Struggling with Energy? Try this

"Here's a question potential blog topic for you Dave or not and you can just let me know your thoughts -

How do you navigate training whilst sick with things such as a common cold? When can it help? When can it hinder? What are some guidelines to look out for? What are the guidelines from returning from illness?

Context:

I have 4 "larger" "things" which cause a drain on my energy: 1) work, 2) parenting, 3) study, 4) gym.

I was sick end of last week (sat-wed). So gym got bumped (and always will over the other 3) and I decided to skip my last session for the week. Then this week, being the eager beaver I thought I was right to train yesterday - maybe felt 75=80% recovered....Low and behold by yesterday evening i felt pretty run down and sick again - almost perhaps back at square one. Its not a terribly bad illness, sore throat and sinuses - just feel run down.

Interested to hear your thoughts?

Cheers JB"

Before we begin, JB is an existing client and we have already discussed his question with him in detail.

What I want to do in this newsletter is offer general advice for managing your energy.

The word "Energy" gets bandied around an awful lot meaning a variety of things.

Many in the "life coaching" side of things talk about some ethereal force

It's Chi

It's all kinds of things that cannot be measured.

And while I do teach a Chi Gung practice in an Online course, I stay away from indefinable terms.

So when I say energy I mean the word based on Ancient Greek ἐνέργεια (enérgeia) which means “action, act, work”

And in the Sciences, energy is defined as the ability to carry out work.

So anytime I say "energy" I mean your ability to carry out work, to act.

So when we are tired, run down, getting sick, dealing with multiple stressors and so on, we have several drains on our energy.

Our ability to work is being split across many fronts.

Which means energy management may need addressed.

The Gym, fitness training, is a drain on energy.

It is a drain on energy that if done well eventually increases our total energy availability.

When we talk about over training, what we're really talking about is poor energy management and training is now a drain on our energy reserve rather than adding to it.

JB above has listed his 4 main energy drains, Work, Parenting, Study and Gym

For parenting, JB became a father for the first time. I remember when my first born came along and yeah, no one prepares you for that first year or two!

It is a real and genuine drain.

Work, that is always a contentious drain, how much it drains you often depends on how much you give to work. How much you care, how much you take on, and how willing/able you are to say no.

Study, yeah, that'll stress you. But again, good management will help you.

Gym, this is a deliberate stressor, and deliberate drain to stimulate compensation and increase our individual resources.

Assuming we have the resources to spend. It's an investment. And if we invest energy we don't have, it's a bad investment!

So how to we ensure we have the energy we need?

So often it comes down to "Calories and Counting Sheep"

And not just any calories, but calories that come with a large amount of nutrients.

I'm not a nutrition guy, that is our Seb's role. But I liken nutrition to the building a house.

To build a house you need the bricks, concrete and wooden joists for the structure, the strength. Let's lump these together as Protein

You'll want windows, insulation, electrics. Lets lump these together as Fats

And you need gas/oil, the electricity to flow through the electrical cables, running water etc, lets lump these together as Carbs

Then you need all the screws, nails, light bulbs, you'll want curtain poles and lampshades and all sorts of little stuff that makes the whole place just work. These are your micro nutrients, the vitamins, minerals etc.

This is a simplistic way of looking at how your diet affects your body.

But without Protein, can you build the walls? Can you repair the roof?

Without Fats are you leaking energy somewhere? Poor insulation on a wire? A cold spot in a room?

So in short, we need to look at our food choices almost like a shopping list at the local hardware store.

I need all my amino acids, I need extra magnesium, need to top up the carbs by bit......

The easiest way to do this is with variety.

Eat across a variety of foods.

And use common sense.

Meat & 2 veg. Foods of 1 ingredient (Apples contain: Apple, Beef contains: Cow, Brussels Sprouts contain: Sulphur & Sadness)

And in the words of Pink Floyd, "If you don't eat your meat, how can you have any pudding?"

If I'm really honest, as much as nutritional science has brought us more and more information, the old fashioned information, the stuff your Granny might have said is most of what we need to know.

Forget fads and fashions.

Eat real food, 1-5 times per day. And to quote Michael Pollen "Eat food, mostly plants, not too much"

Portions and proportions will vary according to body size and activity levels, but the basics will still be the basics.

And that's really as far as I go with nutrition, if you want specifics, hit up Seb via www.WG-Fit.com and talk to him, he's a nutritionist as well as all the other stuff he does.

How do we know if "Calories and Counting Sheep" is working?

I teach, as part of the Force of Nature program" about monitoring your CNS to get an objective view point on your subjective feeling.

As we gain awareness of self, the objective measure becomes less necessary and our subjective view more accurate, but a lot of folk need that help to get started.

Or if you're a hard training semi-pro athlete balancing work, family and your sport, then CNS measurement can aid manage everything.

There are three basic methods I talk about.

All require a few minutes each morning, and over time will show you trends that can guide you as you make your lifestyle changes.

HRV is the simplest, strap on your heart rate monitor, open your HRV app on the phone (eliteHRV is free) and sit back for 2 minutes as it takes a measurement.

After a couple of weeks (ideally 3+ measurements/week) you will have a good guide for tracking change.

You'll see how that dietary change or the increase in training is affecting you. You'll see how that disturbed sleep had an acute affect on your energy levels

Morning Resting Heart Rate, this is old school, pre tech. Keep a notepad and pencil beside the bed and each morning take your pulse.

Then you will, as with HRV, gain a bank of info you can see both trends over time as acute changes in.

Carbon Dioxide Tolerance, slightly more involved a touch subjective. You either measure how long you can exhale for or how long you can breath hold after an exhale.

Each have their uses and if you like I'll go into them in future newsletters.

How useful they are is down to spotting changes (trends over time, or acute deviations from the mean) and looking back over the previous few days for changes in routine, or considering upcoming events such as a competition or other stressful event that's closing in on the horizon.

Long story short.

If we are getting in the raw materials, sleeping well and have advocacy in how we "spend" our energy there should never be a problem.~

Sickness an injuries are inevitabilities, but should be few and far between and gotten over fairly easily.

If we're lacking in raw materials, if we're spending unwisely and not getting the sleep we require, then sickness and injury will become more frequent companions.

If you feel this email is useful to you and raises any questions of your own, get in touch.

If you have a question you haven't asked yet, get in touch.

This is your newsletter, the more you ask the more it becomes yours.

So hit reply

And I'll chat soon

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Regards

Dave Hedges

www.DaveHedges.net