Elizabeth Pattalis Nutritionist

Personal Trainer - Pilates Mat & Reformer - Whole Life

The Body’s Natural Cycle – The Moon & Menstrual Cycle

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menstrual cycle lunar phases
 
A women’s menstrual cycle is about the same length as a lunar cycle, around 28 – 29 days. In being in sync with the moon, the light of the full moon triggers ovulation and women would bleed at a new moon.
 
However in the western world today, we have somewhat lost our connection as women to both nature and the moon. We live in a man’s world.
 
Traditionally in many cultures, the moon holds sacred significance to the goddess and the female. Going back into time people lived in the open, amongst the trees, the stars, and the ocean. Today’s culture has become detached from this natural way of living, it has become very much artificial and at a cost to our health.

 

Menstrual Cycle

A woman’s cycle can be thoughts of as two phases:
  • The follicular phase – day 1 (first day of bleeding) to day 14 (ovulation).
  • The luteal phase – day 15 to day 28 (until next bleed).
If we track a woman’s mood, it can be further broken down, into four phases. If we work with these four phases, we can move with the cycles of the moon.
 

Moving With The Moon Phases

  • Phase 1 – dark moon or no moon – menstrual phase:
    • With no moon and the shedding of the uterus, ie, the bleeding, energy is low. It is natural to want to retreat and stay indoors. It represents winter. The body wants more sleep at this time.
    • This is the time to reflect, to go within. Reflect on the last month and let go of what isn’t serving you.
    • It is about physically cleansing, bleeding, and purging emotionally.
    • To honor this time, spend time alone, don’t plan any events to fall at this time, rest. You may ask your partner to take care of some of the chores, and de-load your workload at this time.
  • Phase 2 – waxing moon – pre-ovulation phase:
    • This is after menstruation has finished and is the lead up to ovulation, spring.  Energy is building up as hormones are rising.
    • The focus now is outward, you are driven, productive and focused.
    • This time is a good period to get onto any challenging work, the ‘big tasks’.
    • With exercise, you may want to go a bit harder, aim for the personal bests at this time.
  • Phase 3 – full moon – ovulation:
    • This is when a woman is fertile. With the full moon, it is summer, energy is high, and it is bright.
    • Energy is still outward but there are more nurturing elements. The time to do any big cleans may be now.
    • This time is about connecting to others, developing relationships and nurturing current relationships. It’s a great time to make a date, or treat yourself to something indulgent like a massage.
  • Phase 4 – waning moon – premenstrual phase:
    • This is when physical and emotional energy starts to decline, the autumn. Energy starts to shift inwards again as the moonlight becomes dark and empty.
    • Creativity can be higher as well as intuition. Perhaps if you have been sitting on the fence on something, now is the time to tune into what you need to do.
    • This is the time for less logical work and more creativity. It’s a time for self-care, to relax, let emotions calm, read a book and have a long bath.
    • With exercise, you may want to opt for gentle yoga practices and leave the high-intensity training to the led up to ovulation.
If you start to become aware of the phases, you can work with it rather than against it. There are positives to every phase.
 
Being in sync with nature is healing to both the body and mind. It is hard today as we do live in a world where a woman is on the go every day. Life seems to support a man in many ways. But it isn’t to say it isn’t possible to make it work for you. Tell your partner what the phases are so then he won’t go planning his boys night on day 1 and expect you to prepare the food. If you have a personal trainer, tell them too, they can plan your harder sessions at ovulation and de-load you at menstruation or the lead-up. If you are doing a diet where you need to take a break, to break a plateau, then have that break at phase 4 when willpower is lowest.
 
If you are having difficulties with a regular cycle and not sure where to start, you may find this article useful on seed cycling. It can help restore a cycle. Alternatively please get in touch for a consultation. 
 
Trust the body’s wisdom. It knows everything you need to know.

