Boost your morning productivity by timing your macronutrients

Good morning! You wake up, brush your teeth, get the coffee brewing and have a nice breakfast. Whether or not you decide to have your breakfast at home, in the car (for some), or even at the workplace could mean alot to how your day will come about.

You get to work and all is well and dandy until that moment where you get those appalling hunger & dosey feelings. You think to yourself that it's your "metabolism" kicking in, and you have yourself a banana or apple and another coffee to wake you up. By midday you are starving, and go on a hunger-fest all accompanied by brain fog and lack of clarity which you didn't have in the early morning.

So why is this happening?

The major reasons are type of breakfast & snacks you are having through your day in addition to coffee (or caffeine to be precise) and timing!

Let's start with the types of food you are having. Usually the typical breakfast is either some kind of cereal, bread, pastries (like croissants). When you eat anything that transforms into a simple sugar this will cause an insulin spike depending on the glycemic index of the food to regulate the amount of sugar in your blood. Without going too much into the details, this is what you call a sugar high. This is great when you want to sleep, not be productive!

Here's something to try:

• Have a protein / fat based breakfast
• Avoid all carbohydrates: starch / sugar / sugary fruits / milk (lactose)
• Things to try: Eggs, cheeses, yogurts, nuts, meats (bacon), and all green veggies

Try this for a week, this should stave off cravings and grogginess.

Coffee and caffeinated products are the second topic. At approximately 4 am every day your body starts pumping out cortisol (a stress hormone) which acts as a natural stimulant to start waking up your body from slumber. By the time you wake up in the morning for work, your body is full of cortisol to help you get up. However what you do when taking in your morning coffee is stressing your body and glands even more. This causes you to be jittery and perhaps edgy and agitated at times especially if you didn't sleep well the night before.

Try this:

• Aim to have your coffee around 3-4 hours after waking up when your cortisol levels would have dropped (say 10-11 AM)
• Don't drink caffeinated drinks especially coffee after 3PM to reduce stimulants keeping from sleeping at night
• Try to drink your coffee in portions and not all at once
• Get good quality coffee! This is important as it could cause more harm than good

Let me know how this works out for you. Give it at least a week and let me know the results! Wishing you all great and productive mornings and days to come! 

Karim