Weight Loss Spotlight

Eat Healthy for Energy

The best way as well as the safest and the healthiest way to increase your energy level is to eat proper food in order for your body to utilize it correctly and provide you with sustained energy that lasts throughout the day.

Everybody burns calories at a different pace and the amount of calories you need to consume every three to four hours to keep your blood sugar levels stabile and your energy from crashing differs therefore as well. Women and men also need a different amount of calories from different sources of food to be able to function all day.

Depending on your profession, your lifestyle and your activity level the total caloric intake from one person to another is very different. For somebody who is working physically hard or has a mentally high stress job, the amount of carbohydrates in each meal will be higher then for somebody who is performing a stationary job and lives a sedentary lifestyle outside of his or her work.

Just by spacing our meals out with three to four hours in between we will guarantee a steady level of energy for whatever activity we are doing.

If we look at an athlete who is running a marathon and an athlete who is relying on strength more then endurance the percentage of protein, carbohydrates and fat in each meal will vary between the two.

A long distance runner needs more slow burning carbohydrates like pasta or potatoes that stays longer in the digestive system and will provide him with energy for quiet some time compared to a 100 yards sprinter who needs his fast twitching muscle fibers to be top functioning instead and therefore needs more protein and fast burning carbohydrates then slow ones.

When you don't eat enough food during the day, your blood sugar level is dropping and your energy level gets very low due to the amount of hours that has passed without eating. Especially if too much time pass between meals and being use to eat at regular times makes it even harder if you have to skip a meal.

The healthier and more nutritional food you eat, the more energy your body can produce and manufacture from it and the better you will feel. If you compare the nutritional value in a hamburger meal and a chicken and vegetable dinner it's no magic or chock that you have more energy after eating the chicken-vegetable dinner. The more processed the food is the less nutritional value is left in it once it reaches your digestive system and the outcome is little or no energy production from it.

Steamed vegetables instead of frozen and cooked greens contain more fiber and take longer to digest which results in a stabile blood sugar level.

As you probably know already, protein won't give you a good source of energy other then making you feel full and less drowsy when hungry. Fat is only being used for energy when your body is done burning the carbohydrates in your system. Then your body will look for fat deposits with stored fat to utilize for more energy if that is needed. In order to reach the level of calorie consumption where your body actually is burning fat for energy, you will have to exercise on a fat burning level for at least 40 minutes such as doing the treadmill or the bike.