Too busy to fuel your body for sustained high performance?

Poor diet could be the exact reason why you’re so unproductive. Throughout October last year, my usual keen sense of focus shifted from my nutrition, and my body made me pay for it significantly. I’m not going to harp on here about weight or body image; that’s a topic for another time. What I want to focus on are the subtle changes that I noticed in my body that affected my performance.

I am generally very productive at work, I regularly have clarity of thought, massive amounts of energy each and every day, and its not often I complain that I don’t hit my daily goals/to do list. So, what’s happened throughout October when I lost focus on eating well?

I got puffy; my wedding ring wouldn’t slide on nice and easy.
I felt constantly bloated.
I lacked focus and had periods of unproductive time.
I had headaches regularly.
My muscles ached beyond my normal training strains.
My old injuries and niggles were back with a vengeance and proved to be difficult to overcome, despite my many trips to and hundreds of dollars spent at my very supportive chiropractic and rehabilitation practice.

Is this your normal?

Imagine if I had never felt good before. If I had never been fuelling my body for high performance, allowing it to function at its optimal levels and feel the benefits of nutritious foods, quality sleep and energy created by physical exercise. How would I have known that all these symptoms I was feeling were bad? If that was my norm – to wake up with a headache, have sore aching muscles, grinding my teeth and jaw causing strain down my neck and into my shoulders, jamming my wedding ring on every day (or worse, not being able to remove it at all) and generally just feeling crappy – how would I know that it wasn’t a good place to be? That it wasn’t living optimally or being a high performing individual?

If that was my norm, would I be satisfied with living my life that way?

Maybe you would say, ‘Yes, if that’s all I knew then it’s fine’. Knowing what we do now, that there is another option and you can quite easily make a change to start on that optimal high performance journey, wouldn’t you want to take it? Wouldn’t you want to feel fantastic, bouncing out of bed every single day, looking forward to the day rather than despising having to get out of bed? I know I was craving to get back to feeling at my best again, to getting through the day feeling productive and profitable, being able to train/exercise and know that I had given 100% of my optimal performance and feel energised after doing so.

It’s amazing how just a few small tweaks can take you from the top of your game to the bottom (and back again) so easily. Yet, we do often continue to do the same thing over and over again because it’s easy, it’s what we’ve always done, we don’t have time to try something new, etc etc. As Marshall Goldsmith’s book says, ‘What got you here won’t get you there’. If you don’t change something, nothing changes.

Can you afford not to try something new?

How much longer are you going to be satisfied with the status quo? I know for me, as I sit here writing this, I have successfully gotten back on the wagon and am treating my body with the respect it deserves. When I do, it loves me back and allows me to refocus on being productive, profitable and sustainably high performing…..in all areas of my life.

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