If you’re a busy professional with an ambitious schedule, follow the example of athletes and adopt a nutritional strategy designed for dominating the workday. Here, I will focus more on the details of how to apply it.
One of the highlights of the Motivation Diet is that it is very adaptable to social occasions and travel away from home. You can put it into practice in almost any situation. Overall, the focus here is to create a highly motivated mindset that will help you reach your workday goals. The diet provides nutrient-dense foods targeted at nourishing brain health. If you demand peak performance from your brain, you’ve got to support its physical functioning. But while focus on nutrition is essential, perhaps the best part of this plan is that every week you’ll be given a few occasions to celebrate with your favorite food and drinks.
The Motivation Diet revolves around the concept of want and reward. Putting your mind in a “want” state is the more challenging phase, but once you adapt to it, you will have a new tool in your quest for world domination. Creating want is actually easy, and it will leave you more time to work. Yes, it may require changing some habits, rethinking some assumptions and discovering a new aspect of yourself.
The three phases of the Motivation Diet are: getting hungry, maximizing nutrition and rewarding. I’ll discuss the reward phase first since it’s the most fun and a big part of the motivation. There are no forbidden foods on this program because it is not primarily geared at fat-loss but at a healthy, focused and stimulated brain. Every week you can enjoy whatever you typically enjoy at three meals. I suggest one mid-week dinner, and either two weekend dinners or one whole day of choice meals. You can be inspired to challenge yourself at other times, knowing that you are not serving a long-term sentence of deprivation. Be liberal during these meals, but don't just gorge yourself indiscriminately. Think high-end rather than fast food.
So what do you eat the rest of the week? The second phase is where you focus on maximum nutrition. I want you to think veggies first, second and then third. Don’t panic, though; you don’t need to become vegan. In fact, healthy animal protein is the other important component of maximum nutrition.
The best animal-based choices will be wild-caught salmon, grass-fed beef or buffalo, free-range poultry and eggs, and wild game meats. Most of the meals during the week need to contain a significant serving of plants. Instead of a side of steamed broccoli with a rib eye, fill up on the vegetables first and round off the meal with the meat choice. Feel free to abstain from flesh foods altogether at some meals, especially during the day, when you will want to eat lighter. Skipping meats is easier when you include starchy plant-based choices, like eggplant, squash or quinoa. The main point here is to first eat the nutrient-dense foods that best feed your brain.
It is easiest to ensure that you have plenty of vegetable-based meals when you prep at home. Vegetables are actually pretty easy to prepare, and many are available cut and pre-washed. Regardless, you don’t need much skill. If you can cut, stir-fry or roast, then you’re pretty much in business. Changing your meal plan to focus on plant-based foods doesn’t have to be complicated. It mainly requires a bit of exploration.
As I mentioned earlier, the Motivation Diet is adaptable to the road warrior. For maximum nutrition on the go, salads are usually an easy choice, but Asian restaurants offer many tasty choices: miso soup, sashimi salad, plenty of all vegetable dishes, tom yum goong. If you go this route, seek out establishments that pride themselves on quality preparation and fresh ingredients, and watch out for excessively oily sauces. High-end supermarkets now feature delis that are well-stocked with nutritious options and a plethora of plant plates. A top-quality whey protein shake is a viable snack, too.
Now let’s return to the beginning. The first step in the Motivation Diet is to get used to being hungry. To start the day, your first meal is actually no meal. Your “breakfast” will be a large glass of room-temperature water. If you enjoy coffee or tea, have it after the water. When I drink coffee, I take it black, but a little half and half is not a problem; do not add sugar or other sweetener, though. Caffeine is widely accepted as a performance enhancer, and is thus banned in many athletic competitions, but in this case it will augment the alternative energy resources you will be tapping. Additionally, tea and coffee offer a dose of antioxidants and other powerful nutrients. After your morning brew, get to work. If you are the type that gets grumpy when feeling hungry, learn to focus that aggression toward action.
