Five foods to boost your productivity at work

As summer grudgingly creeps in and we start to lose the layers, many of us are equally becoming more conscious of the coinciding bikini season. But starving ourselves for the sake of losing a few pounds in the short-term does awful things to our bodies if we also want to maintain optimum levels of productivity at work.

If you’re in a busy role that requires an active mind and body, it’s so important to eat the right foods that contribute to a healthy and happy lifestyle. All the while maintaining or losing weight for the beach holiday! In addition to eating the right food types, it’s crucially important to eat regularly and frequently. Experts recommend small meals of up to 6 times a day can do wonders for maintaining energy levels and boosting your metabolism. Try the below tips to ensure you stay on form at work without the temptation of picking at the chocolates for your 3pm sugar rush!

1. Stay hydrated with lemon water

Ditch the fizzy drinks loaded with sugar and preservatives, and replenish your body with room temperature still water infused with fresh lemon. Lemon transforms trusty H20 into a drink loaded with the electrolytes calcium, potassium, phosphorus and magnesium. These offer our bodies a little energy boost while the acids encourage our digestive systems to process other nutrients more slowly, in turn reducing bloating. Lemon water is a one-stop shop for those needing a natural morning boost.

2. Raw nuts

Stay clear of the salted roasted packets and opt for raw nuts with no added salt instead. Raw nuts like almonds or macadamias are packed full of magnesium: the mineral we need to turn sugar into energy. As they’re also great for fibre, it means they keep us feeling fuller for longer. At Tiger, we keep a stash of raw nuts around the office snack on to prevent us from heading to the chocolate drawer!

3. Strawberries

Strawberries are delicious, loaded with vitamin C which helps turn fat into energy, and low in calories. All in all, fresh strawberries are a fantastic afternoon snack if you have a sweet craving but are looking for a Cadbury’s alternative.

4. Load up on pulses

Pulses encompass chickpeas, kidney beans, broad beans, and lentils to name a few. Since they are low on the glycaemic index, we digest them slowly so stay full for longer. Eating pulses at lunchtime are a great way to ward off the afternoon munchies at your desk. Additionally, they’re full of fibre-rich complex carbohydrates and protein so you can load up on them without the guilt you would otherwise have with a bowl of pasta or a sandwich.

5. Swap your baked potato for a baked sweet potato

Sweet potatoes offer you 400% of your vitamin A allowance, and are a better alternative to white potatoes as they offer more vitamin C, fewer calories and crucially have more fibre. It is this soluble fibre in sweet potatoes that slows down the digestion and therefore helps to keep hunger pangs at bay.

Tiger Recruitment is committed to wellbeing in the workplace. If you’d like to find an employer that can offer you improved balance and wellbeing, give us a call us today.

Author Tiger Contributor Tiger Recruitment Team