How to Build a Balanced Plate for Better Energy, Mood, and Satisfaction
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Welcome back to the Two-Minute Wellness podcast. Today we're chatting about how to create a balanced plate for better energy, hormone balance, improved mood, and overall satisfaction throughout the day.
If you’re struggling with energy slumps throughout the day or you feel hungry an hour after you’re finished eating, you’ll definitely want to take a look at your meals and make sure you’re getting a mix of carbohydrates, fats and protein at every meal. We also want to include plenty of plants and veggies.
If you’re a visual person, this will look like half of your plate as leafy and crunchy veggies, like lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and bell peppers; a quarter of your plate will be fiber-rich carbohydrates – so your starchy veggies like sweet potatoes, carrots and winter squash; and the last quarter of your plate will be protein, like chicken, fish, grass-fed beef, eggs, and pork. Lastly, you’ll want to add healthy fats like avocado, olive oil, flaxseed, or nuts to your meal, and you can also include a piece of fruit either with your meals or between meals as a snack.
Some foods like nuts and beans will fall into more than one category, and that’s ok. Don’t get too hung up on which foods fall into each category, specifically - the main goal is just to make sure that we cover all of our bases.
So to apply this to real life, if your current breakfast is oatmeal with berries and a glass of orange juice, most of that falls into the fiber-rich carbohydrates and fruits categories. So you're missing your healthy fats and your proteins. Well, and you're obviously missing your vegetables, but that's okay. We'll save those for later on in the day. So, to make your breakfast more balanced, you could add some walnuts for healthy fats and a scoop of collagen powder for protein. And that will help balance your blood sugar, and keep you more energized and satisfied throughout the day.
Another example is a salad with fat-free dressing and chicken breast. You really do want to add those healthy fats, so maybe swap out the fat-free dressing for olive oil and balsamic vinegar to improve hormone balance, satiety and overall satisfaction with your meal. You could also add avocado or some flaxseed to your salad to balance it out.
Hopefully this all makes sense and is helpful to you and I will see you next week.
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