You’re in the kitchen, one shoe on, the other down under the bench somewhere. Your gym bag is open by the fridge. You’ve got about 15 minutes before you’ve got to go. Lunch was a sandwich during the day; the water bottle from yesterday is still in the car, and the dinner ingredients you bought over the weekend are still sitting in the fridge untouched. You want to get to the gym, you want to eat better, and you want to be more organized about your health. Somehow though, the very simple intention of doing those things is just another thing to slot into the day which is already full.
The issue isn’t necessarily a lack of motivation. It’s very often that self-care starts to feel like a second job on top of everything else. There are all sorts of confusion around what you need to do to look after yourself and what supplements might be of any benefit. A more sensible approach is to make the healthy habits you want to adopt easier to maintain rather than expecting yourself to do it all perfectly.
When Everyday Wellness Becomes Difficult to Maintain
You are most likely already familiar with the fundamentals of a healthy lifestyle. You need good food, regular exercise, sufficient sleep and enough time to recover between the busy days. Putting those principles into practice is harder than you might think.
Your schedule may leave you with no time to go to the extra effort of preparing a proper meal. Your workouts may be before dawn or after a very long day at work. Even going to the shops can become a case of just picking whatever is quickest to cook. Eventually convenience wins, and variety is lost.
The answer doesn’t have to be a complete lifestyle change. You can start by looking at the routines you already have and see where a small adjustment would make a difference. Preparing your gym kit the night before, having a water bottle within reach, or just adding an extra serving of veg to your dinner are all more achievable than trying to overhaul everything at once.
Supplements can also play a role in that approach. They’re not essential for everyone and won’t in any way replace a good balanced diet or sound healthy habits. If you have a particular nutritional or fitness objective, however, the right product can be a helpful way of supplementing your current regimen.
That is the premise of Chat with Dr., a US-based health and wellness company that combines telehealth with a range of dietary supplements. The approach is about providing practical wellness support that can be integrated into your day-to-day life.
How BCAA Supplements Fit into Your Workout Routine
When you’re doing your regular workouts, it’s easy to get so focused on the session that you end up tracking reps, trying to push heavier weights or pushing yourself for faster running time. What you don’t always think about is what happens around the workout. Your body needs the right nutrition, the right fluids and time to recover from the physical activity.
Protein is vital for building and maintaining muscle, and individual amino acids are involved in many processes throughout the body. The branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are leucine, isoleucine and valine. These are essential amino acids, which means that you either have to include them in your diet or take supplements as a source; your body can’t synthesize them.
Chat with Dr’s BCAA intra-workout powders are designed to work around your training schedule. They’re available in a range of flavors like Honeydew Watermelon and Fruit Punch and can be mixed into a drink. If you’re one of those people who prefer to have a convenient drink to take to the gym, then a powder might be easier to use than some other form of preparation. You can keep all your gym paraphernalia in one place, make your drink as per the label and focus on the session.
It’s important to keep the BCAAs in context, though. They don’t automatically translate into more muscle or better recovery. If you’re already getting sufficient high-quality protein from your diet through eggs, dairy, fish, and meat, then the addition of BCAAs is likely to be of very little benefit. Your diet, training, hydration and recovery are still the key factors.
Making Daily Nutrition Easier with Greens and Superfoods
Your workout might be scheduled. Eating well, however, is something you have to be mindful of all day. Breakfast might be rushed, lunch might be down to what’s on the doorstep, and dinner might be the first real opportunity you have to sit down. Even if you do make an effort to eat a balanced diet, you’ll find it can take a bit of planning to get sufficient variety.
Fruit and vegetables provide the vitamins, minerals, fiber and other beneficial compounds your body needs. It’s essential to eat a wide variety of them as part of a healthy, balanced diet. Convenience can be a hurdle at times. You may buy fresh fruit and vegetables with the best of intentions and find that a hectic week has left you with no time at all to actually cook it.
This is where a greens or superfoods powder might be of use as a supplement. The Chat with Dr’s Greens & Superfoods range has Smoothie Greens, a Fruits & Veggies blend, Greens Superfood Powder and Reds Superfood Powder. It’s a range that offers different formats for those looking to supplement their normal diet.
You could blend in an appropriate powder in your morning smoothie, stir it into water or add it to another appropriate drink as per the instructions. The whole point is to make the supplementation as easy as possible to incorporate into your existing routine.
Convenience is not the same as nutritional equivalence. The products will differ in their ingredients, portion sizes and nutritional content. A greens powder is not going to give you the same fiber, the same sense of fullness or the same full spectrum of nutrients as eating your vegetables and fruit. If you’re going to choose one, look at the ingredients and the nutritional information rather than just the fact that it’s labelled “greens” or “superfoods”.
You should also bear your current diet in mind. If you’re already eating a wide variety of produce, then you may not need a greens supplement at all. If your diet is more limited, then a powder could be an additional option.
Building a Consistent Nutrition and Fitness Routine
Once you get past the individual products, the link between workout support and day-to-day nutrition becomes apparent. Both are far easier to manage when they fit into habits that you can repeat.
Start by identifying the points in your day when your routine tends to fall apart. Maybe you don’t get round to having breakfast because you haven’t prepared anything. Perhaps you turn up at the gym without a drink. You might be the type of person who regularly stays up late because you’ve left everything until the last minute. These are all practical problems, and practical fixes can make a huge difference: preparation, organization, and planning.
Chat with Dr’s wider range of supplements covers protein, pre- and post-workout, hydration, digestive health, vitamins and minerals. It’s a recognition that people have different wellness needs. You don’t necessarily need to buy in every category. You can start with your own priorities and look at the range of products that are relevant.
Your routine doesn’t need to look impressive from the outside. It just needs to work for you.
Small Habits, More Sustainable Wellness
Taking better care of yourself doesn’t have to start with some grand masterplan or a full cupboard of supplements. It can start with a more balanced diet, a workout that you actually get around to doing during the week or a bedtime that allows you the requisite amount of time to get to sleep.
Chat with Dr.’s BCAA’s and their Greens & Superfoods are options you can explore if you’re looking for convenient, easy-to-incorporate additions to support your existing regime. Ultimately, their value is dependent on your individual circumstances and how you choose to use them in conjunction with the fundamentals of good health.
So, the next time you’re in the kitchen with one shoe on and your gym bag open, you don’t have to figure out your entire wellness routine before you even leave the house. Find your other shoe, grab your water bottle and take the next little step. Often a healthier routine starts with making that one step a bit easier.
