There’s something about the colder winter months which just makes one appreciate the warmer season even more and with that characteristic spring bloom comes renewed hope for life in general. How many times have found yourself completing the sentence: “This summer, I am going to…?” I know I have a mega-list of things I want to get done, most of which are only really possible during the warmer summer season. Going beyond personal growth, development and all of that however, summer also means I get to babysit my niece (and hopefully my nephew as well soon), since her parents operate a seasonal mom-and-pop business that gets really hectic during the summertime.
I love my niece to bits because well she just brightens up all our lives in ways I could have never imagined, so this makes me look forward to motherhood in a way. I just don’t know how super-mums do it though – how they manage to balance their own existence and career with running after a growing child. It’s exhausting! Just one week of consecutive days spent babysitting my niece and by the time the weekend comes and I get a little “break” again, I’m utterly exhausted. She has so much energy that it has me contemplating just what happens to our energy levels as we get older.
Inspired by my niece’s seemingly endless energy supply in comparison to her eager aunt’s, I set about trying to investigate some healthy ways of boosting my own energy levels. See, kids really do bring out the best in us at times! Here’s what I found to work for me so far:
Smaller Meal Portions
I kid you not – it may seem a little counter-intuitive, but just slightly trimming meal portions seems to do the trick quite well in elevating energy levels in what I am confident is a safe way. The inspiration for this step came from the analysis of the nutritional makeup of weight loss shakes, in that you’re only really taking in the nutrients you need and in so doing you’re not subjecting your digestive system to the extra, unnecessary work of expending energy digesting excess food. The gut works really hard to digest processed foods such as noodles for instance, spending some of the energy which you could otherwise enjoy using for other important or fun things in your life.
Dietary Supplements
Look, ideally you’d want to be able to get all the nutrients you need from the normal meals you have throughout the day, but the reality is that it’s gotten much harder to prepare and eat wholesome diets which cater to all our nutritional needs, including the synthesis of energy. Although I really love the outdoors, I wouldn’t go all the way to saying I’m a serious sports junkie, but I find the use of creatine to be quite effective as a healthy and safe way to boost energy levels. Moderation is the key because I’m not really looking for the explosive energy a sprinter would want out of using this supplement. Just less than half of what is recommended for seriously active sportspersons is enough.