Keep Trying

I always try to take a gentle approach when it comes to myself and my health. I’ve learned that being hard on myself and trying to push myself too hard just isn’t a motivator for me, in fact it’s quite the opposite. Nothing demotivates me than saying “you must do …”, “You feel bad but keep going”, “Don’t be a quitter”, “No room for failure”. You get what I’m talking about. Failure is pretty disappointing, especially if you try hard and just didn’t meet your expectations. I’m learning that failure is just apart of life and rather than look at it in such a negative view, I tell myself I tried, I gave it a go and if I didn’t reach the goal then that’s totally ok, I can just try again.

I take this same approach when it comes to my diet and exercise. I had a bad eating day, well that’s ok, one day won’t make a difference but I know that 3 or 4 might. I didn’t exercise or I didn’t meet my workout length, that’s also fine, because at least I tried and I can always try again the next day. It’s good to learn to forgive yourself, but be careful this doesn’t turn around and become a bad habit. If one day starts turning into two then three, well you’re going to have to re-evaluate what you’re actually doing. Failure can be disheartening, but don’t let it stop you. I know how hard it is to get back up and try again, but if you’re putting in the effort then good for you for trying. All you can do is just keep trying, you will see a difference.

I’m taking this approach with myself, especially over the past week. I didn’t lose any weight but at least I didn’t gain any. I probably had a couple of days where I made bad choices and didn’t exercise every day, I also know being on my medication makes it harder to lose weight. However, I’m not giving up I just need to reassess my week and try to do better. Some good things about the week, I managed to keep my calories, most days, around 950 to 1000. I exercised 3 times during the week, which is definitely better than none. I also know I had a really tough week mentally so I’m not going to be too hard on myself.

I won’t lie, I was pretty disheartened when I saw the scales hadn’t moved. My first thought was “what was I doing wrong”. I have a really bad habit for quitting things when they get too hard, but I’m determined to not let that happen this time. I just have to keep trying because I know I’m eventually going to see results

The weigh things are

I had a bit of rough start to the week, I realised my scales were out and when I had weighed myself last was incorrect. I hopped on the scales after setting it correctly and what I saw made me feel like all my hard work had been for nothing. If I’m honest though, I have no idea what my weight was before I started so I really have no idea if I lost weight. My waist measurements don’t like though, I had definitely lost some centimetres. However, because of the mishap with the scales it put me in a bad mood for the day and I ate whatever I liked and didn’t exercise. This lasted 2 days, on the third day I thought “hold on, you can still lose something, don’t give up now” and I forced myself back on the treadmill. I won’t lie, it was agony, my whole body and mind were screaming at me saying how much it hated walking because my legs were burning. I couldn’t do an hour, but I did 40 minutes. I’ve read that the optimal length of time to exercise to lose weight is 30 to 60 minutes. So anything over 30 minutes is a bonus.

I’m trying not to be too hard on myself, especially because I know I’m entering a depressive low. I think being gentle on myself has really helped me along the way, I’m not beating myself up if I don’t exercise one day or if I have a piece of cake. After all, there is no joy in making your own life difficult.

I’m still sticking with bland foods, although I’m planning to add a bit more fresh fish and seafood to my lunch to stop it getting so repetitive. I have always heard that you should stop eating when you’re 80% full. I’ve found this really difficult in the past, but what I’m doing is working. I’m able to stop myself from overeating and I’m feeling satisfied. I never thought I’d see the day again where I was feeling satisfied.

When it comes to what actual foods I’ve been eating, well I still have the same lunch as I mentioned previously, but I plan to use some fresh fish as my protein. I’m making sure to measure my food every single time. No more than 1 cup of food. I believe my stomach has somewhat shrunk back to what it should be since I had surgery as a lot of the time I can’t eat more than 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup before I’m full.

Dinner has been pretty basic with a lot of meals containing rice or potato. I do have a hard time finding a protein to eat that I’m not getting sick of. I’m finding I get hungry quickly if I don’t include protein and the meal is just vegetables. I try to eat 1/2 cup of protein with each meal. I read somewhere that bariatric patients should always eat the protein first before filling up on other stuff. So that’s exactly what I’ve been doing and I definitely feel fuller for longer. I also eat at very set times because I know how hungry I can get by that time, for example, I always eat 8:30, 12:00 and 5:30, then no more food after that. My body has adjusted to that and I don’t really start getting hungry until close to those times.

