5 Unexpected Tips for High Energy Nutrition

For so many people, having more energy is at the top of the wish list. As full as our schedules may be, we often feel like we could be doing more, if only we had more energy. For this reason, the marketplace is filled with supplements, beverages, and bars that promise a quick energy fix, but these won’t sustain you for the long term. So if you’ve been looking for ways to boost your energy so that you can get more out of life, then please join Emily Rosen, Director of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, as she shares 5 out-of-the-box nutritional techniques to raise your energy level in a way that’s healthy and sustainable. These tips may surprise you, but give them a try and you’ll soon find yourself with energy to spare.

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Here is a transcript of this week’s video:

One of the most common questions I hear amongst people who are interested in better nutrition is “how can I have more energy?” Rather than recommending an energy drink or an exotic supplement, I’d like to offer these five seldom talked about tips that can help you tap into healthy energy sources that truly last:

1. Eat to the point of energy

Most people eat until they feel full. This makes sense. But with this technique, rather than eating until you’re filled with food, you eat until you feel filled with energy. The yogis of old postulated that there’s a point in any meal where you can stop eating and walk away from the table with more energy. It takes a little practice to finish your meal still feeling a little hungry, but it’s the kind of hungry that can easily be translated into a hunger to do the next thing.

2. Assimilate the beautiful

One of the key goals of digestion is to assimilate “stuff” that the body needs. The whole of our biology is actually designed to absorb from the environment that which supports life. But here’s the challenge: we are more than just a mere biological machine that uses food for fuel. We need love. We need meaning. And interestingly enough, we need beauty. You won’t read about the nutritional value of beauty in any textbook, but don’t let that fool you. Our 5 senses are hungry to drink in the beauty of the world. When we fail to assimilate the beauty that the world is giving us, we get hungry for all the wrong things. The science of Mind Body Nutrition teaches us that the more we can recognize and acknowledge the beauty in our lives, the more fulfilled we become – and the less disordered our eating will be.

3. Make your life more sugary

Evolution has designed us to like sweet things. You have more sweet taste buds than any other kind of taste bud. And this is good. Imagine if we lived on a planet where everything tasted bitter or bland. Wouldn’t you choose the planet with the sugar and agree to simply deal with the challenges of getting hooked on sweets? Dynamic Eating Psychology teaches us that the mind and body exist on a continuum where they influence one another. So yes, our biology recognizes sweetness – but so do our heart and soul. Sometimes we use sugar as a substitute for a life that’s not quite as sweet as it could be. If you want more energy, and you want to let go of the metabolic fatigue caused by too much sugar in the diet, start noticing the sweetness that’s already present in your life. Then add a little more sweetness to everything that you give to the world. Be the sweetness that you want to taste.

4. Be hungry

I’ve noticed that when we’re well fed, we can do more. Then again, if we’re too full, it’s couch potato time and little gets done. So here’s a nutritional recommendation for having more energy that may seem a little paradoxical: be hungry. What I mean is this – be hungry for life. Be hungry to track down your purpose and your destiny. Be hungry to give your gift to others. Be hungry for a better world. As you become more aware of your hunger for life, your hunger for food finds its proper and natural place. You stop fearing your hunger because you’ve actually learned how to welcome it and honor it. Hunger gives us energy. The desire to be fed with a full and complete life ignites a fire in us that can light up the world.

5. Don’t just eat food, be food

The study of nutrition is all about the chemical makeup of your food and the science of how you digest it. We are the eaters, and food is what we eat. But if you take a look around you, you might just notice that everything is food for everything else. Plants eat the soil, animals eat the plants, animals eat animals, humans eat all sorts of things, and eventually each one of us will likely find ourselves becoming a meal for all sorts of microscopic critters. But what if you considered your entire life as the meal? Let the world consume you, digest you, and be nourished by all the contributions that you came here to make. In this way, you’ll be a perfectly digested and life-giving nutritional contribution to the world body. You won’t just have energy – you’ll BE energy.

Warmly,
Emily Rosen