 

How To Create Effortless Healthy Habits

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A lot of our daily actions are automatic. Your brain likes autopilot. It requires less energy. For better or for worse, our habits shape us.
 
The more you do an action, the more you strengthen the pathway, “neurons that fire together, wire together”.
 
What are your automatic habits? Some examples could be: taking the same route to work each day, oats for breakfast, brushing your teeth morning and night, going for a walk every day at 6 am, making your bed as soon as I get up. These things require zero debate. There is no willpower involved.You can then apply this further, for example, if I go to the supermarket, I don’t walk down the biscuit aisle. I don’t eat biscuits, I eat healthy fresh food. I don’t decide what take out to eat for lunch, I know because I always pack a lunch box.
Again, there is no decision, it is what one does.
 
Do something enough and you don’t need discipline.
 
To change a habit, a bad one to a better one, it is hard. It requires brain energy. It also requires you to stick with it long enough so that you can strengthen those pathways, your brain will want to go back to what it knows it can do easily.
 
This is why we often fail, it is too hard. But isn’t it easier to do it right now, than to give up and try again later?
 
So, I ask you, what can you do to improve your current situation? What bad habits do you need to get rid of? Then commit to it, make the decision and commit. How do you do that? Replace it with a different better habit. For example, if you drink wine every night, change it to a tea. The second thing is, you need to reward yourself. Positive reinforcement is super important. It releases dopamine in your brain, and when you release dopamine, your brain wants it again. It will start to want tea. Give yourself some guidelines, eg you’ll have wine at most one night per week, and when you achieve that for two weeks you will reward yourself by getting a massage. Don’t neglect the reward part.Have a plan made in advance. Eg, such as packing your lunch before the work day starts. Or if you must buy your lunch, know what you are buying before you get to the food court.

Accountability is also important. Tell people and write down your new goals. Both are important. Reflect on the goals every morning, feed your mind with good thoughts so set yourself up for the day. When it comes to weight loss, how many times have you tried and not gotten anywhere? How about doing it right this time and then you don’t have to keep wasting energy retrying and worrying about food and your weight?
 
Almost all of us think too much. It is tiring. We worry we worry about the fact we over worry. We can’t get out of our heads, it’s no wonder we can sometimes just give in and then binge eat at night mindlessly. Our minds are exhausted.
 
Give your mind a break, a mind vacation. Do things to calm and be present more. Exercise is probably one of the best things for that. Consider Pilates or Yoga. In Pilates, you focus on the muscles, and your breathing. It is highly therapeutic, quieting the mind.
 
Consistency is what will help you get better. You need to do something often enough.  It also needs to be simple which is why you need a strategy and accountability. You may fail, and you need to have that person to get you going again. With anything in life, the start is the hardest, but once you get momentum it is much easier. Once you have momentum, you can’t stop! It’s like pushing a heavy load in a will borrow, when you first push it is super hard, but once it is rolling, easier :)

31 DAYS OF WELLNESS

Little things you can do each day for better health.

For the month of August, Elizabeth has created a series of 31 daily tips to help you focus on the little things each day that contribute to better health.

The tips are created to help you live a healthier, happier and more energised life.

Each morning open up your email and you’ll find an email with your health advice for the day. It’s as easy as that.

It’s free, all you need to do is register.

https://www.elizabethpattalis.com/31daysofwellness/

The Role Of Leptin In Fat Loss

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Fat Loss Nutritionist Sydney

The reality is at some point a weight loss diet will stop working. This is when people just give up, when they shouldn’t,  it is part of the process and it can be overcome.

The body defends against weight loss.

Leptin is a signaller hormone for body fat. It is in proportion to how much body fat you have. The more body fat you have, the more leptin circulating in your blood.

If you drop body fat, your brain will hear it through leptin, and the brain doesn’t like that and will trigger a starvation response. It acts to maintain homeostasis in the body, think of leptin as a regulatory system of the body. Your body’s fat thermostat.

