If you're going to dedicate yourself to a job in which your brain is the most important part of your body, you need to treat it right. Treat it, and think well. This is no fad diet section; I want to look at how to optimise your writing ability through good nutrition.
The Saucy stuff
Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that people are able to write while eating fast food, and they might even do it better for short bursts with sugar to power them through an all-nighter for an essay. But we're talking about the long term, a career of writing. We are talking about being able to sit down day after day and not falling asleep after your midday meal or crashing from low blood sugar. Best health only comes with good nutrition. If you were a top athlete training for the Olympics, what would you put in your body? Only the best, because you want only the best out of your body. Why do you think your brain isn't similarly affected by what you put into your mouth? Sudden sugar rushes and the following lows play havoc with your concentration and ability to access the key language areas that will bring out the best in your writing.
Hunger vs Willpower
It's very difficult to force yourself to do anything when you are hungry. Easy solution, don't let yourself get hungry. When planning to eat, don't wait until it is too late. One of the biggest traps I've found while writing is that you get caught up in what you are doing, and then suddenly realise you're starving. You go into the kitchen and everything seems too difficult, so you might just grab some chips or live on toast. Toast might get you through the short term, but you'll look back at the week and realise you haven't had anything other than processed carbs. The salad materials you bought have now gone brown and your poor digestive system hasn't seen a vitamin in days. Therefore, plan ahead! And plan to have some pre-made meals for the few slips you might still make.
Break your fast in the morning, and break it well. I know, I know, some of you don't like breakfast. You feel as though you're not hungry at that time, and think that it's in-built. But you can train yourself to prefer and even crave a healthy meal to start your day. Start with something, even if it is just a piece of fruit (but if you do only eat fruit, be aware of 'sugar crashes' that can follow natural fruit sugars in the same way it stalks a cake or biscuit).
My breakfast ranges from porridge with cinnamon and brown sugar in winter (it's so comforting and makes the world seem better), to natural yogurt and a homemade oat and dried apricot granola. Whatever works for you, organise it and use it. Plan simple and brain appropriate breakfasts that won't be stressful to make. If you plan them now, you can add the ingredients to the shopping list.
Assuming you get up early enough to leave time between breakfast and lunch, I agree with the Hobbits on the importance of elevenses. Taking a break in mid-morning to have a snack breaks the workload into manageable pieces and gives you something to look forward to. Moreover, I'm not one of those people who say you should only eat fruit, unless you feel like it. Personally I find fruit one of the greatest things in the universe, however I am also in favour of a bit of cake - when it's the good solid homemade variety. You know, something to excite you about the upcoming break, without leaving you pinging off the walls. Cheese and biscuits is another good snack. It is just a matter of all things in moderation.
Lunchtime
Lunch is such a brilliant meal. Almost anything is acceptable at lunch, unlike dinner and breakfast (which tend to be less flexible in their definitions). Thinking about lunch; about what I might be having and how it will taste, gets me through a tough morning writing session. I am not above negotiating with myself or even stooping to bribery when necessary. However, you do need to think about the consequences.
Many people complain about a tiredness and heaviness after lunch that makes tasks such as writing feel impossible. This wipes out a good three hours of possible writing time, for no real benefit. If you've decided to go see a movie for three hours, well at least you would get some enjoyment. But just staring at a screen blankly and trying to stop your head hitting the desk is a waste of effort. Therefore, do everything in your power to stop this mid-afternoon crash. This starts at lunch.
Some Steps You Can Take To Avoid the After-Lunch Slump
1. More protein, less carbs. (Okay, so I sort of agree with the nutritionists, in that you should have some protein. But carbs aren't all bad.) A big bowl of pasta is a great way to make you want to curl up and sleep. However, a chicken salad will keep you fresh and awake.
2. After-lunch meditation. Well, if your body is going to need some down time to process the food you have given it, you might as well help it and give your brain a rest as well. After lunch, try finding a relaxing spot and listening to a meditation or relaxation tape for 20 minutes. This lets your body digest and refresh as you use that near sleep state to further your creative processes.
3. Don't rely on stimulants to pick you up. This might work on occasion, but in the end your body will just come to rely on them, meaning they are less effective and without them you feel even worse than you did before! Caffeine is an emergency drug.
4. Are you getting enough iron? One of the causes of fatigue, in women in particular, is lack of iron. Use your lunchtime as a chance to make sure you get enough. Chuck some spinach into your salad, or make it a Thai beef salad.
5. After the allocated 20 minutes, you need to kick your body back into gear, so try going for a walk to get the blood flowing again to the rest of your body. Also, getting out into the sunlight will let your body know it should be awake.
