7 Energy-Boosting Habits for Career Women

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Full Episode Transcript:

7 Energy-Boosting Habits for Career Women

Hi there, welcome to the podcast. So, for all of my lovely career women who are listening, I have seven energy boosting habits for you. A couple of them are eating habits of course, but the rest are non-eating habits.

They are all what I would call very healthy habits, so each of them has many more benefits than just being energy boosting. That’s so fun, because hey, who doesn’t love more benefits?

And with the warmer weather just around the corner, who doesn’t want more energy? Coming out of those winter months, we can feel a little bit low energy, especially March and April when we’re starting to get really tired of the cold weather.

So, these 7 energy-boosting habits can not only help with your productivity during your work day, but also with leaving you feeling way more energized at the end of your work day, so you can enjoy the things you want to enjoy. And then, half of the weekend is not spent recovering from the very draining work week.

When I was working anywhere from 50 to 80 hours in orthopedic trauma surgery, I was on call a lot, and we often had to be at the hospital at 6:00 AM and staying until whenever they needed us until.

A lot of my evenings and at least part of the weekend was spent just recovering from that. Feeling like I was catching up on some sleep and of course the chores that I didn’t necessarily have energy to do on the weekdays. But who wants to spend their entire weekend doing that stuff? So if you’re in this same boat, I feel you. I’ve got you covered though.

Alright, so energy boosting habit #1 is to avoid foods that can drain you of energy.

Two big ones are very processed carbohydrates and refined or added sugars. So very processed carbohydrates would mean that any grain that has been ground into a flour. Flour that is used in things such as bread, baked goods, pasta, crackers, pretzels, pizza crust, all those delicious carby things.

Refined or added sugars are sugars that have been refined down to just the sugar that has no nutritional value. Refined sugar can come from a natural source, but all of the good stuff essentially with the natural food is stripped away completely and just the simple sugar is left.

Examples of these would be white sugar, brown sugar, coconut sugar, high fructose corn syrup. These things are found in candy, baked goods like cookies, muffins, soda, even condiments like ketchup and BBQ sauce.

The reason why these can drain you of energy is because they enter your bloodstream quickly, since there is not much to be processed by your body. Because they enter your bloodstream quickly, your insulin spikes quickly.

Insulin has many tasks, however its most important job is to regulate glucose (sugar) levels in the bloodstream and enable your body’s cells to utilize that glucose as energy. There are several reasons why you don’t want a massive spike in insulin, but for folks who are trying to lose weight, a big reason why this is undesirable is because oh you wanted is when it is coupled with excess glucose or sugar, your body will store the glucose as fat.

As far as it affecting your energy levels, you can experience fatigue whenever you have foods with a lot of sugar or flour in them, because more insulin is needed to regulate the glucose, and your body ends up spending more energy to try to make sure there is enough insulin to regulate that glucose. Diabetics have a tougher time with this, and therefore can feel even more fatigue than a non-diabetic.

Now, on the flip side, low blood sugar can also cause fatigue. So, it’s a matter of balance of course.

Typically, when you are eating sugars in their whole food form, meaning if you’re eating a piece of fruit, then because there is much more to that fruit to be processed, the sugars don’t enter the bloodstream as quickly and your insulin doesn’t have to spike as much. Therefore, there’s going to be much less risk of fatigue. Also, much less risk of fat storage leading to weight gain down the road potentially.

Also, same thing is true for eating carbohydrates in their whole grain form. When you eat carbohydrates in a form that is much closer to their whole food form, their natural form, it will cause a much more stable level of glucose and insulin. So, things like quinoa, farro, bulgur wheat, barley, oats, rice.

Many times, packaged foods will have these things in them, however they have been ground up into a flower. So look for things where they are not ground up, where it’s just the grain itself.

If you can start making it a habit to decrease the sugar or flour little by little, you will start to see the benefits of this. I typically don’t recommend to my clients to completely eliminate, because that can cause cravings, it can also be very difficult for your brain to want to stick to that.

I also don’t think that it’s necessary for most people. I think you can still have your treats. But some people do prefer to eliminate something completely. So it’s really more so about what you want for your eating habits for the future and the compromises that you want to make and still reach your goals.

Alright so energy boosting habit number two. Focus on foods that will help to increase your energy. Essentially, foods that have lots of nutrients in them. These foods will help to increase your energy levels, partly because your body needs all of these nutrients to thrive and for all of your organs, including your brain to function well.

