Most massage therapists know about healthy eating—yet, while the idea is always there, the implementation of an eating-for-energy meal plan is sometimes the problem. Here are five simple ways to improve eating habits and keep energy levels high.
1. Plan Ahead
It’s easy to get lost in the menu at your favorite restaurant. Many people don’t go into a restaurant with a plan on what they will have to eat. Any time you go out to eat, you must have a plan. Before going out to eat, you can access the restaurant’s nutrition menu to see what fits your healthy eating.
Aside from having a plan when you go into a restaurant, having a plan for your daily meals will help get you through when faced with unhealthy options. Many people who meal-plan and meal-prep successfully avoid the temptations of office doughnuts or other unexpected junk food.
Their success comes from having access to food they’ve already prepared. A prepared person knows they will have their whole-grain oats for breakfast. The doughnut is no longer as much of a temptation.
2. Track Your Food
A food journal involves more than just writing down what you’ve eaten. A food journal will write down what you eat and how you feel when eating. Journaling this way can help you deal with emotional eating. Food journaling can also help you identify triggers that cause you to dive into a half-gallon of Chunky Monkey ice cream.
Tracking what I ate for a week brought to light things I would never have noticed otherwise. While journaling, I realized I would overeat between 4 and 7 p.m. on the days I didn’t have food with me or didn’t have time to eat.
I also found the foods that gave me an off feeling. Once you notice even the slightest discomfort certain foods provide, you also notice foods that make you feel great. These slight discomforts are easily overlooked, meaning you could go a lifetime without ever noticing your body trying to tell you it doesn’t work optimally when you eat certain foods.
3. Balance Meals
Can you think of a time when you ate a meal only to be hungry again in an hour or two? This familiar feeling can be avoided by eating a balanced meal.
A balanced meal includes the macronutrients your body needs for essential function. These macronutrients are carbohydrates, proteins and fat. When each of these categories is included in a meal, it’s balanced and keeps you full longer.
Carbohydrates are all types of fruits and vegetables—and here are some other options for carbs to include in your meals:
• Grains, including oats, brown rice, quinoa, and barley
• Whole-grain bread, whole-wheat pasta
• Beans, lentils, and peas
• Sweet potatoes
Protein allows your body to grow, build and repair tissues, and protect muscle mass.
The following foods contain protein:
• Meats, poultry, and fish
• Legumes
• Tofu
• Eggs, milk, and milk products
• Nuts and seeds
• Some grains, like quinoa, are known for their excellent protein content.
Fat allows you to store energy, cushion organs, make certain hormones and helps with cell membrane integrity. Fat gets a bad name because it’s the highest in calories and certain types of fat are not good for us.
A gram of carbohydrate or protein is four kcals, and a gram of fat is nine kcals. Seeing those numbers illustrates the increase of calories per fat gram, but it is crucial to get healthy fats into your diet.
Here is a short list of healthy fats to incorporate into your eating-for-energy meal plan:
• Avocado
• Olive oil
• Nuts, chia seeds
• Salmon and other fatty fish
• Whole eggs
Eat fat in the right amounts, and you will limit cravings and feel full longer.
Fiber. Don’t forget the fiber in your eating-for-energy meal plan. Fiber is found in fruits, vegetables, and many of the foods listed above. Fiber also keeps you feeling full longer and helps promote a healthy gut.
Make each meal balanced by choosing a portion of food from each macro category and enjoy sustained energy all day long.
4. Prepare
Following a few of the guidelines listed below will increase success in eating habits.
Grocery shopping tips: When grocery shopping, skip the center aisles of your local grocery store. Most grocery stores are laid out similarly. Fresh produce, meat, dairy, and grains are all located on the perimeter of the supermarket. The more processed foods and junk food of all varieties are located in the inner isles of the store.
Healthy foods on your list will be in the center isles, like whole grain bread, quinoa, brown rice, and canned legumes. Having a list and buying the foods you came for in the center isles helps prevent impulse buys of lower-nutrient foods. The idea is to choose most of your groceries from the store’s perimeter. You can quickly increase your healthy, whole foods intake by changing your shopping habits.
Prep it: Once the healthy items are in the house, take a couple of hours to prep the food for easy grab-and-go during the workweek. This is a key part of your eating-for-energy meal plan.
• Wash and chop veggies
• Cook batches of protein (chicken, ground beef or turkey, pork chops)
• Hard boil some eggs
• Wash lettuce or greens for salads
• Defrost frozen veggies if needed
• Wash canned beans and store them in the refrigerator
You can pre-portion the protein and store it in containers for easy add-ins or assemble whole meal grab-n-go containers.
With this preparation, you will be ready for the entire week with high-quality food items instead of fast food or no food when you need to eat at work.
For the days when you see client after client and there is no meal break, have healthy foods on hand to keep your energy high and your body feeling great.
What to eat when there’s no time:
• A handful of almonds
• String cheese
• An apple
• Cottage cheese with fruit
• A hard-boiled egg
• Whole-grain crackers with almond butter
5. Eat with Purpose
Most massage therapists like the idea of taking care of their bodies. Eating habits created during childhood may need a mindset shift to begin to change. Try changing your mindset to eating with purpose.
How often have you put something in your mouth because it was available, even though you weren’t hungry? Or put something into your mouth out of habit, without tasting it. What about grabbing food on the go and settling for lower-quality food?
We’re all guilty of this. Healthy eating aims to be aware and choose foods for a purpose as you develop an eating-for-energy meal plan
Food has a purpose. Each food item reacts differently with our body. With ever-changing physiology, a food that complimented our body previously may not do so later in life.
Focusing on choosing foods with purpose and eating for energy makes it easier to make good choices about what we eat.
These small steps may hardly seem noticeable at first. Once you get into the habit of doing these things daily, the small changes add up to very noticeable changes in your eating habits. The goal of utilizing these behavior techniques is to get you to a happy, healthy eating place.
[Watch a free webinar: Best Body Mechanics with Angela Lehman, The FitMT, here.]
About the Author
Angela Lehman is a massage therapist of 25 years turned online educator, promoting fitness and nutrition for massage therapists. She runs The Fit MT. With her kinesiology degree specialized in nutrition, she trains therapists in healthy eating, exercise and body mechanics to prolong their careers. Search massagemag.com to read her The Fit MT column on topics including body mechanics, gut health and more.