adminHELLO gentle readers. I hope I will find you all well. We often have days when we feel tired and lazy even early in the morning. Often enough we attribute it to lack of sleep. Lack of sleep is not the only thing sapping your energy. Little things you do (and don’t do) can exhaust you both mentally and physically, which can make getting through your day a chore. Here, experts reveal common bad habits that can make you feel tired, plus simple lifestyle tweaks that will put the pep back in your step.
Skipping your workout to save energy actually works against you. In a University of Georgia study, sedentary but otherwise healthy adults who began exercising lightly three days a week for as little as 20 minutes at a time reported feeling less fatigued and more energised after six weeks.
Regular exercise boosts strength and endurance, helps make your cardiovascular system run more efficiently, and delivers oxygen and nutrients to your tissues. So next time you are tempted to crash on the couch, at least go for a brisk walk — you won’t regret it.
Being even slightly dehydrated — as little as two percent of normal fluid loss — takes a toll on energy levels.
Dehydration causes a reduction in blood volume, which makes the blood thicker. This requires your heart to pump less efficiently, reducing the speed at which oxygen and nutrients reach your muscles and organs. To calculate your normal fluid needs, take your weight in pounds, divide in half and drink that number of ounces of fluid a day,
Goodson recommends.
An iron deficiency can leave you feeling sluggish, irritable, weak, and unable to focus.
“It makes you tired because less oxygen travels to the muscles and cells,” Boost your iron intake to reduce your risk of anemia: load up on lean beef, kidney beans, tofu, eggs (including the yolk), dark green leafy vegetables, nuts, and peanut butter, and pair them with foods high in vitamin C (vitamin C improves iron absorption when eaten together).
Note: an iron deficiency may be due to an underlying health problem, so if you’re experiencing these symptoms of iron deficiency you should visit your doc.
Striving to be perfect — which, let us face it, is impossible — makes you work much harder and longer than necessary,
“You set goals that are so unrealistic that they are difficult or impossible to achieve, and in the end, there is no sense of self-satisfaction.” Its recommended to set a time limit for yourself on your projects, and taking care to obey it. In time, you will realise that the extra time you were taking was not actually improving your work.
The food you eat fuels your body, and when you sleep, your body continues using what you consumed at dinner the night before to keep your blood pumping and oxygen flowing. So, when you wake up in the morning, you need to refuel with breakfast.
Skip it, and you will feel sluggish. “Eating breakfast is like starting a fire in your body by kickstarting your metabolism.” A breakfast that includes whole grains, lean protein, and healthy fat.
Good examples include oatmeal with protein powder and a dab of peanut butter; a smoothie made with fruit, protein powder, low-fat milk, and almond butter; or eggs with two slices of whole-wheat toast and low-fat Greek yogurt.
Food loaded with sugar and simple carbs (like the ones you will find in a box or at the drive-through window) rank high on the glycemic index (GI), an indicator of how rapidly carbohydrates increase blood sugar.
Constant blood sugar spikes followed by sharp drops cause fatigue over the course of the day, says Goodson.
Keep blood sugar steady by having a lean protein along with a whole grain at every meal, says Goodson. Good choices include chicken (baked, not fried) and brown rice, salmon and sweet potato, or salad with chicken and fruit.
So there you have it. Stay Fit Stay Healthy
- Siba Guzha is a fitness trainer at Body Focus Gym Executive. 1st Floor Meikles; 79 Herbert Chitepo Street, Mutare. Tel: 020 6417 ext 218 Cell: 0772 789 110. Email: [email protected]
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