If everything is functioning at a optimal level, you are going to feel better overall. You’ll feel more energized. So look for foods that are as close to their whole food form as possible. These are typically the ones that have the highest level of nutrients still in them. When foods are processed either mechanically or with chemicals, they often have been stripped of a lot of the nutrients.

So, foods like vegetables, beans, fruit, nuts, seeds, fish, poultry, even beef, pork, dairy products. Although, I must say that dairy products can sometimes cause inflammation in some people, so you may or may not feel great if you eat or drink dairy products. This is something that you might want to test out. You can try eliminating dairy for two or three weeks and see how you feel.

Same thing with other foods, some other foods will cause inflammation, bloating, fatigue in some people if they have an intolerance or allergy, so you can certainly eliminate one food at a time, or one food group at a time to test it out and see how you feel. Most people only try this if they are not feeling well physically, and they suspect that something in their diet may be causing this.

So, to sort of go along with the first energy boosting habit of avoiding some foods that can cause fatigue, if you do have a sensitivity or allergy to a food, that specific food may be one that is causing fatigue that you may wish to avoid.

And again, to make a habit of incorporating these foods with higher nutrients into your diet, start small. Increase the amount of one or two that you really enjoy by a little bit and go from there. Also, be sure you’re getting enough calories for the day to meet your energy expenditure.

If you’re only consuming 1000 calories a day, you’re probably going to feel fatigued. Most adults need somewhere between 1100 and 1300 calories a day just to keep them alive for the day. Our body and brain utilize a lot of calories for energy just to keep you alive, and that’s without really doing anything for the day. That’s just existing.

Energy-boosting habit #3 is eliminate.

Eliminate things that are on your schedule that don’t need to be done. Eliminate things that are on your schedule that you don’t want to do that wouldn’t cause anyone harm if you didn’t do it. Including yourself. You don’t need to eliminate them completely or entirely either. You can maybe decrease the frequency of some things. Or decrease the duration that you spend doing some of these things.

Allow yourself to say no to people if they invite you to do something that you don’t really want to do. I know as a career woman, it is very easy to get into that mode of doing doing doing. Of producing, of saying yes, of accomplishing. But sometimes that can be harmful to you, your happiness, your health. And it’s just not worth it.

So, I recommend really taking a look at your daily, weekly, and monthly schedule and wedding out some things that don’t really need to be done. You will feel so much lighter even if you just eliminate one thing.

Even if you feel like you’re physically able to do all of the things on your schedule, sometimes just mentally looking at that list or that schedule is exhausting. Or even just knowing that you have all of these things scheduled can make your brain be like “whoa”. I love overproducing.

However, my brain does not like it when I have lots of things on the schedule for the evenings and weekends. If I have a ton of things to do during the workday, I’m totally fine with that. As soon as my list starts building up for the evenings or the weekends, I start getting stressed out. And we all know that when you’re stressed, this will really drain you of energy.

Maybe make a habit of eliminating things from your schedule, by just committing to eliminating or decreasing one thing a month to start with. Then you can move on to two things a month period then maybe something once a week. Or, if you prefer to eliminate something one day at a time. I do recommend starting small though.

Moving on to energy boosting habit #4. Incorporate more energy-producing thoughts into your day. Alright, so this is a fun one period so feeling energized is just that, feeling, right? There are other emotions or feelings that feel similar to and energized. A few examples might be playful, motivated, inspired, creative, excited.

To feel these feelings in your body, you must think a thought that produces any of these feelings.

Think about it like this, just a super simple example. If you have a thought, “I can’t wait to go to the concert tonight” you’re then going to feel excitement in your body, right? If you had the thought, “I don’t feel like going to the concert tonight”, you’re not gonna feel excitement in your body. You might even feel fatigued or at least low energy.

So your thoughts really matter.

If you want to feel a certain feeling or emotion, think of a thought that will help generate that feeling or emotion in your body. Highly recommend thinking a thought that you feel like is believable to you though. If you truly don’t want to go to the concert, then don’t try to get yourself hyped up for the concert. Just allow yourself to decide that you don’t want to go.

But, if you want to go to the concert and want to have a good time, but we’re feeling a little bit low energy maybe because of your day at work, you can certainly utilize your thoughts to help energize you. Your thoughts really are powerful.