Exercising is still a little difficult but I’m doing my best to do some. As long as I get over 30 minutes then I know I’ll feel better. Most of the time I make it between 40 minutes to an hour and I’m pretty pleased with that. Tomorrow is weigh day and measurement day so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ve made some progress. Even if I haven’t I know I’ve tried and I’m still making a difference to my body and my health. I’ll keep you updated!

A Weighty Issue

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with food. I love eating it but I hate the effects of it. The worst my relationship has been with food has been over the last few years. I gained a lot of weight due to medications I have to be on to treat my Bipolar Disorder. After 5 years of trying all sorts of diets I decided it was time to take some pretty drastic measures. I decided to get gastric sleeve surgery with a minimiser ring. I believe that I would have had better results from a gastric bypass but it decreases the absorption rate of medications so that was a no from me. I really thought it would be the answer to my prayers, but I’ve had a very rocky year and a half since surgery.

Straight off the bat I lost 30kg in 4 months, but I had so many problems with my bipolar medications that it sent me off to hospital with acute dystonia. That was caused by my antipsychotics not being adjusted for the amount of weight I had lost, this also caused me to have a manic episode. Once things had calmed down and I was slightly traumatised from all that happened, my weightloss just stopped.

I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong, I could only eat such a small amount at a time, however I went into a deep depression for a long time so exercising was not on the cards for me. My medication also took away my ability to ever feel satisfied from food, no matter how much I ate. I gave up. I feel like there just wasn’t enough information out there that could help me. So I decided to pick and choose some solutions from other people and form my own conclusions.

It’s time I took back control of my diet and my weight and finally achieve the things I had wanted from the surgery. I researched a bit here and there and came up with a few ideas. I thought I would start from scratch, teach myself to eat all over again. I set a goal, 900 to 1000 calories per day, no more than a cup of food per meal and to stick to the basics until I had learned. I thought for a while sticking to bland food will help me to start a fresh relationship with food and to take away my dependency on it and constant need for me. I sat down and came up with a simple meal plan.

Breakfast: 1/3 cup of porridge cooked in water with a dash of soy milk and honey

Lunch: 1 small/medium boiled potato or
1/2 cup of rice
1 can of tuna or salmon or a boiled egg
1 teaspoon of mayonnaise
1 Salt and pepper to taste.
1/2 cup of edamame or beans

Snacks: 1/2 cup of grapes or
1/2 an apple (I can only eat half an apple before I have trouble digesting it) or
1/2 cup of sugar free yogurt.

I ate 3 snacks a day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one later at night.

Dinner: A protein of some sort, equal to half a cup, this could be chicken, fish, tofu etc (However I found since surgery that chicken is very difficult to digest and would often get caught in my minimiser ring so stick to very moist proteins.)
1/4 cup of carbohydrates, whether this is potato, pumpkin, rice or pasta
1/4 cup of green vegetables or salad with minimal dressing.

By keeping my foods bland and basic, I was learning to feel full without the desire to over eat. My food was still tasty and I still enjoyed eating it, but delicious food made me want to eat more because I couldn’t get enough. I don’t feel like I’m missing out because I’m still eating a bit of every food group, I’m just paying much closer attention to the quantity. I should mention that my diet is mainly pescatarian since I no longer eat chicken but I consume eggs, cheese and yogurt. I drink almond milk in my coffee and have almond lattes, I also have a bit of soy in my breakfast. Making the switch was never a problem for me and I have no issues when I go out to eat.

I was worried what it would be like when I went out to eat, how would I avoid the issue of over eating and keeping my calories low. I decided that if I go out to eat, I can eat whatever I like because it’s not very often I go out to eat. However, after 2 weeks of eating this way I noticed my stomach had shrunk again and I could no longer fit more than a cup of food per meal, and sometimes that was pushing it. So eating out, I either split the meal with someone else or I just don’t finish my food. The habit and need to finish everything on your plate is a hard one to break, but you must overcome that in order to control your diet.

So I’ve got my diet under control and now I’ve got to work in some exercise. I bought a small treadmill and started at 15 minutes at 3.5kmph. Over the course of a week I bumped my time up to 20 minutes, then 30 minutes and increased my speed to 4.5kmph. In my second week, I took the plunge and made it to an hour. I had read that the optimal workout time to loose weight is 30 to 60 min. Well I’m definitely going for optimal. I also increased my speed to 5.5kmph by the end of the second week.

