New Year, More Energy!
Why I’m focusing on “more nourishment” to Achieve my 2024 physical health goals
In the last few months of 2023, I was on fire: working towards so many soul-aligned goals, with excitement and deep motivation, off of social media, taking major steps every day to create everything I wanted to create.
And, of course, I was paying close attention to my energy. Burnout has taught me to pay attention, make sure I recharge, and pursue my goals sustainably.
But over the weeks, I felt more and more that I need even MORE energy - a larger internal “capacity.”
Something I teach inside my program Troubleshooting Burnout is that we increase our energy levels in 3 ways. Think of it like a phone battery: 1) you can plug it into the wall to recharge, 2) you can close down all your apps (what’s using up the battery) and turn it to airplane mode, or 3) you can get a better battery that can last longer.
So in 2024, I want a larger battery, and I’ve set out to increase my energetic capacity!
Where do we start?
Physical energy, of course. Everything else rests on our physical energy. Our ability to do just about anything begins with a healthy, strong, energetic body that can sustain a full day of activity and problem solving.
I know that I can get SO much done in 2024 if I focus on improving my physical energy! Like the domino effect, this one key change will ripple through everything else.
I want to be up before the sunrise, feeling incredible, excited for my day, dancing through my morning routine because I’m just so pumped to live my life! I want this energy to continue throughout my day, helping me focus in the morning, communicate / learn / teach in the afternoon, cook our dinner still high on the day’s inspiration and accomplishments, and go to bed with relaxed gratitude.
This is only possible when we have ample PHYSICAL energy.
So I’m excited to begin my 2024 with some physical health goals!
I’m not aiming to lose weight. I’m not trying to deadlift a certain number. For me, my 2024 health goals are all about an ENERGY INCREASE.
I’m in my nourishment era.
Here’s how it’s going:
My key philosophy for 2024: MORE nourishment
I’ve done the road of “less” before. It has its place! Less processed food, less sugar, less alcohol, less caffeine, less screen time, less sitting.
All of these are fantastic. I’ve started my Januaries with Whole30, 21DSD, Ayurvedic detoxes, running goals, various fitness challenges, and elimination diets in the past. They’re great, and I highly recommend them if your goal is to “spring clean” your eating or reset your habits. (Psst: an elimination diet called the Autoimmune Protocol, or AIP, brought me back to life when I was bedridden with scary “mystery” diseases in 2015.)
But I’m in a different place now, with different goals. I want to INCREASE the capacity of my energy battery, so I’m focusing on MORE.
What does MORE nourishment mean?
For each pillar of physical health, it means:
FOOD: more nutrients and specifically more protein
EXERCISE: more full-body movement throughout the day
DETOXIFICATION: more minerals & hydration to support the body’s daily detox processes
SLEEP: more sleep and better quality sleep
REST: more proper rest & stress management
What MOST people get wrong
You can’t focus on just one of these without the others.
Here’s the tough, tough truth:
Eating a nutrient-dense diet won’t help much if you’re not managing stress.
Increasing your workout intensity will lead to burnout if you’re not eating more protein.
Detox protocols will hurt more than heal if you’re not replenishing your minerals.
Sleep quality won’t improve if you’re also not properly resting while awake.
I’ve done it in the past, too! It’s easy to get high on the hype and start our January with a super ambitious plan - only to stop short when we’re burned out or feeling worse 2-3 months in. I’ve been there! I’ve gotten exhausted 2 months into a strength training regimen because I wasn’t eating enough protein. I’ve made myself sick doing a detox cleanse because I didn’t know much about hormone balance. I’ve hurt my immune system with my “8 glasses of water a day” goals because I wasn’t repleting my minerals.
I get it.
And it HAS to be a full, complete, balanced system in order to work.
But that doesn’t mean it has to be complicated or time-intensive. No. It just has to be BALANCED.
A BALANCED way to increase physical energy
Here’s a simple, minimal balanced plan to improve physical energy levels:
FOOD: aiming for 80+ grams of protein a day, plus veggies or fruits with each meal
EXERCISE: 8,000+ steps a day, at least 1 day of strength training (can be bodyweight!) a week
DETOXIFICATION: water with added minerals every day
SLEEP: 8 hours of sleep
REST: 30mins-1hr of no screen time before bed
Not too bad, right?
And here’s what I’m doing for the first half of 2024, January-June:
FOOD: 100-120 grams of bioavailable (animal-sourced) protein a day (plus: all my previous eating habits, primarily veggies, fruits, fermented and/or raw dairy, and occasional whole grains)
EXERCISE: 8,000+ steps a day, 3 days of strength training at home, daily morning stretching/warmups, dancing 2-3 times a week
DETOXIFICATION: water with minerals every day (minerals from: lemon + salt, coconut water, high quality mineral water, herbal teas), bedtime before 11pm
SLEEP: 8 hours of sleep, no food/alcohol/snacks 3 hours before bedtime
REST: 1hr of no screen time before bed, breathing practices throughout the day, meditation 3-5 times a week, reading and drawing on weekends
A bit more intense! But I’m ready for it. This plan builds on my existing habits, which I’ve been sustainably doing for many years.
(Do you want to design your own plan? With your lifestyle, health status, and preferences in mind? We can do that in a 90-minute session! Reach out to me here to schedule it.)
And here’s WHY each of these helps INCREASE PHYSICAL ENERGY
More Nourishment: PROTEIN
The benefits of protein are numerous! It builds muscle, repairs tissue, gives us long-term energy, and helps with satiety. But most importantly: protein is THE most nutrient-dense food. Specifically, animal protein, because it’s the most bioavailable (easy to digest and extract nutrients from). There’s a good reason doctors call beef liver “nature’s multivitamin” - protein sources like liver and other organ meats pack a ton of nutrients that our bodies can easily use.