Alright energy boosting habit #5 is if you’re feeling tired or low energy, instead of drinking more caffeine, consider drinking more water. Your body needs water for energy. It literally needs the water molecules, so if you’re not getting enough water, or you’re fatigued despite drinking a whole lot of caffeine, you may want to consider increasing your water intake instead of going for that fourth cup of coffee.

I know, coffee tastes better than water sometimes, but you will notice a difference. Also, if you’re trying to lose weight, water can help with weight loss. One of the reasons is because oftentimes your brain will mistake dehydration for hunger. So if you’re feeling hungry, it can be because you’re actually dehydrated.

Now, I wouldn’t go from drinking not much water a day to a gallon of water a day. That’s going to be really difficult and uncomfortable. Therefore, I recommend trying to get an idea of about how much water or other fluids that don’t have caffeine in them, you are drinking during the day and if it’s less than 8 to 10 eight-ounce glasses, you may consider increasing that a bit.

Energy boosting habit for career women #6 is not feeling guilty about adding a little bit more sleep in.

I could have just left it at adding a little bit more sleep in, however we’ll take it next level and say not to feel guilty about it. A lot of times career women or just women in general, feel guilty about resting. This is typically because we don’t want to be seen as lazy. I think personally this kind of goes back to the more primitive days where we were really concerned about not being kicked out of the herd or the community. So to not be kicked out, we’d be highly motivated to be over producers. Or be sure that we’re constantly working and not resting more than others.

This is really silly if you think about it because you need adequate rest if you want to perform well. To be more productive, your body needs that rest, your brain needs that rest. Rest is not a luxury. It’s a necessity.

So, take a look at when you’re going to bed, taking into account about how long it takes for you to actually fall asleep, how many times you wake up during the night and how long it takes you to fall back to sleep generally each of those times, and also take a look at when you’re waking up in the morning. You’re probably getting less sleep than you think you are.

To make a habit of getting a little bit more sleep or rest, just commit to an extra 15 minutes. Go to bed 15 minutes earlier or wake up 15 minutes later period or, take a 15-to-20-minute power nap during the day if you can. That’s better than nothing, right?

If you need to set an alarm in the evening to start getting ready for bed 15 minutes earlier, than do so. Also, if you feel like you are just unmotivated to do so, write down your reasons why going to bed 15 minutes earlier can benefit you. Or if you don’t feel like the 15 minutes is going to benefit you, obviously that is just a step in the right direction, so look at the end goal. Maybe you ultimately want to start getting 8 hours of sleep instead of five.

Write down the benefit of that end goal of getting at 8 hours of sleep. Put that in a spot that can serve as a reminder. That will typically make it easier for you to extend your sleep little by little as you go.

Alright for my 7th energy boosting habit, get at least a little bit of movement in each day.

More specifically, if you have a desk job, try to get outside during your lunch break or any break, even just for a 10-minute walk. This will help boost your mood and increase circulation, which can increase your energy levels. If you’re able to do more than 10 minutes of any sort of movement, then great!

I’m sure you’ve even heard the recommendation of parking on the far side of the parking lot, so you have to walk a longer distance to get into work period I personally think that parking lots are the most dangerous places for pedestrians. So, I don’t particularly recommend this, but if you are able to get out for a walk or even just a stretch during your work day for a few minutes, do it. Or when you get home from work, go for a short walk, or even if you have some time in the morning, bring your coffee on a walk with you. You can do something like yoga at the end of the day to relax you for the evening.

If you play a sport, then commit to doing this a few times a week. Anything you can to make sure you’re getting some movement in during the week. Now, if you are exercising lots of hours every day, and you’re feeling low energy, you might be burning more calories than you’re consuming causing this low energy, so just take a look at that. Or at least be aware of that.

Now certainly there are lots of other things you can do to help boost your energy, especially if you’re a career woman, however this podcast episode would be ridiculously long if we covered every single thing. These are some of my favorites though.

You don’t have to do all of them but pick one or two to start with and go from there. These are just some general recommendations, and they don’t work for every single person, or some people might have circumstances that makes some of these more difficult than others, that’s why it’s all really on an individual basis. So, see what works for you.

Take care, I hope you have an energy-filled week and I’ll talk with you soon.