Subsequently, if your brain hears leptin has dropped then you start getting hungry, you start thinking about food more, food tastes and looks better and your metabolic rate may drop to preserve energy to replace the depleted stores.

This regulatory mechanism can malfunction, it can be reset to maintain a higher level. In industrialised countries this is happening, obesity is on the increase. People are gaining weight and it is difficult to lose that weight due to this leptin.

Leptin also does respond to recent food intake if you eat too much. If you eat a really big meal or overeat for days, your leptin will increase.

In obesity, it is frequent to see what is called leptin resistance.

The National Institutes of Health described leptin resistance as, “The failure of endogenous or exogenous leptin to promote anticipated salutary metabolic outcomes in states of over-nutrition or obesity.” (1). In other words, this is where you desensitise the leptin circuits and make them adapt to a higher requirement of leptin. Essentially the body requires more leptin to feel satisfied that you have enough body fat.

It important to note as well, this doesn’t happen so much if you are eating a healthy diet. It is something about high calories, processed, unnatural foods that has a greater impact on the leptin regulatory system.

Therefore in leptin resistance, where weight loss should see a  decreased levels of leptin, this is not happening and this contributes to a vicious cycle of weight gain. A leptin resistance person requires more food than necessary to feel satisfied. In this person the brain not receiving the message that enough food has already been eaten.

When trying to lose body fat, do not give up once you plateau. Plateaus or to gain weight is very normal (most people will get this in weeks 6 to 8). Your diet may not be necessarily wrong for you. It is just that your body is now fighting really hard to get your thermostat body fat up again. Too many people give up right before the miracle happens, in many areas of life.

As a nutritionist, Elizabeth uses the latest research into the set point theory and leptin resistance when developing fat loss plans. This is why you don’t see strict weight loss diets from day one. This approach would send the body into starvation mode and cause havoc. It is not suitable if you want long term results. Do your research and think about the consequences before embarking on any diet ‘challenge’ you find online or developed as part of a weight loss competition. Your health is not a competition. 

For more information on the effects of starvation and set point please read the article on the Minnesota Starvation Experiment.

To book in for a fat loss consultation please get in touch, bookings can be made online or contact Elizabeth directly.

Ditch The All Or Nothing Diet Approach

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Do you keep falling off the bandwagon?

Do you go from being really good to really bad?

Are you either strictly eating or are you junk food overloading?

Do you mess up so figure you may as well go all in?

If you answered yes to any of those, it is a tiring and unhealthy place to be. Eating is something we are born to do naturally without learning to survive. Yet we have turned it into an industry. This industry is killing us.

SWAP INTENSITY FOR CONSISTENCY

This is the key point here. Something done regularly even if it isn’t perfect gets you ahead.

It is far better to do one gym session a week than to do 1 every day but only make it two months before you stop going.

It is far better to eat well most the day except the chocolate bar at night post-dinner than do eat strict healthy for one month straight but follow it with a week-long binge.

Something is good enough. If you can only walk 2 lots of 15-minute sessions a day, do that! 

Give up the shoulds and food rules. There is a point to eating a healthy dinner even if you ate maccas for lunch. 

AIM FOR HEALTHY NOT PERFECTION

Healthy is knowing if you do have some cake that you’re body internally knows what to do with the extra calories. Healthy is trusting your body to know what foods it needs for nourishment. 

Healthy is going to pilates because you like the feeling it gives you. Healthy is knowing that once a week is enough if that’s all you want to do.

Quit trying to look like someone you’re not. Eating to control your weight ends up making things worse. Eat for health. You can’t eat to look like Cindy Crawford. You can eat all the calcium-rich foods you like your legs aren’t going to grow longer! Accept the shape you are and work with it. Be the best you, you’re not competing with anyone. 

THE LITTLE THINGS TO ADD UP

If you stop having sugar with your coffee this time next year that will have made a big difference to your health. And it wasn’t something that was hard. A slight tweak here or there is what you need. Swap your mocha to a flat white. Swap your Sunday afternoon wine catch up with friends with a game of tennis instead. Walk to the corner shop each day instead of driving. Yes in one day you’re not going to see a result, but how about in a year? How about in 5 years?