I decided it time to weigh myself, after avoiding it for over a year. I stopped weighing myself when I gained weight back and was completely disheartened. To my surprise, I had lost 3kg and I know its because of the past 2 weeks. I had taken my waist measurement before I started and then again when I weighed myself and I has lost 3cm. I’m seeing results. Now all I need to do is keep this up and I can achieve my goals. I just need to keep pushing myself. I’m planning to keep you updated about my progress, mainly so I can track how I’m doing, but I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.

It’s been too long

I never thought I’d see myself coming back to a blog I started so long ago and boy have things changed. I can’t believe the last time I posted was in 2014. So what’s different now? Pretty much everything

My last few posts had seen me slowly start to lose interest in things. I had started studying at that point, but what I didn’t realise is that my depression was slowly creeping back to me. Then quite quickly life became hard, really hard. I stopped getting work and money became tight. I started not wanting to turn up to my classes because I was started to get tired easily. Eventually I stopped going altogether. The thought of leaving the house was making me physically sick and the idea of driving was giving me anxiety attacks.

I remember one day I was trying to drive to my parents house and along a stretch of road I was convinced something terrible was about to happen. I ended up abruptly stopping and pulling over. Trying to hold myself together I turned my car around and drove home. Once home I collapsed on the ground in my room, unable to move and sobbing hysterically. What had my life come to? I sought relief online, I gamed and lost myself in the internet because it was just so much easier.

My mother took me away for a weekend and gave me a mini intervention between her and I. She suggested I try some antidepressants. Well, let me tell you something, don’t try new medications away from home. On our flight home, I was super on edge and tense. The medication was making me feel awful and it had triggered a bad anxiety attack. My legs were shaking and I was constantly fidgeting in my seat. We got off the plane and Mum said to “I thought I was going to have to hog tie you in the isle” and luckily we both laughed it off.

A couple months passed and I hadn’t noticed any improvements, in fact, I was getting worse. I went to see a psychiatrist, he suspected I could be bipolar so he tried me on a high dose of antidepressants. He said it is the easiest way to see if someone is bipolar as they react differently to it. It took 3 days and what do you know, it sent me into a psychosis like state. My thought’s raced, the body wouldn’t stop fidgeting and I was convinced people were looking and laughing at me.

The experience got me thinking, it had me looking for signs through out my life that could support this diagnosis. I had definitely been through lows and I thought my highs were normal and that’s what life is. I thought harder, back to high school. I had always been a pretty happy teenager but I could get into some really foul moods, my family and I used to laugh it off and said that I am a “typical Gemini” able to switch easily between mood. I’m surprised no one picked up on it back then. Then I had a long period of severe depression.

This was all followed by a long high. When I look back at it, I can recognise it easily. I thought I was the best person in the world, no one is better than me. I thought I was so smart and every single one of my opinions was right. I thought I was the best looking person around and I’d be annoyed if I didn’t get the attention I thought I deserved. Mix this with some alcohol and I lost the filter on my mouth and said anything that came to mind, no matter how upsetting it was to someone.

I returned to my psychiatrist, received my diagnosis and began one of the longest journeys  I’ve ever been on. Medication seemed to only help until a certain point, I was taking 10 pills per day at one time. I had suicidal thoughts for years and medication changes and adjustments constantly. The weight I gained from the medications was ridiculous, pushing me to the heaviest I’ve ever been.

My life during this consisted of loosing contact with all the friends I cared about, again. Loosing a long term relationship and moving back into my mother’s house. Then something changed. I had major surgery to remove a growth from my middle ear and the entire midden and inner ear being removed. I posted this on Facebook and an old friend reached out to me, not just any old friend, my best friend who I had hurt had reached out to me. I was shocked.  I lost my grandparents not long after and once again, she reached out to me.

I made a deal, this time I would actively work hard to maintain and grow this friendship again. To my surprise, another friend reached out to me. I could have cried, I had missed them so much. It’s like the world around me was starting to brighten slowly,  I was smiling for no reason. My heart was starting to lighten. I had spent so long paranoid everyone hated me, so I never did the things I wanted to do because I was trying to make others happy. Then my friend said me to “just do it, you’re a grown up”. A light switched on, I am a grown up. I can do what I like and I can do what makes me happy. So what did I do, now that I realised I can make myself happy? I went and got pierced and tattooed.

