Body Balance Fuel Your Body (Review)

Are you doing what is best for your body?

Our bodies send signals about all kinds of things: anxiety, thirst, hunger, need for movement, need for rest, anger, health, and fatigue (just to name a few).

People rely so heavily on their bodies to be "just fine" when sitting and working at desks, couches, beds, and living room chairs. When you finally stand up and stretch, you realize just how many different signals and how much information you weren't getting from your body. The creaks, pops, and discomforts are ways your body tells you its time to pay attention and give it some of the movement it needs.

When you are working in a sedentary manner and your brain is occupied, you are also likely to ignore hunger and thirst signals. Add executive functioning challenges like hyperfocus, poor time tracking, and resistance to schedules: its a recipe for over-worked, over-hungry, over-thirsty crankiness and irritability.

Remember you can prepare ahead of time to handle your body's needs successfully. Let's review some basic truths about ourselves:

1. Eating on a regular schedule helps your body regulate mood, and any medications you take. This is particularly true for any time-sensitive medications for ADHD, depression or anxiety.
2. When you don't eat regularly due to hyperfocus, and you lose track of time, your body will feel sluggish once you do eat as your body works to get back to a healthy baseline.
3. When you are overwhelmed by the decisions or prep involved to eat, you won't make good food choices and that will then affect the rest of the day. You will eat what is easy and then pay the consequence of feeling bad physically. 

Tricks that work!

Krissie (the artist) says: "I find if I preplan for the moments that hyperfocus or overwhelm might occur - then I can make better choices in the moment and will feel better."

• Evaluate the times in your day or week that you find yourself in a food dilemma, make a proactive decision now before you get to those moments about how to handle them.
• Make a list of easy meal options, and/or struggle meals. Keep this list handy in your phone or planner for easy reference on the fly.
• Have certain ingredients on hand in your fridge, freezer or pantry that will create a better quality meal. (ex: Canned veggies, frozen veggies, pre-cooked protein, small frozen portions that defrost quickly)
• Move your perishable food items to the most visible shelves in your fridge and on your counters.
• The produce drawer in your fridge can be used for other things (condiments, beverage cans, meat) so that your perishable foods remain front and center — in sight, and in mind.