Feeding a Busy Lifestyle

Coping with busy lifestyles can be made a whole lot easier by following a few tips to ensure that you fuel up regularly with healthy food choices.

What and when we eat influences our energy levels, moods, behaviour, concentration, learning skills, resistance to disease, sleep patterns and affects our health. It really pays to understand the basics when making healthy food choices.

Health nutritionist Babi Chana BSc (Hons) and adviser to Europe's leading manufacturer of quality dietary supplements, Pharma Nord, gives some advice to help you cope with a busy lifestyle.

Eat breakfast, lunch and an evening meal.

Eating regularly maintains a steady stream of glucose into the bloodstream. Glucose is our main source of fuel, and if we are busy, then we need energy to keep active. The performance of the brain is especially dependent on glucose, so the human body has developed ways to keep blood sugar within a narrow range.

Missing meals causes blood sugar to fall too low, making us feel irritable, moody and unable to concentrate. We may feel agitated and reach for sugary snacks and stimulants such as tea, coffee, fizzy drinks and cigarettes.

Eating too many sugary, starchy or refined foods causes blood glucose to spike dangerously high leading to greater risk of diabetes, heart and circulatory disease. Constantly riding this sugar roller coaster is why people suffer highs and lows all day long, eating and craving confectionery and ultimately gaining too much weight. To make matters worse, sugary processed foods are deficient in nutrients such as vitamins and minerals and loaded with artificial chemicals. The body becomes overfed but undernourished.

If you suffer sugar cravings, the mineral chromium may curb hunger pangs as it improves blood-sugar balance. A supplement called Bio-Chromium has been approved by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for the control of blood sugar and is ten times more easily absorbed by our bodies than even the chromium found in food.

Top Tips

• PREFER natural foods that are plucked from a tree or pulled from the ground or sea.  Enjoy wholefoods such as colourful vegetables, fruits, wholegrains (rice, oats, cereals beans and pulses), oily fish, nuts, seeds and lean meats.

• LIMIT manufactured and fast foods -  Boxes and packets don't grow on trees, so check labels and avoid added sugar, salt, fried oils or chemical additives that harm the body.

• TRY A NATURAL ENERGY LIFT. Did you know that co-enzyme Q10 is responsible for 95% of our body's daily energy? Most of this vitamin-like substance is manufactured within our body, but our ability to do this decreases from the age of 25. To boost vitality, try Bio-Quinone Q10, which supports cellular energy production and promotes well-being from head to toe.

• EAT COLOURFUL CROPS AND FISH. Omega-3 healthy fats safeguard against obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, pain, inflammation, depression and improve mental performance. If you don't get enough omega-3 in your diet, supplements from the flesh of the fish are best.

• SLEEP WELL. Eating an oat-based snack before bedtime may improve sleep. A good night’s sleep will pep you up for the day ahead.