I was finally doing the things I had wanted to do for years and I can tell you that I feel better about myself a little more each day. Regardless of my weight, I was starting to not feel embarrassed about my looks and just being whoever I wanted. I’m in no means “cured” and I still have really hard days, but I know there are good days now, more than before and it gives me enough strength to keep going and keep wanting more.

I hope I can maintain this blog more, I think writing can be like therapy. Anything that helps along the way is a bonus. Thanks for reading my mini novel! Hopefully it won’t be so depressing from here on out.

Two posts in one day! Look Out!

We all know how much I love to bake, and so far this year I haven’t made too many, especially the creative shaped cakes. So when it came up to my birthday I decided to make my cake, this year’s theme was Tea! Now I don’t know if I need to remind you how obsessed I am with tea at the moment.  A teapot cake is very me and I wanted a bit of a challenge! So I started out with 2 plain vanilla butter cakes, dyed pink and a little extra vanilla added, for the filling and crumb coating I used a vanilla and frangelico butter cream and then for the final layer I used a strawberry frosting. I baked it in the same tin I used to make a boob cake for my partner last year to get it rounded. Once baked I tried both cakes to have the thickest part flat to I could stick them together, as well as one cake was cut down to be a bit shorter to allow to for curved teapot shape with a flat bottom rather than a ball.

I rolled out my fondant and cut a few pieces off to make the handle and the spout. Once I shaped the spout (which was pretty difficult) and the handle I placed them into the freezer to harden. Lifting the fondant carefully, I then covered my cake and smoothed it out as best as I could and cut off the excess. Using toothpicks I attached the handle and the spout and piped on the decorative finishes. I did attempt to make a tea pot lid but it looked awful so I ate it. Instead I piped a circle of strawberry frosting and flooded the circle with some white royal icing and added a blue ball of fondant.

By this stage I had so much cake left over and heaps of fondant, I decided to try my hand at make a cup and saucer. All I had left of the cake were off cuts, I crumbed the mixture and added a fair amount of frosting and mixed them together, this made a sort of cake-like goo. Using a teacup I moulded the cake-goo to the cup and placed it in the freezer. I took the matching saucer and pressed some fondant around it to get the general shape and placed it in the freezer to harden.

One they had hardened, I popped the cake out of the cup and it has set into a really moist looking cake and held it’s shape. That was then covered with fondant leave the top open to pipe in some frosting on top. The saucer didn’t come out the best but it did the job!

I have never attempted a teapot cake before this by far is my favourite one that I’ve made!

You can drink that now?

I’ve been completely fascinated recently on finding out the effect that different types of tea have on our body. For a while I only ever had standard tea like English breakfast and I’ve always enjoyed it and still do, I especially love it when I’m sick and it’s only then that I ever add sugar to tea. So where am I going with this, well I’ve moved on to bigger better tea with more variety and flavours. Most of us know by now that drinking chamomile tea has a calming and relaxing effect on us, we know that peppermint tea helps to ease stomach problems, lemon and ginger for a sore throat, but there are so many others out there that are beneficial for the body as well.

While having a chat to my mother about my latest favourite tea (sounds thrilling doesn’t it?) She mentioned she had tried rose tea, I was like “What? You can drink roses now?” My first thought was how is that even remotely beneficial for your body, I don’t know if anyone else feels the same but I honestly thought roses in food were like some sort of decoration, serving no nutritional benefits at all. I was curious though as to what it does, as well as, what it would taste like. I’ve had trouble finding food grade roses to make my own and I wouldn’t use roses from the florist because those will be covered in pesticides, so I tried the next best thing I could find. I purchased a packet of Madame Flavour’s ‘White with Rose’ tea and I’m in love! As I’m typing this I am sipping away on some. I can taste the rose, not as strong as the tea flavour, but it is there and it smells divine. The tea is made up of Pai Mu Tan which is a white tea from China, rose flavouring and rose petals.  There isn’t as many rose petals as I thought that would be in there, maybe one or two petals per bag. Needless to say I still love it and it’s still bursting with nutritional goodness.