In the afternoon it is easy to start craving carbs and sugar, but now really isn't the best time to have them, as they are just going to make you feel worse. Instead, now is a great time to make sure you have gotten enough veggies for the day. Still a bit low? Try something like carrot sticks with hummus, or even nuts. Once you realise how good getting vitamins can be, your body will be begging you for them.
Dinner
If I'm writing later, I know that I'll need a snack later on. So sometimes you need to be realistic about this. A smaller dinner with a dessert, followed by a supper snack a few hours later will keep you ticking over nicely for an evening writing session.
Make your meals smaller and you are allowed to have more of them. How great is that? Also, you will avoid feeling stuffed, and not feel hungry in between. Just make sure that you do reduce the size of your meals to compensate for having more of them.
Snacking While Writing
As previously mentioned, I'm not above a bit of bribing to get myself to sit down and write. When I first started my writing challenge, I had a great idea. I would beat two willpower problems at once: I would make sure I was never hungry OR fighting major temptation. How did I do this? By allowing myself to eat as much chocolate as I wanted, but only while I was writing. Great plan, huh? If I wanted to eat chocolate, which I did nearly all the time, then I had to be writing.
Uh, there was something I didn't think through there: 4+ hours writing per day, combined with eating chocolate for this entire time is not going to be healthy. And I was like an alcoholic - once I started, I couldn't stop. So the only solution was not to start at all. The chocolate had to go. Painful, but it came down to a point of all or nothing for me.
Welcome into my life caramel jerseys. I just replaced the chocolate with something else, so neatly didn't solve the problem in the slightest. But I still felt I needed something while I was just sitting there doing nothing - and the chewing helped me think! So I started chewing gum. What else was I to do?
Chewing gum has a couple of benefits: first, your breath stays minty fresh. Second, the chewing really seems to help the thought process. Third, it stops you putting anything else, like mysteriously appearing pieces of chocolate, into your mouth.
Now I know this sounds like a small, inconsequential piece of advice, but think about it. If chewing gum saves me from devouring chocolate for four hours a day, that saves me hundreds of calories a day. Hundreds of calories a day quickly equals an extra two kilos of weight gain per month. That becomes 24kgs heavier for every year that I write! Considering my writing challenge is for five years, that would make me three times my current weight!
Like I said, chew gum.
The Saucy stuff
Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that people are able to write while eating fast food, and they might even do it better for short bursts with sugar to power them through an all-nighter for an essay. But we're talking about the long term, a career of writing. We are talking about being able to sit down day after day and not falling asleep after your midday meal or crashing from low blood sugar. Best health only comes with good nutrition. If you were a top athlete training for the Olympics, what would you put in your body? Only the best, because you want only the best out of your body. Why do you think your brain isn't similarly affected by what you put into your mouth? Sudden sugar rushes and the following lows play havoc with your concentration and ability to access the key language areas that will bring out the best in your writing.
Hunger vs Willpower
It's very difficult to force yourself to do anything when you are hungry. Easy solution, don't let yourself get hungry. When planning to eat, don't wait until it is too late. One of the biggest traps I've found while writing is that you get caught up in what you are doing, and then suddenly realise you're starving. You go into the kitchen and everything seems too difficult, so you might just grab some chips or live on toast. Toast might get you through the short term, but you'll look back at the week and realise you haven't had anything other than processed carbs. The salad materials you bought have now gone brown and your poor digestive system hasn't seen a vitamin in days. Therefore, plan ahead! And plan to have some pre-made meals for the few slips you might still make.
Break your fast in the morning, and break it well. I know, I know, some of you don't like breakfast. You feel as though you're not hungry at that time, and think that it's in-built. But you can train yourself to prefer and even crave a healthy meal to start your day. Start with something, even if it is just a piece of fruit (but if you do only eat fruit, be aware of 'sugar crashes' that can follow natural fruit sugars in the same way it stalks a cake or biscuit).
My breakfast ranges from porridge with cinnamon and brown sugar in winter (it's so comforting and makes the world seem better), to natural yogurt and a homemade oat and dried apricot granola. Whatever works for you, organise it and use it. Plan simple and brain appropriate breakfasts that won't be stressful to make. If you plan them now, you can add the ingredients to the shopping list.
