How to Structure Your Eating for Better Energy & Performance

Many people know what to eat…

But fewer know when to eat.

Some people experiment with intermittent fasting to simplify their routines — and it can work for the right person.

But for many, structure beats restriction.

Over the years there have been lots of ideas and fads surrounding the topic of when is the best time to eat.  And like most everything in the Wellness space, the optimal timing will vary wildly from person to person.  The key to figuring out what works best, like I've mentioned before, is the awareness of what you're currently doing and paying attention to the signals your body and mind are already sending you.  If you think that meal timing might be a challenge for you, the key things to pay attention are your hunger cues, energy levels, and mental acuity.  Based on that information, you can start to piece together where sliding a meal might help, or adding in an additional meal or snack would curb the cravings and eliminate energy crashes.  The goal of meal timing is to stabilize and even out not only your hunger but also keep your energy levels consistent such that you don't have any of those dreaded nose dives.

What does this look like in application?  Typically for most people this ends up as 3 spaced meals with some sort of an afternoon snack mixed in there, or possibly a fourth meal.  Of course, this will all vary based on training loads and work schedules but that is the general pattern that seems to benefit most people.    Having a loose structure like this during that day not only stabilizes hunger and energy, but it also keeps insulin levels more consistent and helps limit over-eating.  This also allows for more consistently hitting macro targets, especially protein, as you're not struggling to catch up late in the day. You'll also want to adjust this based not only your logistical schedule but any sort of training needs and can vary on a daily basis.

One concept that comes up frequently with meal timing is centered around not eating too late in the evening, or too close to going to sleep. For most people, this is a pretty decent guideline to follow - but like everything, there are possible exceptions. The main idea is that digesting food while trying to sleep doesn't lead to as productive sleep, however there is some variance here. So, if your schedule lines up or seems to work out that you're eating late - pay attention to how you sleep and feel, and try running your own test to see what differences you notice when you do or don't eat late. Personally, eating late does not bother me, but I know others that it can absolutely tank their sleep.

Another frequent comment I hear from people is that they struggle to eat breakfast or aren't hungry until later in the day. This is usually a more involved conversation but typically I do recommend people having something close to when they first wake up in the morning. A couple options if you really struggle eating in the mornings would be to include some protein powder with your morning coffee, or sliding your meals such that your snack comes during the typical breakfast time. I will do a complete post on this as I do feel strongly that breakfast is very helpful and also has more nuance then I can cover in a paragraph.

Intermittent Fasting (IF) is another common trend these days and many swear by it as a way to lose weight. IF centers around the idea of only eating during certain periods of the day, and if you think about it almost all of us naturally do this due to our sleep patterns. The main benefit of IF is that it is a simple way to reduce caloric intake, and that is the main driver with any sort of weight loss. However, as with all restrictive habits, it can lead to over eating as well as creating a more adversarial relationship with food, as opposed to eating to support and nourish your body. IF can be a useful tool, but should be used sparingly and with consistent awareness to best understand how your body is responding to the changes.

Meal timing doesn’t have to be complicated.

Build consistency. Fuel earlier. Match intake to your day.

IF can be a tool — but the real goal is finding a rhythm that supports how you live, train, and perform.

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The Most Underrated Performance Tool: Sleep

Sleep is the highest ROI habit in health.

One extra hour can boost focus, regulate hormones, and even improve training outcomes.

Here’s how to start improving your sleep tonight — and what happens when you don’t.

Most people I work with have an understanding or a desire to improve either their sleep quality or the amount of sleep they get, but struggle to effectively make a change.  Like I mentioned in my previous post on Nutrition, awareness is the key first step.  Start a sleep log - paper, electronic, or via an app, doesn't matter at this stage, and start to look for trends to target.  But, something you can start tonight that will make a difference and build towards better sleep hygiene - before you try to go to sleep, take 5 minutes for the following:

• Put your phone/tablet/laptop down for the night

• Focus on your breathing, taking deep controlled breaths

• Reflect on your day, focus on the good things of the day to help calm the nervous system and relax

• Think about 1 thing you want to do tomorrow.  This isn't about creating your to-do list, or run through your calendar, but 1 tangible thing you want to do better tomorrow.  Maybe this is walking more during the day, taking the stairs, drinking more water, picking fruit for a snack and not the candy, or whatever small tangible step seems plausible to accomplish.  And then check in on your progress with that the next night.

What does this 5 minutes get you?  It starts you on the path to establishing a night time ritual that you can build on that doesn't have to be overly complex.  It simply needs to be a series of things you do (ideally around the same time each night) that helps you signal your body that it is time to sleep.  As you progress on the journey towards better sleep, there are lots of other things you can look to change, but for now, start small and build momentum. Another simple (not necessarily easy though) step to take that you can implement immediately, start reframing sleep from something you need to do to prevent the negative impacts, towards an attitude that embraces the restorative and supercharging benefits more productive sleep provides.

