Next time your energy drops skip the caffeine and Power Up!

No you don’t have to “give up” the caffeine all together; you’ll “eliminate” it when you no longer have a need for it (maybe never if you are a coffee lover). But know this, caffeine is not increasing your energy, it’s making you more exhausted.

There is only one way to actually increase your energy and that is… to RECUPERATE IT! Almost everything else is a stimulant, there are exceptions.

Did you know that all foods are stimulating? Yes that’s right ALL FOODS are stimulating, not just caffeine and chocolate. Even watermelon is stimulating, some foods are more so than others. It’s usually the “foodstuffs” that are man made or processed to provide extra kick that set you up for a crash, poor health and lowered performance.  

 You‘re better off grabbing fruit, nuts, or beans, “watermelon” or some other natural food concoction to stimulate yourself when you are tired than going for a Milky Way bar. Actually you can find Nutrient Rich Chocolate bars today that are chocolaty and ten times better for you at the same time. The difference is negligible for you chocolate lovers.

The following foods will stimulate your energy more effectively because they are Nutrient Rich, they contain vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that combat inflammation, support your immune system, and help you recover faster from exercise. In other words, they promote your health and performance and give you an edge.

But know this… no food, not even Nutrient Rich food will give you the energy you’re missing when you’re living out of balance and burning out. As a business owner, you may have a sense for what I’m talking about.

Here are five of the best foods to eat and refuel with for energy.

1. Fruit
   Snack on fruits of any kind: They‘re rich in many vitamins, including vitamin C, a powerful nutrient that can have an antioxidant effect 20 minutes after you eat it. If you prefer juice, choose one with pulp for more fiber. Actually, juicing fruit and eating it without the fiber is better than soda, but it’s not whole food and the sugar hit, albeit natural and healthier than refined sugar, will have a stimulant effect like drinking coffee. Both will promote weight gain, depending on the circumstances of your overall diet.
   

1. Agave Nectar
   Replace the white sugar in your tea with agave nectar, it’s so sweet and it’s not super stimulating. It has a low glycemic level and is a delicious and safe alternative to table sugar. Agave syrup is fructose in its natural form. This nectar does not contain processing chemicals.
   

1. Beans
   Eat a cup of beans such as kidney (best), chick peas (garbanzo beans) black beans (cooked any style, just don’t add salt, or wash it off from the canned version) for a calorie appropriate source of nutrients and food energy; great with avocado and nuts and greens.
   

1. Trail (Fruit & Nut) Mix (unroasted, unsalted, no preservatives) or as close as possible.
   Make a trail mix out of your favorite nuts and seeds (like walnuts, pistachios, cashews, almonds, and pumpkin and sesame seeds, Goji berries, raisins, and a little bit of dark chocolate cocal). Include as much or as little of each ingredient as you like (they’re all healthy) Eat just one handful of the mix-you’ll get quick a stimulating response as these concentrated sources of calories, will keep you metabolism working. They are can be calorie rich, but they are Nutrient Rich too.
   

1. Berry Juices
   Mix 4 -6oz. of dark berry juice-like grape, pomegranate, cherry, blueberry, açai, or black currant-with water. If you are not very active at the time and you don’t need a great deal of simple carbohydrate, make sure you dilute the juice to help keep sugar levels down. Look for a brand with low sugar content – Odwalla, Naked other.
   

There are more Nutrient Rich foods than you will ever get to in your life time to fuel your body with sustainable energy. But, increasing energy is more a function of recuperation than eating, unless your body has not been fueled in a while, so keep this in mind. The energy depletion most people are suffering from is not a lack of calories, its low vital energy. Learn the difference and you’ll be well on your way to managing your energy like a pro!

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achiever your goals, for Achievers.

 A former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen or ”JAM” will help you Manage Your Energy Like a Proä to look feel and perform better. Achieve your goals in life, business and sport with your health and well being in tact. www.PerformanceLifestyleSolutions.com  

John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions - Health and High Performance, for Life™. He is an entrepreneur who learned to focus on the whole lifestyle, not merely diet and exercise, as the key to looking, feeling and performing better and achieving goals in a powerful way. Creator of the Performance Lifestyle System™, he is now the go-to guy for achievers who want to make changes in their lifestyle for better results in business and life.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 7:11 pm and is filed under Personal Energy Management, Nutrient Rich. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

This past week, I was talking with a number of Performance Lifestyle community members (by phone) about eating for health, higher performance and natural weight loss.

