Over the past few months I’ve been diligently working on eating healthy to keep my energy and productivity high.
You’ve heard the saying, “You are what you eat”
I had noticed how my productivity was affected during my work day. Even though I work on planning my work with my Purposeful Planning system which includes
- A Sunday planning routine where I write MY to-do list in my ONE NOTEBOOK JOURNAL.
- Prioritize my actions I want to achieve on my WEEKLY DESKTOP NOTEPAD
- Schedule everything in my PAPER Planner.
- And the last thing, I sync all tasks to My GOOGLE calendar on my phone.
Consequently, when I wake up every Monday, I am energized because I know my whole week will run like clockwork .
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND TAKING A LOOK AT MY PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS
However, as I said, I’ve noticed lately my energy hasn’t been as high as I like. I decided to experiment with what I eat during the day and have been keeping a food diary.
I don’t know about you, but being an entrepreneur working from home, I am a “snacker.” I find myself needing fuel during the day and I found I was “snacking” the wrong foods to fuel my body.
I don’t like the word “DIET.” I prefer to use the words “Healthy eating.” After much research on google and looking at apps like Noom and Fabulous, I decided to do it MY WAY.
I came up with four areas to focus on for a healthy diet to increase my energy and productivity levels.
#1 Eat Less sugar.
This is the hardest one, but if you pay attention to how much sugar you consume, you’ll find other alternatives. I stick to fresh fruit, and yes that is sugar but it’s natural sugar, and remember I’m working on less sugar, or less processed sugar.
I incorporate into my “snack periods” an apple, a pear and sometimes berries or a papaya and I love the occasional dark chocolate. I also added dried apricots and nuts which are a great energy boost.
#2 Eat a salad a day.
I eat my salad in the evening. It may work for you at lunch, but for me, I like it as an evening
meal. I’ve gotten extremely creative with different types of salads. I make turkey burger salads, or chili taco salads. I’m making pickled onions to put on my salads and I even like a plain salad.
What’s important to me is having the dressing on the side. That way I can add as little as I like or as much as I like. I’m very particular about how much dressing is on my salad and when eating out I ALWAYS ask for the dressing on the side.
#3 Eat lots of green vegetables.
I could probably become a vegan, but for me it’s important I pay attention to protein, so with my veggies I eat them with eggs, and ground turkey. Once in a while I throw in some steak or chicken.
We are blessed to live in a town that has weekly markets with lots of FRESH green veggies, so another routine is my Saturday trip to the markets. You have to make the effort to find good produce where you live. I live on an island and even though we pay “more” for food, it’s important to be aware of the fresh food available.
#4 Eat my dinner 3 hours before bed time.
This is what has been so helpful for me. I Eat my dinner 3 hours before bed time. I learned that eating your dinner 3 hours before bed-time helps with your sleep.
I had to focus on this and create a NEW HABIT using my favorite habit tracker method. Watch my video on ways to track your habits that are impact your business.
DO YOU MEAL PREP?
I’m a big believer in Meal Prep as part of my Sunday planning, so I usually cook up sweet potato, chicken, hard boiled eggs, quinoa and my soup for the week. I always like to have some turkey chile in the freezer to make taco salads during the week. I follow Lisa Bryan from DOWNSHIFTOLOGY on you tube and bought her cook book.
EXERCISE is part of my morning routine. Of course, if you’re going to eat healthy you have to exercise, so my morning walk or ride on my stationery bike in my office is also part of helping me feel productive during the day.
I developed a MORNING ROUTINE after I read the book by Hal Elrod called “The Miracle Morning.” If you haven’t read that book, it’s a must to eating healthy and connecting to feeling productive during your day. Check it out here.
Now, I’m not a health expert, I’m simply someone who’s paying attention to eating healthy and how it affects my productivity. THESE RESULTS have proven to me, that eating a healthy diet has helped me have more energy and be more productive during the day.
For me,
- Eating healthy increases my energy.
- Eating healthy helps me have greater concentration and focus.
- Eating healthy leads to me becoming productive.
WATCH WHAT YOU EAT
My recommendation is to watch what you eat and you might find yourself becoming more productive in hitting your goals and growing a successful and profitable business.
Here’s how I make my QUINOA salad and eat once a week.
- 2 cups Chicken Broth
- 1 cup Quinoa
- Chopped Cucumbers
- 1 can Garbanzo Beans
- Chopped Red Onion (Pickled if I have it)
- Or Chopped Green onions
- Carrot shredded
- Goat Cheese (can be other cheese grated.)
- Chopped Mint
- Chopped Parsley
- Optional: Chopped tomatoes, or red pepper
Dressing: (I vary the quantities for taste.)
- ¼ cup Olive Oil
- ½ cup Lemon juice
- ½ Tsp Dijon Mustard
- Honey (to taste)
- Salt & pepper
Bring the Chicken broth to boil in saucepan. Rinse the quinoa in a sieve, then add to broth and return to boil. Cook uncovered over medium heat for about 12 minutes or until all water is soaked up. Then fluff it up and add to a bowl and let it cool.
Add the chopped veggies and dressing and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
Leave me a comment below on your favorite food to eating healthy.
