How to Increase Energy Levels
Many people want to know how to increase energy levels, and for good reason. Everything you do, on every level, requires expenditure of energy.
If you want to heal or accomplish anything, you want to increase your energy to a level that can make the dream a reality. Marketers provide various pills and potions that they claim will increase your energy, but most of these don't work, and getting more energy often requires a different perspective.
To increase energy levels, you need to provide your self with the proper fuels and rest, but you must also eliminate from your diet and lifestyle things that drain your energy.
Imagine you want to accumulate water in a bowl, but the bowl has a bunch of holes in it. No matter how much you increase the water supply, you will keep losing it through the leaks that drain it away. Just so, if you want to increase your energy supply, often you will need to increase the supply and also plug the leaks.
Carb Up!
Food can provide our main source of energy, but some foods greatly drain our energy.
All textbooks of physiology or nutrition state that blood sugar provides the main fuel for all of our body cells. Let me repeat that: SUGAR is the main fuel for all of our body cells.
Unfortunately, the meat and dairy industries and authors of unfortunately popular "low-carb" diet books have convinced many people to fear carbohydrates. They erroneously claim that carbohydrates make people gain weight and urge everyone to based their diets on fat and protein.
To increase energy, you must eat plenty of sugar-rich whole plant foods and minimize protein and fat.
Of all people, athletes in training most need to increase energy and maintain low body fat. All sports nutrition textbooks recommend high carbohydrate diets for athletes because research has shown these provide the highest energy levels while also maintaining the lowest body fat levels.
How much carbohydrate? Generally, to increase energy and lose fat, you should aim to consume about three to five grams of carbohydrate for every pound of ideal body mass. Thus, if you weigh or want to weigh 115 pounds and have a low body fat level but plenty of energy, you should consume 345 to 575 grams of carbohydrate every day from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Generally, this means that your diet should be about 65 to 75 percent carbohydrate obtained from fruits, starchy vegetables, or whole grains.
As for protein, athletes need only about 0.4 grams of protein per pound of body mass. Thus, a 120 pound woman needs no more than 48 grams of protein in a day. Metabolism of excess protein (whether animal or vegetable source) drains your body of energy because it produces toxic wastes (ammonia, sulfuric acid, and urea) and each gram of excess protein produces only about one-half gram of usable glucose.
Dietary fat also drains your energy because it is hard to digest and hard to metabolize. Because of its chemical composition, oxidation of fat to produce energy requires substantially more oxygen than oxidation of glucose; this means that if you eat a high fat diet, you must breath more than if you replaced the fat with carbohydrate.
To increase energy levels, you should get no more than twenty percent of your total caloric intake from fat. For a typical active woman, this means no more than 55 grams of fat in a whole day.
To increase your energy level, focus on eating whole foods rich in carbohydrate and you will get plenty of protein. For example, if you want to weigh about 115 to 120 pounds, you need to eat about 460 grams of carbohydrate, 46 grams of protein, and 28 grams of fat.
Let's say that you prefer brown rice for your basic food. If you eat ten cups of cooked brown rice (or similar foods), you will obtain 460 grams of carbohydrate, 45 grams of protein, and 16 grams of fat. This perfectly provides both adequate carbohydrate and adequate protein for a 120 pound woman, without eating any other foods. You could substitute bananas, potatoes, or any other high carbohydrate whole plant food with the same results.
You don't need complex combinations of unusual foods. As a simple example, a combination of six cups of brown rice, one cup of soymilk, one head of romaine lettuce, one orange, two bananas, one brazil nut, and one tablespoon of ground flaxseeds satisfies all the nutritional requirements of a 120 pound woman.
In fact, any selection of fruits, potatoes, or whole grains will provide you with the carbohydrate and protein you need provided you eat enough of them. We recommend using cronometer.com to track your food intake, using a target ratio of 65 to 75 percent carbohydrate, 10 to 15 percent protein, and 15 to 20 percent fat.
Don't Eat Meat, Milk, Cheese, or Eggs
These foods provide large amounts of protein, sulfuric amino acids, fat, cholesterol, toxic heme iron, and various other components that drain your energy and clog up your circulation. Plus, eating these toxic foods reduces your appetite for whole plant foods that would supply you with the sugar your brain, organs, and muscles need to function at a high level.
There is no nutrient in any animal flesh, mammary secretion (milk and milk products), or menstruum product (egg) that you can't get from a non-animal source. These foods lack the most important energy nutrient, carbohydrate, as well as the vitamins and minerals needed for effcient metabolism. The less you eat, the better.
