee with butter… who
would have thought, but it’s meant to do wonders at managing energy levels
and counteracts the negative effect from caffeine.
- Have
more veg/salad than white carbs ie pasta and rice on your plate.
Vegetables are packed with nutrients such as malic acid and CoQ10 that
support energy production.
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