Shift your focus from food aesthetics (like weight or an ‘Instagrammable body’) to how food fuels your body for energy and performance in daily life.
Develop a foundational understanding of how your body’s metabolism converts different foods into energy, moving beyond superficial nutrition advice to make informed choices.
Take time to write down your personal goals and the deep motivation behind them, ensuring they are strong enough to inspire consistent action in your training and eating habits.
Move beyond habitual eating by consciously planning your meals and snacks based on your daily activities and energy demands, ensuring you consume the right fuel to sustain your performance.
Avoid dietary approaches that completely eliminate entire nutrient or food groups, as such restrictions are generally not sustainable or practiced by elite athletes for optimal performance.
Understand that effective nutrition is about applying core principles and guidelines, allowing you to achieve health goals regardless of specific dietary preferences (e.g., vegan, carnivore) or cultural choices.
When building a plate, start with a portion of protein, then add slower-releasing, lower GI carbohydrates (adjusting quantity based on activity), and finally, fill the rest with ‘protection foods’ like vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats.
Actively include a wide variety of ‘protection foods’ (vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats) in your meals, as they provide essential antioxidants, phytonutrients, vitamins, and minerals crucial for immune system function and tissue health.
Ensure sufficient protein intake throughout the 24-hour period, including in snacks and meals, especially after resistance training, to support muscle adaptation, recovery, growth, and repair.
Recognize that muscle mass is a key predictor of longevity, and after age 30, actively work to preserve it through adequate protein intake and activity, especially if sedentary, to ensure well-being as you age.
Resist the mindset of resigning yourself to reduced activity with age; instead, adopt an aspirational message that you can continue to perform and ‘stress your body in the right way’ at any age to fight against aging.
On active days with training, consume more lower glycemic index carbohydrates (e.g., basmati rice, quinoa) for fuel; on less active days, opt for a ‘maintenance meal’ with lower carbs, more protein, and vegetables, as you don’t need extra fuel if sitting around.
Immediately apply the principle of demand-based fueling: consume more lower GI carbohydrates on active days, and opt for ‘maintenance meals’ with more protein and vegetables on less active days when your body requires less fuel.
Adjust your weekend meals based on your activity: opt for higher protein, lower carb ‘maintenance meals’ on quiet days at home, and incorporate more ‘fueling meals’ with carbohydrates on days with long walks or exercise classes.
Treat your daily ‘dose’ of exercise, whether it’s strength training, cardio, or simply increasing your step count, as an immovable health appointment by scheduling it in your diary and protecting that time for yourself.
Before embarking on new health programs, manage your environment by ensuring you have the necessary tools and setup (e.g., exercise gear, appropriate kitchenware) to support your ‘winning behaviors’ and facilitate positive changes.
Master the basic principles of sleep hygiene rather than seeking quick fixes like pills or potions, as solid fundamentals are essential for improving sleep quality.
Reflect on your daily lifestyle to identify any ‘red flags’ or unconscious habits that might be negatively impacting your sleep, as often just a few small tweaks can significantly improve your ability to sleep at night.
Be practical about managing sleep loss, especially during demanding periods like travel or intense work, by actively ‘banking in time’ for catch-up sleep to aid recovery before focusing on other interventions like nutrition.
Dedicate 15 minutes each week to review your nutrition, caffeine strategy, and overall well-being from the previous week, then plan for the week ahead to refine your approach and prevent one bad week from turning into two.
Recognize caffeine as an ergogenic aid that can improve cognitive and physical performance, but be specific about understanding and managing your personal dose and timing, as amounts vary widely in commercial coffees.
Be mindful that caffeine, while potent for performance, is a ‘double-edged sword’ that can unknowingly disrupt sleep and lower energy levels, especially when intake increases during stressful periods.
To better understand caffeine’s effects on your energy and performance, standardize your daily dose (e.g., using a coffee capsule machine with known milligrams) rather than consuming wildly variable amounts from different sources.
To avoid sleep disruption due to caffeine’s long half-life, aim to consume your caffeine intake before noon.
When using caffeine for performance, carefully balance its benefits for cognitive function with potential negative impacts on sleep and recovery, especially if subsequent performance demands quick recovery time.
Consciously plan and ’nail’ your pre-performance nutrition routine, including what and when you eat and drink (like caffeine), as this small intervention can significantly enhance your performance in critical moments.
If you have evening events or performances, ensure you eat a meal beforehand to provide sustained energy, which can also prevent late-night eating and subsequently improve sleep quality.
Don’t feel the need to completely overhaul your diet; even a small, single change to one meal can have a significant positive impact on your performance and overall well-being.
View protein powders as a convenient supplement to fill nutritional gaps, especially when traveling or fresh protein sources are unavailable, but always prioritize a ‘food first’ approach rather than using them as meal replacements.
If unable to get all nutrition from food, consider taking a nutrient-dense whole food supplement like Athletic Greens each morning as an ‘insurance policy’ to meet nutritional needs.
Understand that your body uses both fat and carbohydrates as fuel, preferring fat for lower intensity activities and carbohydrates for higher intensity; feeding it both ensures a healthy metabolism.
If experiencing low energy, sign up for Dr. Chatterjee’s free six-part video series at drchatterjee.com/energy to learn how to increase energy and get more out of life.
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