The 3 o’clock exhaustion doesn’t have to happen. You can eat a filling lunch without feeling tired later. I eat a great lunch and have plenty of energy in the early afternoon. Here are 3 simple ways to do that.
- Skip the sugary drink. Sugar is definitely a contributor to the exhaustion after lunch. Trade in the soda or juice with your meal for water. If you want to take it a step further, skip the drink altogether if you can. When you drink with your meal it dilutes the stomach acid and enzymes that are needed to digest your food, making digestion take a lot longer. Slowing down your digestion can leave you tired. Instead, drink water half hour or more after you finished eating. This gives your food time to start to be digested before you dilute the acids and enzymes.
2. Don’t mix fats and starches. When you eat these together they slow down your digestion, making you tired. An example is a cheeseburger and fries; the burger and the cheese are loaded with fat and the bread and fries are starch. The two together are an energy killer. If you’re wanting a sandwich, get a lean meat in your sandwich, like grilled chicken breast and skip the fatty cheese, mayo or sauce. That way you’re eating your starch with protein but very little fat. Alternately, you can have the cheeseburger without the bread or fries. That’s protein and fat but no starch. Either way, you’ll feel a lot better after lunch.
3. Salad and meat is a great choice. The healthiest and most energetic of all lunch options is a salad with grilled chicken breast or some other lean meat. If you go light on the salad dressing, you get protein and healthy carbs with very little fat. The salad and meat will digest quickly giving you an energy boost.
Try it and see the difference it can make in your day when you’re no longer sleepy after lunch.