I can see it ticking over in your head “What’s so great about it, hurry up and get to the point”. Well here it goes, white tea is said to contain up to 30% more polyphenols than green tea or black tea.  Polyphenols are antioxidants and there are over 4000 different types of them.  Most of the stronger ones are anti-inflammatory and help to neutralise free radicals in the body.  White tea is also known to restore fluid balance in the body, accelerate the metabolism as well as having antibacterial properties. Woo hoo for White Tea!

Rose tea also has wonderful benefits on the body, as well as being anti-inflammatory, it aids in sinus relief, fights against infection as well as relieves bloating, diarrhoea, gastro, depression, insomnia and fatigue. After all that it also aids in pain relief from menstrual cramps! Turns out there is a legitimate reason women like and more importantly need flowers! There are also quite a few scientific studies showing positive results on the body from drinking rose tea. The only warning I have to give is if you drink too much rose tea it will have a laxative effect on the body…. Don’t ask me how I know this……

If you by chance have some food grade rose petals hanging around here’s how you can make your own:

2 cups of fresh fragrant rose petals
3 cups of water
Honey to taste

Clip and discard white bases from the rose petals, rinse thoroughly and dry.
Simmer in water for 5 minutes or until the petals have darkened
Remove from heat and strain into tea cups, add honey to taste.

Let me know if you have tried to make your own rose tea or have a better recipe than mine, I’d love to know!

I’ll be back soon!!!

Wow it’s been a long time; I really didn’t mean to leave it so long! I guess life just got in the way. So it’s been about 6 months since I wrote my last post so I’ll briefly fill you in. I’ve since gone back to study full time doing a Bachelor of Nutritional Medicine. I finally stopped procrastinating and did it and I can honestly say it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I feel alive and happy. I never realised how much a person can thrive on learning, I swear my brain is growing. I’m just about to finish my first semester and have learnt so much, I can’t even believe that the amount of stuff I remember!

I’m really looking forward to starting my next semester where I learn about food nutrition and can’t wait to share what I learn with you. One thing I am absolutely certain of is that I don’t want to stop here. I want more than this degree can offer me so after I finish my 3 year degree I’m going to go on and do a Masters of Nutrition and Dietetics and who knows from there. I have so many options to choose from and I’m sure I will change my mind probably 100 times in the next few years, but at least I’m starting it.

I’ve really enjoyed learning about the history of medicine and the history of natural therapies and I’m really excited to share with you some of the research I’ve been doing over the semester. I’m just trying to find my footing and work out where I want this blog to go and in which direction to take it. If you have any suggestions I’d love to hear it. I’d to keep sharing recipes with you and any tips and tricks I learn along the way.  So I’ll keep this brief today and spend the next few days coming up with a few new posts and look forward to the future of this blog!

Thanks for sticking around! I’ll be back in full force very soon!

Cheers for Chia!

My mother’s chia pudding

I’ve been meaning to use more chia seeds but somehow have never got around to it. So I’m determined this week to try to include more in my diet, I’ve been looking around online to find different ways to include them so I thought I’d share with you what I have found so far. First of all I’ll give you a bit of an explanation as to what chia seeds are.

Chia seeds are amazing; I don’t know why they’re not used more! Just a tablespoon of chia seeds contain more protein than a glass of milk and is packed full of Omega -3 fatty acids. A serving of chia seeds has 18% of the recommended daily intake for calcium, which puts you well on your way to maintaining bone and oral health, and preventing osteoporosis. There are so many more reasons to include chia into your diet.

Chia is so easy to include into your meals and there are some great recipes out there where chia is the main ingredient. Try adding them to smoothies, porridge and yogurt. You can grind the seeds and mix them into pancake mixture.

To make Chia pudding simply mix with almond, soy or coconut milk, a few raw oats, sultanas, goji berries and vanilla xylitol or other sugar free sweetener.

They don’t have to just be used for sweet foods as well. You can put them in to breads, soups, stews to thicken and mixed into stir fry and pasta dishes.

They’re so versatile; you can add them to pretty much anything. I’m looking forward to experimenting over the next few days to see what I can come up with.

mmm food like products

I was doing some research on portion control and the sizing of dinner plates over the years. I was so shocked at seeing the size difference! In the 60’s the average dinner plate was on average 21.5 cm’s in diameter, to give you some comparison the average dinner plate has grown to a whopping 30.5 cm! That’s a foot! Dinner plates have even turned into a more bowl shape so we can pile more on to it, but it’s not just dinner plates that have grown. Standing drinking glasses and cutlery have also grown. Why has this been happening?

