Optimise your meal times

The easiest way to succeed with not only your health goals, but also other targets, is to structure your life. This involves sticking to your meal intervals, staying away from bad snacks and watching what you do before and after your meals.

It is interesting how our routines are set up and how they contradict our health targets. Lunchtime, for most people, is a perfect example of that.

Well, a lot of people skip breakfast or have something unhealthy, then through the morning, they snack on whatever is around. When lunch time comes, they go to a restaurant or take some snack available in the break room, or just get something that they brought from home and eat quickly. Then they go back to work for the rest of the afternoon. This is the worst routine to have. Why?

It is exactly the opposite of what would be a good use of your mealtime. First, by eating an unhealthy breakfast or skipping it altogether, you are putting your body on ‘starvation mode’ from the beginning of the day.

This is not a good thing if you intend to maintain a healthy weight. Here is another blunder most people make: After spending the entire morning on ‘work mode’, without giving time for your body and mind to relax, you start eating. It’s important to be in a relaxed state of mind when you are eating. Digesting and resting, are activities that involve your parasympathetic nervous system; the branch of your nervous system responsible for ‘rest and recovery.

 The relaxed state of mind and body is important to ease in digestion.

So what is the best way to use your lunchtime? First, ensure you take a healthy breakfast with plenty of protein. Then whether you have a high stress job or not, when lunch time comes, make sure to take five minutes to calm your mind and body before having a meal. Unless there is a restaurant that is close to where you are, you should bring your food to work. This way, you have complete control of what you eat. Take your time eating and don’t let anything stressful come your way. Completely turn yourself off from work, problems or anything stressful.

When you are done eating lunch, go for a walk. Going for a walk will help you burn some of the sugar in your blood stream and prevent it from being converted to fat.

If you follow this routine, you will boost your physical and mental alertness and increase your productivity.

Photo: www.healthyblackwoman.com