Assuming you get up early enough to leave time between breakfast and lunch, I agree with the Hobbits on the importance of elevenses. Taking a break in mid-morning to have a snack breaks the workload into manageable pieces and gives you something to look forward to. Moreover, I'm not one of those people who say you should only eat fruit, unless you feel like it. Personally I find fruit one of the greatest things in the universe, however I am also in favour of a bit of cake - when it's the good solid homemade variety. You know, something to excite you about the upcoming break, without leaving you pinging off the walls. Cheese and biscuits is another good snack. It is just a matter of all things in moderation.
Lunchtime
Lunch is such a brilliant meal. Almost anything is acceptable at lunch, unlike dinner and breakfast (which tend to be less flexible in their definitions). Thinking about lunch; about what I might be having and how it will taste, gets me through a tough morning writing session. I am not above negotiating with myself or even stooping to bribery when necessary. However, you do need to think about the consequences.
Many people complain about a tiredness and heaviness after lunch that makes tasks such as writing feel impossible. This wipes out a good three hours of possible writing time, for no real benefit. If you've decided to go see a movie for three hours, well at least you would get some enjoyment. But just staring at a screen blankly and trying to stop your head hitting the desk is a waste of effort. Therefore, do everything in your power to stop this mid-afternoon crash. This starts at lunch.
Some Steps You Can Take To Avoid the After-Lunch Slump
1. More protein, less carbs. (Okay, so I sort of agree with the nutritionists, in that you should have some protein. But carbs aren't all bad.) A big bowl of pasta is a great way to make you want to curl up and sleep. However, a chicken salad will keep you fresh and awake.
2. After-lunch meditation. Well, if your body is going to need some down time to process the food you have given it, you might as well help it and give your brain a rest as well. After lunch, try finding a relaxing spot and listening to a meditation or relaxation tape for 20 minutes. This lets your body digest and refresh as you use that near sleep state to further your creative processes.
3. Don't rely on stimulants to pick you up. This might work on occasion, but in the end your body will just come to rely on them, meaning they are less effective and without them you feel even worse than you did before! Caffeine is an emergency drug.
4. Are you getting enough iron? One of the causes of fatigue, in women in particular, is lack of iron. Use your lunchtime as a chance to make sure you get enough. Chuck some spinach into your salad, or make it a Thai beef salad.
5. After the allocated 20 minutes, you need to kick your body back into gear, so try going for a walk to get the blood flowing again to the rest of your body. Also, getting out into the sunlight will let your body know it should be awake.
In the afternoon it is easy to start craving carbs and sugar, but now really isn't the best time to have them, as they are just going to make you feel worse. Instead, now is a great time to make sure you have gotten enough veggies for the day. Still a bit low? Try something like carrot sticks with hummus, or even nuts. Once you realise how good getting vitamins can be, your body will be begging you for them.
Dinner
If I'm writing later, I know that I'll need a snack later on. So sometimes you need to be realistic about this. A smaller dinner with a dessert, followed by a supper snack a few hours later will keep you ticking over nicely for an evening writing session.
Make your meals smaller and you are allowed to have more of them. How great is that? Also, you will avoid feeling stuffed, and not feel hungry in between. Just make sure that you do reduce the size of your meals to compensate for having more of them.
Snacking While Writing
As previously mentioned, I'm not above a bit of bribing to get myself to sit down and write. When I first started my writing challenge, I had a great idea. I would beat two willpower problems at once: I would make sure I was never hungry OR fighting major temptation. How did I do this? By allowing myself to eat as much chocolate as I wanted, but only while I was writing. Great plan, huh? If I wanted to eat chocolate, which I did nearly all the time, then I had to be writing.
Uh, there was something I didn't think through there: 4+ hours writing per day, combined with eating chocolate for this entire time is not going to be healthy. And I was like an alcoholic - once I started, I couldn't stop. So the only solution was not to start at all. The chocolate had to go. Painful, but it came down to a point of all or nothing for me.
Welcome into my life caramel jerseys. I just replaced the chocolate with something else, so neatly didn't solve the problem in the slightest. But I still felt I needed something while I was just sitting there doing nothing - and the chewing helped me think! So I started chewing gum. What else was I to do?
Chewing gum has a couple of benefits: first, your breath stays minty fresh. Second, the chewing really seems to help the thought process. Third, it stops you putting anything else, like mysteriously appearing pieces of chocolate, into your mouth.
Now I know this sounds like a small, inconsequential piece of advice, but think about it. If chewing gum saves me from devouring chocolate for four hours a day, that saves me hundreds of calories a day. Hundreds of calories a day quickly equals an extra two kilos of weight gain per month. That becomes 24kgs heavier for every year that I write! Considering my writing challenge is for five years, that would make me three times my current weight!
Like I said, chew gum.
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