Unintentionally Undernourished
How you might be under fueling your day..
Picture this. It’s another busy morning and you are running late. The kids complain that they aren’t hungry but you toss a granola bar at them anyway as they dash to the bus. You don’t have time for breakfast either so you slug your coffee and grab a banana for later. The day passess by in a blur. Maybe you order a salad or you just work straight through lunch. The kids eat lunch at school. At the end of the day, everyone is feeling irritable and ravenous. You overeat what you know is an unhealthy snack choice while you try to concentrate on making some healthy dinner for the family.
If this sounds familiar, you may be unintentionally undernourished. We live in a society where we have access to food 24/7, yet many of us are so busy we are not consuming enough nutrients or energy to support our body’s needs.
Our bodies burn a certain amount of energy each day, even if we aren’t moving at all! We need more energy to perform our daily activities, more still for cognitive functioning, and even more if we are doing some exercise or participating in school sports.
The building blocks of nutrition (protein, carbohydrates, and fats) all break down to provide us with energy in different ways. If we aren’t consuming enough of these nutrients, we can experience some unexpected physical and mental symptoms.
Weight gain is one surprising symptom of not meeting our energy needs. When we are consistently underfueled, our body adapts by slowing our resting metabolic rate. As a result we burn fewer calories throughout the day.
Bloating can also be a symptom. When we constantly eat less than our body needs, our digestive system may adapt and slow down to more gradually disperse the nutrients that we do take in. This digestive slow down can lead to us feeling uncomfortably full and bloated.
Food cravings and ultimately even food obsession can result from dysregulated blood glucose levels caused by energy imbalances.
Anxiety, brain fog, difficulty concentrating, irritability, and decreased cognitive functioning can result when insufficient nutrient intake impacts the neurotransmitters that are responsible for helping the body regulate mood and cognition.
The great news is that lifestyle changes can help manage or reverse these symptoms for you and your family. Here are 3 tips.
Be proactive about your nutrition: Plan your meals, prepare food ahead of time, bring snacks with you to fuel a workout or sports events, and eat smaller meals spaced throughout the day.
Pay attention to your energy and hunger levels. We have conditioned ourselves to ignore these.
Protect your sleep and find healthy ways you respond to stress
Most of us know what to do when it comes to improving our health, but how to implement these healthy habits more consistently in the context of our busy professional and personal lives is another story! To help you bridge the gap from “knowing” to “doing” it’s important to address your relationship with food, exercise, and your own emotional wellbeing. I can help you get to the root of the problem and solve it once and for all so that you can get back to the business of being your best for the work you do and the people you love! Message me for a free strategy session.