The general consumer is always look for more food for less money and the manufacturers are more than willing to give this to us. So over time as we continue to look for more, companies have been increasing the size of food for less money. Do you know what else is increasing, our waistlines. How can food prices go down when they’re increasing the size, well it usually means nutrition is going down too. So now not only are we getting bigger, but now our food is giving us less nutrients. Companies have to modify the food we eat with chemicals, processing, additives and preservers to bulk out our food and to make it last longer. This is something we all know by now and yet, which I find quite funny, we still consume them because they’re cheap, the problem being is now we’re not consuming food any more but food like products. So while we are stuck in the cycle our food size is going to continue to grow along with our waists.

By now you should get the gist of why things have increased. We also eat with our eyes, our appetite is easily stimulated by looking at delicious tasty food with lots of colour and freshness and by filling our plate we feel compelled to eat it and finish it. Did you know that using a smaller plate you’d feel just as satisfied and you’d also put less on your plate.

The correct portion size is pretty easy to remember. A piece of protein should be about the size of a deck of cards, starchy vegetables and food likes pasta and rice should be about the size of a tennis ball. I’ve been using The Waitplate Systems which includes the perfect size portion templates. It has a protein template, bread, pizza, cake, starchy carbs and dressing, fats and oils. This has been helping me to take the guess work out and giving me back control of the amount of food I’m eating.

The templates along with the portion control plate and cutlery, which have also been made smaller, give you complete control. The portion control all works in conjunction with the unique chew timer which aims to slow down your eating and how quickly you chew.

I was going through a few forums online where people were talking about the changes in size on crockery and I came across and excellent saying, “To be a 1960’s size you must use 1960’s crockery!” I love it and I personally plan to adapt this! It finally means I can use all my antique china that I have collected. Another person made an excellent point, special occasion meals were served on larger plates, so at one point in time we’ve adapted special occasion portions for every day. Finally food was never piled to the edge of the plate, the rim of the plate is supposed to clear of food; this is why chefs wipe the edges clean.  However, I agree with what one woman posted saying that in days gone by, it was probably because the masters of the house didn’t want their servant’s fingers in their food!

Quick get me a coffee… STAT!

One thing we seem to be trying to get in our lives is more energy; we talk supplements, drink coffee, have energy drinks and are constantly looking for ways to get more.  I thought we’d look at a few different ways to get some energy with having to resort to calorie, sugar laden energy supplements. As I was researching for this I came across a website that was talking about an energy boost called “sugar rush” It was simply 18 Jelly Belly Jelly Beans blended together! Oh my goodness! That is certainly not the way to get long lasting energy!

Sometimes 8 hours of solid sleep is not enough to keep us going all day as we lead hectic fast paced lives, rushing from one to the next. Then we get worn out and look for something to give us a boost. Without thinking a lot of us will reach for coffee, energy drinks and snacks high in calories, sugar and carbohydrates. While tired you’re more likely to snack and look for these foods than choose something like fresh produce or nuts. Sugar and carbs, although these provide energy and fast, it is often very short lived, causing you to consume even more.

If you find yourself reaching for that snack why not try a banana or an apple with some peanut butter. The fructose takes longer to metabolise in our bodies than processed sugar and the peanut butter provides a longer lasting form of energy.

Not all carbs are bad; some complex carbohydrates like whole grains and beans are some of the best long lasting energy boosters out there that make you feel full at the same time. Try some whole grain crackers with some hummus.

If lacking energy leads to crave sweet things, avoid the sugar which gives you a short time high but an awful sugar crash and swap it for something like Greek yoghurt, muesli and berries. A small serving of this will cure those sweet cravings and supply you with long lasting energy and leaving you feel satisfied.

Eggs are fantastic! A boiled egg in the afternoon help you stay awake is a good idea! Eggs are packed full of protein and offer nearly the same benefits as lean meat, including B vitamins, iron and protein

Sometimes all you need is to move. A brisk walk outside will give you a boost in energy and a fresh air to blow away the cobwebs that start forming in your head when you get tired. Finally, try a glass of cool water with a slice of lemon. Dehydration can lower your metabolism and your energy levels. The lemon provides some vitamin c, or you  can try coconut water which has extra electrolytes and potassium.

So next time you’re looking for an energy boost, why not swap the energy drink for something more substantial and sustaining!