I know many live by the "I'll sleep when I'm dead" mantra, and I lived that way for a while too, but at some point that lack of sleep will come back around. Lack of sleep is one of the biggest stressors you can subject your body to, so it will dramatically limit your ability to perform as well as fight off any illnesses or injuries. The mental impact sometimes is hard to recognize as so often we've gotten used to the feelings and don't really appreciate it until we start getting CONSISTENT good sleep. Also it is hard to compare the impact on our body as there isn't a great way to quantitatively compare what it could be if we were getting better sleep. Some wearables can help address this and provide some insights, I personally have been using Whoop for almost 5 years now and have a pretty good feel how impactful sleep is on my mental and physical performance. However, there are numerous studies that look at exactly that - the dramatic impacts poor sleep has on your mental performance and capacity, as well as your physical performance. Physically it is even more damaging as the lack of sleep not only diminishes your performance but it will also prevent you from absorbing the same amount of your training such that you see reduced gains from your daily (or however frequently you work out) efforts. I could go on talking about the negative aspects, but honestly that list is VERY long!

Not only will you see the opposite of the above problems when you start getting consistently solid sleep, but you will also start to notice long term trends as well. The big health metrics - things like body fat percentage, blood pressure, and metabolism will all trend better as you work on your sleep quality. This is not only due to the short term impacts, but while we sleep the body has the opportunity to recover and repair itself. This recovery and repairing then compounds with your training load to create a very powerful healthy stress, recover, and adapt cycle that allows your brain and body to best leverage the hard work you're doing.

To summarize the last two paragraphs simply - progressing towards healthier sleep is the single best way to supercharge your tomorrow. It is one of the harder changes to make, but the benefits can be life changing.

Sleep is the foundation — not the reward — for your hard work.

You don’t earn it after performing; you build everything from it.

Small changes tonight can create measurable improvements in your energy, focus, and recovery tomorrow.

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The Smarter Way to Begin Any Nutrition Shift

The most important part of any successful, healthy diet isn't the macro distribution or what foods are added or removed, the magic is in the awareness of what you're trying to accomplish, how you feel about the food you're eating, and how your body responds to those foods. That awareness will allow you to more accurately monitor whatever phase of life you want to shift towards, losing weight for that summer vacation, building muscle to compete with your buddies, or fuel your next endurance event.

To start this process, you'll want to add to your daily routine a few questions around each meal or snack you eat. You don't need to over think these, just a word or two is fine:

• What did you eat, don't worry about measuring or weighing (yet). Pictures are fine.

• A general idea of the time (or reference the time stamp on your picture)

• How you felt before you ate, what you were feeling while you eat, and how you felt afterward. Again, this doesn't need to be a long dissertation, just a sentence or so for each.

• Where you ate is also important as well as the other things that may have been present. This would include watching TV, scrolling on your phone, out with friends, at the table with family, or other such locations and events could be applicable here.

Keep up this log for 3-5 days and it is best if you can span a weekend as most people usually have a variance in their weekend and weekday routines. Keep this record in whatever medium makes the most sense for you. This could be a notebook, a blank email, text app, or using one of the many tracking apps available on your phone. At this stage of the process, the specific tracking mechanism isn't as important as the insights you gleam. If you decide to continue this process for a longer period of time, it may make sense to move to something more tailored to your goals.

Based on your observations, there may be some trends you can pull out into some actions. Start with making one change and working to sustain that for a couple of weeks before looking to change anything further. Think about what change you feel 90% confident you'll be able to implement on a daily basis for the next 2 weeks. This is important for 3 reasons:

1. making a single change is easier in practice and for the brain to accept. It also makes sustaining that change easier going forward.

2. With only a single change, you can track what works and what doesn't. If you make 10 changes all at once it becomes almost impossible to understand what is helping and what might be making things worse.

3. Picking something you feel confident in not only will allow you to build momentum, but typically after 2 weeks of doing a specific task, it becomes a habit.

Some examples of actions based on what you observed:

• If there's a particular meal you're struggling with, one option is to add some calories to a drink - protein in your coffee might be something to try.

• Another suggestion is to think about meal prepping something specific for a meal. This might be some sort of bulk breakfast like overnight oats, casserole, or muffins, or a larger portion of a protein, like chicken, beef, or pork that you could quickly add to a rice bowl or wrap for lunches and/or dinners.

• If you notice you have energy dips, pay attention to the meal preceding that dip. You could add in a snack if there's a large time gap, or see if there's something missing from that previous meal. Look to maybe add some carbs for energy to a larger protein meal, or some protein (even some fat) to a pure carb meal.

• If you notice that you're hungry late at night, or first thing in the morning then take a look at your dinner. Perhaps adding in some more filling calories like protein or fat or more fiber to boost the satiation of the meal.

• This will also give you a idea around your general daily calorie intake as you may notice it is either significantly higher then you expected or lower which could be a factor in either struggles with weight management or energy levels.

Whatever change you end up deciding on, stick with that for at least a week, aware of the same questions you were before, but also pay attention to things like your mood, sleep, and energy levels such that you can better understand if this change helped and in what ways. This process can be repeated as frequently as you feel makes sense for where you are and where you what your goals are. It will also make sense to have a sustaining period where you keep everything the same, this allows you to verify that the changes you've made are showing the results you expect and want.

If you feel like having someone guide you through this process, this is exactly what I do for my clients and the process looks very similar if we decide to tackle something besides nutrition like your strength training, sleep habits, or stress management.

And remember, sustainable change doesn’t start with restriction. It starts with awareness.

See the patterns. Make one shift. Build momentum

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