As usual, someone asked, "How do you stay so disciplined", as if it was hard to eat a better quality d.iet.

I smiled and thought to myself, this person needs to get free of the nutrient poor way of eating AND "thinking". I’m not sure what keeps a person stuck more, nutrient poor eating, or thinking.

How we eat is a major influencer on how we think, because how we think about food, is largely based on the results we experience.
When you eat nutrient poor, you are going to think poorly about food.

Case in point:

I eat a nutrient rich di.et. That means, I eat a diet comprised of foods that give my body all of the nutrients it needs to maintain health and perform at a high level.

That also means I don’t eat much at all of those foods that fill my body up with stuff it doesn’t need, or want at this point.

Clear and simple...

What’s not so clear, are the reasons why eating the "nutrient rich" way requires virtually no discipline, meanwhile millions of people struggle to eat better and resort to eating less in order to shed the inevitable - excess pounds.

Here’s the reason why...

You will have little to no drive to eat those advertised-popular, addictive, drug-like foods that load your body up with stuff it doesn’t need, but at one point truly desired...

...you know the stuff that you’ll find abundant in nutrient poor foods - artificial sugar, saturated fat, caffeine and various other stimulants and waste products that found a way into your meal...

when...

...your body gets used to eating real clean, food. You know the foods that contain vitamins, minerals, water, fiber, real food carbohydrate, health - promoting protein, essentials fat, phytochemicals etc

... food without that crap that screws up your system.

At one point I truly desired the pseudo and junk foods that contained all that stuff, even though my intention was to eat better. That is probably your experience too.

Like you, I had been trained to eat those foods, my body craved them, especially when I stopped for a short period of time and experienced withdrawal.

My body "tolerated" them, but ultimately did not need or want them. It let me know this in no uncertain terms as I slowly stopped eating them and periodically tried to eat them again.

As timed passed and my body got clean because I was eating real food in ever tastier ways, my body would not let me eat unsuccessfully with unwanted consequences...

... my body wanted health and success, and so does yours.

It took time to get free of those foods, but at some point what I once resisted "give up" - (nutrient poor thinking) I simply "eliminated" - (nutrient rich thinking) for the primary reason that started this message...

... NOT because I am that disciplined and NOT because I gave up anything. I always maintain(ed) that I can/could eat anything I want.  

Sure, I can stay focused like the best of them, but the truth is, when it comes to food, and addiction to stimulants that make you
feel high, (at least at first), I am just like everybody else - prone to addiction.

Oh the stories I could tell!

Besides the fact that I love the way I eat, look, feel and perform eating NutrientRich; the reason I appear so disciplined, is...

PAIN AVOIDANCE!

I feel like such shit when I eat poor quality food, that it just isn’t worth it.

Go to www.NutrientRich.com to see a video where I talk about this on Comcast.

It’s about time this becomes one of the topics of conversation. I am not alone.

I hear the same thing from just about everyone I talk to that cleans up their diet. They too are not that disciplined. Like me, they just aren’t in pain and feeling like crap.

Once you start eating nutrient rich foods, it eventually becomes very hard to go back to eating nutrient poor...

... your desire changes.

My next post will be about eating the way you desire... it’s the only way to eat successfully.

In the meantime, if you want to start eating NutrientRich, the only way to eat for health, higher performance and natural weight loss driven by desire, then go to www.NutrientRich.com. Get The Lifestyle Starter Kit.

Here’s the direct link.


Get ready to discover more delicious foods, meals and menu’s than you could ever imagine, and learn how to eat successfully.

Manage Your Energy, Like a Pro!

JAM

John Allen Mollenhauer "JAM",
Lifestyle Performance Trainer, Coach

John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions - Health and High Performance, for Life™. He is an entrepreneur who learned to focus on the whole lifestyle, not merely diet and exercise, as the key to looking, feeling and performing better and achieving goals in a powerful way. Creator of the Performance Lifestyle System™, he is now the go-to guy for achievers who want to make changes in their lifestyle for better results in business and life.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 5th, 2008 at 5:30 pm and is filed under Nutrient Rich, weight loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.