So protein sources really matter! Many articles say that peanut butter is a “healthy protein source,” but if you analyze it, it’s way more fat than protein, harder to digest, and is more calorie-packed than nutrient-packed.
Most people don’t get enough protein. That used to be me, too. I gained a lot of weight in the past because I wasn’t eating enough protein while attempting to exercise consistently and intensely - and it wrecked my hormones. Even when I was eating a clean, whole food forward diet, my digestion wasn’t as optimal as when I began to lessen my portion of veggies and increase my portion of protein.
Protein is the #1 thing to increase if you’re looking to improve your energy levels.
ESPECIALLY if you’re also strength training! Which brings us to:
More Nourishment: FULL BODY MOVEMENT
Energy is flow. Energy is movement. To improve energy flow, we need to move - make movement a part of our lives.
It doesn’t have to be hard or strenuous! The easiest thing that will make a huge difference in how you feel is simply walking more throughout the day. Split it into several shorter walks, add a stretch or two, perhaps a few jumping jacks - and you have a full body, lymph-moving, blood flow-stimulating day of exercise!
Moving the lymph and the blood is vital to increasing our daily energy.
Sitting for 8 hours a day, even if you workout 4 times a week, is still a sedentary lifestyle. We get the most benefit from exercise if it’s regular, consistent, and spread throughout the day (even if in 3-minute bursts!) Ideally (but optionally!) this involves big full body movements, from activities like dancing, yoga, climbing, sprinting, or swimming.
But for optimal energy increase, we also want to add in something that builds muscles!
More muscle mass means more energy is available to use throughout the day. Better metabolism, too (which means less sluggishness after occasional fun times out on the town)! Doing any kind of strength training exercise that builds muscle (whether it’s weight lifting, bodyweight workouts, resistance bands, etc.) will have a profound effect on energy levels if done regularly and consistently.
More Nourishment: MINERALIZATION
I’m so glad the health world is finally talking about minerals more. For a while, we all kept hearing: drink 8 glasses of water a day! But water is not the same as it was. Humans used to source most of their water from springs, wells, or other natural water sources, where the water is mineralized by default. Nowadays, most of our drinking water is mineral-poor (and if you don’t filter it, it’s high in toxic chemicals, too). This hurts our bodies’ hydration status more than it helps it.
H2O is only one part of the hydration equation - minerals, such as magnesium, sodium, potassium, and calcium, are JUST as important as the H2O to stay healthy and feel our best.
Re-mineralizing our water is essential to support our bodies’ natural detoxification processes. We don’t need fancy or expensive detox protocols to help our bodies eliminate toxins. We simply need to support our bodies with the proper nutrients. (See the pattern here? More NUTRIENTS!)
Drinking liquids with a high mineral content will really help boost your energy levels long-term. And help you recover from strenuous workouts!
More Nourishment: SLEEP
Oh, we live in a sleep-deprived world! You already know you need 7+ hours of sleep. That’s a minimum.
For optimal energy levels, adults need 8-9 hours of sleep a night.
Hard to achieve? For many of us (myself included) - yes. But that’s why it’s a goal - because it’s not an easy feat, but something to aim for and work towards.
Sleep is when our bodies do most of their detoxification processes and when our brain catches up on the day’s influx of information. It’s like plugging your phone into the wall: if you don’t leave it for long enough, it won’t charge to 100%, and then the battery won’t last as long. It works the exact same way with sleep.
If you’re doing strenuous exercise, sleep becomes even more important. Both for recovery and to have the energy to sustain your workout regimen. So many people burn out exercising because they’re simply not sleeping enough. If training is a big goal of yours - sleep needs to be just as high a priority.
More Nourishment: PROPER REST
Isn’t 8-9 hours of sleep enough? Not quite! Our bodies, brains, and nervous systems need more rest than just sleep. We need at least 1 hour of rest a day - but ideally, as much as you can get.
What is proper rest? It’s any activity that allows your body and your brain to slow down.
It takes energy to process information, problem solve, do our daily chores, work, communicate, think, and strategize. While we do get a break from it all during sleep, we need to give our system time to pause and process throughout the day, too.
You cannot get quality sleep without some waking rest first. Ever notice that you sleep better if you’ve taken some time to wind down, do something relaxing, and stay off your phone? That’s no coincidence - allowing your brain time to slow down before bed helps make sure that the entire day is processed, stored away, and that our “processor” rests, too.
If we want the full energy-replenishing benefit of sleep, we need to ensure ample rest time before sleep.
Otherwise, even 8 or 9 hours of sleep simply won’t feel like enough.
Nourish Yourself
I honestly feel that we do not prioritize nourishment enough. The current health trends focus on strictness and elimination. The western wellness culture celebrates discipline, rigid goals, and pushing yourself to your capacity.
And I’m an era of nourishment.
I’m prioritizing giving myself all the resources I need. I’m celebrating my body and everything it does. I’m exploring the upper limits to self love. Physical nourishment, mental nourishment, soul nourishment. What happens if I focus on that?
What happens if YOU focus on that?
Let me know how it goes, if you choose to pursue this path. If it feels like the strict routines, the reliance on willpower, and the go-go-go attitude don’t align with you on the inside, then your intuition is probably correct, and you’ll benefit from another way. Why not the way of more nourishment?
Feel free to reach out to me to share your story about this!
And if you want to boost your energy in a sustainable way in 2024, let’s design your own custom plan for that together! Book a single session here. I’d love to support & guide you on your way towards your dreams.
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