LIVE A LIFESTYLE YOU CAN MAINTAIN

You can do the keto diet for a month just to lose weight. There are lots of diets you can do. But can you sustain it? There are circumstances where it can be suitable to diet, but for most of us, there isn’t a need.  Eating well isn’t about discipline. It’s what you should naturally want to do without too much effort. If it is an effort and you’re going back and forth, if you can’t say no to the dessert, then you need to address this. Free your mind so you can live life fully. 

TRY A DIFFERENT APPROACH

If you want to quit the cycle that gets you nowhere but usually backward if anything, then sign up to the 5 DAY FREE INTUITIVE EATING CHALLENGE.  It starts on April 1, sign up today.

Break free from the diet mentality and learn how to listen to your own body.

  • Learn to understand why dieting doesn’t work
  • Why mindful eating is important
  • Discover how to tap into your hunger cues
  • Why nutrients matter and what foods you need to be eating

JOIN HERE

How to Stop Obsessing About Food

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obsessing about food
Are you being controlled by food? Are you thinking about what to eat at lunch when you’ve just finished breakfast? Are you always attempting a new diet? How’s it going for you? It must be pretty tiring! Chances are you are not happy with your food relationship or your body. And can I guess you’re a little unhappy too?

How do you stop the food obsessing and emotional eating? 

One of my favorite topics is emotional eating because I’ve definitely been there. There is no one solution out there. You probably already know that as you’ve tried countlessly to stop. But I will give you some pointers.

Don’t try to lose weight. 

This is what is likely to be fueling your food obsession. I understand you may want to lose weight, but for now, let it be. Focus on healing your food relationship which means no diets. You’ll find once you heal your food relationship and eat ‘normal’, your body will find its natural healthiest weight. You’ll lose weight without dieting! 

Don’t restrict any food.

No food is good or bad. Eat what you feel like. If you like to eat sandwiches but have been worried about the bread, stop the restriction. Eat the sandwich. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. Check in with you and what foods make you feel good. The food that makes you feel energised, happy and satisfied is for you.

Social media detox.

Clean up who you follow on social media. Best thing I ever did! You absorb what you are looking at subconsciously. Photos of models with little nutrition knowledge (ie they have no idea about the science of food) aren’t doing you any favors. Being slim doesn’t mean you know nutrition. You will never look like anyone else either so get rid of that goal too! Focus on being healthy. Follow people who you really connect with and their message makes you feel good. 

Accept you may emotionally eat at times.

If it happens. Let go. Don’t restrict yourself the next day. Don’t beat yourself over it either. Say an affirmation ‘I can eat whatever I want and not get fat’. Sometimes we need some soul food. You won’t get fat over one day. Listen to what your body was needing and learn from it. Had you not eating much the days leading up to it? Or were you upset over something that happened at work? Recognising your triggers helps. 

Seek a professional or extra support.

The mentality normally is to try harder next time. If it hasn’t been working before why will it this time? Not every nutritionist or dietician will understand emotional eating. Find someone who can address it with you without dieting. It can help to have a good friend too, sometimes we just need to vent instead of eating our feelings. 

I’ve helped many clients get their life back on track around food and body image. If you feel you need the extra help contact me for a consultation. 

Improving Your Relationship With Food

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Food fixation is becoming an increasing problem. More and more patients are coming to me with food anxiety and an unhealthy view of their body. Yesterday’s Facebook post triggered a number of people to book in with me, so in light of that I have put together some healthy habits for you to think about:

Know the difference between a snack and a treat. These days’ treats are everyday foods when they should be occasional foods. Treats are nutritionally void and are there for pleasure. A snack is something with nutritional value that you eat because you are hungry between meals. It is not essential to snack, it is there if you are hungry.

