Alex shares practical ways to sustain energy throughout the day: eat healthy fats like avocado and olive oil instead of high-starch foods that crash, use local honey for allergies, exercise with kettlebells or walking, and take 50 to 75 minute breaks with posture checks and deep breaths.
Hello, my peeps, it's Alex. Happy Wednesday, happy hump day. Today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about energizing and keeping yourself going throughout the day so that you don't get to the end of the day and you're flat like a pancake, right? Because it happens. We have, during the day, we have ups and downs. We sit at our computer, we're go, go, go, we go from meeting to meeting to meeting, call to call to call, and and then we don't take time for ourselves to really recharge and keep our energy levels up, which we need to do so that we don't get to the end of the day, like I said, and we're like, all we can do is, you know, catch up on Netflix and not have any time for our family, not have any time for our friends. So these are some of the things that I've learned that have worked for me, and I wanted to kind of just share them with you. So the first thing is eat for your brain. So that is one thing that I learned which really surprised me. I was going through the day and I would have those dips, especially after lunch, and what I found was that there was a big correlation between when I ate bread and pasta and, you know, starches like that versus when I didn't. When I have the bread and when I have the pasta, within half an hour, 20 minutes, my energy starts to go down. So what do I do? Reach for the chocolate, which makes my insulin go up and makes my sugar go up. And what happens when that's done? It crashes. So you're in that constant up and down, which is exhausting. So one of the things that I'm doing more and more, I can't say that I'm 100%, but I'm doing it more and more, is trying to avoid those foods that I know are going to crash. My sugar, and that's going to cause me to reach for things that are not as healthy. So avoiding that crash in the first place is a good place to start. And the other thing is, another thing that brings me energy is eating healthy fats like avocado, you know, making a big salad with olive oil or even avocado oil. And if you do avocado oil, make sure that it's cold-pressed so so it doesn't impact the health benefits of the avocado oil. But so basically just from a food perspective, it's, you know, understanding what impacts your brain so that you can stay alert and you can stay focused and you can show up as your best self. The other thing that I wanted to share with regards to food is I suffer from allergies in the spring. And one thing that has been an absolute lifesaver because I don't like taking the antihistamines, the Benadryls and all of those things, is taking honey, local honey. Find yourself a local supply of honey and just have some honey every day because what that does is it allows you to kind of immunize yourself to the local pollen and to the local stuff that's in the air, which when allergy season comes into play, you're not as impacted. You don't get as much the, you know, the the sneezing, the runny nose, the itchy eyes, which are all the symptoms that I suffered from. So switching to a local honey instead of a mass-produced honey has really made a huge difference. The second thing with regards to recharging is obviously exercise, right? And it's something I'm not a big fan of, although I'm learning that the benefits outweigh the fact that I don't really honestly feel like doing it. And what's been working for me is doing kettlebell training. Who'da thunk? You know, I do half an hour, I go all out, I have a local gym that does it, and I actually kind of enjoy it. I don't enjoy getting up at quarter to 6 in the morning to go to the 6:20 class, but I still do it because I see the benefit and I see how much more energized I feel throughout, throughout the day. And I piggyback that with, on the days that I'm not going to kettlebell, just do some walking first thing in the morning. Being able to get out there even when it's cold, to have some fresh air, especially nowadays that we're so cooped up inside and we don't get to spend as much time outside as we would like or as we're used to, being able to dedicate that time to yourself to go out and um, focus on yourself, get some steps in, um, is making a difference in, you know, how you can sustain your energy throughout the day. So that was the second thing. So bottom line is find whatever works for you and just do it consistently. You know, that consistency is really the critical piece. And then something else, so the third thing for you to be able to do throughout the day is to recharge. Every 50 to 75 minutes seems to work the best. And there are 3 things that you can do really that are going to help. And the first thing is periodically throughout the day, check your posture. You know, if you're sitting at the computer and you're like this, chances are you're not allowing, you know, for the energy to flow correctly through your body. So from time to time, make sure you, you know, stand up, throw your shoulders back, and You know, allow, give that, give that room for the second thing, which is your breath. How many times during the day do you catch yourself not really breathing fully? So every 50 to 75 minutes, find a spot and just do, you know, 10, take 10 deep breaths. And if you can, do it while you're bouncing in place, so you're kind of moving the energy around your body. But really take those 10 deep breaths. Please be careful, don't pass out, but just, you know, make sure you kind of get yourself re-oxygenated. And then the third thing is take time away and step away from your screens, right? We're all like so focused on our screens these days, especially for those of us that are working from home. You can spend just hours just sitting there not moving. So every 50, again, 50 to 75 minutes, either go outside for a quick walk if the weather's okay, or do some knee highs, or, you know, do some squats. But do something that's going to get, you know, the blood flow going a little bit, and that's going to get you a little bit more energy to continue throughout your day. So these are the things I've been doing lately. I kind of wanted to share. I hope that it will be of service, and I guess I will talk to you guys next time. Have a great day. Bye!