Hunger is a fantastic motivator. Don’t be afraid of it. There is no need to launch a preemptive strike against it and start your day satiated. In nature, acquiring food requires a sharp mind that is attuned to dealing with the stress of hunting or fighting; you are designed to deal with stress and thrive in potentially life-threatening situations. A healthy person has enough physical resources to energise the mind and body to accomplish the task at hand successfully -- and even to go several days without food. I’m only advising a few hours of practiced yearning, though. Your body will increase production of adrenaline and noradrenaline, which will provide a clear, focused energy with which to accomplish the morning’s checklist.
Food has a powerful rewarding effect; it should provide nourishment (mostly) or celebration (occasionally). Don’t start your day with a food reward when you’ve yet to accomplish anything.
Athletes and artists are often encouraged to “stay hungry” precisely because of the acute motivation that it provides. Use that alert edge of aggression for achieving your most pressing goals. Learning to be hungry every morning does not mean that you have to starve yourself, though. When you decide to break the fast, do it with nutritious foods and smaller portions.
Pre-plan how you will break the fast once you’ve accomplished the morning’s work so that you don’t feel compelled to grab the first choice available. Bring some veggie dishes from home or look for the lighter vegetable options at a decent restaurant. Keep daytime meals light so as not to crash your energised brain with heavy digestion and leave the bigger meals until the workday is complete. Then serve up a pile of veggies and choice meats as the “side dish.”
Stay focused on all the nutritious foods you must eat, and you won’t find room for the devitalising flour, corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and other processed additives you’re avoiding. Every week you will have two or three days of rewarding food experiences, so otherwise keep your eye on the highest nutrition foods when you’re engaged in the most demanding projects. And stay hungry, my friends.
Afternoon and evening meals on the Motivation Diet
Eventually, you will have to fuel the fire of motivation you have created. Eating like a caveman is your best option, and the rules are easy to remember. Think of foods that can be hunted or gathered. While high omega-3 foods like grass-fed meats and fatty fish are peerless for building a big brain, it’s the vegetables and fruits that provide fibre, carbohydrates and loads of antioxidants, phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals. This is not a high-protein/low-carb diet or even just meat and potatoes. Your priority should be on the gathered foods rather than the hunted ones. Think of yourself as a meat-eating vegetarian.
Food for energy is an excessively rudimentary concept. If you demand the best of yourself, know that your food is material for feeding brain cells, replenishing neurotransmitters and hormones, wiring and insulating new neural connections, and recharging mitochondria (cellular energy managers). Curtail foods that compromise or don't help brain and endocrine health: wheat and refined grains, dairy products, processed foods and hydrogenated oils.
If you want to continue working in a high energy state after your first meal (lunch), keep it light. Again, focus on the veggies first and opt for a salad or stir fry (adding steak, fish, chicken, etc. is optional), or a veggie omelette without any cheese if you’re still hankering for “breakfast.” Once you’ve called it a day, enjoy a hunter-gatherer’s feast for dinner. Cavemen don’t count calories.
Drinking, socialising and the Motivation Diet
While the Motivation Diet is nutrient-dense and not necessarily low-carb, it purposely minimises today’s most ubiquitous carbohydrate foods because they tend to provide poor nutrition in relation to higher calories. You don’t want to fill yourself with empty calories daily if your goal is a higher performing brain, but the point of increased productivity and success is ultimately to enjoy life more. The primary reward of this plan is that you can reap its benefits and still cut loose on occasion.
On this “diet,” you don’t have to be afraid of going to the pub, or indulging in some gnocchi at your favourite Italian once or twice a week. These sensible celebrations provide mental relaxation, which in turn fuels stronger discipline and concentration when you need it. Physiologically, judicious use of carb revelry can also maintain healthy leptin andtestosterone production, two master hormones that promote leanness, muscle mass, libido and confidence.
Strength and weakness are divergent choices. Focus and relaxation are skills whose cultivation fuels the most enterprising of plans. The Motivation Diet provides the flexibility to be a true long-term feeding system for nourishing your highest ambitions.
No comments:
Post a Comment