Don’t eat to influence the scale. Being healthy is more important than knowing what you weigh. Eat foods that feel good to you, that nourish you, that give you energy and taste good, not what may or may not show up when you weigh yourself tomorrow.

Don’t be afraid of hunger! People who diet and restrict seem to have a fear around hunger. It’s okay!! You’re not going to die if you have to wait a couple of hours until dinner. Let yourself know what hungry actually feels like. Eating intuitively is key to healthy weight management.

Don’t keep problematic foods in the house. We all have foods that we just love and go crazy for! We all do don’t we? Mine used to be ice cream. So I stopped keeping in the house and when I felt like it, I would go out and get a single portion of it. Don’t make things harder on yourself than they need be. Know your weaknesses.

Stop eating when you are full. Enough said.

Eat when hungry and not to cover up an emotion. If you are grabbing food for any other reason than because you are hungry ask yourself why? If you are bored go find something to do! If you are sad address the sadness.

Lastly, those that do have a healthy food relationship tend to know the importance of breakfast. They find the time because it is important. It sets you up both physically and mentally.

Healthy Food Relationship

Why Your Mind Matter – The Placebo Effect on Body Weight

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I love the concept of the placebo effect. I don’t care if you give a person a placebo pill and their symptoms get better. If it works, it works! The placebo effect is a reminder of the power of the mind. Miss treating your mind and you miss an important element of your health. 

Your weight and health is not simply dictated by what you eat, but also what you think. Hand me a plate of pasta with a Mediterranean vegetable sauce and I am in heaven. However, another person may receive this same plate of food and see high carbs and weight gain. I would metabolise this dish with ease, enjoying each mouthful, absorbing the nutrients fully and burning calories efficiently. Once I finish the dish I probably won’t think about it again. The other person would eat it with anxiety and stress. He/she would probably feel guilt afterward and subsequently bring more stress to their next meal.

When your body is stressed a few things happen. The body thinks it is in fight or flight mode, survival mode. Blood flow goes to the limbs and away from the digestive system. For all the body knows it is preparing to run away from a lion. And who needs their digestive system to be functioning when under attack from a predator? This can leave you not absorbing your nutrients, experiencing diarrhea/constipation and holding onto fat around that stomach area. 

Our unique thoughts are just important as the nutrient value of the food we are eating. The brain does not the difference between an imaginary stressor or a real one. How many times have you thought about a stressful event in the past, and then your heart rate increases, you feel knots in your stomach and you may even tear up. Your thoughts are powerful and can change how your body is in the now!

You can eat the healthiest of meals but if you are eating with stress, believing you are fat and hating life, then you are going to cause havoc on your digestion system and your body’s fat storage will go up. Think toxic thoughts and it will be toxic to your meal.

There are numerous studies whereby the placebo effect illustrates the power of the mind. Patient’s symptoms and conditions have been shown to improve whilst on the sugar pill/placebo.  Sometimes the placebo groups even report better results than the group taking the real medication (1). When studies are conducted, participants get told about the side effects such as weight gain, hair loss, erectile dysfunction, headaches, and whatever else related to the medication being tested. People on the placebo pills have been known to pull out due to unbearable side effects! There have also been cases whereby people have thought they were getting back surgery but in reality, did not have the procedure. Yet they came out feeling their pain had subsided (2).

Mind over matter!

So next time you eat your plate of food with disgust thinking ‘this rice is going to make me fat and bloated’, consider the idea that you are instigating these effects. 

Appreciate your food and body where it is at now. Slow down. Chew thoroughly. Taste your food. Enjoy it! 

Affirm to yourself,

‘My happy thoughts create my healthy body’.

When I work with my clients, I work on the mind too. If any of the above resonates with you and you are feeling stuck in a cycle of bad thoughts and ill health, get in touch. I would love to help!