Further, the livestock from which meat, milk, and eggs are taken all release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere reduces the relative proportion of oxygen in the air you breath, making it more difficult for you to get adequate oxygen with each breath.
Finally, we believe that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Every time you eat flesh, eggs, or milk, you have supported an industry that literally tortures and kills about 10 billion animals every year in the U.S. alone. Thus, your meal is based on totally unnecessary violence, and this will have a negative effect on your mental, emotional, and spiritual energy level.
To increase energy to the highest levels, don't eat anything that comes from an animal.
Sleep!
To increase energy, you have to sleep well and long enough every night that you can wake up rested without an alarm clock.
To sleep well, you must eat adequate carbohydrate during the day. If your body does not have an adequate store of sugar in glycogen, you will have low brain serotonin levels and your brain will keep you alert at night to search for sugar. So, the first step to a good night's sleep is to eat plenty of sugar and starch during the day, i.e. four to five grams of carbohydrate per pound of lean body weight.
Next, try to sleep as much as possible between dusk and dawn. If you watch animals in nature, those that are active during the day (like humans) become inactive soon after dusk and remain so until dawn. Try limiting your exposure to artificial light in the evening and get to bed as early as possible given your circumstances. The more sleep you get before midnight, the more energy you will have.
If you find it hard to fall asleep, you probably don't have enough carbohydrate in your system. Eat less of foods rich in fat and protein (seeds, nuts, legumes, flesh, eggs, milk) and more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Mental energy leaks
To increase energy, you will want to eliminate mental energy leaks, which mainly take the forms of beliefs and thoughts that drain your energy and lead you accumulate things and relationships that drain you. So if you are really serious about having an enchanted, magical, truly healthy life, I invite you to expand your awareness and take an inventory of your mind.
To increase your energy, you must cultivate energy awareness. Become vigilant of your energy. When you notice it has dropped, start inquiring for the cause. Search your mind for a thought or belief that causes your energy to drop.
You constantly have an internal dialogue, and it spews out all kinds of beliefs that you accumulated from your past, many of them from your childhood. Many of these beliefs and thoughts served you as survival tools at some point in your life, but presently they drag you down.
Generally you have two types of these leaks: 1) judgments/criticisms, and 2) complaints. Whenever you judge or criticize yourself (body, mind, or spirit) you lose power. Learn to catch these thoughts and replace them with neutral or positive statements about yourself. When you complain you are expressing the idea that you are a victim of an outside force. This also drains you of power. Learn to catch complaints and replace them with action.
Aside from policing your thoughts, when dealing with the objects, people, and relationships, pay attention to how they affect your energy. When in contact, ask yourself, does this thing, person, or relationship increase energy, or lower it? Does this feed my joy, or does it drag me into some negative emotion like depression, anger, grief, or whatever?
In this process, make sure that you distinguish the effects of the person, place, or thing from the effects of your thoughts about the person, place, or thing. You may only need to address your thoughts triggered by the person, place, or thing. Or, you may only need to ask the person to change their behavior. For this, we recommend Non-violent Communication (NVC). However, if you can't get the person or place to change, sometimes you need to get rid of or away from the person, place, or thing.
Plugging the leaks
To increase energy, you will want to either improve the quality of the beliefs, thoughts, objects, relationships, and activities in your life, or replace them with beliefs, etc. that raise your energy. Like cleaning your house, this is not always a comfortable or easy process. However, when you clean out or clean up your mind, emotions, and surroundings, you will feel your personal power grow and you will have the energy you need to go beyond healing and create a life that makes your heart sing.
If you need help in this process, consider setting an appointment with
Tracy Minton . She uses C.O.R.E. Counseling, hypnotherapy, and a variety of other techniques to help you release negative thought patterns and engage the greater and natural resources that can help you create a more elegant and powerful life.
Summary
To increase energy:
1) Carb up! Eat three to five grams of carbohydrate (sugar) from fruits, vegetables, or whole grains for every pound of lean body mass every day. Aim for a diet providing 65 to 75 percent of energy from carbohydrate, 10 to 15 percent from protein, and 15 to 20 percent from fat.
2) Don't eat flesh, eggs, or milk products to avoid excess protein and fat.
3) Sleep as much as possible between dusk and dawn.
4) Drink plenty of water.
5) Get regular exercise.
6) Quiet your mind and free your self of any thing that weighs you down.