 

6 Sensible Fat Loss Tips

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fat loss tips

I know we all want to lose fat fast but unfortunately, this can cause more harm than good. It isn’t worth it in the long run. Like with all things, good things take time. Here are some fat loss tips to get you on your way to your goal weight safely:

1. Don’t go on a diet with an expiration date.

Don’t do a shake diet, strict detox, soup only diet, or whatever the trend is. Do eat nourishing foods most of the time. Think about 80% good nutritious foods. You won’t lose fat right away or quickly but long term you will. If your diet is something that you cannot maintain for life then it isn’t worth the trouble. These diets mess your head up, mess your internal chemistry and usually result in you gaining more fat than you lost. Eat for health, the fat loss happens as an after effect.

2. Don’t under eat.

If you tell me you forgot to eat that tells me your internal chemistry is out of whack. When you haven’t eaten for 4 hours your gut sends signals to your brain to eat, it sends feelings of hunger. If you are not hungry, it’s probably due to the under eating or too many diets causing havoc on your hormone messengers. Food is medicine for your body to run properly. If you don’t give it enough you won’t sleep properly, you’ll be sick often and your mood will be affected plus other consequences. If you have been under eating and then start eating the right amount you may put on weight initially. But what’s more important, a little weight gain initially while the body adjusts or bad health? Again in the long term, your body will find balance and the fat will shift.

3. Be patient.

Dieting messes up your hormonal profile. It takes time to get the body to find balance. Don’t give up before it happens! You may be almost there and once it does happen, it normally finds great momentum.

4. Find a trainer who understands exercise prescription.

You do not need to exercise in the gym every day. In fact, too much exercise can make fat loss harder. Certain exercises give greater hormonal responses than others for fat loss. If you want a tighter butt you need to lift weights. Walking on a treadmill won’t lift your butt. Cardio can make you a smaller you, but you’ll still be flabby. Females won’t become bulky with weights. Eating too much makes you bulky. But remember, you can’t out train a bad diet. Eating well is the priority over exercise.

5. Incidental exercise adds up!

Get moving. Walk to the shops. Take the stairs. Going to the gym on a given day doesn’t counterbalance doing nothing the rest of the day. You will eat what you burned in the gym just like that.

6. Just like movement adds up, so does your food.

A little snack here and there adds up. That extra mouthful you ate of your kids food adds up. The tasting of your food while cooking adds up. That extra biscuit you now have each day with your coffee adds up. Everything counts.

For your sensible approach to fat loss please contact me for your personal training or nutrition. You are unique just as your fat loss plan of attack should be! 

 

Surviving Chocolate Over Easter

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 surviving easterEaster eggs and hot cross buns have been in the supermarkets since Christmas. It’s crazy! There is always an occasion or excuse for us to overeat it seems these days. If it isn’t Easter, it is a birthday, or a work function, or a wedding, or a holiday, there is always something…. if you let there be.

There is nothing wrong with eating some festive treats. It is okay to eat treats at any time. You never need to justify why you are eating something and if you are, perhaps there is a reason for that. Do you feel guilty, anxious, deprived, judged? If we live a life whereby nothing is off limits and we eat what we love and feels good, occasions don’t matter. It’s easy to pass the chocolate aisle or skip the dessert without temptation. 

So this Easter, remember that chocolate is available all year. Easter is one day. There will always be more food so just breathe and be without food angst. Choose chocolate you love to eat only. Don’t feel you have to eat anything. If you receive chocolate and don’t want it, give it away. It’s your body and there is nothing unsociable with saying no. If you want the chocolate, eat it, savor it, and just get on with life. You don’t need to work off the chocolate you ate.

A few tips for keeping happy and healthy over Easter:

  • Choose quality over quantity. Often all we need is a taste. You’ll probably find eating half a piece and leaving the rest to be more satisfying than having the entire thing. Get your fix and don’t overindulge.
  • Freeze hot cross buns. If you buy a 6 pack, you don’t need to eat them all. Eat one and freeze the rest for another time. One hot cross bun is on average 300 calories. And then you will probably add some butter. This is similar in calories to a meal. 
  • For most people, it is better to eat one large Easter egg rather than little ones. People who buy the packs of little ones tend to not psychologically register how much they are consuming. Each trip to the pantry ends up with another little egg. A packet of little eggs is about 800 calories. If you can eat just the one great, but for a lot of us we can’t stop. It could be better to just buy the big one. A 110 gram Kinder Easter Bunny, or a Cadbury 110 grams Crunchie egg is about 600. Know how your eating habits and choose what is best for you.
  • Get rid of it. If you have too much take it to work and share it around. Or, put it in the bin. I do hate food wastage but better in the bin than in your gut. 
  • For a lot of us, Easter is a 4-day long weekend. Use it. Get active, relax and enjoy life. We live in a world whereby everyone is stressed and busy. Just breathe and be :) 

It can be hard to get to a place whereby food doesn’t rule your life but it can be done. If you’d like to chat and see if I can help you feel more at peace with food, eating and body image please contact me.  

 

Tips To Boost Energy Naturally

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Low energy and tiredness are symptoms that your body and life are out of balance. We are energy. The words we speak are energy. The food we eat is energy. The materials we surround ourselves with are energy. The music we listen to is energy. And of course, the people we spend time with are energy. To boost energy naturally we need to address the person’s entire lifestyle, not just the food aspect. 
 
Nutrition

  • Maintain stable blood sugar levels. Eating a meal filled with simple carbs will cause a blood sugar high and a quick energy boost. But it will dip shortly after causing you to feel tired. Choose foods that are nutrient dense, foods that are real. Include a quality protein at each meal. Amino acids in protein are precursors to you feel good neurotransmitters. 
  • Drink enough water. Dehydration is often one of the first symptoms of tiredness.
  • Use caffeine wisely. It affects your sleep quality. Avoid it by 2 pm or even earlier. 
  • Identity if tiredness is due to a food sensitivity. Eating something you are sensitive to will leave you feeling tired as your body tries to deal with the offending food and it can cross into your brain. 
  • Supplements helpful include Vit D, magnesium, essential fatty acids and vitamin B. Vegans and vegetarians are prone to low vitamin B12 status which can affect energy. 

 
Exercise and lifestyle

  • Walking and sunlight. A natural dose of Vitamin D  and fresh air does wonders to the mind and body. The sun energises plants and it energises us too!
  • Move more. Stand. Stretch. Take the stairs. Stop slouching and stand straight.
  • Exercise smart, not more. Over-exercising is taxing on the body. Keep workouts short. Balance your weight training and high cardio sessions with gentle forms of exercise such as yoga or walking. Yoga is great for unblocking the emotional stress. 
  • Sleep well. We are all different but most of us need 7 to 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Less sleep can increase our appetite the next day, alter hormones, depress our immunity and make us more prone to insulin sensitives. 
  • Minimise technology use at night. At night our bodies need to prepare for sleep. We know it is time to sleep when it gets dark outside. But you can’t just turn the bright light-offsand then expect to fall asleep. It takes time. Turn the lights off a few hours prior to bed. Turn the phones and laptops off. All that blue light is interfering with your bodies ability to know it is sleep time.
  • Beware of your thoughts and language. Transmit positive energy through what you say. When someone asks how you are, don’t say okay. Say you are wonderful, it is a beautiful day. You’ll change your physical state and emotional state right away.
  • Do what you love. There is nothing more draining than a job you don’t like. We spend hours at work, of course, you are tired if you don’t enjoy it. outside of work, schedule activities in that you love. Socialize, human connection is important. Hug, dance and laugh.
  • Listen to music that uplifts you. Music has a way of changing our vibration. We do take in all that is around us. If you are listening to sad songs, songs about abuse or drugs that will lower your vibrational state. Find uplifting and upbeat music. Instant mood changer.

Boost Energy Naturally